nesses abide," having as much to do with all this as her hterary excellence.
It was the next winter that the Macmillans brought out her first volume of poems, "Swallow Flights"; and, although she had trembled to think of its fate at the hands of alien critics, she betrayed no elation at the chorus of praise with which it was received. The Examiner spoke of the power and originality of the verses, of the music and the intensity as surpassing any verse of George Eliot's, declaring that the sonnet entitled "One Dread" might have been written by Sir Philip Sidney.
"No depth, dear Love, for thee is too iirofound,
There is no farthest height thou mayst not dare,
Nor shall thy wings fail in the upper air :
In funeral robe and wreath my past lies bound :
No old-time voice assails me with its sound
When thine I hear — no former joy seems fair,
Since now one only thing could bring despair.
One grief, like compassing seas, my life surround,
One only terror in my way be met.
One great eclipse change my glad day to night,
One phantom only turn from red to white
The lips whereon thy lips have once been set:
Thou knowest well, dear Love, what that must be —
The dread of some dark day unshared by thee."
The Athenceum also dwelt on the vivid and subtle imagination and delicate loveliness of these verses and their perfection of technique. The Academy spoke warndy of their felicity of epithet, their healthiness, their suggestiveness, their imaginative force pervaded by the depth and sweetness of perfect womanhood; and the Tattler pronounced her a mistress of form and of artistic j)erfection, saying also that England had no ppet in such full sympathy with woods and winds and waves, finding in her the one truly natural singer in an age of s'sthetic imitation. " She gives the effect of the sudden note of the thrush," it said. "She is as spontaneous as Walter von Vogelweide." The Timea, the Mornhuj Po.^t, the Literary World, all welcomed the book with eciually warm praise, and the Pall Mall Gazette spoke of her lyrical feeling as like that which gave a unique charm to Heine's songs. Very few of these critics had she ever met, and their cordial recognition was as surprising to her as it was delightful. Among the innumerable letters which she .received, filled with admiring warmth, were some from Matthew Arnold, Austin Dobson, Frederick Locker, William Bell Scott, and, in fine, most of the world of letters of the London of that day. Her songs were set to music by Francesco Berger and Lady Charlcsmont, as the^ have been later on by Margaret Lang, Arthur Foote, Ethelbcrt Nevin, and many others. Philip Bourke Marston wrote her, "Much as we all love and admire your work, it seems to me we have not yet fully realized the unostentatious loveliness of your lyrics, as fine for lyrics as your best sonnets are for son- nets. 'How Long' struck me more than ever. The first verse is eminently characteristic of you, exhibiting in a very marked degree what runs through nearly all of your poems, the most exquisite and subtle blending of strong emotion with the sense of external nature. It seems to me this perfect poem is possessed by the melancholy yet tender music of winds sighing at twilight, in some churchyard, through okl trees that watch beside silent graves. Then nothing can be more subtly beautiful than the closing lines of the sonnet, 'In Time to Come':—
"'Which was it spoke to you, the wind or I?
I think you, musing, scarcely will have heard.'
"There can be no doubt that, measuring by quality, not quantity, your place is in the very foremost rank of poets. The divine simplicity, strength and subtlety, the intense, fragrant, genuine individuality of your poems will make them imperishable. And as they are of no school they will be fresh, as the old delights of earth are ever fresh." And again the same poet wrote her concerning "The House of Death" that it was one of the most beautiful, the most powerful poems he knew. "No poem gives me such an idea of the heartlessness of Nature. The poem is Death within and Summer without—light girdling darkness — and it leaves a picture and impression on the mind never to be effaced."
"Not a hand has lifted the latchet
Since siie went out of the door —
No footstep shall cross the threshold
Since she can come in no more.
"There is rust upon locks and hinges,
And mould and blight on the walls.
