at once took rank as
literature both in America and England, and challenged comparison with
the work of established writers. Of classic themes we have "Admetus" and
"Orpheus," and of romantic the legend of Tannhauser and of the saintly
Lohengrin. All are treated with an artistic finish that shows perfect
mastery of her craft, without detracting from the freshness and flow of
her inspiration. While sounding no absolutely new note in the world,
she yet makes us aware of a talent of unusual distinction, and a highly
endowed nature,--a sort of tact of sentiment and expression, an instinct
of the true and beautiful, and that quick intuition which is like
second-sight in its sensitiveness to apprehend and respond to external
stimulus. But it is not the purely imaginative poems in this volume that
most deeply interest us. We come upon experience of life in these pages;
not in the ordinary sense, however, of outward activity and movement,
but in the hidden undercurrent of being. "The epochs of our life are not
in the visible facts, but in the silent thoughts by the wayside as we
walk." This is the motto, drawn from Emerson, which she chooses for her
poem of "Epochs," which marks a pivotal moment in her life. Difficult
to analyze, difficult above all to convey, if we would not encroach
upon the domain of private and personal experience, is the drift of
this poem, or rather cycle of poems, that ring throughout with a deeper
accent and a more direct appeal than has yet made itself felt. It is the
drama of the human soul,--"the mystic winged and flickering butterfly,"
"flitting between earth and sky," in its passage from birth to death.

A golden morning of June! "Sweet empty sky without a stain." Sunlight
and mist and "ripple of rain-fed rills." "A murmur and a singing
manifold."

"What simple things be these the soul to raise
To bounding joy, and make young pulses beat
With nameless pleasure, finding life so sweet!"

Such is youth, a June day, fair and fresh and tender with dreams and
longing and vague desire. The morn lingers and passes, but the noon has
not reached its height before the clouds begin to rise, the sunshine
dies, the air grows thick and heavy, the lightnings flash, the thunder
breaks among the hills, rolls and gathers and grows, until

Behold, yon bolt struck home,
And over ruined fields the storm hath come."

Now we have the phases