VII.
Why will you haunt me unawares,And walk into my sleep,Pacing its shadowy thoroughfares,Where long-dried perfume scents the airs,While ghosts of sorrow creep,Where on Hope's ruined altar-stairs,With ineffectual beams,The Moon of Memory coldly glaresUpon the land of dreams?My yearning eyes were fain to lookUpon your hidden face;Their love, alas! you could not brook,But in your own you mutely tookMy hand, and for a spaceYou wrung it till I throbbed and shook,And woke with wildest moanAnd wet face channelled like a brookWith your tears or my own.
Why will you haunt me unawares,And walk into my sleep,Pacing its shadowy thoroughfares,Where long-dried perfume scents the airs,While ghosts of sorrow creep,Where on Hope's ruined altar-stairs,With ineffectual beams,The Moon of Memory coldly glaresUpon the land of dreams?
My yearning eyes were fain to lookUpon your hidden face;Their love, alas! you could not brook,But in your own you mutely tookMy hand, and for a spaceYou wrung it till I throbbed and shook,And woke with wildest moanAnd wet face channelled like a brookWith your tears or my own.
VIII.
When you wake from troubled slumbersWith a dream-bewildered brain,And old leaves which no man numbersChattering tap against the pane;And the midnight wind is wailingTill your very life seems quailingAs the long gusts shudder and sigh:Know you not that homeless cryIs my love's, which cannot die,Wailing through Eternity?When beside the glowing embers,Sitting in the twilight lone,Drop on drop you hear November'sMelancholy monotone,As the heavy rain comes sweeping,With a sound of weeping, weeping,Till your blood is chilled with fears;Know you not those falling tears,Flowing fast through years on years,For my sobs within your ears?When with dolorous moan the billowsSurge around where, far and wide,Leagues on leagues of sea-worn hollowsThrob with thunders of the tide,And the weary waves in breakingFill you, thrill you, as with achingMemories of our love of yoreWhere you pace the sounding shore,Hear you not, through roll and roar,Soul call soul for evermore?
When you wake from troubled slumbersWith a dream-bewildered brain,And old leaves which no man numbersChattering tap against the pane;And the midnight wind is wailingTill your very life seems quailingAs the long gusts shudder and sigh:Know you not that homeless cryIs my love's, which cannot die,Wailing through Eternity?
When beside the glowing embers,Sitting in the twilight lone,Drop on drop you hear November'sMelancholy monotone,As the heavy rain comes sweeping,With a sound of weeping, weeping,Till your blood is chilled with fears;Know you not those falling tears,Flowing fast through years on years,For my sobs within your ears?
When with dolorous moan the billowsSurge around where, far and wide,Leagues on leagues of sea-worn hollowsThrob with thunders of the tide,And the weary waves in breakingFill you, thrill you, as with achingMemories of our love of yoreWhere you pace the sounding shore,Hear you not, through roll and roar,Soul call soul for evermore?
IX.
In a lonesome burial-placeCrouched a mourner white of face;Wild her eyes—unheedingCircling pomp of night and day—Ever crying, "Well away,Love lies a-bleeding!"And her sighs were like a knell,And her tears for ever fell,With their warm rain feedingThat purpureal flower, alas!Trailing prostrate in the grass,Love lies a-bleeding.Through the yews' black-tufted gloomCrimson light dripped on the tomb,Funeral shadows breeding:In the sky the sun's light shedDyed the earth one awful red—Love lies a-bleeding.Came grey mists, and blanching cloudBore one universal shroud;Came the bowed moon leading,From the infinite afarStar that rumoured unto star—Love lies a-bleeding.
In a lonesome burial-placeCrouched a mourner white of face;Wild her eyes—unheedingCircling pomp of night and day—Ever crying, "Well away,Love lies a-bleeding!"
And her sighs were like a knell,And her tears for ever fell,With their warm rain feedingThat purpureal flower, alas!Trailing prostrate in the grass,Love lies a-bleeding.
Through the yews' black-tufted gloomCrimson light dripped on the tomb,Funeral shadows breeding:In the sky the sun's light shedDyed the earth one awful red—Love lies a-bleeding.
Came grey mists, and blanching cloudBore one universal shroud;Came the bowed moon leading,From the infinite afarStar that rumoured unto star—Love lies a-bleeding.
X.
On life's long round by chance I foundA dell impearled with dew,Where hyacinths, gushing from the ground,Lent to the earth heaven's native hueOf holy blue.I sought that plot of azure lightOnce more in gloomy hours;But snow had fallen overnightAnd wrapped in mortuary whiteMy fairy ring of flowers.
