The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 129

The poems we are now considering, and which have won such general admiration wherever they have become known, belong to the latter cla.s.s of works of art. Their simple, delicate beauty appeals alike to men and women, and to the soul of the young child; their transparent clearness is that of an unusually lucid intellect; their profoundness is only that of a believing heart. She who wrote them would often say, with a certain characteristic simplicity, "I only write verses--I do not write poetry;" and would fasten upon the products of some powerful and mystic mind as an ill.u.s.tration of what genuine poetry ought to be.

But the mis-estimate was great. The absolute absence of claptrap, of any appeal to the pa.s.sions of the hour or the popular idols of the English people, showed that if these volumes lay on so many tables, and their contents were so often sung and quoted in public and in private, as expressing just that which everybody had wanted to say, the reason lay deeper than the ring of the verse-writer who knows how to play into the fancy of the mult.i.tude. They are popular because they are instinct with dainty feminine genius, and reach the hearts of others with the sure precise touch of slender fingers awakening the silver chords of a harp.

Three volumes originally comprised the whole of Miss Procter's writings: a first and second series of legends and lyrics, and one of religious poems, published for a night-refuge {841} kept by Sisters of Mercy. The two former have now been printed in this rich quarto by Messrs. Bell & Daldy; and it may not be amiss to say that the whole _three_ have been republished in America in one small but excellently got-up volume, at once a casket and a shrine (Ticknor & Fields, Boston). Of the secular poems now brought before our English public in so beautiful a dress, we would attempt a slight a.n.a.lysis of contents.

There are fourteen legends or stories, long and short--little tales in verse, of which the gist generally lies in some very subtle and pathetic situation of the human heart. Anything like violent wrong or the ravages of unruly pa.s.sion seemed rarely to cross this gentle imagination; and yet the legends are nearly all sorrowful; but the sorrow seems to spring from n.o.body's fault and perhaps for that very reason it is all the more sorrowful, for repentance will not wash it away. Little dead children borne to heaven on the bosom of the angels while their mothers weep below; or a dying mother, dying amidst the splendors of an earl's home, and calling to her bedside the son of an earlier and humbler marriage, revealing herself to him at the last; or the history of a stepmother, long loved but late wedded, and who had given up the lover of her own youth to a younger friend, and afterward taken the charge of that friend's jealous and reluctant children; or the pitiful tale, since elaborately wrought out by Tennyson in his "Enoch Arden," of the sailor who returns home to find his wife the wife of another man. In one and all the pathos is wrought out and expressed with the most extraordinary delicacy of touch. The reader says to himself, "Nay, is it so sad after all?" And yet it is; sad and spiritually hopeful too; sad for this earth, hopeful for heaven. This seems the irresistible conclusion of almost every tale; even the story of the stepmother, supposed to come quite right at last, is made inexpressibly plaintive by being told by the first wife's nurse--she who "knew so much," and had lived with her young mistress from childhood, and would not call the cold husband unkind; "but she had been used to love and praise."

In others of these legends the telling of the tale is simpler, the pathos more direct, but almost always strangely subtle. In "Three Evenings of a Life" a sister sacrifices her own hopes of married life that she may devote herself to a young brother who needs her care. But the young brother marries--a catastrophe which she does not seem to have contemplated; and she finds too late that her sacrifice was useless; and, what was worse, that the bride is ill-fitted to sustain him in his life or in his art; and the unhappy sister

"----watched the daily failing Of all his n.o.bler part; Low aims, weak purpose, telling In lower, weaker art.

And now, when he is dying, The last words she could hear Must not be hers, but given The bride of one short year.

The last care is another's; The last prayer must not be The one they learnt together Beside their mother's knee."

Herbert sickens and dies, leaving the poor weak little Dora to Alice's care; and we are told how Alice cherishes her, and bears with her waywardness through sad weeks of depression, till news comes in spring that Leonard--the rejected lover--is returning from India. Now Alice is free! Now she may love Leonard and lean upon his strength. He comes; the little household smiles once more. Summer succeeds to spring; when one twilight hour Alice is aware of the perfume of flowers brought into their London home. She goes out into the pa.s.sage, and through a half-opened door hears Leonard's voice:

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"His low voice--Dora's answers; His pleading;--yes, she knew The tone, the words, the accents; She once had heard them too.

