Chapter VI (1)

"O virtue! gift of God! grace divine! it is thou
that givest the saintly and sublime inspirations of
devotion, that trample down vice, that elevate above all
feebleness and all obstacles."
ANONYMOUS.

When Robert realized that he had no longer a protector or friend he was plunged into the depths of despair, but it was not for the miserable consideration of interest, which too often possesses humanity, that he was so full of regret; it was for the wise and virtuous man that he mourned, for the loss of his sweet and persuasive language, and his tender and eloquent words, and his indescribable air of goodness, united to his pure life, which won all hearts, as a tender and delicate flower attracts and ravishes by its perfume. Stranger to all that was passing around him, shut up in his sorrows, made an orphan once more, Robert had still the happy consciousness of having fulfilled all his duties to his benefactor. He awakened from his lethargy at the sound of the first shovel of earth that fell on the coffin of his, beloved curé. The awakening was frightful. The tears and sobs he heard around him from the crowd of poor children and unfortunate ones, of every degree, whom he had benefited during his too short career, recalled with violence to his heart the sad reality. Another sincere mourner for the curé was his faithful old housekeeper, who, when she went in to take her last look of the venerable man, saw Robert standing there in silence and sorrow, and she felt that she, like him, was alone in the world, and suffered the same sorrow he did. But his grief and his loss, bitter as it was, was not as fatal for his advancement as might be supposed. His soul was too strongly fortified with the blessing of religion to allow him to be long discouraged. And when he could for a moment forget his losses, he would look to the future, and dare to hope, that although deprived one by one of his protectors, the path to success was still open to him. Madame Gaudin had most bitter thoughts. She was now getting along in years, being near fifty, and her age would be a barrier to her finding a home where the work would be light, so that she could live without spending her hard earned money. From her own personal thoughts she passed to another subject of solicitude--the future of Robert. If she had not felt any very strong interest in the fate of her master's _protégé_, {834} she was too compassionate a woman not to pity this child, who had been the object of his tender care. She thought of how the saintly man had praised the intelligence and amiable qualities of Robert, and repeated his favorite words: "This child will be something one day." Moved by these remembrances, she thought she heard him tell her to watch over the orphan. Submission and respect for all the orders she received was a habit with her, and she had been accustomed to obey with such exactitude, that she took for reality the illusion of her heart, and resolved to obey the inspired voice, and replace, if possible, the charitable man who had adopted Robert. This resolution once made, she thought of nothing but executing it. Going to Robert, she said, "I know, my young friend, you are thinking of some way of gaining a living for yourself. We can live together, and it will be better for us both, and we shall each have some one to take care of us. I will try to get lodgings and work, and you can be with me when not at your work, and God will assist us. Unfortunately you will be obliged to give up your studies for the present, which is my greatest grief; but we will not lose courage, for I feel sure that, sooner or later, God will give you another proof of his goodness. Your penmanship, which is so beautiful, you can make useful and by it earn money. I will go at once and find us a lodging, and will be entirely the gainer by the arrangement, for I shall have for company a good child, who will be like a son; won't he?" Madame Gaudin half smiled at her project, half cried when she repeated the name of the curé, then said, "Yes! yes! I am sure he inspires me to do this, he inspires me with an interest for this child, whom he loved above everything else." Some days after they were fixed in a small lodging in the rue des Fosses, St. Germain. She bought a bed for Robert, and he obtained a situation at twenty-five francs a month. A year passed in this way, without anything at all remarkable happening. Madame Gaudin worked, took care of things, and sang Robert's praises to all. After he had conscientiously finished the day to the profit of his employer, he returned to his lodgings, took his supper, and attended in the evenings a gratuitous course of drawing lessons. This art, for which he felt each day a more and more decided taste, made him forget for a time his past delightful life of study, which had opened to his dazzled eyes the book with golden leaves, which had as suddenly closed to his inexpressible regret. As time wore on, Madame Gaudin's attachment for Robert increased so much, that she almost believed he was her son; and well did he merit it all, for he respected her sincerely, and was most grateful for all she did for him. Whenever he was out at night, she would await his return with the greatest impatience, and was perfectly happy when she could be near him while he was reading, writing, or drawing; which latter employed most of his leisure hours. He imitated with great care the models given him, and would have passed the entire night working at them, but that Madame Gaudin sweetly forced him to lay them aside and go to bed.

Robert had now reached his sixteenth year, and his salary was increased to forty francs a month, which gave him great joy, as well as Madame Gaudin, though she thought that his merit was not yet remunerated enough, notwithstanding it was a good opening for him to another career. Some days after he had received this mark of the satisfaction his good conduct had given, his employer handed him a letter, with an express recommendation to a celebrated painter, and asked him to take it to his studio, and wait for an answer.