On life's long round by chance I foundA dell impearled with dew,Where hyacinths, gushing from the ground,Lent to the earth heaven's native hueOf holy blue.
I sought that plot of azure lightOnce more in gloomy hours;But snow had fallen overnightAnd wrapped in mortuary whiteMy fairy ring of flowers.
XI.
Ah, yesterday was dark and drear,My heart was deadly sore;Without thy love it seemed, my Dear,That I could live no more.And yet I laugh and sing to-day;Care or care not for me,Thou canst not take the love awayWith which I worship thee.And if to-morrow, Dear, I live,My heart I shall not break:For still I hold it that to giveIs sweeter than to take.
Ah, yesterday was dark and drear,My heart was deadly sore;Without thy love it seemed, my Dear,That I could live no more.
And yet I laugh and sing to-day;Care or care not for me,Thou canst not take the love awayWith which I worship thee.
And if to-morrow, Dear, I live,My heart I shall not break:For still I hold it that to giveIs sweeter than to take.
XII.
Yea, the roses are still on fireWith the bygone heat of July,Though the least little wind drifting byShake a rose-leaf or two from the brier,Be it never so soft a sigh.Ember of love still glows and lingersDeep at the red heart's smouldering core;With the sudden passionate throb of yoreWe shook as our eyes and clinging fingersMet once only to meet no more.
Yea, the roses are still on fireWith the bygone heat of July,Though the least little wind drifting byShake a rose-leaf or two from the brier,Be it never so soft a sigh.
Ember of love still glows and lingersDeep at the red heart's smouldering core;With the sudden passionate throb of yoreWe shook as our eyes and clinging fingersMet once only to meet no more.
XIII.
We met as strangers on life's lonely way,And yet it seemed we knew each other well;There was no end to what thou hadst to say,Or to the thousand things I found to tell.My heart, long silent, at thy voice that dayChimed in my breast like to a silver bell.How much we spoke, and yet still left untoldSome secret half revealed within our eyes:Didst thou not love me once in ages old?Had I not called thee with importunate cries,And, like a child left sobbing in the cold,Listened to catch from far thy fond replies?We met as strangers, and as such we part;Yet all my life seems leaving me with thine;Ah, to be clasped once only heart to heart,If only once to feel that thou wert mine!These lips are locked, and yet I know thou artThat all in all for which my soul did pine.
We met as strangers on life's lonely way,And yet it seemed we knew each other well;There was no end to what thou hadst to say,Or to the thousand things I found to tell.My heart, long silent, at thy voice that dayChimed in my breast like to a silver bell.
How much we spoke, and yet still left untoldSome secret half revealed within our eyes:Didst thou not love me once in ages old?Had I not called thee with importunate cries,And, like a child left sobbing in the cold,Listened to catch from far thy fond replies?
We met as strangers, and as such we part;Yet all my life seems leaving me with thine;Ah, to be clasped once only heart to heart,If only once to feel that thou wert mine!These lips are locked, and yet I know thou artThat all in all for which my soul did pine.
XIV.
You make the sunshine of my heartAnd its tempestuous shower;Sometimes the thought of you is likeA lilac bush in flower,Yea, honey-sweet as hives in May.And then the pang of it will strikeMy bosom with a fiery smart,As though love's deeply planted dartDrained all its life away.My thoughts hum round you, Dear, like beesAbout a bank of thyme,Or round the yellow blossoms ofThe heavy-scented lime.Ah, sweeter you than honeydew,Yet dark the ways of love,For it has robbed my soul of peace,And marred my life and turned heart's-easeInto funereal rue.
You make the sunshine of my heartAnd its tempestuous shower;Sometimes the thought of you is likeA lilac bush in flower,Yea, honey-sweet as hives in May.And then the pang of it will strikeMy bosom with a fiery smart,As though love's deeply planted dartDrained all its life away.
My thoughts hum round you, Dear, like beesAbout a bank of thyme,Or round the yellow blossoms ofThe heavy-scented lime.Ah, sweeter you than honeydew,Yet dark the ways of love,For it has robbed my soul of peace,And marred my life and turned heart's-easeInto funereal rue.
XV.
Dear, when I look into your eyesMy hurts are healed, my heart grows whole;The barren places in my soul,Like waste lands under April skies,Break into flower beneath your eyes.Ah, life grows lovely where you are;Only to think of you gives lightTo my dark heart, within whose nightYour image, though you bide afar,Glows like a lake-reflected star.Dare I crave more than only this:A thrill of love, a transient smileTo gladden all my world awhile?No more, alas! Is mortal blissNot transient as a lover's kiss?
