In one of her prefaces she said: "Poetry has been to me as serious a thing as life itself,--and life has been a very serious thing; there has been no playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the poet. I have done my work, so far, as work,--not as mere hand and head work, apart from the personal being, but as the completest expression of that being to which I could attain,--and as work I offer it to the public, feeling its shortcomings more deeply than any of my readers, because measured from the height of my aspiration; but feeling also that the reverence and sincerity with which the work was done should give it some protection from the reverent and sincere."
While the Drama of Exile received some adverse criticism, the shorter poems became the delight of thousands. Who has not held his breath in reading the Rhyme of the Duchess May?--
"And her head was on his breast, where she smiled as one at rest,--
Toll slowly.
'Ring,' she cried, 'O vesper-bell, in the beech-wood's old chapelle!'
But the passing-bell rings best!
"They have caught out at the rein, which Sir Guy threw loose--in vain,--
Toll slowly.
For the horse in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air,
On the last verge rears amain.
"Now he hangs, he rocks between, and his nostrils curdle in!--