But the imagery from first to last is of extraordinary tenderness and power; as, for instance, in describing the first lightning-flash before a storm,—
“Ere labouring thunders heave the chain
From the flood-gates of the drowning rain,”
or when,—
“The dawn broke dim on Rose Mary’s soul,—
No hill-crown’s heavenly aureole,
But a wild gleam on a shaken shoal,”
and in the past night,—
“She knew she had waded bosom-deep
Along death’s bank in the sedge of sleep.”