It is early, 'tis dawn, 'tis the dawn of the day,
And the darkness of night is fast gliding away.
The child's verses are neither better nor worse than those of many a little versifier of her age, but they are remarkable because they are obviously untouched by elders, who could so easily have corrected rhythm and metre; they are genuine, and they are written by a child who had apparently forgotten that she had ever seen the light. She had learnt to love it for some occult and mysterious reason which she could not explain, perhaps for the physical effect which light exercises upon the human organism. She loved light, she loved nature, and from early childhood she loved beautiful scenery. Dreams were always a source of delight to her, and her dreams were a feature in her life. She would say that she constantly dreamt about beautiful landscapes. Did some memory of sight revisit her in dreams? "There were beautiful intuitions in her music," we are told. Had she "beautiful intuitions" as to sight? Had she, in her dreams, visions of the scenes that passed before her in those three first years of which she retained not the slightest recollection in her waking hours? Beautiful scenery gave her pleasure; there was always a response to any description of it. Once when a sister was describing mountains she said: "I don't want to know how high they are, how many hours it takes to climb them, and what they are made of. I want you to tell me if they make you afraid, if they make you happy, or," drawing herself up, "if they give you a kind of a proud feeling."
In the April before this tenth birthday she had attempted to express in verse her feeling as to the light; and on this day three sonnets were addressed to her by Dr. Kynaston.
What little girl would not be proud of such homage from a "High Master of St. Paul's," and so dear a friend?
The sonnets appear in Miscellaneous Poetry, by Rev. Herbert Kynaston, M.A.,[3] and two of them are here given:—
To Bessie on her Birthday.
And art thou ten years old? one half the time
Is spent—oh say, thou heavenly-gifted child,
How hast thou, then, those weary years beguiled—