Excellent Women

His seal was on thy brow.
Dust to its narrow home beneath,
Soul to its place on high;
They that have seen thy look in death,
No more may fear to die."

XII.

ABIDING WORDS

Though many of the productions of the gifted poetess will soon be forgotten, there is no doubt that some will live. The subjects are those which gain an admittance to the hearts of all classes. We have already given in full that beautiful poem "The Better Land." There is no danger of "Casabianca" passing into oblivion. Children delight to commit it to memory, and are all the better for the lesson of devotion to duty they have learnt.

"Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.

The flames rolled on—he would not go
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard."

Mrs. Hemans was at her best in treating of such matters as those dealt with in "The Homes of England" and "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers." Any one is to be pitied who can read without admiration these lines from the former:—

"The merry homes of England!
Around their hearths by night
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!
There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood's tale is told,
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.

The blessed homes of England!
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness
That breathes from Sabbath hours!
Solemn, yet sweet, the church bell's chime
Floats through their woods at morn;
All other sounds in that still time
Of breeze and leaf are born."

There is little danger of "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers" being forgotten. How well the poetess indicated the, motive which led them from their native country to the unknown land!—

"What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod!
They have left unstained what there they found—
Freedom to worship God!"

As an example of Mrs. Hemans' treatment of sacred subjects, we may quote the concluding verses of "Christ's Agony in the Garden":—

"He knew them all—the doubt, the strife,
The faint perplexing dread,
The mists that hang o'er parting life,
All darkened round His head;
And the Deliverer knelt to pray,
Yet passed it not, that cup, away.

It passed not—though the stormy wave
Had sunk beneath His tread;
It passed not—though to Him the grave
Had yielded up its dead.
But there was sent Him from on high
A gift of strength for man to die.

And was His mortal hour beset
With anguish and dismay?—
How may we meet our conflict yet,
In the dark, narrow way?
How, but through Him, that path who trod?
Save, or we perish, Son of God!"

We are thankful to find that the poetess had such clear views of the atonement as those to be met with in her Sonnets, Devotional and Memorial, for example, in "The Darkness of the Crucifixion."

The last quotation shall be one from "The Graves of a Household," the opening and the closing verses of a literary gem which will never lack appreciation:—

"They grew in beauty side by side,
They filled one home with glee;—
Their graves are severed far and wide.
By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow;
She had each folded flower in sight—
Where are those dreamers now'?

* * * * *

And parted thus they rest, who played
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee!

They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheered with song the hearth!