Page:Facts and Fancies about Our "Son of the Woods", Henry Clarence Kendall and his Poetry (IA factsfanciesabou00hami).pdf/38

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That a sad spirit breathes through most of Kendall's writings, from the earliest to the latest, cannot be denied. Sometimes it is a vague yearning after something indefinable, as in "Mountains":

"Yearning for a bliss unworldly, Yearning for a brighter change, Yearning for the mystic Aidenn Out beyond the mountain range."

Sometimes it is because of the "faithless face of Rose." Here it may be mentioned that his mother attributed the misfortunes of his later life to a disappointment in love, which impression she expresses in verse:

"Then came to his heart a great first love, Which could never be conquered by time, Hence his muse was oft draped in sadness, And he wore it sometimes in his rhyme.

A first disappointment is bitter, And may bring in its train many woes, Though it seems but a trifling matter, To be baulked in just plucking a rose.

However that may be, the name of Rose is more than once introduced to the readers of his poems, and in Rose Lorraine he writes:

"No woman lives with power to burst My passion's bonds and set me free, For Rose is last where Rose was first, And only Rose is fair to me."