Arriving there, he introduced himself into the studio where the artist sat at his work. He laid down his palette, and when he had finished reading the letter that was handed him, he saw to his great surprise the young messenger absorbed before the picture that was on his easel. After considering {835} him far a few moments in silence, he asked him several questions, to which Robert replied with an emotion and an accent that revealed to the painter the inspiration of his soul. The most striking features of his face were his large and spiritual eyes, and his broad open forehead, on which thought sat enthroned. The artist was so charmed with his agreeable exterior, his frank and expressive language, that he inquired with interest what he was doing, who were his family, and what were his projects for the future. Robert satisfied all these questions, which were asked in a benevolent tone, by the recital of his childhood, of the loss of his mother, of his studies, interrupted by the death of his benefactors, and finished by telling his actual position, his love for drawing, and his ardent desire to come to him to study painting. "Well, you can came, my boy," said the painter; "but if you should succeed one day, can you hide from yourself the bitter deceptions which are the sad shadow of glory and renown? Yet why should I frighten you and inspire you with fear, when you trust so implicitly in the future? You can only hope. This word is all-powerful, and with your ideas and wishes you can crush under your feet every obstacle you wish to surmount. From this day consider yourself my pupil, and I doubt not you will do me credit. I will write the answer to the letter you brought me, and tell your employer at the same time that you belong to me now." Robert really thought he was dreaming, and was afraid to stir for fear his castle would fall, until the painter put the letter he was to take into his hand, and said, "Came back to-morrow."

He ran all the way, and stopped almost breathless before the door of Madame Gaudin, opened it hastily, and threw himself into her arms in an ecstacy of delight. "What is it?" she exclaimed, "what has happened you? I know it is something good" Her eyes were so eloquent with curiosity that he at once commenced to tell her, and related, without omitting a single word, the recent conversation which he had with the celebrated painter, and his promise to take him as a scholar. This unexpected event had filled him with such delight, that he entirely forgot the letter that was entrusted to him, but immediately set out to deliver it. Contentment gave him wings, and he was delirious with joy when he pressed against his breast the letter which was the bond of his liberty and his deliverance; and without regret he bade an eternal farewell to his former insipid labor, though his heart beat as he gave it to his employer, and as he stood waiting for him to read it, the minutes were like years. At last he raised his eyes, and said, "So you are to leave me, Robert; I am sorry, for I like you, much, and I shall not soon fill your place; still I cannot stand in the way of your promotion." Robert's happiness knew no bounds, and he returned and dreamed the sweetest dreams that ever came to childhood's pillow. From this time his life of struggle and of real work commenced. Until now he had lived almost alone, far from the world and its attractions, and ignorant of all wickedness. When he finds himself face to face with life's realities, he is like one shipwrecked. He was taken by his new master into the studio, and presented to the other scholars. Thrown like a timid lamb into this flock, he found they had no respect for sacred things, and his innocence and candor were cruelly railed at, his virtue rudely spoken of, and his religion turned into ridicule; and then sometimes, under the pretext of friendship, they would try to make him take part in their noisy revels. But he always refused, never forgetting that his mother had told him to seek the old and wise for advice, and to avoid the company of wicked young men. This enabled him to resist courageously the deceitful pleasures produced by licentiousness and debaucheries. To his pure mind nothing was so delightful as the home friendship, the kindness and the sweet counsels he had with Madame Gaudin. {836} Then he made excursions in the neighborhood of Paris, where he found nature in all her beautiful simplicity; he breathed the pure country air, and made sketches of the surrounding scenery. In a word, he was entirely occupied with his art, and it was his true enjoyment. The amusement and excesses of gayety, which ordinarily delight the young, had for him no charm; and he repulsed with horror the poisoned cup to which so many open eager lips. My dear young friends, if you only knew what this bitter cup contained, you would all dash it, far from you, for in drinking it to the dregs, you will sometimes find crime, always remorse, a weariness of all things, and a premature old age.

