These were cup-bearers undying,
Of the wine that's meant for souls.

And my Plato, the divine one,

If men know the gods aright By their motions as they shine on With a glorious trail of light!And your noble Christian bishops, Who mouth'd grandly the last Greek! Though the sponges on their hyssops

Were distent with wine-too weak!

Yet, your Chrysostom, you praised him,
With his glorious mouth of gold-
And your Basil, you upraised him
To the height of speakers old!
And we both praised Heliodorus
For his secret of pure lies!-
Who forged first his linked stories
In the heat of lady's eyes.

And we both praised our Synesius,
For the fire shot up his odes!
Though the church was scarce propitious
As he whistled dogs and gods.-
And we both praised Nazianzen,

For the fervid heart and speech!
Only I eschew'd his glancing

At the lyre, hung out of reach

Do you mind that deed of Até, Which you bound me to, so fast,Reading "De Virginitate,"

From the first line to the last? How I said at ending, solemn,

As I turn'd and look'd at you, That St. Simeon on the column

Had had somewhat less to do?

For we sometimes gently wrangled;
Very gently, be it said,-
For our thoughts were disentangled
By no breaking of the thread!
And I charged you with extortions
On the nobler fames of old-
Ay, and sometimes thought your Porsons
Stain'd the purple they would fold.

The learning, then, of Miss Barrett does not stand in the way of her womanly nature, but is rather a severe discipline which refines, elevates that nature, and puts not a pebble in the way of its natural course.

By this plea, that she is a woman, a true, natural woman, albeit a learned one, yet one in whom the intellect has not burnt up the heart, Miss Barrett justifies herself in approaching the great theme of the Fall of Man. 66 My subject was the new and strange experience of the fallen humanity, as it went forth from Paradise into the wilderness; with a peculiar reference to Eve's allotted grief,

VOL. 1.-NO. I.

which, considering that self-sacrifice belonged to her womanhood, and the consciousness of originating the fall to her offence, appeared to me imperfectly apprehended hitherto, and more expressible by a woman than a man. There was room at least for lyrical emotion in those first steps into the wilderness,—in that first sense of desolation after wrath,-in that first audible gathering of the recriminating groan of the whole creation,'in that first darkening of the hills from the recoiling feet of angels, and in that first silence of the voice of God. And I took pleasure in driving in, like a pile, stroke upon stroke, the Idea of EXILE, admitting Lucifer as an extreme Adam, to represent the ultimate tendencies of sin and loss, that it might be strong to bear up the contrary Idea of the Heavenly love and purity."

The "Drama of Exile" is cast in a form resembling that of the Grecian tragedy, a form which allows great latitude to the lyrical portions and permits an argumentative metaphysical strain in the remaining passages. The ancient

chorus has been the incentive to Miss Barrett's lyrical poems, and not the old English song-writing.

The persons of the drama are Adam, Eve, Gabriel, Lucifer, Angels, EdenSpirits, Earth-Spirits, and Phantasms, and the Saviour introduced in a vision. The scene is the outer side of the gate of Eden within the "sword glare," and in the region inmediately beyond. Gabriel, the good angel, and the malignant, sneering Lucifer, are first introduced.

Lucifer. Hail, Gabriel, the keeper of the gate!

Now that the fruit is pluck'd, prince Gabriel,

I hold that Eden is impregnable
Under thy keeping.
Gabriel.

Angel of the sin, Such as thou standest-pale in the drear light

Which rounds the rebel's work with Maker's wrath,

Thou shalt be an Idea to all souls ;-
A monumental melancholy gloom
Seen down all ages; whence to mark de-
spair,

Go from us straightway.
Lucifer.
Gabriel.

And measure out the distances from good!

Wherefore?

Lucifer, Thy last step in this place trod sorrow up. Recoil before that sorrow, if not this sword. Lucifer. Angels are in the world-wherefore not I?

6

Spirits of the Trees.

