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Had ceased its pressure; and he could not hear,
In the dead, utter silence, that a breath

Came through her nostrils; and her temples gave
To his nice touch no pulse; and at her mouth
He held the lightest curl that on her neck
Lay with a mocking beauty," &c.

Here we have again a most obscure and incorrect phrase, insomuch that one cannot easily imagine how silent prayer can possibly stir "silken folds." There is, moreover, an ungraceful abundance of anatomical delineation; for we have, in the few lines quoted, little else than a description, in regular succession, of hands, nostrils, temples, mouth, neck, &c., besides the rather odious picture of a delicate, dying young lady breathing through her nose.

The seven or eight opening lines of the next paragraph will do something better, and possess a moiety of prettiness:

"It was night; And softly, o'er the sea of Galilee, Danced the breeze-ridden ripples to the shore, Tipp'd with the silver sparkles of th moon, The breaking waves played low upon the beach Their constant music, but the air beside Was still as starlight, and the Saviour's voice, In its ich cadences unearthly sweet, Seem'd like some just-born harmony in the air, Waked by the power of wisdom."

But, after much tame and badly conceived description, we find in the closing paragraph a repetition of the author's anatomical peculiarities, in a long and fulsome jeremiad about "transparent hands" and "tapering nails;" "nostrils spiritually thin" and "breathing curve;" "tinted skin" and "azure veins;" "jet lash" and "pencill'd brow;" "hair unbound," "small, round ears," "polish'd neck," and "snowy fingers." Each noun is regularly mated with an adjective, two, three, or more, as the length of the line may admit, or as the author's invention may quicken. In the midst of this poetasting dissection the first of the series closes, abruptly.

The second is taken from the Scripture account of a person whom Christ cured of the leprosy as he was passing on to Caper

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3. "And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

4. "And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them."

The manner and style of this pithy narration are exceedingly chaste and impressive; with a melody and simplicity of dietion, at the same time, that fall agreeably on the ear, and are evincive of much closer alliance with true metrical harmony, than is the pompous and elaborated poem of which we are speaking. But Mr. Willis has chosen to misconceive the spirit, and to misinterpret the facts of the incident-both, too, to the disparagement of the gospel version. He sets out with a warning flourish of trumpets, and an array of notes of exclamation truly appalling, and which are wholly at war with the mild and unpretending features of the real incident. The Bible scene is eminently characteristic of all that was lovely in the Saviour's earthly ministrations and associations. The portrayal made by Mr. Willis in his poem is unstriking, and very badly conceived in every respect; while its execution is so flat and commonplace as to excite a feeling of amazement that the author should ever have been reckoned, or should presume to reckon himself, a poet. There is, besides, an ungraceful perversion of one of the not least impressive facts, which robs the story of its principal charm. Jesus, after healing the suppliant leper, bids him "tell no man," but to go and "show himself to the priest," and offer the gift as commanded by Moses. Mr. Willis, on the other hand, and with most unaccountable want of artistic taste, chooses to send his leper to the priest in the first instance, and that not to offer "the gift" as "testimony," but to solicit a cure, or rather to hear an official affirmation of the "doom" which he was already expiating. Now we can imagine something peculiarly interesting, as well as suggestive, in connection with Matthew's story,-of how the poor crushed victim of a loathsome disease

might fall at the Saviour's feet, and implore that compassion which he had heard was never solicited in vain; and, being healed, should then go to the soul-hardened priest, and show himself, as directed, with the gift in hand. But we are unable to perceive the beauty or force of Mr. Willis's tortuous and unnatural version, or of the wizard-like malediction which he puts into the priest's mouth. We seriously object, also, to the application and correctness of the following simile, when, speaking of Jesus, he says:

"Yet in his mien

Command sat throned serene, and if He smiled,
A kingly condescension graced his lips,
The lion would have crouch'd to in his lair."

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unique metaphor. How much of the horizon, we beg to ask, will Mr. Willis invest with his imaginary fingers? We must suppose that he had chalked out something definite and shapeful in this respect, for we can scarcely think that he refers to, or means to finger the whole line of "the dawn." Nor do we at all sanction the idea of "the dawn's fingers touching silently the eyelids of the king." It is something outré and unimaginable, and evinces a woful lack of that fertility of thought which is the most essential element of a genuine poetical endowment.

