The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1875-10-17

UNEXPRESSED.
Dwells within tho soul of every artist
More than all his effort can express,
And he knows the best remains unu,tered,
Signing at what re call his success.
vainiy he may strive; he dare not tell US
All the s.cred my steries of the skies:
Vainly he may strive; the deepest beauty
Cannot be unveiled to mortal eyes.
And the devoutly that he listens
And the holer ID MESSAGE that is sent,
Still the more his soul muit struggle vainly,
Bowed b meath noble discontent
No great thinker ever lived and taught you
All the wonder that his soul received;
NO true painter ever Get on canvas
All the glorious vision he conceived.
No musician ever held your spirit
Charmed and bound in his melodious chains,
But be sure he heard, and strove to reLdsr
Feeble echoes of celestial strains
No real poet ever wove in numbers
Ill bis dream, but The d,Tit part,
In the voica ess silence OF his heart.
So with love for love and art united
Are twin mysteries different yet the came:
Poor indeed would be the love of any
Who could find Its full and perfect name.
Love may strive, but vain ia the endeavor
All its boundless riches to unfold;
Still ITS tebdetest. truest secret fingers
Ever in its deepest depths untold.
slehngs Of iliimitab'e forests,
Waves of an unfsthomable
The positive merit of this-passing the obi
GUS business of compartments. to our mind,
the we'll managed amplifcation of the main
thought, and the swell both of sense and sound
at the close, which we find beauty of high
order. The last two lines especially seize the
melodic principle of the metre, which, beyond
almost any other We know, calls for long must
cal words. OILY "voiceless silence" strikes one
as tautaulogy to the last degree. Miss Proctor
very rarely makes outright mistakes, and she
may have seen some subtle sense added by the
word "voiceless" that we cannot. All the
silences we have ever known were strictly
voiceless, and decidedly apt to terminate about
the time any voice began.
The next great topic with our poetess is the
sweet uses of adversely. She is never weary
of celebrating the beauty and benignity Of
sorrow. In fact, she appears to have per-
sonal friendship for misfortune, as the great
existence. Grief, disappointment, death, are
to her philosophy but natural incidents, to be
expected ard met without fear-processes
tending to the higher result hereafter. But
here is her whole thought, better set forth
than We can say it,
FRIEND SORROW.
Do not cheat thy heart and tell her
u Grief f, win n paa savoy away, ,,.nuo
Tell her il you viii that sorrow
Need not come in vain,
Tell her that the lesson taught her
Far outweighs the pain.
Cheat her not with the old comfort,
"Soon she will forget:"
Bitter truth, alas but matter
Bid her not seef othor pleasures,
Turn to other things:"
Rather nurie her Gagged sorrow
Till the captive sings.
Rather bid her 20 forth brayey
And the stranger greet,
But a. dear E friends n Meet '1'A''+'
By her dusky wings,
LinteninE for the mlrmured blessing
Sorrow always brings.
This is only one of a large number of poems
full of varied exposition of these same views
Some are 80 ingenious and happy that we car
hardly resist quoting them, were it not that
if those were the only qualifications, we should
have to cite the major part of her poems. In
| fact, this conception of sorrow as hidden
blessing is peculiarly strong in all she has
written. And yet, " bile recognizing in tribu-
come from her heart, she fully feels the sad.
| ness, the WEAKNESS, the poverty and pain OF
earthly lives. A strong instance of this is the
| Cradle Song of the Poor with it's singular
| sad refrain:
Sleep, u Y darling thou art weary
| God Is good out life is dreary.'
Aud the mse:ies of the poor have evoked
| the only bitter lines she ever wrote, which
seem almost like an after addition-thes strange
strong lines called " Homeless" There is a
| force in some of the lines that reminds US oil
| Hood
fG bst S S.rs m a pis3 fess E! '''n
Is it one OF your dogs fair lady,
Who whinea in the bleak, cold street
Is il one of your siiken spaniels
Shut on: in the snow and the sleet
MY dogs sleep warm in their baskets,
Safe from the darkness and snow
All the beasts in our Christian Ell gland
Find pity wherever they go.
(Those are only the homeless children
Who are wandering TO aud froJ
Look out in the gusty darkness;
have seen it again and again,
That shar Ow, that HIts so slowly
Up and down past he wiDdow.pane:
1t is surely soDe criminal lurking
Out there In the frozen rain !
Nay, criminals all sheltered
They pited and taught and fed
That is only a eiSter-woman,
Who has got nett her food nor bed
And the Night cries Sin to be lifting :"
And the Rircr cries, sin 10 be dead
There is one other piece perhaps even sadder
than this, when penetrate it's full, stern
Significance:
TIE REQUITAL.
Loud roared the tempest. fast fell the sleet;
A littls child ar gel passed down the street
With trailing PiniOns and weary feet
The m Don hidden stars. were bright;
For she could not shelter in heaven that night,
For the angels ladders are rays Of light
She beat her wings at each window-pane,
~ A.ln