vantage. A happy turn of mind, a knowledge of humanity, will always aid him; and his figures, if not as highly wrought, will at least have as much beauty, and this the careful reader may study out. This then, in our mind, is the distinction between Frasier and Williams: the one was guided only by a natural intellect, and a naturally good taste, the other by a carefully stored mind and a highly cultivated fancy; one was a poor Dublin cabinet maker, who laid down the hand-saw and jack-plane to assume the pen; the other a medical student, who moved in the first literary circles, and gratified his poetical taste by various contributions to the literature of his country. Following out the strict rules of poetical judgment, we would be forced to acknowledge Williams as the greatest poet of the two, but we infinitely prefer placing them side by side and claiming preference for neither. The incidents of Frasier's life afford no materials likely to interest; when we have said that he was a cabinet maker, and gained his livelihood by the labor of his hands, struggling against great obstacles-his poverty, and a weak and deformed physical frame, we have told all. His first volume, Poems for the People, was published in 1845, and in his preface he says, "The following poems should be viewed as the work of a man who wrote for his countrymen alone-and not for every generation of them but merely for the present-as his first and most imperative duty; with this object he had to deal with events as they arose, or, if he drew from imagination, he had to make the picture true to national feelings and passions, of which-judging by his own-he believed himself a faithful, though a weak delineator." After this apology we might reasonably expect to find a volume of poems hurriedly put together, and wanting in all the essential parts which constitute the charm of poetry; this is not so; although we state the prominent characteristic of Frasier to have been strength, yet he was not wanting in the minor graces of composition, as many of his verses will show. There is a beautiful mixture of both these qualities in the Insurgent's Song, from which we take one verse: "We suffer'd in patience-till patience became, Yet complaints, like the smoke, which could not be repress'd, What then did our tyrants to soothe discontent? Why, they added new insult and wrong to resent! The villas and vineyards they planted beneath." We take another verse in Frasier's own peculiar strain, from one of his patriotic poems : "Those scalding tears—those scalding tears, Too long have fallen in vain: Up with the banners and the spears, And let the gathered gloom of years, The lightning, in that stormy hour, When forth defiance rolls, May change the poles of Saxon power, And melt the chain, the long, long shower, But rusted round our souls." This entire poem, "The Gathering of the Nation," is one of the most powerful lyrics of the age; it is the very concentrated expression of the strongest passions that may agitate the human bosom-patriotism and hatred. In these volumes we frequently meet with ideas novel and elegant, as this one : "To crime for cause let none be driven ! The sand-the flowery sod Are proofs of Providence-and even We will close an extract from Frasier, by quoting from “ Our Song”— one of his finest poems: These extracts, few and brief, will yet be sufficient to convey an idea of the material from which the poet was made: he seemed to write with a pen of iron-with a sword point dipped in gall; every line tells home, with the force of a well-planted blow; and any person with a knowledge of the Irish character, can easily imagine what must have been their effect. But to inquire into this is not our object, and we are admonished to turn our attention to the poet already named, as standing beside Frasier. Richard Dalton Williams was one of the earliest and best contributors to the Nation; in political satire lay his greatest strength, and we exceedingly regret that we cannot come at all of his poems; as it is, we can find only those published in the Spirit of the Nation, and, with all due deference to the compiler of that work, whoever he may have been, we will say that they are generally the poorest of Mr. Williams' writings. The Rath of Mullaichmastean, is his finest poem in the collection to which we have alluded. The story relates to the stratagem by which Sydney destroyed a number of the Irish, at a feast and festival given at the Rath of Mullaichmast. The opening of the poem is exceedingly effective, and shows a strong power of description; we almost shndder at the picture it presents. "O'er the rath of Mullaichmaist, With their gash'd breasts bare! The closing verses impart to the poem a style of melancholy grandeur, fully equal to the splendid German poem by Uhland, from which Mueller conceived the idea of his magnificent marble group, lately so popular in our city, "The Minstrel's Curse." Here too, it would seem as if some spirit of the past had come back to earth, and with deep sonorous voice, gives the relation of the treacherous stratagem, and warns his countrymen against trusting the foe to whom dishonor gave no pang, and whose name could not be heaped with too many infamies. Since that hour the clouds that pass'd O'er the rath of Mullaichmaist, One tear have never cast, On the gore dyed sod; For the shower of crimson rain, Tho' the Saxon snake unfold, Trust him not, Green Land! But with strong and guarded grasp, In your steel clad hand. Mr. Williams' most popular poems were "The Mis-adventures of a Medical Student." They are conceived and executed in a manner showing a most thorough command of language, and a knowledge of the laws of poetry. His imagination is very felicitous, and his powers of invention rare and ripe! He alternately moves his readers to tears and laughter, while he, all the while, apparently preserves the most perfect equilibrium. Mr. Williams was the only one, of all the illustrious band, who were arrested on the charge of high treason, that was acquitted. He was known to have talked, written, and acted sedition-if patriotism can be so called; yet the evidence could not be found to substantiate the accusations, and he escaped the prison hulks of Bermuda and the penal colonies of Australia. REEDYRILL. VIII. THE next morning after this I felt mawkish and melancholy, as lovers will feel sometimes, and there is no use in attempting to conceal that I was in a fair way to fall head and ears in love with the dark-eyed Laurine. I was prone to remain in a fixed attitude for hours together: if any one spoke to me, I heard them not, and took no notice of what was said and done around me. All day I wandered about the house like one possessed with the fiend of stupidity; and Aunt Eliza, who always avowed that there was a vein of insanity running through the family, declared that she firmly believed I was going deranged. As the twilight grew on, I took my perch on the balustrade of the portico, with my back against a pillar; and as the soft fresh breeze fanned my cheek, and the fragrant odors it bore along regaled my nostrils, and the charm of the holy and beautiful hour purified and exalted my spirit, I became filled with divine joy and poetry. The south wind that flew by on viewless wings seemed to sing a carol in my ears. And though poetry always loses by a translation, yet I tried to render into words the voice of the evening zephyr, even as its music thrilled into my ears, and my thoughts shaped themselves into a SONG OF THE SUMMER BREEZE. I. O'er valley and hill, O'er river and rill, O'er forest and field, Thro' caverns concealed; O'er the wild mountain, O'er the still fountain, O'er deserts flying, O'er mossy bank sighing; O'er the blue ocean, In vine-mantled bower, Spirit of power, Spirit of motion, Essence of being From eternity springing, II. Footprint, I ween, Emblem of God! VOLd God breathed into manthe breath of life, and he became a living soul. Gen. Of life the source, With noiseless course, The systems rolling III. When the star-worlds bright, From eternity springing, IV. Flying with arrow speed, Essence of being From eternity springing, "Marse Ernie," said a little grotesque negress, with a red striped petticoat and snow-white turban, belonging to Floralie: "Marse Ernie, Miss Flory say come in the back hall and get some peaches and cream." Seeing that I paid no attention to her, she tugged my coat and repeated her message. "Tell your Miss Floralie to go to the devil," said I, not knowing what I was saying, and conscious only of an interruption, at the same time tossing the end of my cigar, which had been extinguished an hour, into the gaping mouth of the astonished slave, who sputtered it up and scampered away in affright to her mistress. "Marse Ernie, cook is going to kill Belle for eating eggs-must she do it?" asked Pack, popping his head over the back-yard fence. |