Lastly I must note the cordial love of life, and the cheerful confidence in death: —
My life did and does taste sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I saved and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again,"
I have dwelt thus at length on these personal characteristics, not only because they are very interesting in themselves, on account of the greatness of the personality they help to characterise, but also because they have not, so far as I am aware, been so plainly discovered in any of the author's previous works. There is not space left to speak at all sufficiently, even were it in my power so to speak, of the impersonal or dramatic poems. Some of the shorter pieces are very fine, and two or three will take place with his best. Here is the shortest, entitled "Magical Nature":—
Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower,
Save but glow inside and—jewel, I should guess you,
Dim to sight and rough to touch: the glory is the dower.
Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime!
Time may fray the flower-face: kind be time or cruel
Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time."
There is a piece of grim ironical humour, "Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial," turning on the
