Miss Hall’s themes are not sought far afield, but bring, in nearly all the poems, a hint of personal experience; nature, love, spiritual emotion, blending with lighter moods and fancies, comprise the record of the _Age of Fairygold_. We have glanced at the nature verse; that upon love is subtler in touch, but holds to the intimate note distinguishing all of her work. The second of these stanzas contains a graphic image:
Be good to me! If all the world united Should bend its powers to gird my youth with pain, Still might I fly to thee, Dear, and be righted— But if thou wrong’st me, where shall I complain?
I am the dove a random shot surprises, That from her flight she droppeth quivering, And in the deadly arrow recognizes A blood-wet feather—once in her own wing!
In her poem called “The Rival” human nature speaks a direct word, particularly in the contradiction of the last stanza. The lines have the quality of speech rather than of print:
This is the hardest of my fate: She’s better whom he doth prefer Than I am that he worshipped late, As well as so much prettier, So much more fortunate!
He’ll not repent; oh, you will see, She’ll never give him cause to grieve! I dream that he comes back to me, Leaving her,—but he’ll never leave! Hopelessly sweet is she.
So that if in my place she stood, She’d spare to curse him, she’d forgive! I loathe her, but I know she would— And so will I, God, as I live, Not she alone is good!
The ethical inconsistency of the above stanza, “I loathe her,” and “Not she alone is good,” is so human and racy with suggestion of these paradoxical moods of ours, that the stanza, together with its companion lines, becomes a leaf torn from the book of life.
In its spiritual quality Miss Hall’s work shows, perhaps, its finest distinction: brave, strong, acquiescent, inducing in one a nobler mood,—such is the spirit of the volume. Its philosophy is free from didacticism or moralizing; indeed, it should scarcely be called philosophy, but rather the personal record of experiences touching the inner life,—phases of feeling interpreted in their spiritual import. These lines express the mood:
Then lead me, Friend. Here is my hand, Not in dumb resignation lent Because Thee one cannot withstand— In love, Lord, with complete consent.