Sweet Nature’s Voice

From “Susan: A Poem of Degrees” HER Master gave the signal, with a look: Then, timidly as if afraid, she took In her rough hands the Laureate’s dainty book, And straight began. But when she did begin, Her own mute sense of poesy within Broke forth to hail the poet, and to greet His graceful fancies and the accents sweet In which they are expressed. Oh, lately lost, Long loved, long honored, and whose Captain’s post No living bard is competent to fill— How strange, to the deep heart that now is still, And to the vanished hand, and to the ear Whose soft melodious measures are so dear To us who cannot rival them—how strange, If thou, the lord of such a various range, Hadst heard this new voice telling Arden’s tale! For this was no prim maiden, scant and pale, Full of weak sentiment, and thin delight In pretty rhymes, who mars the resonant might Of noble verse with arts rhetorical And simulated frenzy: not at all! This was a peasant woman; large and strong, Redhanded, ignorant, unused to song— Accustomed rather to the rudest prose. And yet, there lived within her rustic clothes A heart as true as Arden’s; and a brain, Keener than his, that counts it false and vain To seem aught else than simply what she is. How singular, her faculty of bliss! Bliss in her servile work; bliss deep and full In things beyond the vision of the dull, Whate’er their rank: things beautiful as these Sonorous lines and solemn harmonies Suiting the tale they tell of; bliss in love— Ah, chiefly that! which lifts her soul above Its common life, and gives to labors coarse Such fervor of imaginative force As makes a passion of her basest toil. Surely this servant-dress was but a foil To her more lofty being! As she read, Her accent was as pure, and all she said As full of interest and of varied grace As were the changeful moods, that o’er her face Passed, like swift clouds across a windy sky, At each sad stage of Enoch’s history. Such ease, such pathos, such abandonment To what she uttered, moulded as she went Her soft sweet voice, and with such self-control Did she, interpreting the poet’s soul, Bridle her own, that when the tale was done I looked at her, amazed: she seemed like one Who from some sphere of music had come down, And donned the white cap and the cotton gown As if to show how much of skill and art May dwell unthought of, in the humblest heart. Yet there was no great mystery to tell: She felt it deeply, so she read it well.