"Seldom have the benign effects of the passion been more felicitously
painted than in the 'Seasons of Love'; and what simple tenderness
is contained in the ballad of 'We were boys together.' Every word
in that beautiful melody comes home to the heart of him whose early
days have been happy. God help those in whom this poem awakens no
fond remembrances!--those whose memories it does not get wandering
up the stream of life, toward its source; beholding at every step
the sun smiling more brightly, the heavens assuming a deeper hue,
the grass a fresher green, and the flowers a sweeter perfume. How
wondrous are not its effects upon ourselves! The wrinkles have
disappeared from our brow, and the years from our shoulder, and
the marks of the branding-iron of experience from our heart; and
again we are a careless child, gathering primroses, and chasing
butterflies, and drinking spring-water from out the hollow
of our hands. Around us are the hedges 'with golden gorse bright
blossoming, as none blossom now-a-day.' We have heard of death,
but we know not what it is; and the word CHANGE has no meaning for
us; and summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest, has each its
unutterable joys. Alas! we can never remain long in this happy
dream-land. Nevertheless, we have profited greatly by the journey.
The cowslips and violets gathered by us in childhood, shall be
potent in the hour of temptation; and the cap of rushes woven for
us by kind hands in days gone by, shall be a surer defence than
a helmet of steel in the hour of battle. No, no; we will never
disgrace our antecedents.

"There is one quality in his songs to which we can not but direct
attention--and this is their almost feminine purity. The propensities
have had their laureates; and genius, alas! has often defiled its