562. EBB to Mary Hunter
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 231–238.
[London]
[29] April. 1837. [1]
Dear unknown friend! esteemed Canary!
I’ve read your letter sent by Mary.
I’ve read it with sufficient pleasure
To draw a joyous choral measure
From all the birds in Vallambrosa,
A place you’ve heard of I suppose Sir.
My spouse & I accept the honor
You put upon me & upon her,
And here with equal cordiality
Return our friendships mutualely [sic].
It is indeed a high communion
When hearts of birds can meet in union;
And mine beneath my wing is beating,
Just like a lark’s, the sunshine greeting,
To think that I, whose sun’s a masked one,
Have still your friendship to be basked in—
That I and my companion, fated
To be for aye, expatriated,
To sit at London windows, viewing
For fair green hills, the human ruin,—
Hearing,—for river-songs, wind-catches,—
“Old clothes, old clothes”—or “buy my matches”—
Should still have friendship’s sweet assistance
From songful spirits at a distance.
For here is human friendship only,
And Mrs Dove & I are lonely;—
And tho’ on seasons out of number,
We’re kissed by human lips to slumber—
And tho’ we feel caresses loving
Drawn round our eyelids, without moving—
And nestle upon hands, confiding
As if in forest-shadows hiding,—
And even condescend to show us
Obedient when some tongues speak to us—
Yet after all—this human love—
Dear Sir! What is it to a Dove?
It is not quite as cruel truly
As I did think (I own unduly)
When first the dreadful reasoning being
Surprised me, my agrestic glee in—
Yet still ’tis poor & sad—half folly,
Half wildness, & whole melancholy!
And if we were not near each other,
We should have only you, my brother,
To keep our spirits from dejection,
While darkened so with man’s affection.
And now dear brother-friend, Canary,
It seemeth to me necessary
To write a portrait of the being
You deign to value without seeing:
That having read it—unartistic
As it may be—and egoistic—
You may attain a clearer notion
Of one who loves you to devotion.
My feathers—do not think me proud—
Are colored faintly as a cloud—
A fair brown cloud at dawn of day,
Which bears within a golden ray,—
A secret deep which all the way
Shines out in joy. My feet are red
Contrastingly, as used to tread
Bright sunset clouds, & thence retaining
The gorgeous color of their staining.
My golden eyes may each have drawn
A spark of light from highest dawn,
Which glows & deepens as you view them,
Till sunset reds are likest to them!
Nor marvel that I so have won mine
Image out of clouds & sunshine,
When ancestors of mine, above them,
So often flew, where Venus drove them,
And on my neck I still am wearing
The yoke-mark, which their part was bearing,—
A fair light mark, my neck enringing—
A rainbow out of darkness springing—
I would not change it for your singing!
Tho’ certainly Anacreon’s story
Detracts a little from the glory,
Saying she sold him “for a song” [2] our
Grandsire! Oh the Cyprian wronger!
But some, in dear esteem who hold us,
Declare she never would have sold us,
Not for an epic, whose aroma
Was all of amarynths & Homer.
Enough! no peacock’s tail, aglowing,
Upon Earth’s darkest dust bestowing,—
Is swept by me (my tail partaketh
The universal shade she maketh!)
And yet with such a graceful motion
I rise & stoop, like waves on ocean,
I hear applied what one expresses,
About “majestic lowlinesses.”
Oh sudden fear, reflection raises—
“What will he think of these self-praises?”
But dear kind friend, we birds inherit
No mounting & immortal spirit—
Our souls are our fair forms, and we do
More glory in them than men need do.
Yet beauty is not all; nor doubt me
(In naming other things about me)
I am too modest eer to quarrel
With such as you for music’s laurel—
I mean for science! All my chanting
Was learnt from wind & wave’s descanting!
A solemn sweetness is its feature—
A sad slow monotone of nature,—
The fall of dew & leaf resembling
So much, it sets my bosom trembling
With a soft memory passion,—mourning
For things to which is no returning.
