I try to knead and spin, but my life is low the while;
Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile;
Yet when I walk alone, and think of naught at all,
Why from me that’s young should the wild tears fall?
The shower-stricken earth, the earth-colored streams,
They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams;
And yonder ivy fondling the broken castle wall,
It pulls my heart, till the wild tears fall.
The cabin-door looks down a furze-lighted hill,
And far as Leighlin cross the fields are green and still;
But once I hear a blackbird in Leighlin hedges call,
The foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall!
Miss Guiney possesses a charming personality. Her manner is
“unaffected, girlish and modest.” There is about her none of the
curtness and prudishness of the blue-stocking. Success has not turned
her head, literary homage has not made her forget that they who will
build for time must need work long and patiently, using only the best
material. By so doing may it be written of her work, as she has
written of Brother Bartholomew’s:
“Wonderful verses! fair and fine,
Rich in the old Greek loveliness;
The seer-like vision, half divine;
Pathos and merriment in excess,
And every perfect stanza told,
Of love and of labor manifold.”