Truth to tell, we have in this book some of the very choicest balderdash that ever was perpetrated; worthy to stand beside even the immortal Owl and Goose of Tennyson. There is a piece at p. 41 which we would give the world to see translated into some foreign language, we have such an intense eagerness to understand it. Its subject, so far as we have got, seems to be the significance of the crocodile, symbolically considered. We glanced over, or rather at it once, and put it by for after reading, thinking the style probably too deep for love at first sight. On the second perusal we fell in with some extraordinary young crocodiles that we must have missed before. They had just been indulged in the luxury of being born, but Miss Rossetti's creative soul, not content with bestowing upon them the bliss of amphibious existence, made perfect their young beauty by showing them "fresh-hatched perhaps, and—daubed with birthday dew."
We are strong of head—we recovered from even this—we became of the very select few who can say they have read this thing through. There was a crocodile hero; he had a golden girdle and crown; he wore polished stones; crowns, orbs and sceptres starred his breast (why shouldn't they if they could); "special burnishment adorned his mail;" his punier brethren trembled, whereupon he immediately ate them till "the luscious fat distilled upon his chin," and "exuded from his nostrils and his eyes." He then fell into an anaconda nap, and grew very much smaller in his sleep, till at the approach of a very queer winged vessel (probably a vessel of wrath), "the prudent crocodile rose on his feet and shed appropriate tears (obviously it is the handsome thing for all well-bred crocodiles to cry when a Winged ship comes along) and wrung his hands." As a finale, Miss Rossetti, too nimble for the unwary reader, anticipates his question of "What does it all mean?" and triumphantly replying that she doesn't know herself, but that it was all just so, marches on to the next monumentum aere perennius. In the name of the nine muses, we call upon Martin Farquhar Tupper to read this and then die.
There are one or two other things like this longa intervallo, but it is reserved for the Devotional Pieces to furnish the only poem that can compete with it in its peculiar line. This antagonist poem is not so sublime an example of sustained effort, but it has the advantage that the rhyme is fully equal to the context. Permit us then to introduce the neat little charade entitled
"AMEN.
It is over. What is over?
Nay, how much is over truly!—
Harvest days we toiled to sow for;
Now the sheaves are gathered newly,
Now the wheat is garnered duly.
It is finished. What is finished?
Much is finished known or unknown; Lives are finished, time diminished;
Was the fallow field left unsown?
Will these buds be always unblown?
It suffices. What suffices?
All suffices reckoned rightly;
Spring shall bloom where now the ice is,
Roses make the bramble sightly,
And the quickening suns shine brightly,
And the latter winds blow lightly,
And my garden teems with spices."
Let now the critic first observe how consummately the mysticism of the charade form is intensified by the sphinx-like answers appended. Next note the novelties in rhyme, The rhythmic chain that links "over" and and "sow for" is the first discovery in the piece, closely rivalled by "ice is" and "spices" in the last verse. But [{844}] far above all rises the subtle originality of the three rhymes in the second. A thousand literati would have used the rhyming words under the unpoetical rules of ordinary English. Miss Rossetti alone has the courage to inquire "Was the fallow field left unsown? Will these buds be always unblown?" We really do not think Shakespeare would have been bold enough to do this thus.
But despite this, the religious poems are perhaps the best. They seem at least the most unaffected and sincere, and the healthiest in tone. There are several notably good ones: one, just before the remarkable Amen, in excruciating metre, but well said; one, The Love of Christ which Passeth Knowledge, a strong and imaginative picture of the crucifixion; and Good Friday, a good embodiment of the fervor of attrite repentance. The best written of all is, we think, this one (p. 248):
"WEARY IN WELL-DOING.
I would have gone; God bade me stay;
I would have worked; God bade me rest.
He broke my will from day to day,
He read my yearnings unexpressed
And said them nay.
Now I would stay; God bids me go;
Now I would rest; God bids me work.
He breaks my heart, tossed to and fro,
My soul is wrung with doubts that lurk
And vex it so.
I go, Lord, where thou sendest me;
Day after day, plod and moil:
But Christ my God, when will it be
That I may let alone my toil,
And rest with thee?"
This is good style (no simplesse here) and real pathos—in short; poetry. We do not see a word to wish changed, and the conclusion in particular is excellent: there is a weariness in the very sound of the last lines.
It is remarkable how seldom thought furnishes the motive for these poems. With no lack at all of intelligence, they stand almost devoid of intellect. It is always a sentiment of extraneous suggestion, never a novelty in thought, that inspires our authoress. She seems busier depicting inner life than evolving new truths or beauties. Nor does she abound in suggestive turns of phrase or verbal felicities. In fact, as we have seen, she will go out of her way to achieve the want of ornament. But there is one subject which she has thought out thoroughly, and that subject is death. Whether in respect to the severance of earthly ties, the future state, or the psychical relations subtly linking the living to the dead, she shows on this topic a vigor and vividness, sometimes misdirected, but never wanting. Some of her queer ideas have a charm and a repulsion at once, like ghosts of dead beauty: e.g. this strange sonnet:
"AFTER DEATH.
The curtains were half-drawn, the floor was swept
And strewn with rushes; rosemary and may
Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.
He leaned above me, thinking that I slept
And could not hear him; but I heard him say,
"Poor child, poor child!" and as he turned away
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept;
He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head;
He did not love me living, but once dead
He pitied me, and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm though I am cold."