“You ugliest of fabrics! you horrible eyesore! 
      I wish you would vanish, or put on a vizor! 
      In the face of the sun, without covering or rag on,
      You stand and outstare me, like any red dragon.”

And so on through many amusing and spirited lines, showing the lighter side of the authoress’s character.  Her sister describes this part of her life as perhaps the happiest of all, and this was produced to a great extent by her seeing the happiness of others, especially that of her boys.  She was always ready to join them in their rambles and their sports.  The mornings were spent in the instruction of her children, then in answering countless letters and satisfying the demands of impatient editors.  And this done, she would revel in the enjoyment of fresh air.  “Soft winds and bright blue skies,” she writes, “make me, or dispose me to be, a sad idler.”  For this reason she delighted in the rigour of winter, as being most conducive to literary productiveness.

A heavy sorrow was overshadowing this happy home.  Between Mrs. Hemans and her mother there was the strongest bond of affection.  In her poems there may be traced the intensity of this love.  It is found in the simple lines, “On my Mother’s Birthday,” when the child was only eight years old, and, after incidentally appearing in many a poem, it is shown in all its intensity in the “Hymn by the Sick-bed of a Mother.”

     “Father, that in the olive shade,
        When the dark hour came on,
      Didst, with a breath of heavenly aid,
        Strengthen Thy Son;

      Oh, by the anguish of that night,
        Send us down blest relief;
      Or to the chastened, let Thy might
        Hallow this grief!”

And if the flame of passionate affection shone out in the time of fear and impending sorrow, no less was it seen after the dread hour had come.  What beauty there is in the lines entitled “The Charmed Picture":—­

     “Sweet face, that o’er my childhood shone,
        Whence is thy power of change,
      Thus ever shadowing back my own,
        The rapid and the strange?

      Whence are they charmed—­those earnest eyes? 
        I know the mystery well! 
      In mine own trembling bosom lies
        The spirit of the spell!”

[Illustration:  Edna Hemans]

This mother patiently bore sickness for eight months, and then passed away.  Something of what this blow meant to the loving daughter may be gathered from her letters.  But she knew where true comfort was to be found, and in alluding to the words of another setting forth the Divine consolation, she says, “This is surely the language of real consolation; how different from that which attempts to soothe us by general remarks on the common lot, the course of Nature, or even by dwelling on the release of the departed from pain and trial.”

It was not surprising that her health, for a long time delicate, now showed signs of an alarming nature.  She often had a complete prostration of strength, succeeded by a wonderful reaction.