Page:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. (Thomson, Dobell).djvu/32

 nearly the same power of conception and execution. Both are characterised by mastery of thought and language, ease of versification, and command of various metres. Both display the same power of picturesque description: a power that invests the scenes and events described with extraordinary vividness. A painter would find in both many incidents inviting him to transfer them to his canvas, and he might do so almost without introducing a single detail that he did not find described in the poet's verses. In concentration of thought and intensity of expression, "The City of Dreadful Night is as a whole superior to the earlier poem; yet there are some passages in "The Doom of a City" which equal even in these points the later poem. As regards the change that took place in the author's ideas in the interval that elapsed between their composition, the earlier poem supplies interesting evidence. The author of "The Doom of a City" believes in an over-ruling Providence, and in the Immortality of the Soul. He strives to reconcile the existence of evil with belief in a benevolent Creator, and labours to show that mankind are themselves responsible for the miseries they endure. Yet it may be perceived even here that he held these doctrines with no firm assurance, and that he was trying to convince himself that he believed them, rather than holding them with a complete conviction of their truth.

His first published poem was "The Fadeless Bower," which appeared in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine for July, 1858, with the signature of "Crepusculus." He continued to contribute to the pages of that magazine until it was discontinued in 1860. "Bertram to the Lady Geraldine,"