24 



REVIEWS CANADIAN POETRY. 



From off point Diamond's peak a booming gun, 

 With lond report, salutes the setting sun ; 

 Through the ambient air mellow, clear and sweet, 

 The bugle's note, re-echoed, sounds retreat. 



We would not willingly quarrel with a Canadian poet inspired by 

 loyal and patriotic sentiments such as these ; but we venture to think 

 that a prose narrative of the Crimean Campaign, from one of ourselves 

 who had borne a share in its sufferings and its triumphs, would have 

 won the suffrages of a thousand Canadian readers for one who will be 

 tempted to the perusal of "Oscar's" poetic experiences. Nor would 

 such a narrative have been the less welcome for his enthusiastic apos- 

 trophe to the beauties of our noble St. Lawrence, though uttered only 

 in eloquent prose. We may be permitted to say here once more, in 

 the words of " Aurora Leigh" : — 



Young men i 



Too often sow their wild oats in tame verse, , 



Before they sit down under their own vine | 



And live for use. Alas, near all the birds 

 Will sing at dawn, — and yet we do not take 

 The chaffering swallow for the holy lark. 



The poems of Alexander McLachlan are designated in the taotto of 

 their title page as " hamely rustic jingle," and as the form ei volumes 

 are composed after the model of English poets of the beginning of the 

 century, this is a faint echo of Allan Ramsay and Fergussoii — we cans 

 scarcely say of Burns : though some of the subjects are propably sug- 

 gested by his choice of themes, e.g. "The Grieve; or th^ Lamenta- 

 tion of old Jawbaws," which thus begins : 



I dinna ken what tempted me 

 To venture owre the raging sea ; 

 To come awa' to to thir back wuds. 

 To live in poverty and dudds. 



But here, e'eu those wha rnle the nation 



Are driving on some speculation; 



Aye, e'en the big parliamenter 



Will trade and cheat, like a tramp tinker. 



The biggest man thinks nocht degrading — 



This it will be seen is a genuine, if not a very poetica 

 glimpse of things as they are, and the curious reader may 

 the like kind in the same volume. 



fiid 



Canadian 

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