1832-37. ' SONG OF THE BLIND FLOWER-GIRL/ 61 



the same ghastly hue, whether the mind may have been turned 

 to really proper or merely frivolous pursuits ; and how balefully 

 and abhorredly gleams back on my own mind the recollection 

 of the multitude of accursed sins I daily commit ; my exceed- 

 ing and ungrateful unkindness ; my wayward temper, and my 

 excessive irritability so much increased lately, that even the 

 slightest noises are sufficient to enrage me. Would that I could, 

 with Divine assistance, overcome, banish them, and turn the 

 mental activity to more useful purposes." 







" July Zd. Bulwer's ' Nydia.' Every time I read the songs 

 in Bulwer's ' Last Days of Pompeii/ I see something new to 

 admire, and of these I would take for subject of notice at present 

 'The Song of the Blind Flower- Girl.' Beautiful creation! I 

 have formerly referred to it while speculating on the causes 

 which, gave rise to the idea of its mention in his wildly beautiful 

 book. This song, like the whole of the poetry in the volume, 

 has evidently been the production of elaborate revision, added 

 to a highly- cultivated imagination ; and it has that character of 

 true poetry deeply impressed on it, that each repeated perusal 

 brings to light new beauties and rarer excellences, and, as one 

 has justly remarked, that idea must have something new, or 

 striking, or beautiful which comes unbidden to the heart, and, 

 beckoned by no effort of the will, presents itself to the mind 

 when not wholly engrossed with some other subject. And often 

 have the ideas of that song come to my recollection, with their 

 rare beauty and most affecting comparisons, almost making the 

 tears fall in sympathy with that which, though in the present 

 case the imagined declaration of a fictitious being, is so similar 

 to what many a one may or might have said with all justness 

 and truth, that it must awaken as much compassion for the 

 mournful state of the blind as could have been excited by that 

 which was known to be the faithful record of a real occurrence. 

 There is great art displayed in making Nydia, after referring 

 to the Earth as the mother of the flowers, ask as if in a lower 

 voice, in parenthesis, 



' Do they her beauty keep ? ' 



And how beautifully is the allusion to the Earth, as their parent, 



