The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Would not bright eyes in my presence quail?
Young cheeks with a nameless thrill turn pale?
No gift be mine that aside would turn
The human love for whose founts I yearn!
Wouldst thou then read through the hearts of those
Upon whose faith thou hast sought repose?
Wear this rich gem! it is charm’d to show
When a change comes over affection’s glow:
Look on its flushing or fading hue,
And learn if the trusted be false or true!
Keep, keep the gem, that I still may trust,
Though my heart’s wealth be but pour’d on dust!
Let not a doubt in my soul have place,
To dim the light of a loved one’s face;
Leave to the earth its warm sunny smile--
That glory would pass could I look on guile!
Say, then, what boon of my power shall be,
Favour’d of spirits! pour’d forth on thee?
Thou scornest the treasures of wave and mine,
Thou wilt not drink of the cup divine,
Thou art fain with a mortal’s lot to rest--
Answer me! how may I grace it best?
Oh! give me no sway o’er the powers unseen,
But a human heart where my own may lean!
A friend, one tender and faithful friend,
Whose thoughts’ free current with mine may blend;
And, leaving not either on earth alone,
Bid the bright, calm close of our lives be one!
ANNOTATION ON “RECORDS OF WOMAN,” &C.
[We feel certain that every admirer of the genius of Mrs Hemans will
be obliged to us for here reprinting, almost at length, the admirable
critique on her writings which appeared in the XCIXth Number of the
_Edinburgh Review_. The acumen, the taste, and elegance of Lord
Jeffrey, are evident throughout.
“Women, we fear, cannot do every thing, nor even every thing
they attempt. But what they can do, they do, for the most part,
excellently--and much more frequently with an absolute and perfect
success, than the aspirants of our rougher and more ambitious sex.
They cannot, we think, represent naturally the fierce and sullen
passions of men--nor their coarser vices--nor even scenes of actual
business or contention--and the mixed motives, and strong and faulty
characters, by which affairs of moment are usually conducted on the
great theatre of the world. For much of this they are disqualified
by the delicacy of their training and habits, and the still more
disabling delicacy which pervades their conceptions and feelings;
and from much they are excluded by their actual inexperience of the
realities they might wish to describe--by their substantial and
incurable ignorance of business--of the way in which serious affairs
are actually managed--and the true nature of the agents and impulses
that give movement and direction to the stronger currents of ordinary
life. Perhaps they are also incapable of long moral or political
investigations, where many complex and indeterminate elements are
to be taken into account, and a variety of opposite probabilities
to be weighed before coming to a conclusion. They are generally too
impatient to get at the ultimate results, to go well through with
such discussions; and either stop short at some imperfect view of
the truth, or turn aside to repose in the shadow of some plausible
error. This, however, we are persuaded, arises entirely from their
being seldom set on such tedious tasks. Their proper and natural
business is the practical regulations of private life, in all its
bearings, affections, and concerns; and the questions with which
they have to deal in that most important department, though often of
the utmost difficulty and nicety, involve, for the most part, but
few elements; and may generally be better described as delicate than
intricate--requiring for their solution rather a quick tact and fine
perception, than a patient or laborious examination. For the same
reason, they rarely succeed in long works, even on subjects the best
suited to their genius; their natural training rendering them equally
averse to long doubt and long labour.
“For all other intellectual efforts, however, either of the
understanding or the fancy, and requiring a thorough knowledge either
of man’s strength or his weakness, we apprehend them to be, in all
respects, as well qualified as their brethren of the stronger sex;
while, in their perceptions of grace, propriety, ridicule--their power
of detecting artifice, hypocrisy, and affectation--the force and
prompitude of their sympathy, and their capacity of noble and devoted
attachment, and of the efforts and sacrifices it may require--they
are, beyond all doubt, our superiors.
“Their business being, as we have said, with actual or social life,
and the colours it receives from the conduct and dispositions of
individuals, they unconsciously acquire, at a very early age, the
finest perception of character and manners, and are almost as soon
instinctively schooled in the deep and dangerous learning of feeling
and emotion; while the very minuteness with which they make and
meditate on these interesting observations, and the finer shades and
variations of sentiment which are thus treasured and recorded, trains
their whole faculties to a nicety and precision of operation, which
often discloses itself to advantage in their application to studies
of a very different character. When women, accordingly, have turned
their minds--as they have done but too seldom--to the exposition or
arrangement of any branch of knowledge, they have commonly exhibited,
we think, a more beautiful accuracy, and a more uniform and complete
justness of thinking, than their less discriminating brethren. There
is a finish and completeness about every thing they put out of their
hands, which indicates not only an inherent taste for elegance and
neatness, but a habit of nice observation, and singular exactness of
judgment.