Hark! the Eden trees are stirring,
Slow and solemn to your hearing!
Plane and cedar, palm and fir,
Tamarisk and juniper,
Each is throbbing in vibration
Since that crowning of creation,
When the God-breath spake abroad,
Pealing down the depths of Godhead,
Let us make man like to God.
And the pine stood quivering
In the Eden-gorges wooded,
As the awful word went by;
Like a vibrant chorded string
Stretch'd from mountain peak to sky!
And the cyprus did expand,
Slow, and gradual, branch and head;
And the cedar's strong black shade
Flutter'd brokenly and grand!
Grove and forest bow'd aslant
In emotion jubilant.
Voice of the same, but softer.
Which divine impulsion cleaves
In din movements to the leaves
Dropt and lifted, dropt and lifted
In the sunlight greenly sifted,--
In the sunlight and the moonlight
Greenly sifted through the trees.
Ever wave the Eden trees

In the nightlight and the noonlight,
With a ruffling of green branches
Shaded off to resonances;
Never stirr'd by rain or breeze!

Fare ye well, farewell!

The sylvan sounds, no longer audible,
Expire at Eden's door!

Each footstep of your treading Treads out some murmur which ye heard before :

Farewell! the trees of Eden

Ye shall hear never more.

And the Flower Spirits sing their farewell to the lost inhabitants of Eden:

Shall I who had not virtue to stand straight
Among the hills of Eden, here assume
To mend the justice of the perfect God,
By piling up a curse upon His curse,
Against thee-thee-

Eve. For so, perchance, thy God Might take thee into grace for scorning me; And so, the blessed angels might come down And walk with thee as erst,--I think they would,

Because I was not near to make them sad, Or soil the rustling of their innocence. Adum. They know me. I am deepest in the guilt,

If last in the transgression.

O my God!

I, standing here between the glory and dark,

Lift up to Thee the hands from whence hath fallen

Only creation's sceptre,-thanking Thee That rather Thou hast cast me out with her,

Than left me lorn of her in Paradise.

Music, "tender as a watering dew," from a chorus of invisible angels follows. Lucifer appears tortured with metaphysical doubts and agonies, the Miltonic punishment of fallen angels, and the morning star, the beloved of Lucifer, takes his farewell in a song of fine imaginative

power.

They go further on. A wild open country is seen vaguely in the approaching night.

Adam. How doth the wide and melan-
choly earth

Gather her hills around us, gray and ghast,
And stare with blank significance of loss
Right in our faces. Is the wind up?
Eve.

Nay. Adam. And yet the cedars and the junipers

Rock slowly through the mist, without a noise;

And shapes, which have no certainty of shape,

Drift duskly in and out between the pines,
And loom along the edges of the hills,
And lie flat, curdling in the open ground-
Shadows without a body, which contract
And lengthen as we gaze on them.

Eve.
O Life,
Which is not man's nor angels! What is
this?

Adam wanders in terror with Eve till the surrounding phantasms figure themselves in the sign of the zodiac.

That phantom, there, Presents a lion,-albeit, twenty times As large as any lion,-with a roar Set soundless in his vibratory jaws, And a strange horror stirring in his mane ! And there, a pendulous shadow seems to weigh

Good against ill, perchance; and there, a crab

Puts coldly out its gradual shadow-claws, Like a slow blot that spreads,-till all the ground,

Crawled over by it, seems to crawl itself; A bull stands horned here with gibbous glooms;

And a ram likewise; and a scorpion writhes Its tail in ghastly slime, and stings the dark! This way a goat leaps, with wild blank of

beard;

And here fantastic fishes duskly float,

Using the calm for waters, while their fins Throb out slow rhythms along the shallow air!

