Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/27

 It is too easy to sneer; let us do it justice. There is no poem in the language which has been spoken so often above an open grave, none which has brought so much consolation to stricken hearts. There is about it a calm certainty of faith, a serene courage, infinitely inspiriting. The persistent repetition of the phrase, "There is no death!" is in itself reassuring. It is, in fact, a very concrete application of the method of autosuggestion. Its simple and homely lines are intelligible to every one and echo a thought and a hope which are all but universal. It is a defiance and a challenge. Surely any man might well be proud to have written such a poem!

So perhaps the question of its authorship is not so unimportant after all. At any rate, it forms one of those curiosities of literature which are always interesting; and the whole story is here told, so far as the present writer knows, for the first time.

Three or four decades ago, Bulwer was one of the most popular of poets. His verses combined in an unusual degree the universally appealing qualities listed above, with the added zest of a certain spiciness. No drawing-room table was complete without "Lucille," usually gilt-edged and in padded leather; indeed, it is still to be bought in that form. Maidens and matrons were enraptured with the sad romance