Robert was spared from falling into the snares which are set to allure youth, which blessing can only be attributed to the pious education he had received. First impressions are never effaced, they take deep root in a child's heart, and if good, become the fruitful germs of many virtues; if they are bad, they are the source from which vice and passion flow. In his tender years Robert had loved God and his works; later, when the good curé had revealed to him the sublimity of religion, the orphan was penetrated with a great love for that God who is goodness itself; and when reason and experience confirmed all which his mother and his protector had taught him, he believed more firmly still, and found in all nature visible proofs of the grandeur and power manifested by the Sovereign Ruler of the universe. When his companions were convinced that they could not make him one of their band of idlers, they let him alone, and treated him with the most contemptuous indifference, which was a great happiness to him, for he was no longer disturbed in his studies, and applied himself with such ardor and perseverance that his master was enchanted with his progress, and prodigal of his praises and encouragement, his counsels and lessons; and aided to the utmost of his ability this rare talent, which only demanded for its perfection aid and good direction. Not a day passed without his looking over Robert's studies, correcting them, and stimulating the generous emulation of the young artist. Robert proved his gratitude by his devotion to his studies, and if on the one hand the master was proud of his pupil, on the other so sincere, exalted, and just was his respect for him, that he would have considered it but a small sacrifice to have given his life for a man who was so liberal of his time and knowledge to him. This tribute which his warm heart gave so willingly, was not the only one Robert received. Madame Gaudin made a duty of continuing the charitable work of the Abbé Verneuil, who had shown so sublime and disinterested an affection for Robert. She spent without regret the sayings of twenty years, and, although an old woman, she worked like a young girl, inventing the most ingenious means for hiding the sacrifices she was obliged to make. She exhausted herself by her labor; but she loved Robert, and said, with a just pride, "He will be a great painter, and will repay me a thousand times for all I do for him now. What is a little trouble? Fatigue soon passes over. I am only an old woman, and have no need of anything, but he is so young, so good and easily contented, that if he only has air and sunshine he is happy. He never spends a cent improperly, and is economical, charitable, and polite. I could not love him more if I were his mother; and all I ask of God is, that he will spare me yet a while, that I may work for him." Robert had not the least idea of the expedients she employed for dissimulating the privations she each day imposed upon herself, but he worked with devouring energy night and day, and nothing is a trouble to him, nothing a fatigue, which brings him nearer to that glorious end, an artist! a true, soul-inspired artist! But material life and its necessities must be provided for; yet he thinks not of privations, so {837} completely is he fascinated with art and dreams of fame. It soon became difficult for Madame Gaudin to hide from Robert her almost penniless position, which was all the harder because of her excessive tenderness and love for him. She seemed to have but one thought, and that was to spare him all trouble. The courage of women has its source in the heart, and if they have love as an incentive, they can accomplish ends that place them far above men. So she kept from Robert the knowledge of the obligation he was under to her, and for three years struggled with energy and constancy to give the young painter, not only the necessaries, but also an appearance of luxuries, which deceived him to the last degree. Up to this time her heroic courage was the same, but her health failed suddenly, and religion alone sustained her, with a firm and consoling hand, when misfortunes came. Robert also needed it to keep up his spirits, for he felt a keen anguish when he saw her extended on a bed of pain; but his faith gave him supernatural strength, and he struggled victoriously with poverty, abandoning for a time his loved art to attend to the smallest details of material life, dividing his time between the sick friend whom he surrounded with delicacies, and upon whom he lavished his tenderest care, and work; monotonous, but productive work; and with his money he procured remedies which he hoped would bring back her health who had done so much for him. In this hour of trial he never despaired, and spent sixteen hours out of the twenty-four often in copying miserable and ill-drawn pictures, and all for a salary. But he would exclaim, "I will be an artist." He returned sacrifice for sacrifice, and while Madame Gaudin was in danger, he had not a moment of repose, and only found calmness and tranquillity when convalescence came. The _rôles_ were changed. The protector became the protected; the kind guardian of the orphan became the object of his earnest solicitude. He became a man during her sickness; rendering her the attentions of a devoted son, and providing for the expenses of the household. Brought down from his fairy land of dreams by the realities of life, he is neither less amiable nor less good, but stronger, braver, more faithful than ever. The wings of the child have been folded; he is only a man, that is all.

------

From All the Year Round.

"INCONSOLABILE."

I am waiting on the margin
Of the dark, cold, rushing tide;
All I love have passed before me,
And have reached the other side:
Only unto me a passage
Through the waters is denied.

Mist and gloom o'erhang the river,
Gloom and mist the landscape veil.
Straining for the shores of promise,
Sight and hope and feeling fail.
Not a sigh, a breath, a motion,
Answers to my feeble wail.

{838}

Surely they have all forgot me
'Mid the wonders they have found
In the far enchanted mansions;
Out of heart and sight and sound,
Here I sit, like Judah's daughters,
Desolate upon the ground.

Strangers' feet the stream are stemming,
Stranger faces pass me by,
Willing some, and some reluctant,
All have leave to cross but I--
I, the hopeless, all bereaved,
Loathing life, that long to die!

Be the river ne'er so turbid,
Chill and angry, deep and drear,
All my loved ones are gone over,
Daunted not by doubt or fear;
And my spirit reaches after,
While I sit lamenting here.

Happy waters that embraced them,
Happier regions hid from sight,
Where my keen, far-stretching vision,
Dazed and baffled, lost them quite.
Dread, immeasurable distance
'Twixt the darkness and the light!

And I know that never, never,
Till this weak, repining breast
Still its murmurs into patience,
Yonder from the region blest
Shall there break a streak of radiance,
And upon the river rest.

I shall hail the mystic token
Bright'ning all the waters o'er,
Struggle through the threat'ning torrent
Till I reach the further shore;
Wonder then, my blind eyes opened,
That I had not trusted more.

------

{839}

ORIGINAL.

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI. [Footnote 241]

[Footnote 241: _Poems_, by Christina G. Rossetti. Boston: Roberts,
Brothers. 1866.]

