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LYRICS OF GRIEF

Grief's angel with the black wines has flown into

every household since the world beran. To the Elizabethan palace she flies and snatches from fame the child of grace

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and beauty, leaving many to bemoan the cruelty of the Fates. To the Victorian home she comes and bends lovingly over the little one, and as she lifts the child tenderly in her arms the toys and playthings fall from baby fingers to be 2 kissed by tearful mothers and loving friends.

To the Elizabethan lover she comes mid joy and moan

and leads away the loved one to a place where there is no

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fear, or harm, no slander nor rash censure, but where all is quiet consummation.

To the Victorian loved one the

angel descends and leads the restless heart to a haven 4

where it will "wake and remember and under st and."

The angel with the black wings comes also to those Elizabethans who have borne the struggle of "life's fit5 ful fever," and bids them "turn aside to sleep", but to

1. Schelling, p. 127.
2. Vic. An. p. 507.
3. Schelling, p. 147
4. Vic. An., p. 354.
5. Schelling, p. 99.

the Victorian, she only points to a dreamy shadow land

where the two shall meet at last and "face to face, and 1

hand to hand smile at the sorrow overpast."

And it is

the sadness of that shadow that casts a pathetic gloom over many of our most beautiful lyrics.

It is noticeable that among the subjects of the Victorian lyrics there are none entitled Resignation.

This

subject is frequently treated in the Elizabethan collec

tions. It is beyond the Victorians to be calm and resigned. Whenever there is the least tendency toward this it is a

kind of bitter, cold resignation.

The poems entitled Sorrow in the Elizabethan lyrics would not seem to have come from one who had ever experienced any real heart breaking sorrow, but are rather the cry of one glorying in artificial show of emotion.

COME, SORROW, COME

By John Dowland

(Schelling pare 111.)

"Come, you virgins of the night,

That in dirres sad delight,

1. Vic. An. 294.

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