Dear, when I look into your eyesMy hurts are healed, my heart grows whole;The barren places in my soul,Like waste lands under April skies,Break into flower beneath your eyes.
Ah, life grows lovely where you are;Only to think of you gives lightTo my dark heart, within whose nightYour image, though you bide afar,Glows like a lake-reflected star.
Dare I crave more than only this:A thrill of love, a transient smileTo gladden all my world awhile?No more, alas! Is mortal blissNot transient as a lover's kiss?
XVI.
Ah, if you knew how soon and lateMy eyes long for a sight of you,Sometimes in passing by my gateYou'd linger until fall of dew,If you but knew!Ah, if you knew how sick and soreMy life flags for the want of you,Straightway you'd enter at the doorAnd clasp my hand between your two,If you but knew!Ah, if you knew how lost and loneI watch and weep and wait for you,You'd press my heart close to your ownTill love had healed me through and through,If you but knew!
Ah, if you knew how soon and lateMy eyes long for a sight of you,Sometimes in passing by my gateYou'd linger until fall of dew,If you but knew!
Ah, if you knew how sick and soreMy life flags for the want of you,Straightway you'd enter at the doorAnd clasp my hand between your two,If you but knew!
Ah, if you knew how lost and loneI watch and weep and wait for you,You'd press my heart close to your ownTill love had healed me through and through,If you but knew!
XVII.
Your looks have touched my soul with brightIneffable emotion;As moonbeams on a stormy nightIllume with transitory lightA seagull on her lonely flightAcross the lonely ocean.Fluttering from out the gloom and roar,On fitful wing she flies,Moon-white above the moon-washed shore;Then, drowned in darkness as before,She's lost, as I when lit no moreBy your beloved eyes.
Your looks have touched my soul with brightIneffable emotion;As moonbeams on a stormy nightIllume with transitory lightA seagull on her lonely flightAcross the lonely ocean.
Fluttering from out the gloom and roar,On fitful wing she flies,Moon-white above the moon-washed shore;Then, drowned in darkness as before,She's lost, as I when lit no moreBy your beloved eyes.
XVIII.
Oh, brown Eyes with long black lashes,Young brown Eyes,Depths of night from which there flashesLightning as of summer skies,Beautiful brown Eyes!In your veiled mysterious splendourPassion liesSleeping, but with sudden tenderDreams that fill with vague surmiseBeautiful brown Eyes.All my soul, with yearning shaken,Asks in sighs—Who will see your heart awaken,Love's divine sunriseIn those young brown Eyes?
Oh, brown Eyes with long black lashes,Young brown Eyes,Depths of night from which there flashesLightning as of summer skies,Beautiful brown Eyes!
In your veiled mysterious splendourPassion liesSleeping, but with sudden tenderDreams that fill with vague surmiseBeautiful brown Eyes.
All my soul, with yearning shaken,Asks in sighs—Who will see your heart awaken,Love's divine sunriseIn those young brown Eyes?
XIX.
Once on a golden day,In the golden month of May,I gave my heart away—Little birds were singing.I culled my heart in truth,Wet with the dews of youth,For love to take, forsooth—Little flowers were springing.Love sweetly laughed at this,And between kiss and kissFled with my heart in his:Winds warmly blowing.And with his sun and showerLove kept my heart in flower,As in the greenest bowerRose richly glowing.Till, worn at evensong,Love dropped my heart amongStones by the way ere long;Misprizèd token.There in the wind and rain,Trampled and rent in twain,Ne'er to be whole again,My heart lies broken.
Once on a golden day,In the golden month of May,I gave my heart away—Little birds were singing.
I culled my heart in truth,Wet with the dews of youth,For love to take, forsooth—Little flowers were springing.
Love sweetly laughed at this,And between kiss and kissFled with my heart in his:Winds warmly blowing.
And with his sun and showerLove kept my heart in flower,As in the greenest bowerRose richly glowing.
Till, worn at evensong,Love dropped my heart amongStones by the way ere long;Misprizèd token.
There in the wind and rain,Trampled and rent in twain,Ne'er to be whole again,My heart lies broken.
XX.
What magic is there in thy mien,What sorcery in thy smile,Which charms away all cark and care,Which turns the foul days into fair,And for a little whileChanges this disenchanted sceneFrom the sere leaf into the green,Transmuting with love's golden wandThis beggared life to fairyland?My heart goes forth to thee, oh friend,As some poor pilgrim to a shrine,A pilgrim who has come from farTo seek his spirit's folding star,And sees the taper shine;The goal to which his wanderings tend,Where want and weariness shall end,And kneels ecstatically blestBecause his heart hath entered rest.
