magic one. His poetry is sheer poetry, and borrows nothing from without, as didactic poetry does. For didactic poetry he had a very strong and a very natural dislike. His melody is his own. You will find a music in each poem which is inseparable from the sentiment of it. He gives a certain musical air, as a soul, to each poem, but he works up the details of the execution like an artist. Witness "The Raven or "The Bells." Everything he has done is finished in detail, and has received its final touches. He had an exquisite eye for proportion, and every little poem is carved like a cameo. Such are the hints which I have to prefix to this American poet. And with three-times-three from a select band of his admirers he is now launched on the English public! JAMES HANNAY. LONDON, November, 1852. |