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[page 362, column 2, continued:]
The Progress of Passion. A Poem in Four Books. By the Rev. Henry W. Sweetser, M. A. New York. C. Shepherd.
A long didactic poem (if there is such a thing as a didactic poem) in the blank Iambic Pentameter, awkwardly managed. There are many forcible thoughts tersely expressed; but, upon the whole, we dislike the work. We quote a few of the .concluding lines, as well by way of a specimen, as serving to illustrate the author's design.
“Countless the hosts, that, could they now but rise,
Would bend them cheerful from th’ indulgent skies,
And bless, as we do now, this hallowed day,
Which saw them given to God, by faith, away.
Nor few the living men bound by this bond,
Who, ask’d, would not with grateful heart respond —
They brought me here before my heart could ken
Or good, or evil, or what did they then;
The crystal waters laved my infant brow,
And thus began my Christian life below:
My mother gave me, when my heart was young,
The picture which concludes this moral song:
I’ve lived to comprehend and bless the Power
That sealed me His, in life's first budding hour.
Thus, as the world grown old, may men grow wise,
And mount, in goodness, nearer to the skies.”
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Notes:
This review was attributed as being by Poe by W. D. Hull.
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[S:0 - BJ, 1845] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Criticism - Literary (Poe?, 1845)