What magic is there in thy mien,What sorcery in thy smile,Which charms away all cark and care,Which turns the foul days into fair,And for a little whileChanges this disenchanted sceneFrom the sere leaf into the green,Transmuting with love's golden wandThis beggared life to fairyland?
My heart goes forth to thee, oh friend,As some poor pilgrim to a shrine,A pilgrim who has come from farTo seek his spirit's folding star,And sees the taper shine;The goal to which his wanderings tend,Where want and weariness shall end,And kneels ecstatically blestBecause his heart hath entered rest.
HEART'S-EASE.
As opiates to the sick on wakeful nights,As light to flowers, as flowers in poor men's rooms,As to the fisher when the tempest gloomsThe cheerful twinkling of his village lights;As emerald isles to flagging swallow flights,As roses garlanding with tendrilled bloomsThe unweeded hillocks of forgotten tombs,As singing birds on cypress-shadowed heights,Thou art to me—a comfort past compare—For thy joy-kindling presence, sweet as MaySets all my nerves to music, makes awayWith sorrow and the numbing frost of care,Until the influence of thine eyes' bright swayHas made life's glass go up from foul to fair.
As opiates to the sick on wakeful nights,As light to flowers, as flowers in poor men's rooms,As to the fisher when the tempest gloomsThe cheerful twinkling of his village lights;As emerald isles to flagging swallow flights,As roses garlanding with tendrilled bloomsThe unweeded hillocks of forgotten tombs,As singing birds on cypress-shadowed heights,
Thou art to me—a comfort past compare—For thy joy-kindling presence, sweet as MaySets all my nerves to music, makes awayWith sorrow and the numbing frost of care,Until the influence of thine eyes' bright swayHas made life's glass go up from foul to fair.
UNTIMELY LOVE.
Peace, throbbing heart, nor let us shed one tearO'er this late love's unseasonable glow;Sweet as a violet blooming in the snow,The posthumous offspring of the widowed year,That smells of March when all the world is sere,And, while around the hurtling sea-winds blow—Which twist the oak and lay the pine tree low—Stands childlike in the storm and has no fear.Poor helpless blossom orphaned of the sun,How could it thus brave winter's rude estate?Oh love, more helpless love, why bloom so late,Now that the flower-time of the year is done?Since thy dear course must end when scarce begun,Nipped by the cold touch of untoward fate.
Peace, throbbing heart, nor let us shed one tearO'er this late love's unseasonable glow;Sweet as a violet blooming in the snow,The posthumous offspring of the widowed year,That smells of March when all the world is sere,And, while around the hurtling sea-winds blow—Which twist the oak and lay the pine tree low—Stands childlike in the storm and has no fear.
Poor helpless blossom orphaned of the sun,How could it thus brave winter's rude estate?Oh love, more helpless love, why bloom so late,Now that the flower-time of the year is done?Since thy dear course must end when scarce begun,Nipped by the cold touch of untoward fate.
THE AFTER-GLOW.
It is a solemn evening, golden-clear—The Alpine summits flame with rose-lit snowAnd headlands purpling on wide seas below,And clouds and woods and arid rocks appearDissolving in the sun's own atmosphereAnd vast circumference of light, whose slowTransfiguration—glow and after-glow—Turns twilight earth to a more luminous sphere.Oh heart, I ask, seeing that the orb of dayHas sunk below, yet left to sky and seaHis glory's spiritual after-shine:I ask if Love, whose sun hath set for thee,May not touch grief with his memorial ray,And lend to loss itself a joy divine?
It is a solemn evening, golden-clear—The Alpine summits flame with rose-lit snowAnd headlands purpling on wide seas below,And clouds and woods and arid rocks appearDissolving in the sun's own atmosphereAnd vast circumference of light, whose slowTransfiguration—glow and after-glow—Turns twilight earth to a more luminous sphere.
Oh heart, I ask, seeing that the orb of dayHas sunk below, yet left to sky and seaHis glory's spiritual after-shine:I ask if Love, whose sun hath set for thee,May not touch grief with his memorial ray,And lend to loss itself a joy divine?
L'ENVOI.
Thou art the goal for which my spirit longs;As dove on dove,Bound for one home, I send thee all my songsWith all my love.Thou art the haven with fair harbour lights;Safe locked in thee,My heart would anchor after stormful nightsAlone at sea.Thou art the rest of which my life is fain,The perfect peace;Absorbed in thee the world, with all its painAnd toil, would cease.Thou art the heaven to which my soul would go!O dearest eyes,Lost in your light you would turn hell belowTo Paradise.Thou all in all for which my heart-blood yearns!Yea, near or far—Where the unfathomed ether throbs and burnsWith star on star,Or where, enkindled by the fires of June,The fresh earth glows,Blushing beneath the mystical white moonThrough rose on rose—Thee, thee I see, thee feel in all live things,Beloved one;In the first bird which tremulously singsEre peep of sun;In the last nestling orphaned in the hedge,Rocked to and fro,When dying summer shudders in the sedge,And swallows go;When roaring snows rush down the mountain-pass,March floods with rills,Or April lightens through the living grassIn daffodils;When poppied cornfields simmer in the heatWith tare and thistle,And, like winged clouds above the mellow wheat,The starlings whistle;When stained with sunset the wide moorlands glareIn the wild weather,And clouds with flaming craters smoke and flareRed o'er red heather;When the bent moon, on frostbound midnights waking,Leans to the snowLike some world-mother whose deep heart is breakingO'er human woe.As the round sun rolls red into the ocean,Till all the seaGlows fluid gold, even so life's mazy motionIs dyed with thee:For as the wave-like years subside and roll,O heart's desire,Thy soul glows interfused within my soul,A quenchless fire.Yea, thee I feel, all storms of life above,Near though afar;O thou my glorious morning star of love,And evening star.
Thou art the goal for which my spirit longs;As dove on dove,Bound for one home, I send thee all my songsWith all my love.
Thou art the haven with fair harbour lights;Safe locked in thee,My heart would anchor after stormful nightsAlone at sea.
Thou art the rest of which my life is fain,The perfect peace;Absorbed in thee the world, with all its painAnd toil, would cease.
Thou art the heaven to which my soul would go!O dearest eyes,Lost in your light you would turn hell belowTo Paradise.
Thou all in all for which my heart-blood yearns!Yea, near or far—Where the unfathomed ether throbs and burnsWith star on star,
Or where, enkindled by the fires of June,The fresh earth glows,Blushing beneath the mystical white moonThrough rose on rose—
Thee, thee I see, thee feel in all live things,Beloved one;In the first bird which tremulously singsEre peep of sun;
In the last nestling orphaned in the hedge,Rocked to and fro,When dying summer shudders in the sedge,And swallows go;
When roaring snows rush down the mountain-pass,March floods with rills,Or April lightens through the living grassIn daffodils;
When poppied cornfields simmer in the heatWith tare and thistle,And, like winged clouds above the mellow wheat,The starlings whistle;
When stained with sunset the wide moorlands glareIn the wild weather,And clouds with flaming craters smoke and flareRed o'er red heather;
When the bent moon, on frostbound midnights waking,Leans to the snowLike some world-mother whose deep heart is breakingO'er human woe.
As the round sun rolls red into the ocean,Till all the seaGlows fluid gold, even so life's mazy motionIs dyed with thee:
For as the wave-like years subside and roll,O heart's desire,Thy soul glows interfused within my soul,A quenchless fire.
Yea, thee I feel, all storms of life above,Near though afar;O thou my glorious morning star of love,And evening star.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,LONDON AND BECCLES.
THE PROPHECY OF SAINT ORAN, and other Poems.THE HEATHER ON FIRE.
TARANTELLA: A Romance.
GEORGE ELIOT.MADAME ROLAND.
And other Poems.
"There is perhaps no phase of our history more capable of poetic treatment than the sainted lives of the Irish monks who first spread the Christian faith over the western shores of Scotland, and yet it would be difficult to point to a single representative poem having Saint Columba and the devoted band of his disciples for its heroes. An attempt at filling up this gap has recently been made by Miss Blind in a narrative poem devoted to the fate of St. Oran, the friend and disciple of St. Columba.... Apart from the sonorous beauty of her lines, there is in her diction a straightforwardness and simplicity, and an entire absence of affectation and false sentiment, which, combined with considerable power of characterization, make her volume a remarkable contribution to English literature."—Times, September 26, 1881.
"To disturb themotifof a legend is always a bold, and mostly a rash, proceeding.... And yet so skilfully is the story handled that the main incidents of the legend do not lose, but gain by this disturbance of themotif, and the character of Oran, which with the oldmotifcould only have presented the single side of the religious enthusiast, becomes a character exhibiting that complexity which modern taste demands.... Directness of style and lucidity of narrative are the characteristic excellences of the poem. There are few contemporary poets who could have done so much dramatic business in so few lines.... In each of the sonnets there is a thought that is well expressed, and worth expressing."—Athenæum, July 30, 1881.
