Legends and Lyrics

by Adelaide Anne Procter

Excerpt from Legends and Lyrics

The lights extinguished, by the hearth I leant, Half weary with a listless discontent. The ?ickering giant-shadows, gathering near, Closed round me with a dim and silent fear. All dull, all dark; save when the leaping ?ame, Glancing, lit up a Picture's ancient frame. Above the hearth it hung. Perhaps the night, My foolish tremors, or the gleaming light, Lent power to that Portrait dark and quaint A Portrait such as Rembrandt loved to paint The likeness of a Nun. I seemed to trace A world of sorrow in the patient face, In the thin hands folded across her breast Its own and the room's shadow hid the rest. I gazed and dreamed, and the dull embers stirred, Till an old legend that I once had heard Came back to me; linked to the mystic gloom Of that dark Picture in the ghostly room.

Genres: Poetry

209 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1858

Reviews

[Benedict Reid]

This was a slog. I would go for months at a time not opening the book. While sometimes the charming naive worldview of the author was beautiful, often the poems were simply saccharine and irritating. I think more than anything it made me aware of how disconnected from reality the rich Christians of Victorian England really were. The only thing that Adelaide get's exercised about is the treatment of the Irish Catholics, but even there she has an emphasis on the beauty and "goodness" of the noble poor. Without doubt, an attitude which prevents any momentum for political change (the only way that could have prevented the Irish famine).
Much of the poetry would be called doggerel, but at it's best it overcame it's simply rhyming schemes to present a unique image and worldview (which given I oppose the poet's worldview has to be acknowledged as a substantive achievement).