∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
[page 373, column 1, continued:]
Trifles in Verse: a Collection of Fugitive Poems. By [[By]] LEWIS J. CIST. Cincinnati: Robinson & Jones.
This is a duodecimo of 184 pages, well printed and bound. We regret to say, also, that it has for frontispiece a very greasy-looking lithograph portrait of the author — we cannot conceive what could have beguiled Mr. fist into the perpetration of such absurdity.
The collection is so modestly prefaced as to disarm criticism. Mr. C. says:
To the high and honored title of POET, in the legitimate sense of the term, the writer of the following pages makes no pretensions. Engaged, from his earliest youth, upwards, in a daily round of mercantile pursuits, the “Trifles” which he thus offers to the public — the offspring of moments stolen from the desk of the banking-house and the counting-room — can, at the best, only entitle him to the more humble name of Versifier. Conscious of his want of those qualifications which might justify him in seeking to enter the inner temple of the sacred Nine, he has but ventured to loiter around the base of the flowery mountain; contenting himself with occasionally gleaning — here, it may be, a weed, and there, perchance, a flower — from such by-nooks and out of the way corners of the field of Fancy, as had been passed over by the more worthy and accredited gatherers of the golden-hued harvests of Parnassus.
The poems themselves are not particularly imaginative, but evince much purity of taste and fervor of feeling. We copy one of the best:
OLDEN MEMORIES.
They are jewels of the mind;
They are tendrils of the heart,
That with being are entwined —
Of our very selves a part.
They the records are of youth,
Kept to read in after years;
They are manhood's well of truth,
Filled with childhood's early tears.
Like the low and plaintive moan
Of the night-wind through the trees,
Sweet to hear, though sad and lone,
Are those “Olden Memories!”
Like the dim traditions, hoary,
Of our loved and native clime;
Like some half-forgotten story,
Read or heard in olden time;
Like the fresh’ning dew of even
To the parched and drooping flower;
Like the peaceful thought of Heaven,
In life's tempest-stricken hour;
Like the cadence of a song; —
Yet, oh! sweeter far than these
Are the thoughts that round us throng
With those “Olden Memories!”
In the solitude of even,
When the spirit, lone and dreary,
Turns from Earth away, to Heaven,
As the refuge of the weary;
In the dreamy twilight hour,
When the world is calm and still,
And light zephyrs fragrance shower
Over dewy vale and hill;
Oh! then, sweeter than perfume
Borne on aromatic breeze,
To the softened spirit come
Those dear “Olden Memories!”
In our days of mirth and gladness
We may spurn their faint control,
But they come, in hours of sadness,
Like sweet music to the soul;
And in sorrow, o’er us stealing
With their gentleness and calm,
They are leaves of precious healing,
They are fruits of choicest balm.
Ever till, when life departs,
Death from dross the spirit frees,
Cherish, in thine heart of hearts,
All thine “Olden Memories!”
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Notes:
This review was attributed as being by Poe by W. D. Hull.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
[S:0 - BJ, 1845] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Criticism - Literary (Poe?, 1845)