John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[54] “Edelfrida.” Throughout the year 1845 his muse seems to have been more prolific, for he published in the Harbinger “Auf Wiedlersehen,” which was followed by a hymn, “Les attractions sont Proportionelle aux Destines” after Novalis, “Ad Arma,” “The Secret” (from the German of Seidl), “The beauty of the earth” (from the German of Ruchert), “Mutual longing” (from the German of Heine), “To the Moon” (from the German of Holty). The next year, 1846, he published the “Bankrupt,” “Erotis,” “Patience” (from the German of Spitta), “The question” (from the German of Heine), and “Memnon.” Of these “Erotis” is the longest and “Memnon” the best. Those of the last two years were all published in the Harbinger, from which they obtained some circulation, but I cannot learn that any of them outlived the year of its birth, or passed permanently into the literature of the period. Indeed, there is one good reason to believe that the author finally condemned them himself, for he enshrined none of them in the American Household Book of Poetry, a well-known and widely circulated book of the best short poems in the language, of which he was the compiler. He doubtless gave his own poetic children every consideration to which he thought they were entitled, as they were found among his personal effects clearly transcribed, and done up ready for the printer, but several of them had been carefully crossed out with the blue pencil from the pages on which they were copied at the date of their production. It is proper to say, however, that in 1885 Mr. Dana himself selected three of these early poems to appear in a volume entitled Representative Poems of Living Poets, compiled by Miss Jeannette L. Gilder, and published in 1886. Mr. Dana's selections were “Eternity,” “Herzliebste,” and “Manfulness.” As fair specimens of the whole, I call attention to the three which follow: