I have ask'd the ancient desert To give my dead a place, Where the stately footsteps of the free Alone should leave a trace. Mrs. Hemans has all the harmony of expression, all the subtle perception and refined love of beauty, which distinguish her sex. Her verses are at once pictures and music. By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass, By the green leaves opening as I pass. The sensibility of Mrs. Hemans to the influences of beauty is strikingly seen in her passion for flowers.
Nothing can be more refined.
Some poets write of flowers in the spirit of botanists. Not so our author. In tenderest falls away. I see in that simple inquiry a plummet sounding the lowest deep of Truth. I see in it a recognition of the infinite fact, that, as the heart of Nature is everywhere beauty, so it is everywhere music.