The second volume of Beddoes' poems also contains _The Brides' Tragedy_, written when he was but nineteen. More simple and coherent in plot and construction than the other drama, it has more sweetness and less strength. It is full of the innocence of love, and rich with that prodigality of beauty with which youthful genius loves to make itself splendid. It begins with a scene in a garden, and "while that winged song, the restless nightingale, turns her sad heart to music," two lovers talk of flowers and love and dreams--dreams of the Queen of Smiles, and her attendant mob of Loves, busy with their various tasks: Here stood one alone, Blowing a pyre of blazing lovers' hearts With bellows full of absence-caused sighs: Near him his work-mate mended broken vows With dangerous gold, or strung soft rhymes together Upon a lady's tress.... And one there was alone, Who with wet downcast eyelids threw aside The remnants of a broken heart, and looked Into my face and bid me 'ware of love, Of fickleness, and woe, and mad despair. There are beautiful scenes and passages all through the play, the passion and the terror smacking somewhat of youth, perhaps, that loves to pile up agonies, but the poetry still so fine that one continually forgets to say, This is the work of a boy of nineteen. There is no need to say it, in fact: it is a work of genius, and demands no extenuation. There is a scene between Olivia and her attendants, as they prepare her for her bridal, that has a sustained and tender sweetness and calm about it hard to be matched in all our modern drama. For the same Olivia is sung this lovely SONG, BY TWO VOICES. _First Voice._ Who is the baby that doth lie Beneath the silken canopy Of thy blue eye? _Second Voice._ It is young Sorrow laid asleep In the crystal deep. _Both._ Let us sing his lullaby, Heigho! a sob and a sigh. _First Voice._ What sound is that, so soft, so clear, Harmonious as a bubbled tear Bursting, we hear? _Second Voice._ It is young Sorrow, slumber breaking, Suddenly waking. _Both._ Let us sing his lullaby, Heigho! a sob and a sigh. They are not all dirges, these beautiful scraps of melody. Sometimes we come upon one as blithe as sunshine, like this serenade from the fine fragment called _The Second Brother_: Strike, you myrtle-crowned boys, Ivied maidens, strike together: Magic lutes are these whose noise Our fingers gather, Threaded thrice with golden strings From Cupid's bow: And the sounds of its sweet voice Not air, but little busy things, Pinioned with the lightest feather Of his wings, Rising up at every blow Round the chords, like flies from roses Zephyr-touched; so these light minions Hover round, then shut their pinions, And drop into the air, that closes Where music's sweetest sweet reposes.