“It has been so little the fashion, at any time, to encourage women
to write for publication, that it is more difficult than it should be
to prove these truths by examples. Yet there are enough, within the
reach of a very careless and superficial glance over the open field
of literature, to enable us to explain, at least, and illustrate, if
not entirely to verify, our assertions. No _man_, we will venture
to say, could have written the letters of Madame de Sevigné, or the
novels of Miss Austin, or the hymns and early lessons of Mrs Barbauld,
or the conversations of Mrs Marcet. These performances, too, are
not only essentially and intensely feminine, but they are, in our
judgment, decidedly more perfect than any masculine productions with
which they can be brought into comparison. They accomplish more
completely all the ends at which they aim, and are worked out with
a gracefulness and felicity of execution which excludes all idea of
failure, and entirely satisfies the expectations they may have raised.
We might easily have added to these instances. There are many parts
of Miss Edgeworth’s earlier stories, and of Miss Mitford’s sketches
and descriptions, and not a little of Mrs Opie’s, that exhibit the
same fine and penetrating spirit of observation, the same softness
and delicacy of hand, and unerring truth of delineation, to which we
have alluded as characterising the pure specimens of female art. The
same distinguishing traits of a woman’s spirit are visible through
the grief and the piety of Lady Russell, and the gaiety, the spite,
and the venturesomeness of Lady Mary Wortley. We have not as yet much
female poetry; but there is a truly feminine tenderness, purity, and
elegance, in the Psyche of Mrs Tighe, and in some of the smaller
pieces of Lady Craven. On some of the works of Madame de Staël--her
Corinne especially--there is a still deeper stamp of the genius of her
sex. Her pictures of its boundless devotedness--its depth and capacity
of suffering--its high aspirations--its painful irritability, and
inextinguishable thirst for emotion, are powerful specimens of that
morbid anatomy of the heart, which no hand but that of a woman’s was
fine enough to have laid open, or skilful enough to have recommended
to our sympathy and love. There is the same exquisite and inimitable
delicacy, if not the same power, in many of the happier passages of
Madame de Souza and Madame Cottin--to say nothing of the more lively
and yet melancholy records of Madame de Staël, during her long penance
in the Court of the Duchesse de Maine.
“But we are preluding too largely; and must come at once to the point,
to which the very heading of this article has already admonished the
most careless of our readers that we are tending. We think the poetry
of Mrs Hemans a fine exemplification of female poetry; and we think it
has much of the perfection which we have ventured to ascribe to the
happier productions of female genius.
“It may not be the best imaginable poetry, and may not indicate the
very highest or most commanding genius, but it embraces a great deal
of that which gives the very best poetry its chief power of pleasing;
and would strike us, perhaps, as more impassioned and exalted, if
it were not regulated and harmonised by the most beautiful taste.
It is infinitely sweet, elegant, and tender--touching, perhaps, and
contemplative, rather than vehement and overpowering; and not only
finished throughout with an exquisite delicacy, and even serenity of
execution, but informed with a purity and loftiness of feeling, and
a certain sober and humble tone of indulgence and piety, which must
satisfy all judgments, and allay the apprehensions of those who are
most afraid of the passionate exaggerations of poetry. The diction
is always beautiful, harmonious, and free; and the themes, though
of infinite variety, uniformly treated with a grace, originality,
and judgment, which mark the same master-hand. These themes she has
borrowed, with the peculiar interest and imagery that belong to them,
from the legends of different nations, and the most opposite states
of society; and has contrived to retain much of what is interesting
and peculiar in each of them, without adopting, along with it, any of
the revolting or extravagant excesses which may characterise the taste
or manners of the people or the age from which it has been derived.
She has thus transfused into her German or Scandinavian legends, the
imaginative and daring tone of the originals, without the mystical
exaggerations of the one, or the painful fierceness and coarseness
of the other--she has preserved the clearness and elegance of the
French, without their coldness or affectation--and the tenderness
and simplicity of the early Italians, without their diffuseness or
languor. Though occasionally expatiating, somewhat fondly and at
large, amongst the sweets of her own planting, there is, on the whole,
a great condensation and brevity in most of her pieces, and, almost
without exception, a most judicious and vigorous conclusion. The great
merit, however, of her poetry, is undoubtedly in its tenderness and
its beautiful imagery. The first requires no explanation; but we must
be allowed to add a word as to the peculiar charm and character of the
latter.
“It has always been our opinion, that the very essence of poetry,
apart from the pathos, the wit, or the brilliant description which may
be embodied in it, but may exist equally in prose, consists in the
fine perception and vivid expression of that subtle and mysterious
analogy which exists between the physical and the moral world--which
makes outward things and qualities the natural types and emblems of
inward gifts and emotions, and leads us to ascribe life and sentiment
to every thing that interests us in the aspects of external nature.