Famous Single Poems
them among the poems printed in the first edition of his book.
In 1901 he published another book which purported to be a biography of Edgar Allan Poe, but which is really a strange farrago of nonsense, and he took occasion to include “Solitude” under the title “Love and Laughter.” It is dedicated to George D. Prentice, and is accompanied by this comment:
My own poem, “Love and Laughter,” written for George D. Prentice, Journalist and Poet, in Louisville, Kentucky, January, 1863, might well be inserted here for the information and education of the rushing world.
The reader can do no better than memorize it and act upon its precepts. The idea of the poem can be found in Homer, Horace, Shakespeare, and the Bible, but not in such rhythmic, epigrammatic and synthetical form. It is a philosophic sermon and will be repeated on the lips of mankind as long as Truth is triumphant!
This is a fair example of the style of the book, the character of whose contents indicates that the wheels of perpetual motion were still going around in Joyce’s head. The portrait which serves as a frontispiece to Jewels of Memory confirms this impression. The face is unquestionably that of a man of unstable mentality. It is not without a certain cheap
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