We had heard some little of Miss Rossetti, in a superficial way, before reading this her book. Various verses of hers had met our eye in print, and if they themselves left no very decided mark upon the memory, yet we had the firm impression, somehow, that she was one more of the rising school of poets. Accordingly we thought it well to take a retrospect of a few post-Tennysonians--Mrs. Browning, Owen Meredith, Robert Buchanan, Jean Ingelow, and so on--supposed fellow disciples--so as to be tolerably sure of ranking the new-comer rightly. On reading this volume, we find our labor lost through an entirely unforeseen circumstance. Unfortunately, it does not appear that Miss Rossetti is a poetess at all. That there are people who think her one, we infer from the fact that this is in some sort a third edition; why they think so, we are at a loss to see. The book will not answer a single test of poetry. The authoress's best claim to consideration is, that she sincerely, persistently, fervently _means_ to be a poetess. Only the most Demosthenian resolve could have kept her writing in face of her many inherent unfitnesses. For imagination, she offers fantasy; for sentiment, sentimentality; for aspiration, ambition; for originality and thought, little or nothing; for melody, fantastic janglings of words; and these, with all tenderness for the ill-starred intensity of purpose that could fetch them so far, are no more poetry than the industrious Virginian colonists' shiploads of mica were gold.

The first cursory impression of this book would be, we think, that its cardinal axiom was "Poetry is versified plaintiveness." The amount of melancholy is simply overwhelming. There is a forty-twilight power of sombreness everywhere. Now, criticism has taken principles, not statistics, to be its province; but we could not resist the temptation to take a little measurement of all this mournfulness. Limiting our census strictly to the utterly irretrievable and totally wrecked poems, with not a glimmering of reassurance, we found no less than forty-nine sadnesses, all the way from shadow to unutterable blackness--"_nfernam Iumbram noctemque perennem_." There is the sadness decadent, the sadness senescent, the sadness bereft, the sadness despondent, the sadness weary, the sadness despairing, the sadness simply sad, the grand sadness ineffable, and above and pervading all, the sadness rhapsodical. They are all there. Old Burton will rise from his grave, if there be any virtue in Pythagoreanism, to anatomize these poems. What it is all about is strictly a secret, and laudably well kept; which gives to the various sorrows that touching effect peculiar to the wailings of unseen babies from unascertained ailments. So sustained is the grief, indeed, that after protracted poring, we hang in abeyance between two conclusions. One is that Miss Rossetti, outside of print, is the merriest mortal in the United Kingdom; the other, that her health is worse than precarious. That one or the other must be right, we know. There is no other horn to the dilemma, no _tertiary quiddity_, no choice, no middle ground between hilarity and dyspepsia.

Perhaps the reader can judge for himself from these lines, which are a not unfair sample:

{840}

"MAY.

I cannot tell you how it was;
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and breezy day,
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born,
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last eggs had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.
I cannot tell you what it was;
But this I know: it did put pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
With all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old and cold and gray."

We may be very unappreciative, and probably are sinfully suspicious, but the above sounded at the first and sounds at the present reading, exactly like a riddle. We certainly don't know how it was nor what it was. There is a shadowy clue in its passing away with sunny May, but we are far too cautious to hazard a guess. If there be any conundrum intended, all we have to say is, we give it up.

We do but justice, however, in saying that amid much mere lugubriousness there is some real and respectable sadness. The following, in spite of' the queer English in its first lines, sounds genuine, and is moreover, for a rarity of rarities, in well-chosen and not ill-managed metre:

"I have a room whereinto no one enters
Save I myself alone:
There sits a blessed memory on a throne,
There my life centres.

While winter comes and goes-Oh! tedious comer!
And while its nip-wind blows;
While bloom the bloodless lily and warm rose
Of lavish summer;

If any should force entrance he might see there
One buried, yet not dead,
Before whose face I no more bow my head
Or (_sic_) bend my knee there;

But often in my worn life's autumn weather
I watch there with clear eyes,
And think how it will be in Paradise
When we're together."

Here is one of a trite topic--nearly all the good things in this book are on themes as old as moonlight--but with a certain mournful richness, like autumn woods:

"Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet
To shut our eyes and die:
Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by
With flitting butterfly;
Nor grass grow long above our head and feet,
Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high,
Nor sigh that spring is fleet, and summer fleet,
Nor mark the waxing wheat,
Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.

Life is not good. One day it will be good
To die, then live again;
To sleep meanwhile: so not to feel the wane
Of shrunk leaves dropping in the wood,
Nor hear the foamy lashing of the main,
Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor where stood
Rich ranks of golden grain,
Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain:
Asleep from risk, asleep from pain."

This is one of her best poems in point of style. The "waxing wheat" we are just a shade doubtful about; but the mellowness of the diction is much to our liking, and it is unmarred by any of the breaks of strange ill taste that flaw nearly all these poems. If not poetry nor novelty, at least we find it sadly agreeable verse.

