John Marr and Other Poems

Melville's verse printed for the most part privately in smalleditions from middle life onward after his great prose work hadbeen written, taken as a whole, is of an amateurish and unevenquality. In it, however, that loveable freshness of personality, which his philosophical dejection never quenched, is everywhere inevidence. It is clear that he did not set himself to master thepoet's art, yet through the mask of conventional verse which oftenfalls into doggerel, the voice of a true poet is heard