Still, it was asserted that the
luxuriance of the young poet's mind promised much; let a few years
pass, and Tennyson and Browning and Elizabeth Barrett would be at
his feet. A few years have passed, and here is his second volume. It
has less richness of fancy than the first, but its merits and
demerits are the same. The man has not yet grown into a poet,--has
not yet learned that the foliage, flowers, and fruits of the mind
should be connected with primal roots in its individual being. These
are still tied on, in his old manner, to a succession of thoughts
and emotions, which have themselves little vital connection with
each other. The "hey-day in his blood," which gave an appearance of
exulting and abounding life to his first poems, has somewhat
subsided now, and the effect is, that "The City Poems," as a whole,
are leaner in spirit, and more morbid and despondent in tone, than
the "Life Drama." Yet there is still so much that is superficially
striking in the volume, such a waste of imagery and emotion, and so
many occasional lines and epithets of real power and beauty, that we
close the volume with some vexation and pain at our inability to
award it the praise which many readers will think it deserves.
* * * * *
FOREIGN.
_Der Reichspostreiter in Ludwigsburg, Novelle auf geschichtlichem
Hintergrunde_.
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