Then walk up to the casket, Thy life is near the door, 'Twill open if you ask it, And o'er thee, spirit pour. Thou art not far from heaven, Yet earth does well to keep thee, Thy husband oft is with thee, dear, And he has led thee on: One day thou shalt see all things clear, And separation's day be done." "The Birth of Aconite," p. 77, is very powerful, both in conception and execution; of a somewhat similar strain, though in blank verse, to Part iii. of Shelley's "Sensitive Plant." But how the doctor reconciles it with his science and theology I cannot understand. I presume he believes that God created the aconite no less than He created the olive, the palm, and the vine; yet he writes as if it were created by the devil. This sort of loose undefined Manicheism, which Plato, by-the-bye, explicitly sets forth in the Timæus, is very common among Christians, in spite of the great monotheistic text (Isa. xlv. 5–7): "I am the Lord; and there is none else, there is no god beside Me. I form the light and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." They love to symbolise their Lord and the Holy Spirit by the lamb and the dove, which are among the most silly and cowardly and helpless of animals; they are dreadfully affronted if you consider the vulture, the ape, the toad equally symbolic of their God; yet nothing can be more evident than that every thing and being created (not excluding their devil) must faithfully represent or express some portion or characteristic of the Creator. If "I am the vine" is a true text, equally true must be "I am the aconite;" nay, our total-abstinence friends would maintain that the former has been and is far more extensively fatal to our race than the latter. So much for theology: as for science, it surely scorns the idea of classing things as in origin and essence good or evil, according as they seem beneficial or noxious to man. Spinoza is here incomparably more enlightened than this nineteenth-century man of science. We now reach "W. M. W.," p. 89, a poem addressed to the writer's brother (author, I presume, of "Spirit Drawings, a Personal Narrative," 1858), followed by another to "E. W." his wife, on the death of their little son, who in a third poem, "Teddy's Flower," sends them a message of good cheer from the world of spirits, as the close informs us : "Teddy through Hood, Who has walked through Teddy's wood, And seen his garden wall, Because Hood loves the small." I am bound to add that though the message is delivered by Hood, its style and character are of Wilkinson. I quote the "W. M. W.,' as very solemn and beautiful, especially for an improvisation : "Brownness of autumn is around thee, Brother, Darkness of life has fallen on thy path; Sadness hath been unto thee as a mother, God gave, God takes away: His hand is on thee: Yet even that stroke a second heart hath won thee, Thy little Teddy, like a shaft of lightning, Shears through the gloom of worldliness around; Thy night is dying, and thy day is nearing, The spirit, strong in love to thee and thine, They come to earth: mixed with her bitter wine, They glow with sparklings from the heavenly strand.” We are here in the heart's holy of holies, the inmost sanctuary of love and sorrow, sorrow more beautiful than beauty's self;" where criticism the most just and righteous bows its head and is silent, feeling that this is also the inviolable sanctuary, the inexpugnable fortress, of all the fond frail superstitions that are born of love and grief and hope, feeling that here even spiritism is sacred, though it has been prostituted by the vilest of the vile. Our next piece is "Saturday Night," p. 96, ending with a reminiscence of Goethe: : "Week's curtain, folded round Surely 'tis God's intent That life should well be blent So may we pass each glance, May be good, true, and even.' I cite a little of "The Fairies' Welcome," p. 99, because of the structure of its eight-lined stanza; it was a wonderful tour de force to rush out sixteen such stanzas in "from thirty to forty-five minutes." "Pour forth the bells In odorous notes Of lovely light Upon the sky: Hark! how it swells: Hark! how it floats, In colours bright Of minstrelsy. My South is Truth, All hail again Whose feet are shod With heavenly rhymes." Here are the first and the last stanza of "The Dance of Life,” p. 105:— "'Tis not in round of commonplace Life keepeth measure: But rhythmical her atoms trace The turf of pleasure. There is no lazy-footed tread In all creation; But being doth with being thread "God weaveth, in a word, In circles fine: And His bright love is stirred And this is new beginning : And swiftness urgeth mission, And dance is mood of winning.” Song, "Its Divine Birth," p. 135, is unfortunately too long for quotation here. Let us have a short piece in a very different mood, "Napoleon to Napoleon," p. 193; remembering that it was written about fourteen years before Sedan :— "Weird sisters set thee where thou art : Thou shalt not stand: Thou seest already the fell dart Thou seest the hand. |