always wish, in reading my favourite poets, to know what first suggested my favourite poems. Few things would be more interesting than to know under what circumstances they were composed,—how much of individual sentiment there was in each, or how, on some incident seemingly even opposed, they had contrived to ingraft their own associations. What a history of the heart would such annals reveal! Every poem is in itself an impulse.
Besides the ideal and the picturesque, Mrs. Hemans is distinguished by her harmony. I use the word harmony advisedly, in contradistinction to melody. Melody implies something more careless, more simple, than belongs to her style: it is song by snatches; our English ballads are remarkable for it. To quote an instance or two. There is a verse in that of "Yarrow Water:"—
"O wind that wandereth from the south,
Seek where my love repaireth,
And blow a kiss to his dear mouth,
And tell me how he fareth."
Nothing can exceed the tender sweetness of these lines; but there is no skill. Again, in "Faire Rosamonde," the verse that describes the cruelty of Eleanor,—
"With that she struck her on the mouth,
So dyed double red;
Hard was the heart that gave the blow,
Soft were the lips that bled."
How musical is the alliteration; but it is music which, like that of the singing brook, has sprung up of itself. Now, Mrs. Hemans has the most perfect skill in her science; nothing can be more polished than her versification. Every poem is like a piece of music, with its eloquent pauses, its rich combinations, and its swelling chords. Who that has ever heard can forget the exquisite flow of "The Voice of Spring?"—
"I come! I come!—ye have call'd me long;
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds that tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass."
It is like the finest order of Italian singing—pure, high, and scientific.
I can never sufficiently regret that it was not my good fortune to know Mrs. Hemans personally; it was an honour I should have estimated so highly—a happiness that I should have enjoyed so keenly. I never even met with an acquaintance of hers but once; that once, however, was much. I knew Miss Jewsbury, the late lamented Mrs. Fletcher. She delighted in speaking of Mrs. Hemans: she spoke of her with the appreciation of one fine mind comprehending another, and with the earnest affection of a woman and a friend. She described her conversation as singularly fascinating—full of poetry, very felicitous in illustration by anecdote, happy, too, in quotation, and very rich in imagery; "in short, her own poem on 'The Treasures of the Deep' would best describe it." She mentioned a very striking simile to which a conversation on Mrs. Hemans's own poem of "The Sceptic*"[1] had led:—
- ↑ * The Sceptic. Murray.