'Would Alice blame her? Leonard's Low tender answer came.

'Alice was far too n.o.ble To think or dream of blame.'

'And wishes sure he loved her?'

'Yes, with the one love given Once in a lifetime only; With one soul and one heaven?'

Then came a plaintive murmur: 'Dora had once been told That he and Alice--' 'Dearest, Alice is far too cold To love: and I, my Dora, If once I fancied so, It was a brief delusion.

And over long ago.'"

Very tender and touching is the description of the forlorn woman's recoil upon her brother's memory:

"Yes, they have once been parted; But this day shall restore The long-lost one; she claims him: 'My Herbert--mine once more!'"

One of the most highly finished of the legends is "A Tomb in Ghent,"

setting forth the life of a humble musician and his young daughter. It contains lovely touches of description both of music and architecture.

How the youth knelt prayerfully in St. Bavon--

"While the great organ over all would roll, Speaking strange secrets to his innocent soul, Bearing on eagle-wings the great desire Of all the kneeling throng, and piercing higher Than aught but love and prayer can reach, until Only the silence seemed to listen still; Or, gathering like a sea still more and more.

Break in melodious waves at heaven's door.

And then fall, slow and soft, in tender rain, Upon the pleading, longing hearts again."

Not only what he heard, but what he saw, is thus exquisitely imaged in words:

"Then he would watch the rosy sunlight glow.

That crept along the marble floor below, Pa.s.sing, as life does with the pa.s.sing hours.

How by a shrine all rich with gems and flowers.

Now on the brazen letters of a tomb; Then, again, leaving it to shade and gloom, And creeping on, to show distinct and quaint, The kneeling figure of some marble saint; Or lighting up the carvings strange and rare That told of patient toil and reverent care; Ivy that trembled on the spray, and ears Of heavy corn, and slender bulrush-spears.

And all the thousand tangled weeds that grow In summer where the silver rivers flow: And demon heads grotesque that seemed to glare In impotent wrath on all the beauty there.

Then the gold rays up pillared shaft would climb.

And so be drawn to heaven at evening time; And deeper silence, darker shadows flowed On all around--only the windows glowed With blazoned glory, like the s.h.i.+elds of light Archangels bear, who, armed with love and might, Watch upon heaven's battlements at night."

The second critical division of Miss Procter's poems comprises those beautiful lyrics, many of which have been set to music, and all of which are full of the melody of rhythms--inspired, as it were, by a delicate AEolian harmony, having its source in the fine intangible instinct of the poet's ear. Amidst more than a hundred of such short poems and songs, selection seems nearly impossible to the critic. Many of the little pieces and many of the separate verses are destined to float on the surface of English literature with the same secure buoyancy as Herrick's "Daffodils," or Lyttleton's verses to his fair wife Lucy, or Wordsworth's picture of the maid who dwelt by the banks of Dove. They have that short felicity of expression, that perfect finish in their parts, that cause such poems to abide in the memory, or, as the expression is, to "dwell in the imagination." In the six verses of "The Chain,"

"Which was not forged by mortal hands.

Or clasped with golden bars and bands,

is one--the third--which exemplifies our a.s.sertion. It reads like one of those immemorial quotations we have known from infancy:

"Yet what no mortal hand could make.

No mortal power can ever break; What words or vows could never do.

No words or vows can make untrue; And if to other hearts unknown, The dearer and the more our own, Because too sacred and divine For other eyes save thine and mine."

Two songs, written in the quaint, irregular metre delighted in by the seventeenth-century poets, seem like forgotten sc.r.a.ps by one of the more elegant contemporaries of Milton; these are, "A Doubting Heart,"

and "A Lament for the Summer," of which the first and last verses are instinct with the feelings of October days:

"Moan, O ye Autumn winds-- Summer has fled; The flowers have closed their tender leaves, and die; The lily's gracious head All low must lie.

Because the gentle Summer now is dead.

Mourn, mourn, O Autumn winds-- Lament and mourn; How many half-blown buds must close and die!

Hopes, with the Summer born, All faded lie, And leave us desolate and earth forlorn."

