Page:The complete works of Mrs. E. B. Browning (Volume 1).djvu/51

Rh trifle, not to be made too much of for its frailty's sake, although conspicuously happy in spontaneity and the fitness of its parts; but the balance of "sorrow" in the first two stanzas with the twin-pair following devoted to "joy" makes it not merely a tiny cameo of artistic cut, but a little living thing with movement in it and a shining glance toward an eye of inward meaning. These qualities do not belong to the merely imitative lyrist.

"The Dream," "The Tempest," and "The Vision of Death" are kindred pieces touching, like the conclusion of the "Essay," upon the meaning of death to the soul not only of the single life of a human being, but to the soul of the historic or the cosmos-girt life of social humanity. In them are to be seen the breadth and fire of a lyrical brain getting hold of gifts of sight and poetic modes peculiar to itself.

Like "The Vision of Life and Death," the "Vision of Fame" is couched in the free ballad form which belongs to many of the popular poems of the succeeding volumes. They mark the cut adrift from pseudo-classicism and the swing into a current more congenial with her essentially modern trend of thought. The "Vision of Fame" reveals something of the quaint image-finding faculty and the siren music with which she renders her mystical meanings alluring; but it is especially interesting as a sort of understudy for a riper poem, "A Vision of Poets," one of the shining shafts bringing fame to her feet, later, in London.

The air of "The Seraphim" is rare, almost too lofty for mortal breath. The subject was a daring one, as this wise young poet knew and said better than any of her critics,—a subject almost beyond human