Alas! Alas!—what am I doing?—
I break into a sudden cooing—
Forgive me! tho’ myself affected
I would not make my friend dejected.
And, seriously considered, cages,
Tho’ portions of the iron ages,
Are not, for all their wires, to shut us,
From many true delights that suit us!
For all their iron wires, they loose us
To our adversity’s “sweet uses”; [3]
And I myself am quite aware of
A deepened inward sense, a care of
More intellectual things, than found me
With only woods & skies around me.
For instance what imagination
Of bird at large in the creation,
Tho’ wont in flights sublime to risk it,
E’er reached a vision of white biscuit?
To balance this, I own at present
Some circumstances are unpleasant;
And the associates I am able
To mix with, are exceptionable.
There is a little dog whose name is
Myrtle! Oh! that aught so famous
To Doves and Venus, as that tree is,
Should lend its name to such as he is!!
But so it is! and speaking justly,
This Myrtle’s neither fierce nor crusty—
A poor dull worthy dog, reposing
All day beside the fire, with nose in
The rug, & eyes half shut, which show them
Properly meek, when e’er we do them
The honor of approaching to them.
Yet this same Myrtle (will you credit
The monstrous statement when you’ve read it?)
With insolent effront’ry, hath in
The water placed for us to bathe in,
Immersed his nose, & fall’n to drinking,
As if a common fountain-brink on!!
And this offence has been repeated
Twice, thrice, or four times! and we meet it
With proper indignation, springing
Towards him with a martial singing
In our wings,—and fiercely wave them
Around his head—who does not brave them
But walks away—retiring slowly
To prove he is not servile wholly.
A worthy dog in his totality,
Tho’ wanting tact and ideality.
Then there’s a parrot with its staring
Black eyes, & insolence past bearing—
Our own compatriot (Cain was Abel’s,
As heard our granddame ’mong the cables
Of Noah’s ark!) and green, most vernally,
As if our tropic woods eternally
Had stained her wings, without bestowing
The calmness their deep heart is knowing.
For she is full of stir & meanness,
More anxious after blue than greenness—
Her native screechings transatlantic
Commingling with a slang pedantic
Of “What’s a clock”? (Degenerate folly!
A bird take note of time!) or “Polly,
Put on the kettle”—or—“watercresses”!
I name with horror these excesses,
And feel, from inward indignation,
I [4] would not stoop t’articulation,
Not even of Greek—tho’ tempted sorest—
Not for a green nest in a forest!!!——
This parrot ’habits, as is proper,
A lower room, & we, an upper;
And neither of us often views her,
Except when people introduce her.
And then,—dear friend, you’d really wonder
To see how she would keep us under—
As if besides her linguist powers, her
Tail was twice as long as ours are!
Devouring all our seed, or wasting—
Objecting even to our tasting—!
Of course we would resist––but (praise me!)
High-tree-born birds have delicacy—
And then .. and then .. if I must speak, Sir, ..
She has, besides her eyes … a beak, Sir!!–
My own compatriot with such candour
Being pourtrayed,—acquit of slander
My true opinion of another
Whose honor t’was to call you brother!
Canary was he, even as you are,
Tho’ his accomplishments were fewer—
A pretty sprightly bird that never
Reflected—hopping on for ever,
With more if volatile giration
Than could deserve my admiration—
My spouse, myself, & Myrtle, eyeing
By turns—and sometimes even prying
Into my nest—which was most trying.
Was! is not! he is gone! One morning
He flew, whence there is no returning,
Beyond the opened panes,—to hie him
Where humankind could come not nigh him.
Well! peace be his! may he have rested
Where every bird is music-breasted,
Where shines the sun on Ax or Yarrow,—
United to some gentle sparrow!
And now, dear friend, I must pursue mine
Account, by noticing the human.
May you, the generous Fates have brought, where
Are none who don long coats and short hair!
