SOURCE: “Recent Poetry.” Atlantic Monthly 51 (March 1883): 421-23.

In the following review, the anonymous author provides a generally favorable assessment of Boyesen's collection of poetry Idylls of Norway.

Mr. Boyesen has wisely named his book of poems with reference to the most characteristic of the contents;¹ and in so far as these answer to the title, they have a freshness and a distinctive interest which give the modest volume a separate place. Brier-Rose, Hilda's Little Hood, and Thora are charming pastoral love stories, vigorous, youthful, sweet with the vernal breath of the northern forest, and told in melodious verse, the shaping of which somehow connects itself with the graceful curves of vine-tendrils; for the writer, in his less formal moods, responds with impulsive alacrity to his theme, and apprehends delicate analogies which at once find facile expression, giving the lines naturalness and finish together. “Trim and graceful like a...