Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 056.djvu/640

638 " Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,—

And approach'd him slowly, slowly, in a gliding measured pace;

With her two white hands extended, as if praying one offended,

And a look of supplication, gazing earnest in his face.

" Said he—'Wake me by no gesture,—sound of breath, or stir of vesture;

Let the blessed apparition melt not yet to its divine!

No approaching—hush! no breathing! or my heart must swoon to death in

The too utter life thou bringest—O thou dream of Geraldine!'

" Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling—

But the tears ran over lightly from her eyes, and tenderly;

'Dost thou, Bertram, truly love me? Is no woman far above me,

Found more worthy of thy poet-heart, than such a one as I?'

" Said he—' I would dream so ever, like the flowing of that river,

Flowing ever in a shadow, greenly onward to the sea;

So, thou vision of all sweetness—princely to a full completeness,—

Would my heart and life flow onward—deathward—through this dream of !'

" Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,—

While the shining tears ran faster down the blushing of her cheeks;

Then with both her hands enfolding both of his, she softly told him,

'Bertram, if I say I love thee,. . . 'tis the vision only speaks.'

" Soften'd, quicken'd to adore her, on his knee he fell before her—

And she whisper'd low in triumph—' It shall be as I have sworn!

Very rich he is in virtues,—very noble—noble, certes;

And I shall not blush in knowing, that men call him lowly born! "

With the exception of the line, and the other expressions which we have printed in italics, we think that the whole tone of this finale is "beautiful exceedingly;" although, if we may express our private opinion, we should say that the lover, after his outrageous demeanour, was very unworthy of the good fortune that befell him. But, in spite of the propitious issue of the poem, we must be permitted (to quote one of Miss Barrett's lines in this very lay) to make our "critical deductions for the modern writers' fault." Will she, or any one else tell us the meaning of the second line in this stanza? Or, will she maintain that it has any meaning at all? Lady Geraldine's possessions are described— " She has halls and she has castles, and the resonant steam-eagles

Follow far on the directing of her floating dove-like hand—

With a thund'rous vapour trailing, underneath the starry vigils,

So to mark upon the blasted heaven, the measure of her land."

We thought that steam-coaches generally followed the directing of no hand except the "stoker's;" but it certainly is always much liker a raven than a dove, "Eagles and vigils" is not admissible as a rhyme; neither is "branch and grange." Miss Barrett says of the Lady Geraldine that she had "such a gracious coldness" that her lovers "could not press their futures on the present of her courtesy." Is that human speech? One other objection and our carpings shall be dumb. Miss Barrett, in our opinion, has selected a very bad, dislocated, and unmelodious metre for the story of Lady Geraldine's courtship. The poem reads very awkwardly in consequence of the rhymes falling together in the alternate lines and not in couplets. Will Miss Barrett have the goodness to favour the public with the sequel of this poem? We should like to know how the match between the peasant's son and the peer's daughter was found to answer.