"It is in the domain of character that the poem is distinguished by its highest excellence. There is an ideal statuesqueness embodied in the person of St. Columba such as is felt to possess a powerful appeal to the imagination. The poem embraces many passions, of which the most tender and beautiful finds expression in the exquisite creation of the radiant golden-haired girl for whose love St. Oran breaks his vow of chastity. But the really powerful contribution to our knowledge of character which this book contains is fittingly centred in St. Oran himself. A dramatic instinct of high order finds utterance in his struggles between opposing passions. Nor are the metrical excellences of the poem less conspicuous.... If one were in need of some single phrase by which to denote the ultimate effect produced by this book, one might say that it seems the mostmatureof all recent first efforts, even of established rank."—Academy, July 16, 1881.
"In the choice of a subject for her chief poem she has been singularly fortunate.... That a story such as this is full of poetical suggestiveness is obvious, and Miss Blind has proved herself equal to the occasion. She has avoided writing anything approaching to a 'tendency poem.' She metes out justice with an equal hand to all her characters. The genuine enthusiasm and religious zeal of the monks are set forth in language as inspired as is the final protest of St. Oran against their narrow fanaticism; and one of the best passages in the book is indeed the Sermon in which St. Columba announces the Gospel of love and redemption to the islanders."—Pall Mall Gazette, August 22, 1881.
"'The Prophecy of Saint Oran' is skilfully told and vigorously written. In the description of nature and scenery; in the delineation of character; and in the management of singularly difficult positions there is visible a firm and practised hand, a bold and unmistakable power. 'The Street Children's Dance' not unworthily ranks with some of the touching pieces of Hood, Mrs. Barrett Browning, and others."—British Mail, September 1, 1881.
"The only excuse for street music that can reasonably be considered valid is the touching plea for public toleration which is embodied in Miss Mathilde Blind's poem, wherein the spectacle of poor children dancing round an organ is as pathetically moralized and as tender and full of loving pity as Mrs. Browning's 'Cry of the Children.'"—Daily Telegraph, September 1, 1881.
"The poem is rich in true description of sea and sky and mountain, and glows in sympathy with the deeper feelings which stir humanity. There has been published no poem of such creative suggestiveness as this for many a day, and we hope and believe that it is the precursor of other work by the same unfaltering hand. This poem is a true work of art, complete and beautiful. There is in the volume other work which shows a master's touch...."—Manchester Examiner and Times, July 1, 1882.
"Il y a là bien plus qu'une simple facilité de versification. Le récit du poeme d'ouverture est grand et fort, la manière de raconter est pleine de poésie et d'effet. Depuis la mort de Mrs. Barrett Browning, nous n'avons point eu de poésie aussi hautement inspirée qui ait jailli d'une source féminine."—Le Livre, Paris, October 10, 1881.
A Tale of the Highland Clearances.
"Miss Blind has produced one of the most noticeable and moving poems which recent years have added to our shelves.... As a singer with a message her attempt is praiseworthy, and her performance is fairly self-consistent. It is eminently homogeneous; the passion once felt, the inspiration once obeyed, the well-head pours forth its stream in a strong and uniform current, which knows no pause until its impulse ceases.... The story is pathetic at once in its simplicity and in its terror.... We congratulate the author upon her boldness in choosing a subject of our own time, fertile in what is pathetic, and free from any taint of the vulgar and conventional. Poetry of late years has tended too much towards motives of a merely fanciful and abstruse, sometimes a plainly artificial, character; and we have had much of lyrical energy or attraction, with little of the real marrow of human life, the flesh and blood of man and woman. Positive subject-matter, the emotion which inheres in actual life, the very smile and the very tear and heart-pang, are, after all, precious to poetry, and we have them here. 'The Heather on Fire' may possibly prove to be something of a new departure, and one that was certainly not superfluous."—Athenæum, July 17, 1886.
"Miss Blind has chosen for her new poem one of those terrible Highland clearances which stain the history of Scotch landlordism. Though her tale is a fiction it is too well founded on fact.... It may be said generally of the poem that the most difficult scenes are those in which Miss Blind succeeds best; and on the whole we are inclined to think that its greatest and most surprising success is the picture of the poor old soldier Rory driven mad by the burning of his wife. In his frenzy he mixes up his old battles with the French and the descent of the landlord's ejectors upon the village."—Academy, August 7, 1886.
"In this versified tale of Highland clearances, Mathilde Blind has, with genuine poetic instinct, selected a family the fortunes of which form the burden of her story.... Literature and poetry are never seen at their best save in contact with actual life.... This little book abounds in vivid delineation of character, and is redolent with the noblest human sympathy."—Newcastle Daily Chronicle, June 3, 1886.
