Can anything be grander than this imaged suicide of the evil human soul? And the glowing description of Psyche content to forget her father and her father’s house, and finding the fondest delight in sequestering herself alone with her divine Lover, whom she never sees, only whose voice she hears, is the most exquisite piece of poetic imagining
to be met with anywhere. But the poem deserves a criticism to itself.
We have here to pause. We had hoped to apply similar canons of criticism to others of our modern poets. We had selected Buchanan, Adelaide Procter, Matthew Arnold, Aubrey de Vere, and especially his father, whose mantle has descended on him. Sir Aubrey de Vere is the only one of the modern poets who has written a poem belonging to the highest order of poetry—Mary Tudor, a historical drama—which, although at a long distance from the dramas of “the poet of the world,” is the nearest to them that has been written since his day.
[76] This epithet, to our mind, is a blemish in a very beautiful creation. In the midst of lofty and suggestive natural imagery it abruptly sinks us to a vulgar matter-of-fact struggle of men at fisticuffs armed in the product of the blacksmith’s shop.
ON THE FIRST OCCASION OF THE FORTY HOURS’ DEVOTION IN THE NEW CATHEDRAL OF BOSTON.
“No word shall be impossible with God.”
O blessed bells! ring joyfully to-day;
O incense clouds! float gladly up to heaven;
All glory, honor, power, and praise be given