Our professor of rhetoric once astonished his class by a heterodoxy, which we have since thought sound as well as neat. "Walter Scott," said he, "writes verse as well as a man can write and not be a poet." We are sorry we cannot say as much for Miss Rossetti; she has considerable faults as a writer. The chief of these has elsewhere been carped at--her laborious style of' being simple. The true simplicity of poets is not a masterly artifice, but a natural and invariable product where high poetic and expressive powers combine. The best thought is always simple, because, it deals only with the essences of things: the best expression--the machinery of thought--is simple, just as the best of any other machinery is. But the grand, obvious fact to the many is that the best poetry is admired for being simple. Writing for this market, Miss Rossetti and unnumbered others have more or less successfully attempted to achieve this crowning beauty of style by various processes that are to the inspiration of' real simplicity as patent medicines to vigorous vitality. Almost all hold the immutable conviction that Saxon words are an infallible recipe for the indispensable brevity. Accordingly the usual process is by an elaborate application of' Saxon--if rather recondite or even verging on the obsolete, so much the more efficacious--to a few random ideas. Of course, with such painful workmanship, one must not expect the best material. Original, or even well {841} defined thought seldom thrives in the same hot-house with this super-smoothness. But without pursuing the process into results at large, we have only to take Matthew Arnold's distinction as to Miss Rossetti:--she tries hard for _simplicité_, and achieves _simplesse_. But there is no such thing as hard work without its fruits. This straining after effect crops painfully out in a peculiar baldness and childishness of phrase that is almost original. The woman who can claim The Lambs of Grasmere as her own has not lived in vain. This production, with its pathetic episode of the maternal

"Teapots for the bleating mouths,
Instead of nature's nourishment,"

has already been noticed in print, and duly expanded many visages. We pause rapt in admiration of the deep intuition that could select for song the incident of feeding a sheep with a teapot. It carries us back, in spirit, to the subtle humor and delicate irony of Peter Bell, and We are Seven. What a burst of tenderness ought we to expect, if Miss Rossetti should ever chance to see stable-boys give a horse a bolus! . . . . . We shall not cite examples of this _simplesse_; those who like it will find it purer and more concentrated in the bard of Rydal; or if they must have it, they are safe in opening this book almost anywhere.

Of the individual poems, the two longest, The Goblin Market and The Prince's Progress, are rivals for the distinction of being the worst. All the best poems are short, excepting one, Under the Rose. The story is of an illegitimate daughter, whose noble mother takes her to live with herself at the inevitable Hall, without acknowledging her. There are able touches of nature in the portrayal of the lonely, loving, outlawed, noble heart, that, knowing her mother's secret, resolves never to betray it, even to her. In the following passage, the girl, alone at the castle, as her mother's favorite maid, describes her inner life:

"Now sometimes in a dream,
My heart goes out of me
To build and scheme,
Till I sob after things that seem
So pleasant in a dream:
A home such as I see,
My blessed neighbors live in;
With father and with mother,
_All proud of one another,
Named by one common name;
From baby in the bud
To full-blown workman father;_
It's little short of Heaven.
. . . . .
Of course the servants sneer
Behind my back at me;
Of course the village girls,
Who envy me my curls
And gowns and idleness,
Take comfort in a jeer;
Of course the ladies guess
Just so much of my history
As points the emphatic stress
With which they laud my Lady;

The gentlemen who catch
A casual glimpse of me,
And turn again to see
Their valets, on the watch
To speak a word with me;--
All know, and sting me wild;
Till I am almost ready
To wish that I were dead,--
No faces more to see,
No more words to be said;
My mother safe at last.
Disburdened of her child
And the past past."

The Convent Threshold--the last words of a contrite novice to her lover--has touches of power. There is an unusual force about some parts, as for example here:

"You linger, yet the time is short;
Flee for your life; gird up your strength
To flee; the shadows stretched at length
Show that day wanes, that night draws nigh;
Flee to the mountain, tarry not.
Is this a time for smile and sigh;
For songs among the secret trees
Where sudden blue-birds nest and sport?
The time is short, and yet you stay;
To-day, while it is called to-day,
Kneel, wrestle, knock, do violence, pray;
To-day is short, to-morrow nigh:
Why will you die? why will you die!
. . . . .
How should I rest in Paradise,
Or sit on steps of Heaven alone?
If saints and angels spoke of love,
Should I not answer from my throne,
'Have pity upon me, ye, my friends,
For I have heard the sound thereof?'
Should I not turn with yearning eyes,
Turn earthward with a pitiful pang?
Oh! save me from a pang in heaven!
By all the gifts we took and gave,
Repent, repent, and be forgiven!"

The lines called Sound Sleep, p. 65, we like very well for very slight cause. It says nearly nothing with a pleasant flow of cadence that has the {842} charm of an oasis for the reader. Much better is No, Thank You, John! which strikes into a strain of plain sound sense that we could wish to see much more of. The style, as well as the sense, seems to shuffle off its affectations, and the last two stanzas especially are easy, natural, and neat.

A strange compound of good and bad is the singular one called

"TWICE.

I took my heart in my hand,
O my love, O my love!
I said, "Let me fall or stand,
Let me live or die;
But this once hear me speak,
O my love, O my love!
Yet a woman's words are weak;
You should speak, not I."

You took my heart in your hand,
With a friendly smile,
With a critical eye you scanned,
Then set it down
And said: "It is still unripe--
Better wait a while;
Wait while the skylarks pipe,
Till the corn grows brown."

