sacrifice

L.E.L.'s tribute to the deceased Felicia Hemans opens with some lines from "Bring Flowers," but quickly moves on from offerings intended for the dead to the offerings Mrs Hemans gave during her lifetime. EL sets up Mrs. Hemans as a Christ figure, whose great gift to humanity is her poetry. This gift is depicted as a great sacrifice, under-appreciated by the benefiting audience. LEL begins by describing her life on earth:
"So pure, so sweet thy life has been,
Thy song around our daily path…
Mysterious influence, that to earth
Brings down the heaven above,
And fills the universal heart
With universal love."
(lines).

From the very beginning we see Mrs. Hemans as an intermediary between God and humans, communicating "mysterious influence" from "heaven above." We soon learn that her gift to humanity comes at the greatest of costs, her own life: "Ah, dearly purchased is the gift,/ The gift of song like thine." (lines). Like the witnesses to Christ death, the people don't see Mrs Heman's suffering and make no effort to save her: "The crowd - they only see the crown, They only hear the hymn - They mark not that the cheek is pale, And that the eye is dim." (lines)

It is this "meteor wreath the poet wears" that LEL turns into a crown of thorns metaphor. LEL introduce the crown that Mrs Hemans wears. She marvels at the poet's bravery:
"Didst thou not tremble at thy fame
And loathe its bitter prize,
While what to others triumph seemed,
To thee was sacrifice?"
Mrs. Hemans, like Christ, suffers at the hands of the masses, but unlike the Christ story, Mrs. Heman's suffering is internal and not afflicted bodily. Still, the shared theme of self sacrifice for an unappreciative public remains a strong parallel. For both, the "bitter prize" of fame is undertaken entirely for others; in her comparision to Christ LEL sets up Mrs Hemans as a selfless martyr, forgoing her own happiness for that of others. LEL continues to push the martyrdom theme: "…'twas for them Thy soft leaves thou didst wreathe; The red rose wastes itself in sighs Whose sweetness others breathe!" Again, the crown, though here soft and flowery, relates her to Christ in that it serves others, but pains the wearer of it.

But LEL's poem takes some interesting turns towards the end:

"Oh weary one! since thou art laid Within thy mother's breast - The green, the quiet mother earth - Thrice blessed be thy rest! Thy heart is left within our hearts Although life's pang is o'er; But the quick tears are in my eyes, And I can write no more."

Rather than eternally rest in a Christian heaven, LEL places Mrs Hemans in a natural paradise, resting with a distincitively feminine God. For all her references to the spiritual world and to communication therewith, LEL's final focus is on the resting place of Mrs Heman's body ("since though art laid"), not her mind or soul. Similarly, her location in "thy mother's breast" seems vastly different from the sense of aloneness in suffering which LEL paints as characterizing her life on earth. LEL continues the common trope of life's suffering ending in death, but here she turns post-death into a comforting feminine sphere, a final peace with a mother, not a patriarch. The last lines bring the reader back to the poet herself, alluding to her own suffering, ostensibly at the poet's death, but there is the implication that LEL, still living, shares Mrs Heman's suffering on earth. For though Mrs Hemans' life is over, LEL still has "the quick tears are in my eyes."