The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [934]
Her trusting hand fair Eva laid
In that of Albert Linne,
And for one trembling moment turned
Her gentle thoughts within.
Deep tenderness was in the glance
That rested on his face,
As if her woman-heart had found
Its own abiding-place.
And evermore to him it seemed
Her voice more liquid grew —
‘Dear youth, thy soul and mine are one;
One source their being drew!
And they must mingle evermore —
Thy thoughts of love and me
Will, as a light, thy footsteps guide
To life and mystery.”
There was a sadness in her tone,
But love unfathomed deep;
As from the centre of the soul
Where the divine may sleep;
Prophetic was the tone and look,
And Albert’s noble heart
Sank with a strange foreboding dread
Lest Eva should depart.
And when she bent her timid eyes
As she beside him knelt,
The pressure of her sinless lips
Upon his brow he felt,
And all of earth and all of sin
Fled from her sainted side;
She, the pure virgin of the soul,
Ordained young Albert’s bride.
It would, perhaps, have been out of keeping with the more obvious plan of the poem to make Eva really the bride of Albert. She does not wed him, but dies tranquilly in bed, soon after the spiritual union in the forest. “Eva,” says the Argument of Part VII., “hath fulfilled her destiny. Material things can no farther minister to the growth of her spirit. That waking of the soul to its own deep mysteries — its oneness with another — has been accomplished. A human soul is perfected.” At this point the poem may be said to have its conclusion.
In looking back at its general plan, we cannot fail to see traces of high poetic capacity. The first point to be commended is the reach or aim of the poetess. She is evidently discontented with the bald routine of common-place themes, and originality has been with her a principal object. In all cases of fictitious composition it should be the first object — by which we do not mean to say that it can ever be considered as the most important. But, ceteris paribus, every class of fiction is the better for originality; every writer is false to his own interest if he fails to avail himself, at the outset, of the effect which is certainly and invariably derivable from the great element, novelty.
The execution of “The Sinless Child” is, as we have already said, inferior to its conception — that is, to its conception as it floated, rather than steadily existed, in the brain of the authoress. She enables us to see that she has very narrowly missed one of those happy “creations” which now and then immortalize the poet. With a good deal more of deliberate thought before putting pen to paper, with a good deal more of the constructive ability, and with more rigorous discipline in the minor merits of style, and of what is termed in the school-prospectuses, composition, Mrs. Smith would have made of “The Sinless Child” one of the best, if not the very best of American poems. While speaking of the execution, or, more properly, the conduct of the work, we may as well mention, first, the obviousness with which the stories introduced by Eva’s mother are interpolated, or episodical; it is permitted every reader to see that they have no natural connexion with the true theme; and, indeed, there can be no doubt that they were written long before the main narrative was projected. In the second place, we must allude to the artificiality of the Arguments, or introductory prose passages, prefacing each Part of the poem. Mrs. Smith had no sounder reason for employing them than Milton and the rest of the epicists have employed them before. If it be said that they are necessary for the proper comprehension of a poem, we reply that this is saying nothing for them, but merely much against the poem which demands them as a necessity. Every work of art should contain within itself all that