of an Egyptian tomb, clasped in the withered hands of some long-dead lover.  Some Greek monk at Athos may even now be poring over an ancient manuscript, whose crabbed characters conceal lyric or ode by her whom the Greeks spoke of as ’the Poetess’ just as they termed Homer ‘the Poet,’ who was to them the tenth Muse, the flower of the Graces, the child of Eros, and the pride of Hellas—­Sappho, with the sweet voice, the bright, beautiful eyes, the dark hyacinth-coloured hair.  But, practically, the work of the marvellous singer of Lesbos is entirely lost to us.

We have a few rose-leaves out of her garden, that is all.  Literature nowadays survives marble and bronze, but in old days, in spite of the Roman poet’s noble boast, it was not so.  The fragile clay vases of the Greeks still keep for us pictures of Sappho, delicately painted in black and red and white; but of her song we have only the echo of an echo.

Of all the women of history, Mrs. Browning is the only one that we could name in any possible or remote conjunction with Sappho.

Sappho was undoubtedly a far more flawless and perfect artist.  She stirred the whole antique world more than Mrs. Browning ever stirred our modern age.  Never had Love such a singer.  Even in the few lines that remain to us the passion seems to scorch and burn.  But, as unjust Time, who has crowned her with the barren laurels of fame, has twined with them the dull poppies of oblivion, let us turn from the mere memory of a poetess to one whose song still remains to us as an imperishable glory to our literature; to her who heard the cry of the children from dark mine and crowded factory, and made England weep over its little ones; who, in the feigned sonnets from the Portuguese, sang of the spiritual mystery of Love, and of the intellectual gifts that Love brings to the soul; who had faith in all that is worthy, and enthusiasm for all that is great, and pity for all that suffers; who wrote the Vision of Poets and Casa Guidi Windows and Aurora Leigh.

As one, to whom I owe my love of poetry no less than my love of country, has said of her: 

         Still on our ears
   The clear ‘Excelsior’ from a woman’s lip
   Rings out across the Apennines, although
   The woman’s brow lies pale and cold in death
   With all the mighty marble dead in Florence. 
   For while great songs can stir the hearts of men,
   Spreading their full vibrations through the world
   In ever-widening circles till they reach
   The Throne of God, and song becomes a prayer,
   And prayer brings down the liberating strength
   That kindles nations to heroic deeds,
   She lives—­the great-souled poetess who saw
   From Casa Guidi windows Freedom dawn
   On Italy, and gave the glory back
   In sunrise hymns to all Humanity!