But a few lines further on, we meet with another figure of speech which, if less allowable, is at least equally novel and original. It occurs in the last of the lines employed to describe David's wont of a morning to

"Play with his lov'd son by the fountain's lip."

A look of command is always associated with pride, or with haughtiness of demeanor, or with some physiognomical development indicative of superiority. The Saviour is not thus represented; but is always humble, meek, unpretending, and studiedly unostentatious; while command, in the sense It would be, we incline to think, quite a intended above, is never evidenced in look difficult task to go about trying to picture or word. As for "kingly condescension," such a member to such a thing. Mr. Willis in connection with the character of this is either very dull about finding similitudes, sonage, the idea is as absurd as it is misap- or very reckless, or else very deficient in plied; and, at the same time, we have al- proper discrimination as concerns figurative We know that the Mississippi ways loved to imagine "the lion" rather acumen. as following and fawning upon so benign a river is said to possess a mouth, in geographbeing as Jesus,-caressingly familiarized as ical parlance; but a poet, unless he posin the paradisal time,-than "crouching in sessed Mr. Willis's boldness, would scarcely his lair" to an awe-inspiring and command- venture to clothe such mouth with lips. ing master. We never before met with so gross and reckless an onslaught on the mildness and meekness of the Saviour.

The third poem of the series opens thus:

""Twas daybreak, and the fingers of the dawn Drew the night's curtain, and touch'd silently, The eyelids of the king."

On the next page our author quite coolly employs other fingers than those of the dawn to perform their morning servicewhen, describing another daylight scene, he says:

"and they who drew The curtains to let in the welcome light." We take this to be, on the whole, the This is genuine flesh and blood-no undeworst conceived and most unstriking simil- finable and unimaginable ethereality; and itude in the world. We might very well looks more like the plain common sense of go further, and pronounce it to be the least every-day life. The repetition, however, inallowable, and certainly the least apt. We dicates a scrupulous nicety and distinctness have often known primer publishers to re- of description, which is not usual to novelpresent the sun with a great red rubicund ists or poets. Mr. Willis has a most inveteface; but we have heretofore failed to find rate penchant to designate the very time of an instance where any writer, whether of the night his characters go to bed, the precise primer or poetical order, has gone so far as hour at which they get up, how they to picture the dawn with fingers. Mr. Wil-washed, how they prayed, and never fails to lis's conceptions must be far ahead of any that his readers can claim, to imagine the remotest reality or plausibleness of this

tell his readers that the bed curtains were punctually drawn aside by something or somebody; while the alternations of time.

which mark each poem vivify the illustra- | case. But we take the liberty to submit tion of name which attaches to Bulwer's that "the cleft of a pomegranate blossom" novel of "Night and Morning."

Passing over the "Sacrifice of Abraham," we come next to an expression in the "Shunammite," which strikes us with its absosolute childishness:

"She drew refreshing water, and with thoughts Of God's sweet goodness stirring at her heart," &c.

Nor have we the least patience with such flippant taste as we find evidenced in the closing lines of the poem, where our poet does not allow his readers even a breathing spell-but favors them only with a starry interval-betwixt the period of the child's lingering, "long drawn out" death, and his hoeus-pocus (à la Willis, we mean) restoration to life by the prophet.

The poem of Jephthah's Daughter, we think, begins with entirely too much abrupt

ness:

"She stood before her father's gorgeous tent."

There is a sort of sneaking resemblance to the opening line of Mrs. Hemans's heroic poem, Casabianca:

"The boy stood on the burning deck."

Or if Mr. Willis and his admiring coterie will pardon the allusion, we may rather liken it to a smack of the fine old nursery song:

"Lord Lovell he stood at his castle gate."

We should suppose from the following, from the same poem, that Mr. Willis had no very keen relish for a woman's lips, or no very nice perceptions of their daintiness, or else, having been born and bred in northern regions, was unused to the tropical growths of the sunny South:

"Her lip was slightly parted, like the cleft Of a pomegranate blossom."

Now we are not at all of opinion that the term cleft when thus applied is an admissible expression, for we read much oftener of clefts in rocks than in blossoms. We have heard of Moses being ensconced in the cleft of a rock while God's glory passed along we cannot imagine how Moses could seat himself in the cleft of a blossom; and yet, the objects being totally dissimilar, the phrase must be incorrect in one or the other

is as unlike the parting of a woman's lips as it is possible to conceive; and as the cleft of this blossom is by no manner of means a very graceful or luscious severance, but on the contrary rough and rugged for so gorgeous a flower, we incline to think that so exquisite a gentleman as Mr. Willis would have hesitated about the comparison if he had ever seen the petals of a pomegranate bloom.

