The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [913]
My blessed love! — give me that token! — speak!
What message sent he to his Madelon?
Strang. — (Supporting her and strongly agitated,)
He is not dead, dear lady!-grieve not thus!
Mad. — He is not false, sir stranger!
Strang. For thy sake,
Would he were worthier! One other proof
I’ll give thee, loveliest! if thou lov’st him still,
I’ll not believe thee woman. Listen, then!
A faithful lover breathes not of his bliss
To other ears. Wilt hear a fable, lady?
Here the stranger details some incidents of the first wooing of Madelon by Rupert, and concludes with,
Lady, my task is o’er — dost doubt me still?
Mad. Doubt thee, my Rupert! ah, I know thee now.
Fling by that hateful mask! — let me unclasp it!
No! thou wouldst not betray thy Madelon.
The “Miscellaneous Poems” of the volume — many of them written in childhood — are, of course, various in character and merit. “The Dying Rosebud’s Lament,” although by no means one of the best, will very well serve to show the earlier and most characteristic manner of the poetess:
Ah, me! — ah wo is me
That I should perish now,
With the dear sunlight just let in
Upon my balmy brow.
My leaves, instinct with glowing life,
Were quivering to unclose:
My happy heart with love was rife —
I was almost a rose.
Nerved by a hope, warm, rich, intense,
Already I had risen
Above my cage’s curving fence —
My green and graceful prison,
My pouting lips, by Zephyr pressed,
Were just prepared to part,
And whispered to the wooing wind
The rapture of my heart.
In new-born fancies revelling,
My mossy cell half riven,
Each thrilling leaflet seemed a wing
To bear me into Heaven.
How oft, while yet an infant-flower,
My crimson cheek I’ve laid
Against the green bars of my bower,
Impatient of the shade.
And, pressing up and peeping through
Its small but precious vistas,
Sighed for the lovely light and dew
That blessed my elder sisters.
I saw the sweet breeze rippling o’er
Their leaves that loved the play,
Though the light thief stole all the store
Of dew-drop gems away.
I thought how happy I should be
Such diamond wreaths to wear,
And frolic with a rose’s glee
With sunbeam, bird and air.
Ah, me! — ah, wo is me, that I,
Ere yet my leaves unclose,
With all my wealth of sweets must die
Before I am a rose!
The poetical reader will agree with me that few things have ever been written (by any poet, at any age,) more delicately fanciful than the passages italicised — and yet they are the work of a girl not more than fourteen years of age. The clearness and force of expression, and the nice appositeness of the overt and insinuated meaning, are, when we consider the youth of the writer, even more remarkable than the fancy.
I cannot speak of Mrs. Osgood’s poems without a strong propensity to ring the changes upon the indefinite word “grace” and its derivatives. About everything she writes we perceive this indescribable charm — of which, perhaps, the elements are a vivid fancy and a quick sense of the proportionate. Grace, however, may be most satisfactorily defined as “a term applied, in despair, to that class of the impressions of Beauty which admit of no analysis.” It is in this irresoluble effect that Mrs. Osgood excels any poetess of her country — and it is to this easily appreciable effect that her popularity is owing. Nor is she more graceful herself than a lover of the graceful, under whatever guise it is presented to her consideration. The sentiment renders itself manifest, in innumerable instances, as well throughout her prose as her poetry. Whatever be her theme, she at once extorts from it its whole essentiality of grace. Fanny Ellsler has been often lauded; true poets have sung her praises; but we look in vain for anything written about her, which so distinctly and vividly paints her to the eye as the half dozen quatrains which follow. They are to be found in the English volume:
She comes! — the spirit of the dance!
And but for those large [[,]] eloquent eyes,
Where Passion speaks in every glance,
She’d seem a