Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/31





And if we think we sadden—thought and grief Are vowed companions:—while we turn the leaf It darkens, for the brilliant is the brief. ***** Our better nature pineth,—let it be! Thou human soul,—earth is no home for thee; Thy starry rest is in eternity!"

 

's longer poems consist of the volumes entitled "The Improvvisatrice," "the Troubadour," "The Golden Violet," "The Venetian Bracelet," and "The Vow of the Peacock." To these may be added, as longer than her general miscellaneous pieces, "The Zenana," contained in the "Drawing room Scrap Book for 1834," "Erinna," in the volume of "The Golden Violet," "The History of the Lyre," and the dramatic sketch of "The Ancestors," in the volume of "The Venetian Bracelet;" together with a small volume of Sacred Poetry, "The Easter Offering." Many pages also are bright with the beauty of her minor poems; minor only on account of their comparative shortness.

We do not intend now to analyze each of these poems separately, or to compare their respective merits, but to give the result of our own analysis of the whole; and by some illustrative quotations to establish the truth of an estimate which assigns to L. E. L. the essential characteristics of genius.

The component elements of poetical genius are many and various. Its very soul is the power of invention,—a power resulting from that combination of the pre-existing faculties of imagination, memory