E501107A. Poems.
The Independent (New York), 7 November 1850, p. 184.
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 17.
The richest and most powerful poetry which has come to us in these recent years from the female mind,—we might say, perhaps, from any class or order of mind—has an exceedingly tasteful and attractive Presence given it, in the fine paper and skilful letter-press which Mr. Francis so uniformly selects. We hope the excellent mechanical execution of the volumes may make them familiar to many homes where they have not been known; and that the popular appreciation of the genius of their authoress may take new impulse from this republication.
The beauty and wealth of scholarship are mastered and ennobled in Mrs. Browning by rare powers of reflection and imagination. She has a large and intimate knowledge of those feelings of the Heart which come to the light under the heat of sorrow, or through the movement and out press of strong inward agitations. And yet, withal, her fancy is as light as the step of Titania, and at times as graceful in its decoration of the solidity of thought, as if the dew-drop and the star-sparkle were all her wealth. The treasures of spiritual knowledge and force, thus accumulated, find their free and noble utterance to the apprehension of others, in a verse free, full, and powerful always, but intricate, various, and at times confused and wild, and darkly-shifting. It has at intervals a roar in it as of the waves, when they swell and surge under the heave of the storm. It rushes, as with a prophetic impetuosity and violence; or again it floats and flows as smoothly out, as if no swell and rush of feeling had ever piled up into smooth expanses; and yet again, it is the tiniest trifle of a brooklet—so light and fleet, so graceful and sparkling, and so full of hurry to reach the breadth of verse beyond! A light of our thoughts, and a star of our regards, is the magnificent Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett. If any of our readers would fain know more of her, let them gratefully possess themselves of this choice edition!
Reviewed:
Poems (EBB), New York: C.S. Francis, 1850.
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