As you set it down it broke--
Broke, but I did not wince;
I smiled at the speech you spoke,
At your judgment that I heard:
But I have not often smiled
Since then, nor questioned since,
Nor cared for corn-flowers wild,
Nor sung with the singing-bird.

I take my heart in hand,
O my God, O my God!
My broken heart in my hand:
Thou hast seen, judge thou.
My hope was written on sand,
O my God, O my God!
Now let thy judgment stand--
Yea, judge me now.

This, contemned of a man,
This, marred one heedless day,
This heart take thou to scan
Both within and without:
Refine with fire its gold,
Purge thou its dross away;
Yea, hold it in thy hold,
Whence none can pluck it out.

I take my heart in my hand--
I shall not die, but live--
Before thy face I stand,
I, for thou callest such;
All that I have I bring,
All that I am I give,
Smile thou, and I shall sing,
But shall not question much."

This poem, we confess, puzzles us a little to decide upon it. The imitation is palpable at a glance, but it is a very clever one: the first three stanzas above all catch the mannerism of their model to admiration. But the whole, is a copy, at best, of one of the archetype's inferior styles; and yet we fancy we can see, under all the false bedizening, something of poetry in the conception, though it is ill said, and only dimly translucent. There is art, too, in the parallelism of the first and last three verses. But we do not like the refrain in the fourth verse--somehow it jars. Perhaps the best we can say of it is, that Browning, in his mistier moments of convulsiveness, could write worse.

There is another imitation of Browning in this book, that is the most supremely absurd string of rugged platitudes imaginable--Wife to Husband, p. 61. The last verse is sample enough:

"Not a word for you,
Not a look or kiss
Good-by.
We, one, must part in two;
Verily death is this,
I must die."

The metre generally throughout this book is in fact simply execrable. Miss Rossetti cannot write contentedly in any known or human measure. We do not think there are ten poems that are not in some new-fangled shape or shapelessness. With an overweening ambition, she has not the slightest faculty of rhythm. All she has done is to originate some of the most hideous metres that "shake the racked axle of art's rattling car." Attempting not only Browning's metrical dervish-dancings, but Tennyson's exquisite ramblings, she fails in both from an utter want of that fine ear that always guides the latter, and so often strikes out bold beauties in the former. Most of Miss Rossetti's new styles of word-mixture are much like the ingenious individual's invention for enabling right-handed people to write with the left hand--more or less clever ways of doing what she don't wish to do. What possible harmony, for instance, can any one find in this jumble, which, as per the printer, is meant for a "song:"

"There goes the swallow--
Could we but follow!
Hasty swallow, stay,
Point us out the way;
Look back, swallow, turn back, swallow, stop, swallow.

{843}

There went the swallow--
Too late to follow,
Lost our note of way,
Lost our chance to-day.
Good-by, swallow, sunny swallow, wise swallow.

After the swallow--
All sweet things follow;
All things go their way,
Only we must stay,
Must not follow; good-by, swallow, good swallow."

Where on earth is sound or sense in this? Not a suggestion of melody, not a fraction of a coherent idea. People must read such trash as they eat _meringues à la crême_: we never could comprehend either process.

Truth to tell, we have in this book some of the very choicest balderdash that ever was perpetrated; worthy to stand beside even the immortal Owl and Goose of Tennyson. There is a piece at p. 41 which we would give the world to see translated into some foreign language, we have such an intense eagerness to understand it. Its subject, so far as we have got, seems to be the significance of the crocodile, symbolically considered. We glanced over, or rather at it once, and put it by for after reading, thinking the style probably too deep for love at first sight. On the second perusal we fell in with some extraordinary young crocodiles that we must have missed before. They had just been indulged in the luxury of being born, but Miss Rossetti's creative soul, not content with bestowing upon them the bliss of amphibious existence, made perfect their young beauty by showing them "fresh-hatched perhaps, and--_daubed with birthday dew_."

We are strong of head--we recovered from even this--we became of the very select few who can say they have read this thing through. There was a crocodile hero; he had a golden girdle and crown; he wore polished stones; crowns, orbs and sceptres starred his breast (why shouldn't they if they could); "special burnishment adorned his mail;" his punier brethren trembled, whereupon he immediately ate them till "the luscious fat distilled upon his chin," and "exuded from his nostrils and his eyes." He then fell into an anaconda nap, and grew very much smaller in his sleep, till at the approach of a very queer winged vessel (probably a vessel of wrath), "the prudent crocodile rose on his feet and shed appropriate tears (obviously it is the handsome thing for all well-bred crocodiles to cry when a Winged ship comes along) and wrung his hands." As a finale, Miss Rossetti, too nimble for the unwary reader, anticipates his question of "What does it all mean?" and triumphantly replying that she doesn't know herself, but that it was all just so, marches on to the next _monumentum aere perennius_. In the name of the nine muses, we call upon Martin Farquhar Tupper to read this and then die.

There are one or two other things like this _longa intervallo_, but it is reserved for the Devotional Pieces to furnish the only poem that can compete with it in its peculiar line. This antagonist poem is not so sublime an example of sustained effort, but it has the advantage that the rhyme is fully equal to the context. Permit us then to introduce the neat little charade entitled

"AMEN.

