"'O dreary life!' we cry, 'O dreary life!'
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds
Unslacken'd the dry land: savannah-swards
Unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees,
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory. O thou God of old!
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to _these_;--
But so much patience, as a blade of grass
Grows by contented through the heat and cold."
There is a poem in these volumes entitled the "Cry of _the Human_"--some
stanzas of which are inspired by profound feeling, and written with a
rare force and simplicity of style; but as other parts of it are
obscure, and as it appears to us to be of very unequal merit, we shall
not quote the whole of it. In addition to the faults which are to be
found in the poem itself, its title is objectionable, as embodying one
of Miss Barrett's worst mannerisms, and one for which we think that no
allowance ought to be made. She is in the habit of employing certain
adjectives in a substantive sense. She does so here. In other places she
writes "Heaven assist _the Human_." "Leaning from _my human_," that is,
stooping from my rank as a human being. In one passage she says,
"Till the heavenly Infinite
Falling off from our _Created_--"
_nature_ being understood after the word "created." The word "divine" is
one which she frequently employs in this substantive fashion. She also
writes "Chanting down the _Golden_"--the golden what?
"Then the full sense of your _mortal_
Rush'd upon you deep and loud."
For "mortal," read "mortality." It is true that this practice may be
defended to a certain extent by the example and authority of Milton. But
Miss Barrett is mistaken if she supposes that her frequent and prominent
use of such a form of speech, can be justified by the rare and
unobtrusive instances of it which are to be found in the _Paradise
Lost_. To use an anomalous expression two or three times in a poem
consisting of many thousand lines, is a very different thing from
bringing the same anomaly conspicuously forward, and employing it as a
common and favourite mode of speech in a number of small poems. In the
former case, it will be found that the expression is vindicated by the
context, and by the circumstances under which it is employed; in the
latter case it becomes a nuisance which cannot be too rigorously put
down. One step further and we shall find ourselves talking, in the
dialect of Yankeeland, of "us poor Humans!" However, as the point
appears to us to be one which does not admit of controversy, we shall
say no more on the subject, but shall proceed to the more agreeable duty
of quoting the greater portion of Miss Barrett's poem, which may be
regarded as a commentary on the prayer--"The Lord be merciful to us
sinners."