

20 PRESUMPTUOUS POETRY. 



Thy voice excited me while yet a child, 



As once it came to Samuel, in the days 



When open vision was not, and the word 



Of great Jehovah, seldom heard, was dear ; 



And I, like him, made answer, Here am I ; 



Yet wist not whence it came, and thrice deceived : 



But now 1 know it rightly, and can say, 



Speak, for thy servant heareth ; and will now, 



For thus am I enjoined, tell every whit. 



And nought from Eli hide, or Israel." 



And as though this measure of complacent impiety were not full, 

 towards the conclusion of his poem, having described the entrance of 

 Noah and his family into the ark, he adds, 



" As for the rest, they to the cherubim 



Bowed down adoring all save Elihu ; 



Who, to the hill returned, transfigured stood 



In glory ineffable by me. Yet I, 



(The poet of the Judgment of the Flood, 



And of Messiah's going down to hell) 



Looked," &c. ^ 



After the perusal of such passages as these, we may well cry out t 

 with Solomon, " Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds *. 

 and wind without rain." 



We purpose now to indulge the reader with a few passages from 

 "this poem not the worst, certainly ; and such as will help him to an 

 understanding of the peculiar vices of Mr. Heraud's style, both of 

 thought and of expression. Here is a sample of the hopelessly ob- 

 scure. We would offer a " king's ransom" for the meaning of the 

 following passage, if we could bring ourselves to believe that the 

 author himself intended that there should be any meaning in it. He 

 is speaking of Methuselah : 



" Mysterious man ; 



Nay, an embodied mystery in his 



Identity, to whose him bethinks, 



How hard on earth that absolute to hit 



Of all relations head ; wisest or best, 



Or worst or simplest, in extreme degree ; 



Knowing it is, yet what or where unknown ; 



In all that is, inferring, elsewhere, is 



Still something more above it or below, 



Wiser or better, worse or simpler still." 



Nor is the passage we are about to quote much less obscure than 

 the above. The poet is describing the powers of the prophet- 

 sculptor, Japhet. To him, 



" The stoic marble was as potter's clay ; 



Save that its sterner volume yielded not 



To change, unequally diminishing 



Harmonious symmetry, proportion bland, 



Compacting solids, till the substance be 



Conflict of dry and moist, receding that, 



Arid this remaining on the vantage ground, 



Like parted friends turned mutual enemies." 



In the whole range of modern poetry, filled as it is to overflowing 



