POEMS BY ADA ISAACS MENKEN.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XIV, Issue 627, 5 November 1868, Page 4

POEMS BY ADA ISAACS MENKEN.

Ip Miss Menken had lived another week she would have made her appearance as the living authoress of a volume of half sad, half biblical poems, which will now be published and received in many quarters with a tenderness they may not deserve. There is something calculated to tickle certain imaginations in the career of a woman who made herself notorious as an equestrian actress, married two, if not more, prizefighters, one or two journalists, beside several private individuals, and then, burst upon a world which is always willing to be astonished, with a volume of semi-re-ligious poems. Under the title of “ Infelicia,” about thirty short poems and prose fragments appear, plentifully larded with quotations from Scripture. Luxuriously printed, artistically illustrated, and dedicated, by permission, to Mr Charles Dickens, the volumes will doubtless find a sale far above the a"erage of poetical venturer. The dedication to Mr Dickens will probably have something to do with this, particularly when the pub lie learns that the following letter is handsomely printed in fao simile as a preface to the book : Gads Hill-placf, lligham-'by-Uochester, Kent, Monday, October Zl, 1867. Dear Miss Menken,—l shall have ?reat pleasure In acceptingyouv dedication. I thank you t'oryour portrait as a highly remarkable specimen of photography. I also thank you for the verses enclosed in your note. Many such enclosures coa.c to me, but few so pathetically written, and fewer so modestly sent. Faithfully yours, CUiiiLts Dickens. Menken is as bold in poetry as she was on the stage. She talks about “ ringing trancing shivers of rapt melody down to the dumb earth,” and “ grasping the white throat of many a prayer.” She is hard upon the conventionalities : Stand hack ye riiliistines! Practice what ye preach to rr.e: I heed yc not. lor I know ye all Te are living burning lies, and profanation to the garments la which with stately stepyo sweep your marble palaces. Stand hack 1 am no Magdalene waiting to kiss the hem of your garment. Some of the poems have a sadncsi and genuine force which prove them to be the outpourings of a heart ill a! ease, and some have a grace of expression far removed from the wiki rhapsody we have alluded to.