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Equally musical, but full of the more personal sentiment of our century, is that lovely song, "A Shadow," beginning,

"What lack the valleys and mountains That once were green and gay?"

Quite different in tone, full of ringing harmony, is the little poem of "Now?"

"Rise, for the day is pa.s.sing, And you lie dreaming on; The others have buckled their armor, And forth to the fight are gone.

A place in the ranks awaits you-- Each man has some part to play; The Past and the Future are nothing In the face of the stern To-day."

And so on, through four spirited verses. Something in these strikes the ear as peculiarly ill.u.s.trative of the active pious spirit of her who wrote them, of the voice whose every tone was so dear, and of the smile whose arch intelligence conveyed the same expression of lively decision.

We must now bring our remarks to a close, having tried to indicate the different qualities of Miss Procter's verse. The permanent place which it will retain in English literature it is not for us to decide. She has had the power to strike the heart of her own generation by its simple pathos. That it is purely original of its kind can hardly be denied; but it is hard, if not impossible, so far to separate ourselves from the standard of our own generation as to judge where the limits of the _special_, and therefore the _transient_, elements of fame are pa.s.sed. But we at least must not be wanting in grat.i.tude to one of the sweetest singers of the day that was hers and our own.

From The Sixpenny Magazine.

THE ADVENTURE.

Sir Brian O'Brian McMurrough commenced life as possessor of a _nominal_ rent-roll of twelve thousand pounds sterling per annum, although in reality, between mortgages, and rent-charges, and inc.u.mbrances of every possible shape and hue, probably five would represent the net sum received by the proprietor. Still, it was not the age of economical reflection, nor was the young baronet either a financier or a philosopher. He had been cradled in luxury, and bowed down to with slavish senility; he had been educated at Cambridge, and, one way or other, his bills there had been met, though not always pleasantly, by his father. He had travelled over Europe, Asia, and a good part of America, for four years, and at last a letter had caught him at Vienna, telling him that his father, Sir Patrick, had died suddenly, "full of years and honors," and that he was now the representative of one of "the oldest and best families in Ireland,"

and possessor of its splendid estates, etc. On his return home he was surrounded by troops of friends and hordes of sycophants, and for some years was far too much engaged in pleasure not to let business attend to itself. His fathers had lived "like kings," and he had too much the spirit of an Irish, gentleman to let prudence or economy come "between the wind and his n.o.bility." He married, too, and chose for his wife a far-descended and beautiful pauper, with tastes to the full as reckless and extravagant as his own. This lady had brought him a daughter, who lived, and in four years after {844} a son, who had died a few hours after his birth, and whose death preceded that of his mother by a single day. After her death Sir Brian became more careless and reckless than ever. His spirits sank as his debts mounted; he saw from the first that ruin was inevitable; section after section of his splendid estates were put up for sale and swept away; until at last all that remained to him was a half-ruined building, called "The Black Abbey," which he sometimes used as a shooting and fis.h.i.+ng lodge in happier days, and a tract of mountain land, wild, and for the most part sterile and unprofitable, and for part of which he paid rent. In the present gloomy temper of his soul, however, it suited his humor.

The building stood halfway up a mountain, the base of which was almost washed by the waters of a broad lake, or lough, and from which it was only separated by a slip of meadow. The lake itself was several miles in extent, and at least three miles and a half broad immediately opposite the abbey, to which the only access from the mainland was by a skiff or boat, except you chose to travel several miles round so as to head the lake. It was a romantic but utterly desolate retreat, made still more so, if possible, by the sullen gloom which had now taken possession of the fallen man. He had secured some remnants of a once splendid library, and sometimes amused himself by teaching his daughter Eva, although there were weeks at one time when a restless and morose spirit beset him, and then with a gun in his hand he wandered idly through the mountains, or with a boy, named Paudreen, took to his yacht, and was never to be seen on sh.o.r.e, sometimes sleeping on board, or bivouacking on some of the many small islands which dotted the loch.

