Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/63

Rh self-references mixed with their idealities. "Love," the Lyre's historian sings— "Love, which can resign Its own best happiness for one dear sake, Can bear with absence—hath no part in hope, For hope is somewhat selfish, love is not, And doth prefer another to itself."

Of such is the volume composed. The miscellaneous poems comprise many fine ones, and among them a tender and spirited dramatic scene. "Sometimes," sighs the poet over the song as she pours it forth— "I look round with vain regret, And think I will re-string my lute, and nerve My woman's hand for nobler enterprise; But the day never comes. Alas! we make A ladder of our thoughts where angels step, But sleep ourselves at the foot. Our high resolves Look down upon our slumbering acts."

Altogether, her poetry, up to this period, was too like the stream described in this volume— "A noble stream, which, unconfined, Makes fertile its rich banks, and glads the face Of nature round; but not so when its wave Is lost in artificial waterfalls And sparkling eddies; or cooped up to make The useless fountain of a palace-hall."

Writing verses was to her but a labour of love, if labour in any sense it could be called; it was far less irksome to her to compose a poem than to sit idle; and as she rarely looked about for choice subjects, but seized on those that first occurred to her, so she never waited for the "poetic fit," the "happy moment," but sat down to her desk in any mood, careless or solemn. Thus, it is not surprising that she was continually repeating herself in stanzas on memory and hope, and love and