Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 056.djvu/634

632 Miss Barrett, "for lyrical emotion in those first steps into the wilderness in that first sense of desolation after wrath, in that first audible gathering of the recriminating 'groan of the whole creation,' in that first darkening of the hills from the recoiling feet of angels, and in that first silence of the voice of God.' There certainly was room for lyrical emotion in these first steps into wildness. All nature might most appropriately be supposed to break forth in melodious regrets around the footsteps of the wanderers: but we cannot think that Miss Barrett has done justice to nature's strains. Unless lyrical emotion be expressed in language as clear as a mountain rill and as well defined as the rocks over which it runs, it is much better left unsung. The merit of all lyrical poetry consists in the clearness and cleanness with which it is cut; no tags or loose ends can any where be permitted. But Miss Barrett's lyrical compositions are frequently so inarticulate, so slovenly, and so defective, both in rhythm and rhyme, that we are really surprised how a person of her powers could have written them and how a person of any judgment could have published them. Take a specimen, not by any means the worst, from the "Song of the morning star to Lucifer:"—

" Mine orbed image sinks

Back from thee, back from thee,

As thou art fallen methinks,

Back from me, back from me.

O my light-bearer,

Could another fairer

Lack to thee, lack to thee!

Ai, ai, Heosphoros!

I loved thee, with the fiery love of stars.

Who love by burning, and by loving move,

Too near the throned Jehovah, not to love.

Ai, ai, Heosphoros!

Their brows flash fast on me from gliding cars,

Pale-passion'd for my loss

Ai, ai, Heosphoros!

" Mine orbed heats drop cold

Down from thee, down from thee,

As fell thy grace of old

Down from me, down from me.

O my light-bearer,

Is another fairer

Won to thee, won to thee?

Al, ai, Heosphoros,

Great love preceded loss,

Known to thee, known to thee.

Ai, ai!

Thou, breathing thy communicable grace

Of life into my light,

Mine astral faces, from thine angel face,

Hast inly fed,

And flooded me with radiance overmuch

From thy pure height

Ai, ai!

Thou, with calm, floating pinions both ways spread,

Erect, irradiated,

Didst sting my wheel of glory

On, on before thee,

Along the Godlight, by a quickening touch!

Ha, ha!

Around, around the firmamental ocean,

I swam expanding with delirious fire!

Around, around, around, in blind desire

To	be drawn upward to the Infinite—

Ha, ha!

But enough of Ai ai Heosphoros. It may be very right for ladies to learn Greek—not, however, if it is to lead them to introduce such expressions as this into the language of English poetry.

Nor do we think that Miss Barrett's lyrical style improves when she descends to themes of more human and proximate interest, and makes the "earth-spirits" and the "flower- spirits" pour their lamentations into the ears of the exiled pair. The following is the conclusion of the láyment (as Miss Barrett pronounces the word lament) of the "flower-spirits :"—

"We pluck at your raiment,

We stroke down your hair,

We faint in our láyment,

And pine into air,

Fare-ye-well—farewell!

The Eden seen no longer sensible,

Expire at Eden's door!

Each footstep of your treading

Treads out some fragrance which ye

knew before

Farewell! the flowers of Eden

Ye shall smell never more."

Would not Miss Barrett's hair have stood on end if Virgil had written "Arma virumque canto?" Yet surely that false quantity would have been not more repugnant to the genius of Latin verse than her transposition of