"A subject which has painfully preoccupied public opinion is, in the poem entitled 'The Heather on Fire,' treated with characteristic power by Miss Mathilde Blind. Irish evictions have offered so convenient a theme to party strife, that the sufferings of the unhappy Highland crofters have not always met with the compassion they were so well calculated to inspire. In eloquent and forcible verse, Miss Blind tells the tale of their wrongs, their resistance to the hard fate imposed upon them, and describes the bitter grief with which
'Crowding on the decks with hungry eyes,Straining towards the coast that flies and flies,'
'Crowding on the decks with hungry eyes,Straining towards the coast that flies and flies,'
those among them driven into exile look on the shores to which many bid an eternal farewell. Both as a narrative and descriptive poem 'The Heather on Fire' is equally remarkable."—Morning Post, July 30, 1886.
"We are happy in being able to extend to the present poem a welcome equally sincere and equally hearty; for it is a poem that is rich not only in power and beauty but in that 'enthusiasm of humanity' which stirs and moves us, and of which so much contemporary verse is almost painfully deficient. Miss Blind does not possess her theme; she is possessed by it, as was Mrs. Browning when she wrote 'Aurora Leigh.'... We can best describe the kind of her success by noting the fact that while engaged in the perusal of her book we do not say, 'What a fine poem!' but 'What a terrible story!' or, more probably still, say nothing at all, but read on and on under the spell of a great horror and an over-powering pity. Poetry of which this can be said needs no other recommendation, and, therefore, we need not unduly lengthen our review of 'The Heather on Fire.'"—Manchester Examiner and Times, September 1, 1886.
"There are charming pictures of West Highland scenery, in Arran apparently, and of the surroundings and conditions of Highland cottar life."—Scotsman, July 20, 1886.
"In 'The Heather on Fire' she exhibits a clearness and beauty of diction, a rhythmical correctness, a grace and simplicity of style which mark her out as no slavish follower of any poetic 'school,' but an unaffected and truthful expression of her own feelings.... Whatever the reader's opinion may be on the grievance which Miss Blind throws into such fierce light, he cannot fail to be pleased with her graceful tale, so gracefully and simply told."—Glasgow Herald, July 20, 1886.
"Miss Mathilde Blind's poem is the tragic epic of the old evictions in the Highlands of Scotland. It is a strange fact that the general reader knows more about the siege of Troy, the Norman Conquest, and the Wars of the Roses, than about such matters in the very history of our own days as the depopulation of the Highlands of Scotland by the landlords. The old story comes to the front just now by reason of the crofter agitation. In the preface to her fine and touching epic, and in the notes at the end, Miss Blind passes in review some of the facts of the eviction of the Glen Sannox people by the Duke of Hamilton in 1832, where, as she says, 'the progress of civilization, which has redeemed many a wilderness and gladdened the solitary places of the world, has come with a curse to these Highland glens, and turned green pastures and golden harvest fields once more into a desert.' The 'Heather on Fire' is a poem in four cantos—or 'Duans'—comprising about two hundred stanzas."—School Board Chronicle, July 10, 1886.
"It is written in a strain which must of necessity appeal to the sympathies of all grades of society, and at the same time it is eminently poetical, both in thought and rhythm."—Western Antiquary, August, 1886.
"A book like this forms an admirable corrective to the harsh and cold-blooded theories of such landlords as the Duke of Argyle on the rights of his class."—Cambridge Independent Press, August, 1886.
"There is a sonorous beauty, a classic dignity and depth of pathos throughout her four cantos, and a vivid and thrilling description is given of the industrious hamlets, the contented happy people, and the ruthless manner in which the evictions were effected by the stewards and ground-officers."—Elgin Courant, August, 1886.
A Romance.
"The author of this two-volumed romance is favourably known by other works, and by her appreciative 'Life of George Eliot.' The strange effects of the bite of a tarantula spider, so firmly believed in by the Italian peasantry, and the marvellous power of musical enthusiasm, supply the motive of the story; and the characters are portrayed with great force, pathos, and a touch of homely humour."—Bookseller, Christmas, 1884.
"Miss Blind may be congratulated on 'Tarantella,' her first novel. In therécit(as we have called it) of the musician, Emanuel Sturm, nearly all the interest of the book is concentrated. The violinist, poor and unknown, finds himself at Capri. Accident brings him, one evening, to a frightened group of women, one of whom has just been bitten by the tarantula, and, according to the popular superstition, he is implored to play, in order to drive the poison out of her. He refuses at first, but afterwards consents, and, finding himself almost supernaturally inspired, plays an improvised 'Tarantella' throughout a whole stormy night, finally curing the girl. The tune thus strangely hit on spreads, and ultimately makes him famous, but the love he has conceived for his Antonella brings him almost as much misery as his music brings him fame."—Pall Mall Gazette, February 5, 1885.
