Evidently they did not give as thorough a course in the pronunciation of French at the Oxford Female College as they do here at Williams. At least this deplorable fact is indicated by the first stanza of "La Fille du Regiment":
"Proudly marches on the nation
Which its patriots will defend,
But remains a loyal station
With its daughters to commend,
Cheerfully to send the heroes
Who are called to field and tent,
Cheers for those who hold the vetoes,
Vive la Fille du Regiment."
Shall we attribute it to a coincidence that Mrs. L.'s best poem strikes a very familiar chord? It is called the "River of Tears":
"The world is swept by a sorrowful flood,
The flood of a river of tears,
Poured from the exhaustless human heart
For thousands and thousands of years.
It is sweeping thousands and thousands of lives
On its currents, swift and strong,
O the river of tears for thousands of years
Has swept like a flood along."
Perhaps its poetic merit may be explained by the first few lines of
Bryant's "Flood of Years":
"A mighty hand from an exhaustless urn
Pours forth the never ending flood of years
Among the nations. How the rushing waves
Bear all before them!"
—and so on. There is no need of continuing.
But why disturb the bones of poor Mrs. L., who is but one of the many thousands of contributors to mortal verse? May they rest in peace. She had her dream, and never woke out of it. Undoubtedly she was all the happier as it was. And now let the Sweet Singer raise her harmonious voice once more, and close this paper with the last stanza of her poem, "The Author's Early Life," which I think is the most beautifully extraordinary—since I cannot say extraordinarily beautiful—of the entire collection.
"My childhood days have passed and gone,
And it fills my heart with pain
To think that they will nevermore
Return to me again.
And now kind friends, what I have wrote,
I hope you will pass o'er,
And not criticise as some have done,
Hitherto herebefore."
Literary Monthly, 1910.