775. EBB to Thomas Powell [1]
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 300.
Torquay
Decr 9th 1840
Miss Barrett begs to offer to Mr Powell, together with the proper submission to his desire about the signature, her thanks for the cordiality of his expressions towards her, & also for the acceptable present with which he promises to follow them.
May the public receive Chaucer as thankfully as she did yesterday. Indeed it was enough to have been permitted to do anything in such a work & with such labourers.
In regard to the unlucky lucky stanza which has not made itself understood & yet (against all poetical justice) has had the honor of being talked about by Mr Leigh Hunt & Mr Powell,—the meaning intended was simply Cowper’s sense of, & delight in, the companionship & sweet sympathies of nature. He heard (by his inward poetic senses), the language of the hills, & felt the influences of the stars. The droppings of the dew came like pulses beating sympathetically with his—pulse for pulse—and the shadow of the trees fell over him with the softest refreshment of sleep–
Publication: BC, 4, 300 (in part).
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. For details of EBB’s friendship with Powell, see pp. 330-331.
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