The second line of this will at once recall Shakespeare’s “primrose path of dalliance,” and it is one of the rare instances in which Patience may be said to have borrowed a metaphor; but in the line which follows, “and wishing golden dust to fancied value,” she puts the figure to better use than he in whom it originated. Beyond this line there is nothing specially remarkable in this poem, and it is given mainly to show the versatility of the composer, and as another example of her ability to present vivid and striking pictures.
Reference has been made to the love of nature and the knowledge of nature betrayed in these poems. Even in those of the most spiritual character nature is drawn upon for illustrations and symbols, and the lines are lavishly strewn with material metaphor and similes that open up the gates of understanding. This picture of winter, for example, brings out the landscape it describes with the vividness and reality of a stereoscope, and yet it is something more than a picture:
Snow tweaketh ’neath thy feet,
And like a wandering painter stalketh Frost,
Daubing leaf and lichen. Where flowed a cataract
And mist-fogged stream, lies silvered sheen,
Stark, dead and motionless. I hearken
But to hear the she-e-e-e of warning wind,
Fearful lest I waken Nature’s sleeping.