Page:The complete works of Mrs. E. B. Browning (Volume 1).djvu/55

Rh soul is knit with every other in a unity, God-sanctioned.

The story is unfolded in a narrative ballad-form curiously reminiscent of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," yet free of it, following a more varied strophe with richer internal rhyme-effects. It belongs to the totally modern class of symbolic ballads, of which "The Ancient Mariner" is one of the first but not of the purest of types.

These two original mystical pieces, opening the volume of 1838, which our poet would like her public to reckon as her first serious independent work, are happily, as it seems to us, included in the first volume of this edition, because they combine with the Juvenilia to show the wide range of her early poetic tastes and sympathies.

Greek and Gothic culture alike fed the sources of her imagination, and in the early work and in "The Seraphim" and "The Poet's Vow" these twin fountain-heads appear. The Hellenic fire and glory of the will to live among men, to be free and nobly active, nourished the political interests that are the core of substance in her work. The Christian essence, sweetening and controlling aspiration to a loving human service patiently waiting upon incompletion, animated her subtle lyrical symbolism.

These two streams flowing out of the life of the past to yield her genius tribute are blent more perfectly in her later work. There they are poured forth in a new poetic wine distinguished for body and bouquet both.

Charlotte Porter. Helen A. Clarke.