While describing with much enthusiasm the beauty of Jephthah's daughter, the poet winds up with the following:

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After having exhausted description of the same anatomical tendencies as previously gone through with in the case of Jairus's daughter, and lavished on his young heroine every beauty of thought of imagery, we are quite too suddenly let down with the expression above italicized. To "die for it" is a loose, vulgar arrangement of words, amounting almost to downright indecency. We do not look for such within the pages of so neat a book, or from the pen of so courtly a litterateur, especially when that pen is engaged with such lofty and sacred subjects. We recollect to have come across such an expression in the first pages of the Heart of Mid Lothian, where, after the mob had broken down the door of the tolbooth, one of the number releases an imprisoned fellowbandit, with the advice, "Rin for it, Ratcliffe !" Now, at such a time, in such a place, and uttered by such a person, no expression could have been more appropriate or in better taste. But as applied to so lovely and interesting a creation as Jephthah's hapless daughter, no set of words can be more harsh or unseasonable.

"Onward came

The leaden tramp of thousands."

This, again, found a few lines afterward, is an incorrect and unfortunate simile. There is nothing martial or stirring in connection with leaden materials. Lead gives back a dull, dead sound. Nor is it possible to understand or perceive the pith and point of an expression which presupposes leaden shoes, as it is a metal never used for that purpose,

whether for men or horses. The last being evidently alluded to, we rather think a son of Vulcan would smile at stumbling on such an idea.

We are glad we can reconcile it to the task we have undertaken, to say that we consider the poem on Absalom quite a creditable and successful effort,-much the best of the sacred series as so far noticed. The prettiest lines and strongest description which occur in the whole series may be found, we think, in the poem of "Christ's Entrance into Jerusalem."

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The imagery here shadowed forth is inconceivably grand and magnificent, wholly beyond the bounds of the rather contracted and too tame description of Mr. Willis. Indeed, we have long thought that this most interesting Scriptural event is eminently prolific of wide and glorious themes of contemplation, and we wonder that so spiritless a writer, poetically speaking, as our author, should so boldly have ventured to versificate the simple and unadorned narrative of the sacred penmen.

We have loved, oftentimes, to imagine the incidents of that eventful morning when, seated on the picturesque summit of the Mount of Olives, the august son of Mary gazed sadly, though with the eager admiration of expanded tastes, on the glorious beauties and resplendent panoramic scenery which all around opened to view. And what would not his adorers of the present day have bartered to have been numbered among the little group whose wondering eyes were fixed, entranced and bewildered, on the benign and mysterious young Being whose lips were giving utterance to that gloomy prophecy which announced, in mournful strains, the approaching calamities and woes of Zion!

"There stood Jerusalem!"

The early rays of the sun dispensed, perhaps, ue over, the scene, and the

soft breath of the morning breeze swept gently through the groves of palm trees which waved in the valley. Just beneath, at the mountain's base, was the smiling little hamlet' of Bethany, the quiet abode of the lovely sisters, and their brother, with its groups of neat cottages, and modest pastoral mansions, half obscured in the vast shadows which yet enveloped them. Beyond, arose in sullen majesty the bleak and frowning mountains which overlooked the ancient city of the Canaanites, and immediately between was Jerusalem itself-with its hills, and winding walls, and wild ravines-looming in the mellow light, with those stupendous architectural monuments which had endured since the age of Solomon, and which, long centuries anterior, had fallen under the eye of the Macedonian conqueror. Rising proudly above the rest was the famous mount of Zion, the ancient Acropolis of King David, crowned with the splendid palace which had once sheltered the royal lover and his frail Bathsheba; whose spacious harems swarmed afterwards with the thousand voluptuous houris of their amorous son, and which, even in ruin, seemed to assert its former grandeur. Opposite, was the crescent-shaped mount of Acra, romantically studded with lesser eminences; and from whence towered the grand and gorgeous structure first consecrated to the worship of Israel's God, the gigantic dimensions of which yet startle and bewilder mankind. We may easily imagine that, as the sun's brilliant rays irradiated the glittering front, it appeared to the group on Mount Olivet as a vast mountain of dazzlingly white marble, presenting a magnificent array of domes, and pillars, and turrets, all fretted with golden pinnacles, which, touched with the resplendence of the early morn, shone with surpassing grandeur. Intervening was the broad valley of the Cheesemongers, so famed in Bible story, and from the dark bosom of which bubbled the sparkling pool of Siloam; while on the north, from amidst cliffs and crags covered scantily with dwarfed shrubbery, was Calvary-destined, a few months afterward, to tremble beneath the wonders and the horrors of the crucifixion. Beneath were seen the rock-clad streets which had been so often threaded by the hostile bands of Gentile conquerors, and so often drenched with the blood of prostrate Israel. Before that temple had Alexander paused to reverence