"Admiration of the delicate sketching now in vogue should not blind us to the very opposite kind of charm of which 'Tarantella' is full. Entirely poetical in conception (save that it is not written in metre), 'Tarantella' is more essentially a poem than many a narrative written in smooth and elegant verse.... 'Tarantella' is indeed full of strange originality and scenic effects of uncommon powers. The dance among the ruins is not likely to be soon forgotten by the most unimaginative of readers, and it is rarely, we think, that in an English novel the psychology of the poetic temperament has been touched by a hand so delicate and at the same time so strong."—Athenæum, January 17, 1885.
"There is abundant imagination, and the language is generally fresh and vigorous.... The author finds many opportunities of introducing scenes from German life, which are evidently written with intimate knowledge.... This is distinctly a novel to read."—Echo, June 16, 1886.
"This powerful and pathetic tale has carried us more completely out of ourselves and along with it than any work of fiction we have read for many a day.... Her (Miss Blind's) word-pictures glow with rich local colours; she is a complete mistress of the art of dramatic cause and effect. When once fairly under weigh, she never allows the interest to flag for a single moment. Thus it is only when we have laid down the final volume that we have time or inclination to pause and recognize the care and art which have contributed to this triumphant result; to turn back ... and dwell on the author's extraordinary knowledge of the human heart—extraordinary alike for its depth and its range. As for the wit and humour with which the book is freely sprinkled, the poetic and artistic spirit which pervades it throughout, they can only be appreciated on a second or a third perusal."—Life, December 25, 1884.
"'Tarantella' is extremely clever, and the treatment of the weird subject she has chosen picturesque in the extreme. The local colouring is especially fine, and her character studies extremely strong. Thrice welcome in its two-volume form, 'Tarantella' is a book bound to make its mark."—Whitehall Review, December 11, 1884.
"We have very ingenious resources in music and the bite of the tarantula, which alone music is said to heal. Notwithstanding the sense of improbability, we follow the strange fortunes of Antonella, Countess Ogotshka, and her almost magical transformation with interest. Mina, the innocent girl, her friend, is well delineated, and Emanuel Sturm, the wonderful violinist and composer, for whose portrait Paganini has doubtless been available, is original, no less than his friend the painter."—British Quarterly, January, 1885.
"'Tarantella' is a very clever story, with plenty of action and not without tragic incidents. The author has also plenty of humour, and there is at least as much light as shade in the book. Mina is not less delightful than the Countess is objectionable, in spite of her beauty and her daring."—London Figaro, November 20, 1886.
"We shall not spoil the story by hinting at itsdénouement. It is a deeply interesting one; and the characters, three of them at least, are sufficiently original to give the author a high rank as a novelist.... The book abounds in striking and interesting pictures of Italian and German life and scenery."—Dublin Mail, November, 1886.
"'Tarantella' is, indeed, a novel unlike the common—full of power and imagination and originality.... It would be unjust to deny to this very remarkable book a large share of what the world calls genius."—Melbourne Argus, March 14, 1885.
"By her recent works, 'The Prophecy of Saint Oran' and the 'Life of George Eliot,' Miss Blind brought herself before the public as a writer of considerable ability, and her latest novel will do much to increase her reputation.... 'Tarantella' deserves to be classed among the best novels of the present day."—Scottish News, June 15, 1886.
"There is an inherent charm about 'Tarantella' which will be apparent to the reader from a perusal of the first chapter. This agreeable quality does not end there, however. The whole of the tale, which is divided into forty-six chapters, is permeated with features of an exceptionally attractive description. Not the least noteworthy character of the story is its novelty. Most of the incidents, which are carefully elaborated and follow in logical sequence, are conspicuous for an airy freshness in nature and treatment. Every chapter has its specific purpose, there being a uniform overflow of idea and sentiment; and each development of the pleasing romance opens to the mental vision of the thoughtful reader incidents of a more or less engrossing description. Continental scenes and customs are described with freeness and perspicuity, and the varied and eventful adventures of the principal characters—pleasingly typical, it may be mentioned, of the romanticism invariably associated with 'love's young dream,' when, as in the present instance, there is a combination of youth and beauty—are recorded with a poetical fervour and gracefulness of diction which are certain to be generally admired."—Western Daily Press, June 2, 1886.