The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [992]
At an early age Miss Robinson was allied in marriage to Mr. S. D. Lewis, attorney and counsellor at law; and soon afterwards they took up their residence in Brooklyn, where they have ever since continued to reside — Mr. Lewis absorbed in the labors of his profession, as she in the pleasurable occupations connected with Literature and Art.
Her earliest efforts were made in “The Family Magazine,” edited by the well-known Solomon Southwick, of Albany. Subsequently she wrote much for various periodicals — in chief part for “The Democratic Review;” but her first appearance before the public in volume-form, was in the “Records of the Heart,” issued by the Appletons in 1844. The leading poems in this, are “Florence,” “Zenel,” “Melpomene,” “Laone,” “The Last Hour of Sappho,” and “The Bride of Guayaquil” — all long and finished compositions. “Florence” is, perhaps, the best of the series, upon the whole — although all breathe the true poetical spirit. It is a tale of passion and wild romance, vivid, forcible, and artistical. But a faint idea, of course, can be given of such a poem by an extract; but we cannot refrain from quoting two brief passages as characteristic of the general manner and tone:
Morn is abroad; the sun is up;
The dew fills high each lily’s cup;
Ten thousand flowerets springing there
Diffuse their incense through the air,
And smiling hail the morning beam:
The fawns plunge panting in the stream,
Or through the vale with light foot spring:
Insect and bird are on the wing,
And all is bright, as when in May
Young Nature holds a holiday.
Again:
The waves are smooth, the wind is calm;
Onward the golden stream is gliding
Amid the myrtle and the palm
And ilices its margin hiding.
Now sweeps it o’er the jutting shoals
In murmurs, like despairing souls,
Now deeply, softly, flows along,
Like ancient minstrel’s warbling song;
Then slowly, darkly, thoughtfully,
Loses itself in the mighty sea.
Among the minor poems in this collection is “The Forsaken,” so widely known and so universally admired. The popular as well as the critical voice, ranks it as the most beautiful ballad of its kind ever written.
We have read this little Poem more than twenty times, and always with increasing admiration. It is inexpressively beautiful. No one of real feeling can peruse it without a strong inclination to tears. Its irresistible charm is its absolute truth — the unaffected naturalness of its thought. The sentiment which forms the basis of the composition, is, perhaps, at once the most universal and the most passionate of sentiments. No human being exists, over the age of fifteen, who has not, in his heart of hearts, a ready echo for all there so pathetically expressed. The essential poetry of the ideas would only be impaired by “foreign ornament.” This is a case in which we should be repelled by the mere conventionalities of the Muse. We demand, for such thoughts, the most rigorous simplicity at all points. It will be observed that, strictly speaking, there is not an attempt at “imagery” in the whole poem. All is direct, terse, penetrating. In a word, nothing could be better done. The versification, while in full keeping with the general character of simplicity, has, in certain passages, a vigorous, trenchant euphony which would confer honor on the most accomplished masters of the art. We refer, especially to the lines:
And follow me to my long home
Solemn and slow.
And the quatrain:
Could I but know when I am sleeping
Low in the ground,
One faithful heart would there be keeping
Watch all night round.
The initial trochee here, in each instance, substituted for the iambus, produces, so naturally as to seem accidental, a very effective echo of sound to sense. The thought included in the line “And light the tomb,” should be dwelt upon to be appreciated in its full extent of beauty; and the verses which I have italicized in the last stanza, are poetry — poetry in the purest sense of that much misused word. They have power — indisputable power; making us thrill with a sense