It is over. What is over?
Nay, how much is over truly!--
Harvest days we toiled to sow for;
Now the sheaves are gathered newly,
Now the wheat is garnered duly.

It is finished. What is finished?
_Much is finished known or unknown;_
Lives are finished, time diminished;
Was the fallow field left unsown?
Will these buds be always unblown?

It suffices. What suffices?
All suffices reckoned rightly;
Spring shall bloom where now the ice is,
Roses make the bramble sightly,
And the quickening suns shine brightly,
And the latter winds blow lightly,
And my garden teems with spices."

Let now the critic first observe how consummately the mysticism of the charade form is intensified by the sphinx-like answers appended. Next note the novelties in rhyme, The rhythmic chain that links "over" and and "sow for" is the first discovery in the piece, closely rivalled by "ice is" and "spices" in the last verse. But {844} far above all rises the subtle originality of the three rhymes in the second. A thousand literati would have used the rhyming words under the unpoetical rules of ordinary English. Miss Rossetti alone has the courage to inquire "Was the fallow field left _un_sown? Will these buds be always _un_blown?" We really do not think Shakespeare would have been bold enough to do this thus.

But despite this, the religious poems are perhaps the best. They seem at least the most unaffected and sincere, and the healthiest in tone. There are several notably good ones: one, just before the remarkable Amen, in excruciating metre, but well said; one, The Love of Christ which Passeth Knowledge, a strong and imaginative picture of the crucifixion; and Good Friday, a good embodiment of the fervor of attrite repentance. The best written of all is, we think, this one (p. 248):

"WEARY IN WELL-DOING.

I would have gone; God bade me stay;
I would have worked; God bade me rest.
He broke my will from day to day,
He read my yearnings unexpressed
And said them nay.

Now I would stay; God bids me go;
Now I would rest; God bids me work.
He breaks my heart, tossed to and fro,
My soul is wrung with doubts that lurk
And vex it so.

I go, Lord, where thou sendest me;
Day after day, plod and moil:
But Christ my God, when will it be
That I may let alone my toil,
And rest with thee?"

This is good style (no _simplesse_ here) and real pathos--in short; poetry. We do not see a word to wish changed, and the conclusion in particular is excellent: there is a weariness in the very sound of the last lines.

It is remarkable how seldom _thought_ furnishes the motive for these poems. With no lack at all of intelligence, they stand almost devoid of intellect. It is always a sentiment of extraneous suggestion, never a novelty in thought, that inspires our authoress. She seems busier depicting inner life than evolving new truths or beauties. Nor does she abound in suggestive turns of phrase or verbal felicities. In fact, as we have seen, she will go out of her way to achieve the want of ornament. But there is one subject which she has thought out thoroughly, and that subject is death. Whether in respect to the severance of earthly ties, the future state, or the psychical relations subtly linking the living to the dead, she shows on this topic a vigor and vividness, sometimes misdirected, but never wanting. Some of her queer ideas have a charm and a repulsion at once, like ghosts of dead beauty: _e.g._ this strange sonnet:

"AFTER DEATH.

The curtains were half-drawn, the floor was swept
And strewn with rushes; rosemary and may
Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.
He leaned above me, thinking that I slept
And could not hear him; but I heard him say,
"Poor child, poor child!" and as he turned away
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept;
He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head;
He did not love me living, but once dead
He pitied me, and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm though I am cold."

There is some _chiaro-oscuro_ about this. Under all the ghastliness of the conception, we detect here a deep, genuine, unhoping, intensely human yearning, that is all the better drawn for being thrown into the shadow. We do not know of a more graphic realization of death. Miss Rossetti seems to be lucky with her sonnets. We give the companion piece to this last--not so striking as the other, but full of heart's love, and ending with one of the few passages we recall which enter without profaning the penetralia of that highest love, which passionately prefers the welfare of the beloved one to its own natural cravings for fruition and fulfilment:

"REMEMBER.

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you no more can hold me by the hand
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you planned;
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray,
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve;
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had.
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

{845}

Another marked peculiarity often shadowed forth is our authoress's sharply defined idea that the dead lie simply quiescent, neither in joy nor sorrow. There are several miserable failures to express this state, and one success, so simple, so natural, and so pleasant in measure, that we quote it, though we have seen it cited before:

"When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress-tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dew-drops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows;
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on as if in pain;
And dreaming through that twilight
That doth not rise not set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget."

Such bold insight into so profound a subject says more for the soul of an author than a whole miss's paradise of prettinesses.

In singular contrast with this religious fervency and earnestness, the sincerity of which we see no reason to impeach, comes our gravest point of reprehension of this volume. We think it fairly chargeable with utterances--and reticences--of morally dangerous tendency; and this, too, mainly on a strange point for a poetess to be cavilled at--the rather delicate subject of our erring sisters. Now, we are of those who think the world, as to this matter, in a state little better than barbarism; that far from feeling the first instincts of Christian charity, we are shamefully like the cattle that gore the sick ox from the herd. The only utterly pitiless power in human life is our virtue, when brought face to face with this particular vice. We hunt the fallen down; hunt them to den and lair; hunt them to darkness, desperation, and death; hunt their bodies from earth, and their souls (if we can) from heaven, with the cold sword in one hand, and in the other the cross of him who came into the world to save, not saints, but sinners, and who said to one of these: "Neither do I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more."