the High Priest. There the Syrian chief- | may be sanctioned by the sectaries of the tain, surrounded by his fierce soldiery, had old Baptist denomination and the neophytes designed to honor the Jehovah of his fallen of the Campbellian school of divinity, we foe; and there, too, had Pompey the Great, yet think that the same would be denounced fresh from the gory field, bent his haughty as heretical and unorthodox by the doctors spirit before the hallowed associations belong- of Geneva, of Oxford, and of the Sorbonne ; ing to the spot. while even Rome might fulminate her Papal bulls against the rash assumption.

Such are the imperfectly-told and mere skeleton outlines of a theme which might have challenged the minstrelsy of a Homer, but which Mr. Willis, with singular apathy and negligence, has been content to cramp up within the space of some half dozen lines, in despite of its crowds of suggestive associations so legitimately appropriate to his subject.

The limits of a critique will not allow us thus to loiter; we must pass on, therefore, to the "Baptism of Christ." Our attention is first arrested by these lines:

"Softly in

Through a long aisle of willows, dim and cool,
Stole the clear waters with their muffled feet!"

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We take the following from the poem of
Hagar in the Wilderness:

It was an hour of rest; but Hagar found
No shelter in the wilderness, and on
She kept her weary way, until the boy
Hung down his head, and open'd his parch'd lips
For water; but she could not give it him.
She laid him down beneath the sultry sky-
For it was better than the close, hot breath
Of the thick pines--and tried to comfort him;
But he was sore athirst, and his blue eyes
Were dim and bloodshot, and he could not know
Why God denied him water in the wild.
She sat a little longer, and he grew
Ghastly and faint, as if he would have died.
It was too much for her. She lifted him
And bore him further on, and laid his head
Beneath the shadow of a desert shrub;
And shrouding up her face, she went away,
And sat to watch, where he could see her not,
Till he should die."

Taken as a whole, we must pronounce this extract to be very awkward, very inexpressive, unideal, and commonplace. Besides the sluggish composition, there is exhibited a most woful deficiency in creativeness of imagination and artistic ingenuity. If we analyze minutely, it is to be feared that numerous minor blemishes may be shown. In the short space of eighteen lines the words he and she are made to occur

We do not know, in the first place, what business the preposition in has where we find it, unless Mr. Willis designed, at the risk of grammar, to lengthen his line to the proper measure; but we are utterly confounded when our author comes to speak of the "muffled feet" of "clear waters." We are familiar with the expression "foot of the mountain," or "foot of the hill," but we have jumped up for the first time that of the feet of waters-muffled at that. We are to suppose, however, that as we become acquainted with Willisiana perfumes, we are in like manner to learn Willisiana fig-eleven times; as if the author's ideas could ures of speech, having already shaken hands with the " 'fingers of the dawn," and stumbled against the "muffled feet" of water.

A few lines after these we find that Mr. Willis, with the unrestrained privileges of a poet, ventures unhesitatingly and quite complacently to settle a Scriptural quarrel which has consumed hundreds of disputatious folios, and has puzzled learned theologians ever since the apostolic era; for, alluding to John the Baptist, we meet with the lines describing him, as

"He stood breast-high amid the running stream,
Baptizing as the Spirit gave him power."
It is by no means conceded by Christians
that John actually went into the "running
stream;" and although Mr. Willis's version

not be cut loose from his characters. Dur-
ing the same time Hagar rose up and sat
down again twice. She lifts Ishmael up
and lays him down twice. The last time
she leaves him to repose in a rather intangi-
ble and undefinable place, for Mr. Willis
tells us she "laid his head beneath the shad-
ow of a desert shrub." We should
suppose
that a desert or leafless shrub would afford
but scanty shade, where even
"thick pines"
had been found too "close and hot."

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