polishing my lines; and having finished them to
my heart’s content, I gave them to my father
about the middle of the day, conscious, I could
not but be, that they had “passed as a cloud
between the mental eye of faith and things unseen.”
Every time they passed through my mind, they seemed
to sound my condemnation. My evening retirement
was dark and sad; I felt as if any thing but this
I could give up for my Saviour’s love; “all
things are lawful, but all things are not expedient;”
and yet the taste and the power were given me, with
all things else, by God. I had used them too
in a right cause, but then the talent of grace is
far better. Which should be sacrificed?
Why sacrifice either? I could not deny that
it seemed impossible to keep both. But it might
be made useful, if well employed. “To
obey is better than sacrifice.” Now they
are written, they might just as well be printed;
but the printing will probably be the most hazardous
part. I shall be sure to write more, and nourish
vanity: or else the sight of them will cause
remorse rather than pleasure. If I should lose
my soul through poetry? For the life of self
seems bound up in it; and “whosoever loveth
his life shall lose it.” But perhaps
it would be a needless piece of austerity; it would
be a great struggle; it would be like binding myself
for the future, not to enjoy my treasured pleasure.
The sacrifice which is acceptable will always cost
something. So I prevailed upon myself to write
a note, and lay it before my father, asking him
not to send them, trembling lest he should dislike
my changeableness, or I should change again and
repent it. My father said nothing, but gave
me back the lines when we were all together, which
was a mountain got over. I thought to have had
more peace after; but till this First-day I have been
very desolate, though, I believe, daily desiring to
seek my God above all; and thinking, sometimes, that
that for which I had made a sacrifice became thereby
dearer.
After this striking and instructive account, which
shows how zealously she endeavored to guard against
any too absorbing influence, however good and allowable
in itself the thing might be, it seems not amiss to
remark that Eliza’s taste for poetry was keen
and discriminating; and that her love of external
nature, and more especially her deeper and holier
feelings, found appropriate expression in verse.
If some of these effusions show a want of careful
finish, it must be remembered that they were not written
for publication, but for the sake of embodying the
feeling of the occasion, in that form which naturally
presented itself.
The pieces alluded to in the foregoing extracts are
the following:—
“WHAT I DO THOU KNOWEST NOT NOW.”
Hast thou long thy Lord’s abiding
Vainly sought ’mid shadows
dim?
Lo! His purpose wisely hiding,
Thee He seeks to worship him.
Shades of night, thy strain’d eye
scorning,
Have they; long enwrapp’d
the skies?
He, whose word commands the morning,
Soon shall bid the day-spring
rise!