At such times Eva was left in possession of the abbey, accompanied by old Deb Dermody and her husband Mogue (or Moses), who, of all his followers, had stuck steadily to Sir Brian, and would not be shaken off. Before utter ruin had come upon them, Eva had been for a year, or somewhat better, at a boarding school, the mistress of which had evidently done her duty by the child. The little girl, indeed, "showed blood" in more ways than one: she was small but hardy, and, without being critically beautiful, she was very lovely to look upon: her features were delicate but full of animation. Her temper was lively, but all her instincts were genial and generous, and she had, in a particular manner, the gift of conciliating the affectionate regards of all who came within the sphere of her innocent influence. True it was, her wors.h.i.+ppers were neither numerous nor select. A few hands employed by the "steward" (as Mogue was magniloquently called) to till the ground and attend to the "stock," consisting of mountain sheep and Kerry cows, together with stray "cadgers," pedlars, and other wanderers who occasionally visited the neighborhood, and the "neighbors" on both banks of the lough (the hither and thither), consisting for the most part of an amphibious sort of population, who netted fish in the lake, or cultivated patches of ground to keep life and soul together. Beside these, now and then the "agent" of the estate, Mr. Redmond Hennessey, sometimes visited at the abbey, to look for or receive the rents paid by Sir Brian, and another more welcome occasional visitor was Father John Considine, the P.P. of a long, straggling parish, which extended over both sides of the mountain, and whose house and church lay in the valley which separated Ballintopher, on which Sir Brian lived, from Ballinteer, a higher hill which ran beyond. Sir Brian and his daughter belonged to the old faith, and as the priest was a large-minded, liberal man, with a well-cultivated mind, and a good-humored and even jovial temperament, his visits always enlivened the abbey, and sometimes won a smile from its proprietor. His literary tastes and recollections, also, were exceedingly {845} useful to the young girl, particularly as he sometimes ran up to Dublin, or even over to London or Paris, in the summer holidays, from whence he was sure to bring back the gossip for Sir Brian, and a budget of new books, periodicals, and songs for his favorite. Thus matters went on for some years--nothing better, nothing worse, apparently--until Eva was in her eighteenth year. The large estates originally owned by Sir Brian had, in a great measure, fallen into the hands of a single proprietor, Sir Adams Jessop, a rich London merchant and banker, who had purchased them by lots on speculation, because, in the first place, they were sold low (as at first all the Irish estates were under the Inc.u.mbered Estates Court), and because he had advanced large sums to the holders of the mortgages, etc., with which they were embarra.s.sed, and thus sought to recoup himself. Since they came into his possession he had been over for a few days twice--once to look over the property, and again to appoint an agent recommended to him by some neighboring proprietors, who all spoke of Mr. Redmond Hennessey as a man of zeal and industry, who always had his employer's interest at heart, and detested a non-paying or dilatory tenant as he did a mad dog. Under this gentleman's supervision the estates put on a new aspect; rents were raised, and covenants insisted on, such as "the oldest inhabitant" had never even dreamed of; and as Mr. Hennessey was a solicitor as well as an agent, processes followed defalcations, and the only sure road to his friendly sympathy was punctuality in payment, and liberality (in the shape of gifts, such as fowl, b.u.t.ter, eggs, fish, socks, flannel, and so forth) from those who had favors to ask or bargains to make. Of course he was a thriving man, but it was remarked that illicit distillation, poaching, and illegal practices of all kinds were greatly on the increase; and when Sir Brian heard of all this, and saw that additional magistrates were sworn in, and a large draft of constabulary and preventive police sent into the new barracks specially constructed for them, he grimly triumphed in the change, and made no secret of his sympathy with the malcontents, since, as he said, "what better could be expected on the estate of an absentee?"

Neither did matters seem to mend when Sir Adams Jessop died somewhat suddenly, and was succeeded by his only son, now Sir William Jessop, who was understood to be a gay young man of indolent habits and roving propensities, and who seemed to have even less sympathy for his Irish tenants than his father--if, indeed, that were possible. Mr.

Hennessey's power and authority were now unlimited, and stories were told of his rapacity and impatience of all control which appeared incredible. Whole towns.h.i.+ps were depopulated by his _fiat_; families were reduced to beggary and desperation by his determination to "make the estate pay;" and some said (for every man has his enemies) that when his new master informed him by letter of appeals being made and of his wish that they should be attended to and the appellants dealt more lightly with, his answer invariably was, that the accusers were established liars, who would be the first to shoot down Sir William himself should he ever be foolish enough to venture amongst them.