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The stanza commencing " Buckled knee and shoe," &c. puts us somewhat too forcibly in mind of Oliver Wendell Holmes' " Old Man." 66 The exclamation "Ninety-Three!" introduced, as it is, independently of the observations which surround it, must be regarded as one of the happiest instances either of refined art or of natural pathos.

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The stanza beginning "Yon white spire cannot be too warmly commended.

"New" is a pendant to " Old," but its artificiality of construction is even more displeasingly apparent. We quote one or two sweet passages:

Ah, June can only charm her eyes
With flowers of paradisial dyes

And azure skies.

This, however, should read, "Ah, only June," etc.

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"Boemus" is the concluding poem of the volume, and is marked by the same peculiarities of metre peculiarities, however, which, in a composition such as this, must be considered out of place. We conclude our review with the quotation of a very spirited stanza a stanza which would do no discredit to Campbell, and is much in his vein :

O'er all the silent sky

A dark and scowling frown ;

But darker scowled each eye
When all resolved to die!

When (night of dread renown!)
Three thousand stars went down!

1 THE LOST PLEIAD; AND OTHER POEMS. By T. H. CHIVERS, M.D. NEW YORK: EDWARD O. JENKINS.

[Text: Broadway Journal, Aug. 2, 1845.]

THIS volume is evidently the honest and fervent utterance of an exquisitely sensitive heart which has suffered much and long. The poems are numerous, but the thesis is one death - the death of beloved friends. The poet seems to have dwelt among the shadows of tombs, until his very soul has become a shadow. Here, indeed, is no mere Byronic affectation of melancholy. No man who has ever mourned the loss of a dear friend, can read these poems without instantly admitting the palpable truth which glows upon every page.

1 See Appendix, Vol. VII., "The Poe-Chivers Controversy."

erature
to the era of criticism

The tone of the composition is, in these latter days, a marvel, and as a marvel we commend it to our readers. It belongs to the first era of a nation's litto the era of impulse — in contra-distinction to the Chaucerian rather than to the Cowperian days. As for the trans-civilization epoch, Dr. Chivers' poems have really nothing of affinity with itand this we look upon as the greatest miracle of all. Is it not, indeed, a miracle that to-day a poet shall compose sixty or seventy poems, in which there shall be discoverable no taint absolutely none

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of either Byron, or Shelley, or Wordsworth, or Coleridge, or Tennyson? In a word, the volume before us is the work of that rara avis, an educated, passionate, yet unaffectedly simple-minded and singleminded man, writing from his own vigorous impulses from the necessity of giving utterance to poetic passion

to himself.

and thus writing not to mankind, but solely

The whole volume has, in fact, the air of a rapt soliloquy.

We have leisure this week only to give, without comment, a few extracts at random-but we shall take an opportunity of recurring to the subject.

I hear thy spirit calling unto me

From out the Deep,

Like Archytas from out Venetia's Sea,

While I here weep ;'

Saying, Come, strew my body with the sand,
And bury me upon the land, the land!

Oh, never, never more! no, never more!
Lost in the Deep!

Will thy sweet beauty visit this dark shore,
While I here weep;

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Ever - forever more, bright glorious One!

Drowned in the Deep!

In Spring-time-Summer

Must I here weep;

Winter—all alone

Thou Spirit of my soul ! thou light of life!
While thou art absent, SHELLEY! from thy wife!

Celestial pleasure once to contemplate
Thy power, great Deep!

Possessed my soul; but ever more shall hate,
While I here weep,

Crowd out thy memory from my soul, Oh, Sea!
For killing him who was so dear to me!

He was the incarnation of pure Truth,

Oh, mighty Deep!

And thou didst murder him in prime of youth,
For whom I weep;

And, murdering him, didst more than murder me,
Who was my Heaven on earth, Oh, treacherous Sea!

My spirit wearied not to succor his,

Oh, mighty Deep!

The oftener done, the greater was the bliss ;

But now I weep;

And where his beauty lay, unceasing pain

Now dwells - my heart can know no joy again!

God of my fathers! God of that bright One

Lost in the Deep!

Shall we not meet again beyond the sun

No more to weep?

Yes, I shall meet him there-the lost the brightThe glorious SHELLEY! spring of my delight!

Ah, like Orion on some Autumn night
Above the Deep;

I see his soul look down from Heaven

While here I weep!

how bright!

And there, like Hesperus, the stars of even
Beacon my soul away to him in Heaven!

When thou wert in this world with me
Bright ANGEL of the HEAVENLY LANDS!
Thou wert not fed by mortal hands,
But by the NYMPH, who gave to thee
The bread of immortality

Such as thy spirit now doth eat

In that high world of endless love,
While walking with thy snowy feet
Along the sapphire-paven street,

Before the jasper-walls above,
And list'ning to the music sweet
Of Angels in that heavenly HYMN
Sung by the lips of CHERUBIM
In Paradise, before the fall,
In glory bright, outshining all
In that great City of pure gold,
The Angels talked about of old.

Because of thine untimely fate,
Am I thus left disconsolate!
Because thou wilt return to be
No more in this dark world with me,
Must these salt tears of sorrow flow
Out of my heart forever more!

Forever more as they do now!

Out of my heart forever more.

Thou wert my snow-white JESSAMINE
My little ANGEL-EGLANTINE!
My saintly LILY! who didst grow
Upon my mother's arms of snow-

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