The stamps of imperfection rests on all
Our human intellect has power to plan.
After an eloquent enumeration of the difficulties that beset our path and our faith, she concludes—
Lo! out of chaos was the world first called,
And Order out of blank Disorder came,
The feebly-toiling heart that shrinks appalled,
In dangers weak, in difficulties tame,
Hath lost the spark of that creative flame
Dimly permitted still on earth to burn,
Working out slowly Order's perfect frame;
Distributed to those whose souls can learn,
As labourers under God, His task-work to discern.
“To discern,” ay! that is what is needed. Only these “labourers under God” have that clearness of mind that is needed, and though in the present time they walk as men in a subterranean passage where the lamp sheds its light only a little way onward, yet that light suffices to keep their feet from stumbling while they seek an outlet to the blessed day.
The above presents a fair specimen of the poem. As poetry it is inferior to her earlier verses, where, without pretension to much thought, or commanding view, Mrs. Norton expressed simply the feelings of the girl and the woman. Willis has described them well in one of the most touching of his poems, as being a tale
—“of feelings which in me are cold,
But ah! with what a passionate sweetness told!”
The best passages in the present poem are personal, as where a mother’s feelings are expressed in speaking of infants and young children, recollections of a Scotch Autumn, and the description of the imprisoned gipsey.[1]
- ↑ This extract was inserted in the original notice, but must be omitted here for want of room.