But there is also such a thing as misdirected mercifulness; a dangerous lenity, all the more to be guarded against for its wearing the garb of charity; and we think Miss Rossetti has leaned culpably far in this direction. Two poems are especially prominent examples--Cousin Kate, and Sister Maude. In each the heroine has sinned, and suffered the penalties of discovery, and in each she is given the upper hand, and made a candidate for sympathy, for very bad reasons. There is no word to intimate that there is anything so very dreadful about dishonor; that it may not be some one else's fault, or nobody's fault at all--a mere social accident. A few faint hinting touches there may be of conventional condemnation, but somehow Miss Rossetti's sinners, _as sinners_, invariably have the best of the argument and of the situation, while virtue is, put systematically in the wrong, and snubbed generally. The Goblin Market too, if we read it aright, is open to the same criticism. We understand it, namely, to symbolize the conflict of the better nature in us, with the prompting of the passions and senses. If so, what is the story translated from its emblematic form? One sister yields; the other by seeming to yield, saves her. Again there is not a syllable to show that the yielding was at all wrong in itself. A cautious human regard for consequences is the grand motive appealed to for withstanding temptation. Lizzie tells Laura, not that the goblin's bargain is an evil deed in the sight of God, but that Jennie waned and died of their toothsome poisons. She saves her by going just so far as she safely can. What, if anything, is the moral of all this? Not "resist the devil and he will flee from you," but "cheat the devil, and he won't catch you." Now, all these sayings and silences are gravely wrong and false to a writer's true functions. With all deference then, and fully feeling that we may mistake, or misconstrue, we sincerely submit that some of these poems go inexcusably beyond the bounds of that strict moral {846} right, which every writer who hopes ever to wield influence ought to keep steadily, and sacredly in view. We are emboldened to speak thus plainly, because we have some reason to believe that these things have grated on other sensibilities than our own, and that our stricture embodies a considerable portion of cultivated public opinion.

In conclusion, we repeat our first expressed opinion, that Miss Rossetti is not yet entitled to take a place among today's poets. The question remains, whether she ever will. We do not think this book of hers settles this question. [Greek text], she has done nothing in poetry yet of any consequence. These verses may be as well as she can do. They contain poetical passages of merit and promise, but they show also a defectiveness of versification, a falseness of ear, and occasionally a degree of affectation and triviality that, we can only hope, are not characteristic. To borrow a little of the style and technology of a sister branch of thought, the case, as now presented, can be accounted for as in essence a simple attack of the old and well-known endemic, _cacaethes scribendi_. Probably it befell her at the usual early age. Only instead of the run of gushing girls, we have Dante Gabriel Rossetti's sister, Jean lngelow's intimate friend, and a young lady of intelligence and education, constantly in contact with real literary society, and--what is thoroughly evident in this book--read in our best poets. Add all these complicating symptoms, and is there not something plausible about the diagnosis? We do not say, observe, and do not mean to say, that this is Miss Rossetti's case; only all she has done so far seems explicable on this hypothesis. For ourselves, we lean to the view that she will do more. We judge hers a strong, sensuous, impulsive, earnest, inconsiderate nature, that sympathizes well, feels finely, keeps true to itself at bottom, but does not pause to make sure that others must, as well as may, enter into the spirit that underlies her utterances, and so buries her meaning sometimes beyond Champollion's own powers of deciphering. But her next book must determine how much is to be ascribed to talent, and how much to practice and good models; and show us whether genius or gilt edges separate her from the [Greek text].

--------

ORIGINAL.

THE TEST.

She stands with head demurely bent,
A village maiden, young and comely,
And he beside her, talking low
And earnestly, is Lord of Bromleigh.

"Now raise thine eyes, and look at me,
And place thy little hand in mine,
And tell me thou my bride will be,
And I and Bromleigh shall be thine;
In richest silks thou shalt be drest--
Have diamonds flashing on each hand,
And in all splendor shalt outshine
The proudest lady in the land.

{847}

On softest carpets thou shalt tread,
On velvet cushions shalt recline;
Whatever is most rich and rare
That thou mayst wish for shall be thine."

"I do not covet silk attire,
Nor glittering gold, nor flashing gem;
There is no longing in my heart
To change my simple dress for them.
A village maiden I was born--
A Village maiden I was bred--
A happy life for eighteen years
In that low station I have led.
How do I know if I should change
My state for one so high, but then
The world might change, and never be
The thing it is to me again;
But from the field, and from the sky,
The glory and the joy would go;
The greenness from the meadow grass,
The beauty from all flowers that blow;
The sweetness from the breath of spring,
The music from the skylark's song:
Content, and all sweet thoughts that bring
A gladness to me all day long?"