Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 056.djvu/625

1844.] Yes; we fear it is too true that the voice of God never speaks so articulately to man, as when it speaks in the desperate calm of a soul to which life or death has done its worst. The same solemn thought with which the sonnet concludes, forms the moral of her ballad entitled the "Lay of the Brown Rosary." It is thus that the heroine of that poem speaks—

" Then breaking into tears—' Dear God,' she cried, 'and must we see

All blissful things depart from us, or ere we go to ?

We cannot guess thee in the wood, or hear thee in the wind?

Our cedars must fall round us, ere we see the light behind?

Ay sooth, we feel too strong in weal, to need thee on that road;

But woe being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on 'God."'

Then it is that the despair which blackens the earth strikes clear the face of the sky. Listen again to Miss Barrett, when her soul is cheered by the promises of "Futurity:—

" And, O beloved voices! upon which

Ours passionately call, because erelong

Ye brake off in the middle of that song

We sang together softly, to enrich

The poor world with the sense of love, and witch

The heart out of things evil—I am strong,—

Knowing ye are not lost for aye among

The hills, with last year's thrush. God keeps a niche

In Heaven to hold our idols! and albeit

He brake them to our faces, and denied

That our close kisses should impair their white,—

I know we shall behold them raised, complete,—

The dust shook from their beauty,—glorified

New Memnons singing in the great God-light

And again, listen to her hallowed and womanly strain when she speaks of "Comfort:"—

" Speak low to me, my Saviour—low and sweet

From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low,

Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so

Who art not miss'd by any that entreat.

Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet—

And if no precious gums my bands bestow,

Let my tears drop like amber, while I go

In reach of thy divinest voice complete

In humanest affection—thus, in sooth

To lose the sense of losing! As a child,

Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore,

Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth;

Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled,

He sleeps the faster that he wept before."

How profound and yet how feminine is the sentiment! No man could have written that sonnet. It rises spontaneously from the heart of a Christian woman, which overflows with feelings more gracious and more graceful than ever man's can be. It teaches us what religious poetry truly is; for it makes affections inspired by the simplest things of earth, to illustrate, with the most artless beauty, the solemn consolations of the Cross.

The pointedness of the following religious sonnet is very striking and sublime. The text is, "And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter."

" I think that look of Christ might seem to say—

Thou Peter! art thou then a common stone

Which I at last must break my heart upon,

For all God's charge, to his high angels, may

Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday