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Literature.
“POEMS, BY MRS. MARY NOEL MCDONALD,” is the unassuming title of a tasteful volume of gentle and womanly poetry. The writer does not attempt to soar into the empyrean with the eagle-pinions of Miss Barrett, nor to daily in the subtleties of love with Miss Landon, but contents herself with embodying, in unaffected and graceful language, the breathings of feminine thought, and domestic affection. The most fastidious narrower of the sphere of woman could not object to these effusions. “The Marriage Vow,” “The Loved and Lost,” “The Dying Boy,” “The Sculptor's Dream of Home,” and the like, are her favorite subjects; and through all of them there runs an under-current of sadness, as if the writer turned “from all they brought to what they could not bring.” This, we belive [[believe]], is no affectation; and the allusion in one of the poems to a “widow's grief,” should enlist for her the sympathies of the critic and the public. The best and most characteristic of the pieces are too long for us to copy; and we can only extract, as appropriate to the season, a sonnet on
THE FIRST SNOW.
Thy mantle white is on the senseless earth,
Spirit of Winter! — old Eolus rude
Pipes from his northern home in fiercest mood;
And o’er the crisped wreath, with shouts of mirth,
And chiming bells, and laughter ringing free,
Glides the swift sleigh, while merry urchins play
Tossing the frozen balls in heartfelt glee;
Or forming uncouth shapes of monsters grim,
To melt like youthful hopes, when next the ray
Of noontide streams on each misshapen limb.
The naked branches wear a spotless vest,
While through the window infant faces peep,
Lured from their downy beds and early sleep,
Wondering to mark the earth in wintry garments drest.
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Notes:
This review was specifically rejected as being by Poe by W. D. Hull.
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[S:0 - NYEM, 1844] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Criticism - Literary (Willis ?, 1844)