Respecting the leading conception of her drama, Miss Barrett writes thus:—"My subject was the new and strange experience of the fallen humanity as it went forth from Paradise into the wilderness; with a peculiar reference to Eve's allotted grief, which, considering that self-sacrifice belonging to her womanhood, and the consciousness of originating the Fall to her offence—appeared to me imperfectly apprehended hitherto, and more expressible by a woman than a man." No wonder that Miss Barrett failed in her undertaking. In the conception of Eve's grief as distinguished from Adam's, and as coloured by the circumstances of her situation—namely, by the consciousness that she had been the first to fall, and the proximate cause of Adam's transgression—there is certainly no sufficient foundation to sustain the weight of a dramatic poem. At the most, it might have furnished materials for a sonnet. It therefore detracts nothing from the genius of Miss Barrett to say, that her attempt has been unsuccessful. She has tried to make bricks not only without straw, but almost without clay; and that being the case, the marvel is that she should have succeeded so well.
"There was room at least," continues Miss Barrett, "for lyrical emotion in those first steps into the wilderness, in that first sense of desolation after wrath, in that first audible gathering of the recriminating 'groan of the whole creation,' in that first darkening of the hills from the recoiling feet of angels, and in that first silence of the voice of God." There certainly was room for lyrical emotion in these first steps into wilderness. All nature might most appropriately be supposed to break forth in melodious regrets around the footsteps of the wanderers: but we cannot think that Miss Barrett has done justice to nature's strains. Unless lyrical emotion be expressed in language as clear as a mountain rill, and as well defined as the rocks over which it runs, it is much better left unsung. The merit of all lyrical poetry consists in the clearness and cleanness with which it is cut; no tags or loose ends can any where be permitted. But Miss Barrett's lyrical compositions are frequently so inarticulate, so slovenly, and so defective, both in rhythm and rhyme, that we are really surprised how a person of her powers could have written them, and how a person of any judgment could have published them. Take a specimen, not by any means the worst, from the "Song of the morning star to Lucifer:"—
"Mine orbed image sinks
Back from thee, back from thee,
As thou art fallen, methinks,
Back from me, back from me.
O my light-bearer,
Could another fairer
Lack to thee, lack to thee?
Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
I loved thee, with the fiery love of stars.
Who love by burning, and by loving move,
Too near the throned Jehovah, not to love.
Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
Their brows flash fast on me from gliding cars,
Pale-passion'd for my loss.
Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
"Mine orbed heats drop cold
Down from thee, down from thee,
As fell thy grace of old
Down from me, down from me.
O my light-bearer,
Is another fairer
Won to thee, won to thee?
Ai, ai, Heosphoros,
Great love preceded loss,
Known to thee, known to thee.
Ai, ai!
Thou, breathing they communicable grace
Of life into my light
Mine astral faces, from thine angel face,
Hast inly fed,
And flooded me with radiance overmuch
From thy pure height.
Ai, ai!
Thou, with calm, floating pinions both ways spread,
Erect, irradiated,
Didst sting my wheel of glory
On, on before thee,
Along the Godlight, by a quickening touch!
Ha, ha!
Around, around the firmamental ocean,
I swam expanding with delirious fire!
Around, around, around, in blind desire
To be drawn upward to the Infinite—
Ha, ha!"
But enough of Ai ai Heosphoros. It may be very right for ladies to learn Greek—not, however, if it is to lead them to introduce such expressions as this into the language of English poetry.
Nor do we think that Miss Barrett's lyrical style improves when she descends to themes of more human and proximate interest, and makes the "earth-spirits" and the "flower-spirits" pour their lamentations into the ears of the exiled pair. The following is the conclusion of the láyment (as Miss Barrett pronounces the word lament) of the "flower-spirits:"—
"We pluck at your raiment,
We stroke down your hair,
We faint in our láment,
And pine into air.
Fare-ye-well—farewell!
The Eden scents, no longer sensible,
Expire at Eden's door!
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before:
Farewell! the flowers of Eden
Ye shall smell never more."
Would not Miss Barrett's hair have stood on end if Virgil had written "Arma virumque canto?" Yet surely that false quantity would have been not more repugnant to the genius of Latin verse than her transposition of accent in the word lamént is at variance with the plainest proprieties of the English tongue.
The "earth-spirits" deliver themselves thus:—
Earth Spirits.
"And we scorn you! there's no pardon
Which can lean to you aright!
When your bodies take the guerdon
Of the death-curse in our sight,
Then the bee that hummeth lowest shall transcend you.
Then ye shall not move an eyelid
Though the stars look down your eyes;
And the earth, which ye defiled,
She shall show you to the skies,—
Lo! these kings of ours—who sought to comprehend you.'