"Gaeta's orange groves were there
Half circling round the sun-kissed sea;
And all were gone and left the fair
Rich garden solitude but me.
"My feeble feet refused to tread
The rugged pathway to the bay;
Down the steep rocky way they tread
And gain the boat and glide away.
"Above me hung the golden glow
Of fruit which is at one with flowers;
Below me gleamed the ocean's flow,
Like sapphires in the midday hours.
"A passing by there was of wings,
Of silent, flower-like butterflies;
The sudden beetle as it springs
Full of the life of southern skies.
"It was an hour of bliss to die,
But not to sleep, for ever came
The warm thin air, and, passing by,
Fanned sense and soul and heart to flame."
A great love of nature and a yearning to tread its scenes breathe in every word of these lines, which possess an essentially pathetic charm of their own.
Mrs. Clive died in July 1873, from the result of an accident, by which her dress was set on fire when she was writing in her boudoir at Whitfield, with her books and papers around her. Her health was extremely delicate, and she had been for many years a confirmed invalid.
Her first work consisted of the well-known "IX Poems by V." published in 1840. These poems were very favourably received, and were much praised by Dugald Stewart, by Lockhart, and by Mr. Gladstone, who says of them, "They form a small book, which is the life and soul of a great book." They were also very favourably reviewed in the Quarterly (LXVI. 408-11). Her other poems, "I Watch the Heavens," "The Queen's Ball," "The Vale of the Rea," etc., have been re-published with the original "IX" in a separate volume. "Year After Year," published in 1858, passed into two editions; but Mrs. Clive's reputation chiefly rests upon her story of "Paul Ferroll," published in 1855, and its sequel, "Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife." The second story was, however, in no way equal to the first; and a subsequent novel, "John Greswold," which appeared in 1864, was decidedly inferior to its predecessors, although containing passages of considerable literary merit.