If Mr. De Vere had only attended in 1840 to the very reasonable request of the young person in the last verse, we should have been spared one of the very silliest little things in the English language. And yet in thus haling it from the
"nook to sigh in and to die in
'Mid the ruin's gloom,"
where public opinion had long since left it in peace, he has done good. It is instructive to his admirers to see for themselves how very badly he could write before the year 1840. If intended as a public penance of this nature, it is perfect of its kind, and the humility of it will rejoice all Christian souls, excepting, perhaps, the indignant shade of Lindley Murray.
Not far behind this in inanity is the "Fall of Rora," all the good part of which was published years ago, and all the bad part of which is raked up and added for this edition. But from this to the end of the book are new poems of a very different order. To begin with, we have a number of miscellaneous sonnets. They are none of them poor, but the first that particularly arrests attention, by its fine harmony and happy illustration, is
"Kirkstall Abbey.
"Roll on by tower and arch, autumnal river;
And ere about thy dusk yet gleaming tide
The phantom of dead Day hath ceased to glide,
Whisper it to the reeds that round thee quiver:
Yea, whisper to those ivy bowers that shiver
Hard by on gusty choir and cloister wide,
My bubbles break: my weed-flowers seaward slide:
My freshness and my mission last for ever!'
Young moon from leaden tomb of cloud that soarest,
And whitenest those hoar elm-trees, wrecks forlorn
Of olden Airedale's hermit-haunted forest,
Speak thus,'I died; and lo, I am reborn!'
Blind, patient pile, sleep on in radiance! Truth
Dies not: and faith, that died, shall rise in endless youth."
The arrangement of the double rhymes, which gives the peculiar, rich rhythm, is a very unusual one with these sonnets. In the whole two hundred and fifty before this, we only recall one or two other instances, notable among which is the famous one beginning,
"Flowers I would bring, if flowers could make thee fairer,"
and the effect is almost always excellent.
On the heels of this treads another (of the same rhythm also) too good to pass by: