130 ai,e;xander WILSON : poet-naturalist 



As a poet we wish to study him more fully. Wil- 

 son's prose is familiar to many readers, but with the 

 exception of "The American Blue-bird" and "The 

 Osprey," which have been often republished in 

 anthologies, his verse is almost wholly unknown. 

 It was a misfortune that he wrote so much verse, 

 for the greater part of it is drearily prosaic, and 

 the few pieces that are really good are like modest 

 little poppies that have caught the bright colors 

 of the sunlight and the freshness of the dewdrop, 

 but are overlooked in the great field of dry stubble. 

 How true this is may be grasped when we consider 

 that there are over one hundred poems which are 

 undeniably his, while a large number of others 

 have been attributed to him. Nor are they for 

 the most part short pieces, but many of them are 

 of unusual length, the longest consisting of 

 twenty-two hundred and nineteen lines. Of this 

 great mass of verse not more than twenty pieces 

 are of any real merit. 



It is, therefore, only the claim that these few 

 good poems can establish for him that shall give 

 us any right to call him a poet at all. Before we 

 take up the consideration of these, let us consider 

 the whole great mass of his verse. 



We shall find in Wilson all the faults of the 

 Augustan age of English literature, of which in 

 common with other poets of his time he was an 

 immediate heir. Pope had died twenty-two years 

 before he was born ; the lives of Goldsmith and 

 Gray barely overlapped into his own, but the 

 poems of these men were still the models after 

 which the lesser makers fashioned their stanzas; 



