Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/93

Rh implies of saddest and sweetest to both of us, it would become neither of us to speak before the world; nor would it be possible for us to speak of it to one another with voices that did not falter. Enough that what is in my heart when I write thus will be fully known to yours.

And my desire is that you, who are a witness how if this art of poetry had been a less earnest object to me, it must have fallen from exhausted hands before this day—that you, who have shared with mo in things bitter and sweet, softening or enhancing them, every day—that you, who hold with me over all sense of loss and transiency, one hope by one name—may accept from me the inscription of these volumes, the exponents of a few years of an existence which has been sustained and comforted by you as well as given. Somewhat more faint-hearted than I used to be, it is my fancy thus to seem to return to a visible personal dependence on you, as if indeed I were a child again; to conjure your beloved image between myself and the public, so as to be sure of one smile—and to satisfy my heart while I satisfy my ambition, by associating with the great pursuit of my life its tenderest and holiest affection.

Her Dedication was followed by a lengthy Preface, which was to no small extent a criticism on her own collection, especially on the chief poem in it. After stating that the collection now offered to the public consisted of poems written since the publication of the Seraphim volume, and which were now, with a few exceptions, printed for the first time, she refers to the "Drama of Exile," the initial piece, "as the longest and most important work (to me!) which I have ever trusted into the current of publication."

The theme of the "Drama of Exile" is so daring, and the execution, despite innumerable faults, so excellent, that either condemnation or praise is hard to award. The great defect in what the poetess intended should be her masterpiece is that—notwithstanding the introduction of Adam and Eve, and the self-sacrificing love of the latter for her partner in sorrow—it is almost entirely devoid of human interest. Admiration is frequently compelled by bursts of true lyrical beauty,