I have sought to represent that spirit as penetrating the gloom of the prison and the deathbed, bearing “healing on its wings” to the agony of parting love—strengthening the heart of the wayfarer for “perils in the wilderness”—gladdening the domestic walk through field and woodland—and springing to life in the soul of childhood, along with its earliest rejoicing perceptions of natural beauty.
Circumstances not altogether under my own control have, for the present, interfered to prevent the fuller development of a plan which I yet hope more worthily to mature; and I lay this little volume before the public with that deep sense of deficiency which cannot be more impressively taught to human powers than by their reverential application to things divine.—Felicia Hemans.
1834.
[420] The long-contemplated collection of Scenes and Hymns of Life was published soon after the two little volumes above alluded to. In her original dedication of this work to Mr Wordsworth, Mrs Hemans had given free scope to the expression of her sentiments, not only of veneration for the poet, but of deep and grateful regard for the friend. From a fear, however, that delicacy on Mr Wordsworth’s part might prevent his wishing to receive, in a public form, a testimonial of so much private feeling from a living individual, the intended letter was suppressed, and its substantial ideas conveyed in the brief inscription which was finally prefixed to the volume. It is now hoped that all such objections to its publication have vanished, and that the revered friend to whom it was addressed will receive it as the heart-tribute of one to whom flattery was unknown—as consecrated by the solemn truth of a voice from the grave.
Intended Dedication of the “Scenes and Hymns of Life,” to William Wordsworth, Esq.
“My dear Sir,
“I earnestly wish that the little volume here inscribed to you, in token of affectionate veneration, were pervaded by more numerous traces of those strengthening and elevating influences which breathe from all your poetry ‘a power to virtue friendly.’ I wish, too, that such a token could more adequately convey my deep sense of gratitude for moral and intellectual benefit long derived from the study of that poetry—for the perpetual fountains of ‘serious faith and inward glee’ which I have never failed to discover amidst its pure and lofty regions—for the fresh green places of refuge which it has offered me in many an hour, when
‘The fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart;’