| And she spake such good thoughts natural, as if she always thought them— |
| And had sympathies so ready, open-free like bird on branch, |
| Just as ready to fly east as west, which ever way besought them, |
| In the birchen wood a chirrup, or a cock-crow in the grange. |
| In her utmost lightness there is truth—and often she speaks lightly; |
| And she has a grace in being gay, which mourners even approve; |
| For the root of some grave earnest thought is understruck so rightly, |
| As to justify the foliage and the waving flowers above.” |
We must copy yet one other poem to give some idea of the range of Miss Barrett’s power.
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.
If it be said that the poetry, the tragedy here is in the facts, yet how rare is it to find a mind that can both feel and upbear such facts.
We have already said, that, as a poet, Miss Barrett is deficient in plastic energy, and that she is diffuse. We must add many blemishes of overstrained and constrained thought and expression. The ways in which words are coined or forced from their habitual meanings does not carry its excuse with it. We find no gain that compensates the loss of elegance and simplicity. One practice which has already had its censors of using the adjective for the noun, as in the cases of “The cry of the Human,” “Leaning from the Golden,” we, also, find offensive, not only to the habitual tastes, but to the sympathies of the very mood awakened by the writer.
We hear that she has long been an invalid, and, while the knowledge of this increases admiration for her achievements and delight at the extent of the influence,—so much light flowing from the darkness of the sick room,—we seem to trace injurious results, too. There is often a want of pliant and glowing life. The sun does not always warm the marble. We have spoken of the great book culture of this mind. We must now say that this culture is too great in proportion to that it has received from
