Page:The complete works of Mrs. E. B. Browning (Volume 1).djvu/50

xxxviii In the closing passage of the "Essay on Mind" there may be seen inside the more noticeable change of verse-effect the appeal to a more mystical conception of the theme. The verse-change is but the outward sign of it. Each thought she dwells upon, now, is inhabited, as it were, by a suggestive light. Her love for her own dear land, into which she flings herself with an unaffected personal realism reflected instantly upon the artificial verse, is deepened with the advance of her thought towards a wider patriotism for Græcia, as her "other country, the country of my soul." And in the flaming torch of a passage that follows, she imparts vaguely to the storied Greek enthusiasm for liberty a far wider-wheeling influence, sweeping minds of unknown countries and days yet to come within its unitary flow. Byron, whose death for Greece she next celebrates, is a link in this golden chain of dauntless souls with which she would wind about in brotherhood the times and lands she sings. Finally, she glorifies in the human mind capable of the unrewarding deeds of history and feats of intellectual or artistic accomplishment, a continuing life, in face of earthly death, "on mind's lone shore." Famous graves, and names, and words, she concludes in her last paragraph, are but the footprints of this mystical body of mind.

It is beyond her poetic powers, as yet, to make her pathway light with the light irresistible. It is to be followed feelingly. But there is no groping or fumbling, no mistaking the fact that this girl-sprite is flitting guidingly through the woods of contemplative idealism, and beckoning with airy fingers that promise the highest potency of poetic insight.

The "Song," before singled out, is but a lyric