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Show Renascence at the University 59 ment, and she was capable of surprises, as in "Evening," one of her finest poems, when intense nature description is distracted by that homey subject=-cooking.' EVENING An aged pine stands black against the sky; The sun leaves filmy veils Tangled in many-pointed branches; The wind has twined and puffed them Into a mist of burning roses. A patter Of sleepy water trails into a grove. Above the trees Smoke coils and stretches, yawning, A harbinger of home, Invisible, greets toil-benumbed hearts; The still air Is permeated with a pungent scent, The incense of a universal rite, The homely smell of bacon! Evening establishes a Romantic sensibility-the high serious of a beautiful description of the natural world, using very accomplished metaphors and similes that personify the pine, the departed sun, the wind, the stream.Even as it introduces humans into the setting, they, too, partake of this seriousness, ness with their "toil-benumbed hearts." But the whole tone and intentions of nature are undercut and made humorous by the last line. Human appetite, after all, is not dreamy and reflective, but just wants the dinner! In light of passages from her journals, the ethereal quality found in her love poetry makes personal sense. The beloved was anticipated, yet the unknown demands of a love relationship caused Madelyn to tremble. A fine tension between these moods creates the heightened suspense of the poem" Moonlight," whose gothic trappings arouse suspicion that something threat ening is about to occur. A night visitor approaches through the garden of her parents' home. She waits. The "Presence" is a |