But if, of those dread beings, any
Are near you,—near to me are many,
And we may speak of grief’s resembling,
In friendship’s sympathetic trembling.
Alas! dear friend! what awful noises
They make with footsteps and with voices!
With what a clashing laugh they teaze us!
How roughly by our tails they sieze us!—
And in our sweetest chantings, cry out
(Have they no ear for music?) “Quiet”!!
There’s one, I think they call him William— [5]
A hawk’s or vulture’s soul must fill him!
For every day he’s sternly able
To lay a red cloth on the table,
And then a white one—like the lightening
Flashing wide! It is too frightening–
Our very senses seem retreating,
And really .. we cant go on eating.
You’ll wish that he would come this minute
To end a scrawl with so much in it,
And so, farewell! you will not wonder,
That metre-rules I’ve written under.
Creation’s self’s a poem, written
In lovelier rhymes than I can hit on;
And I was taught by winds pathetic
Thro’ shaken woods, to be poetic.
Besides I sit—perhaps you know it—
Close to a human feeble poet;
And tho’ her verse is very wanting
In all that beautifies my chanting,
Yet still she learns in nature’s college,
And has a little sound Dove-knowledge;
And I confess—now dont discover
I condescend too much—I love her!
At least you’ll pardon me, Canary!
You love a human thing called Mary.
Farewell! We are not of one feather
Yet surely would agree together,
And tho’ apart, believe the love
You’re held in by
Your faithful
Dove.
P.S. I’m glad you’ve heard of Bella [6]
You’d hear but good, were I the teller.
Had I an eagle’s sky-dominion,
I still would let her stroke my pinion.
But my dear Dove you have said nothing about your five nests.
Ba!
And must I on a subject enter
So hard to speak of? Must I venture
To speak of griefs which an ascetic
Owl ev’n, would shun as too pathetic?
Ah friend! five nests, these energetic
Yet luckless claws have made, since when that
The old year to the new surrendered!
Such nests! no human being’s daring
Ee’r dreamt; ee’r purposed the comparing
<Of> an architectural relic,—(as
Their man-built abbeys, towers, basilicas)—
To those same works of mine—what I did,
By Mrs Dove being supervided!
In vain! with mournful coo, ’tis spoken—
The eggs, the eggs were soft—or broken!!!
Soft! Hardness, which to eggs is common,
Here gathers into bosoms human!—
Or broken! without moral-making—
Can eggs keep whole where hearts are breaking?
And Mrs Dove insists ’tis fitting
The nest where no eggs are, to sit on,—
And sits all day-long, for the glory,—
Which is supererogatory!
And wants to make me sit alternately—
What mental process, can I learn it by?
The fact is, she is sedentary,
By nature, & I’m not so—very!
And tho’ I’m open too all reason
Will sit three weeks when there’s occasion,—
Yet really, there’s no joke in ruffling
One’s feathers, and in darkness shuffling
One’s feet thro’ a reed nest, when no one
The least advantage in’t, can show one!
But this is by the way—you must not
Think we two quarrel! Oh! I trust not!! [7]
Address, on integral page: Dicky Sidmouth Canary Esqr / Cage House / Axminster.
Docket, near address, in an unidentified hand: April 29. 1837.
Publication: Printed (in part) by T.J. Wise as Epistle to A Canary, London, 1913.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Day supplied by docket.
2. “I to Venus did belong, / But she sold me for a song / To her poet; his I am” (Anacreon’s ode “Ad Columbam,” translated by Thomas Stanley, 1625–78).
3. As You Like It, II, 1, 12.
4. Underscored twice.
5. William Treherne, who had worked for the family at Hope End and remained in their service for many years.
6. EBB’s sister Arabella.
7. With the poem, EBB enclosed two feathers (also at Berg) wrapped in a scrap of paper inscribed: “With Mrs Dove’s love to Mrs Canary & in token of friendship.”
Other manuscript copies (complete or fragmentary) of this poem exist (see Reconstruction, D235, D237 and D238).
___________________