The spirits of organic and inorganic nature arise from the ground, and, as in the bold figures of a Hebrew psalm, the beasts, rivers, birds" with viewless wings of harmonies," the "calm cold fishes of a silver being," witness against man. The pathetic appeal of Eve in reply is exceedingly beautiful:

Sweet, dreadful Spirits! I pray you humbly in the name of God; Not to say of these tears, which are im

the ground

And all the birds sing, till, for joy of song, They lift their trembling wings, as if to heave

The too-much weight of music from their heart

And float it up the wether! I am 'ware
That these things I can no more apprehend,
With a pure organ, into a full delight;
The sense of beauty and of melody
Being no more aided in me by the sense
Of personal adjustment to those heights
Of what I see well-formed or hear well-
tuned,-

But rather coupled darkly, and made ashamed,

By my percipiency of sin and fall,
And melancholy of humiliant thoughts.
But, oh fair, dreadful Spirits-albeit this
Your accusation must confront my soul,
And your pathetic utterance and full gaze
Must evermore subdue me; be content-
Conquer me gently-as if pitying me,
Not to say loving! let my tears fall thick
As watering dews of Eden, unreproached;
And when your tongues reprove me, make
me smooth,

Not ruffled-smooth and still with your reproof,

And peradventure better, while more sad. For look to it, sweet Spirits -look well to it;

in throngs

Of sudden angel-faces, face by face,
All hushed and solemn, as a thought of
God

Held them suspended,-was I not, that hour,

The lady of the world, princess of life, Mistress of feast and favor? Could I touch

A rose with my white hand, but it became
Redder at once? Could I walk leisurely
Along our swarded garden, but the grass
Tracked me with greenness? Could I stand
aside

A moment underneath a cornel-tree,
But all the leaves did tremble as alive,
With songs of fifty birds who were made
glad

Because I stood there? Could I turn to look

With these twain eyes of mine, now weeping fast,

Now good for only weeping-upon man, Angel, or beast, or bird, but each rejoiced Because I looked on him? Alas, alas! And is not this much wo, to cry "alas !" Speaking of joy! And is not this more shame,

To have made the wo myself, from all that joy?

To have stretch'd my hand, and pluck'd it from the tree,

And chosen it for fruit? Nay, is not this Still most despair,-to have halved that bit

I set upon thy head,-Christ witnessing With looks of prompting love-to keep thee clear

Of all reproach against the sin foregone, From all the generations which succeed. Thy hand which plucked the apple, I clasp close;

Thy lips which spake wrong counsel, I kiss close,

I bless thee in the name of Paradise,
And by the memory of Edenic joys
Forfeit and lost ;-by that last cypress tree
Green at the gate, which thrilled as we
came out;

And by the blessed nightingale, which threw

Its melancholy music after us ;--
And by the flowers, whose spirits full of
smells

Did follow softly, plucking us behind
Back to the gradual banks and vernal bow-

ers

And fourfold river-courses-by all these,
I bless thee to the contraries of these ;
I bless thee to the desert and the thorns,
To the elemental change and turbulence,
And to the roar of the estranged beasts,
And to the solemn dignities of grief,-
To each one of these ends, and to this

END

Of death and the hereafter !

With the words of the Saviour, we close this remarkable Drama.

Look on me!

As I shall be uplifted on a cross
In darkness of eclipse and anguish dread,
So shall I lift up in my pierced hands,
Not into dark, but light-not unto death,
But life, beyond the reach of guilt and
grief,

The whole creation. Henceforth in my

name

Take courage, O thou woman,-man, take hope!

Your graves shall be as smooth as Eden's sward

Beneath the steps of your prospective thoughts;

And one step past them, a new Eden-gate
Shall open on a hinge of harmony,
And let you through to mercy. Ye shall fall
No more, within that Eden, nor pass out
Any more from it. In which hope, move

on,

First sinners and first mourners. Live and love,

Doing both nobly, because lowlily; Live and work, strongly, because patiently!

And, for the deed of death, trust it to God, That it be well done, unrepented of,

And not to loss. And thence, with con

stant prayers

Fasten your souls so high, that constantly