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“My hope, that never grew to certainty,–
My youth, that perish’d in its vain desire,–
My fond ambition, crush’d ere it could be
Aught save a self-consuming, wasted fire:

“Bring these anew, and set me once again
In the delusion of Life’s Infancy–
I was not happy, but I knew not then
That happy I was never doom’d to be.

“Till these things are, and powers divine descend–
Love, kindness, joy, and hope, to gild my day,
In vain the emblem leaves towards me bend,
Thy Spirit, Heart’s-Ease, is too far away!”

We would fain have given two poems entitled “Bessy” and “Youth and Age.” Everything in this little volume is select and good. Sensibility and sense in right measure and proportion and keeping, and in pure, strong classical language; no intemperance of thought or phrase. Why does not “V.” write more?

We do not very well know how to introduce our friend Mr. Ellison, “The Bornnatural,” who addresses his “Madmoments to the Light-headed of Society at large.” We feel as a father, a mother, or other near of kin would at introducing an ungainly gifted and much loved son or kinsman, who had the knack of putting his worst foot foremost, and making himself imprimis ridiculous.

There is something wrong in all awkwardness, a want of nature somewhere, and we feel affronted even still, after we have taken the Bornnatural[3] to our heart, and admire and love him, at his absurd gratuitous self-befoolment. The book is at first sight one farrago of oddities and offences–coarse foreign paper–bad printing–italics broad-cast over every page–the words run into each other in a way we are glad to say is as yet quite original, making such extraordinary monsters of words as these–beingsriddle–sunbeammotes–gooddeed–midjune– summerair–selffavor–seraphechoes–puredeedprompter–barkskeel, etc. Now we like Anglo-Saxon and the polygamous German,[4] but we like better the well of English undefiled–a well, by the by, much oftener spoken of than drawn from; but to fashion such words as these words are, is as monstrous as for a painter to compose an animal not out of the elements, but out of the entire bodies of several, of an ass, for instance, a cock and a crocodile, so as to produce an outrageous individual, with whom even a duck-billed Platypus would think twice before he fraternized–ornithorynchous and paradoxical though he be, poor fellow.

Footnotes:
[3] In his Preface he explains the title Bornnatural, as meaning “one who inherits the natural sentiments and tastes to which he was born, still artunsullied and customfree.”

[4] ex. gr.—Konstantinopolitanischerdudelsackspfeifergeselle. Here is a word as long as the sea-serpent–but, like it, having a head and tail, being what lawyers call unum quid–not an up and down series of infatuated phocae, as Professor Owen somewhat insolently asserts. Here is what the Bornnatural would have made of it–

A Constantinopolitanbagpiperoutofhisapprenticeship.

And yet our Bornnatural’s two thick and closely small-printed volumes are as full of poetry as is an “impassioned grape” of its noble liquor.

He is a true poet. But he has not the art of singling his thoughts, an art as useful in composition as in husbandry, as necessary for young fancies as young turnips. Those who have seen our turnip fields in early summer, with the hoers at their work, will understand our reference. If any one wishes to read these really remarkable volumes, we would advise them to begin with “Season Changes” and “Emma, a Tale.” We give two Odes on Psyche, which are as nearly perfect as anything out of Milton or Tennyson.

The story is the well-known one of Psyche and Cupid, told at such length, and with so much beauty and pathos and picturesqueness by Apuleius, in his “Golden Ass.” Psyche is the human soul–a beautiful young woman. Cupid is spiritual, heavenly love–a comely youth. They are married, and live in perfect happiness, but by a strange decree of fate, he comes and goes unseen, tarrying only for the night; and he has told her, that if she looks on him with her bodily eye, if she tries to break through the darkness in which they dwell, then he must leave her, and forever. Her two sisters–Anger and Desire, tempt Psyche. She yields to their evil counsel, and thus it fares with her:–