Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/105

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These stray extracts can give but a faint idea of the pathetic beauty of the whole poem; of its gust of melodious musical melancholy—which "resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles rain." Haplessly, like so many of its author's best pieces, the story is burdened and drawn out by a lengthy, unneeded "moral" being appended to it.

In "A Child Asleep" are to be found thoughts and similes worthy of the highest poetic parentage; but one idea, "Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do," is scarcely an improvement upon Coleridge's beautiful verse, "My eyes make pictures when they are shut." "The Cry of the Children," and some other splendid pieces gathered into this collection have already received notice; but amid the remainder may be specially pointed out "The Fourfold Aspect," "A Flower in a Letter," "The Cry of the Human," with its terrible opening—