The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎108v] (221/244)

706
THE NINETEENTH
April
in
Then look out for tlie little brook in March,
When the rivers overflow,
And the snows come hurrying from the hills.
And the bridges often go.
IV
And later, in August it may be.
When the meadows parching lie.
Beware, lest this little brook of life.
Some burning noon go dry!
Many of tlie poems, as a whole, are poor, but in nearly all occurs
some original thouglit struck out in a finely-turned line. In one,
which expresses the intense longing to know how a beloved and absent
one died, she asks
And was he confident until
111 fluttered out in everlasting well ?
and she concludes her tender, anxious catechism thus:
Was he afraid or tranquil ?
Might he know
How conscious consciousness could grow.
Till love that was, and love too blest to be
Meet,—and the junction be Eternity ?
I could quote many more passages showing the pearls that are
strung on pack-thread, alongside common beads, throughout these
curious poems. But space will only allow me to transcribe two
couplets, which are complete in themselves, and which, as the cry of
a suffering soul, not bereft of faith, and struggling for resignation,
seem to me wonderfully pathetic, in their passionate, child-like sim
plicity.
I shall know why, when time is over,
And I have ceased to wonder why;
Christ will explain each separate anguish,
In the fair schoolroom of the sky.
He will tell me what Peter promised,
And I, for wonder at his woe,
I shall forget the drop of anguisb
That scalds me now, that scalds me now.
In the short preface which tells how Miss Dickenson spent years
without setting her foot beyond the doorstep of her father's house,
Mrs. T. W. Higgenson says : ' In many cases these verses will seem
to the reader like poetry torn up by the roots, with rain and dew and
earth still clinging to them, giving a freshness and fragrance not
otherwise to be conveyed.' That is a very apt image. And yet the
last thing that could be said of this volume is that it is ' of the earth,
earthy,'
H amilton Alofi.