Declined 1855

Nation 7th April, 1855: Page 8
“The Sister at Scutari.” (There are one or two good lines in your poem: but that diffuseness which is the besetting sin of “easy writing” spoils it as a whole.) “Lines on a visit to Kinvara Churchyard.” you seem to be under the impression that imagination has some inveterate antipathy to common sense. For example, the lines –
“How solemn looks that massive pile.
Now stript of all except the aisle;
Its walls are crumbling fast away-
Like man himself, they too decay.”
Now, if there be really nothing but an “aisle,” how do you expect us to believe that there is a “massive pile” – looking solemnly all the while?

Note:

The Sister of Scutari may refer to Mother Mary Aloysius Doyle, Convent of Mercy, Gort, Co. Galway. She nursed with Miss Florence Nightingale in the Crimea