E380800A. The Seraphim.
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, August 1838, pp. 279–284.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 379–382.
Christopher in his Cave.
[This review of The Seraphim is preceded by a review of Richard Monckton Milnes’s Poems of Many Years.]
What other pretty book is this? “The Seraphim, and other Poems, by Elizabeth Barrett, author of a Translation of Prometheus Bound.” High adventure for a Lady—implying a knowledge of Hebrew—or if not—of Greek. No common mind displays itself in this Preface pregnant with lofty thoughts. Yet is her heart humble withal—and she wins her way into ours by these words—“I assume no power of art, except that power of love towards it, which has remained with me from my childhood until now. In the power of such a love, and in the event of my life being prolonged, I would fain hope to write hereafter better verses; but I never can feel more intensely than at this moment—nor can it be needful that any should—the sublime uses of poetry, and the solemn responsibilities of the poet.”
We have read much of the volume, and glanced it all through, not without certain regrets almost amounting to blame, but far more with love and admiration. In “The Seraphim” there is poetry and piety—genius and devotion; but the awful Idea of the Poem—the Crucifixion—is not sustained—and we almost wish it unwritten. The gifted writer says—“I thought that, had Æschylus lived after the incarnation and crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, he might have turned, if not in moral and intellectual, yet in poetic faith, from the solitude of Caucasus to the deeper desertness of that crowded Jerusalem where none had any pity; from the ‘faded white flower’ of the Titanic brow, to the ‘withered grass’ of a Heart trampled on by its own beloved; from the glorying of him who gloried that he could not die, to the sublimer meekness of the Taster of death for every man; from the taunt stung into being by the torment, to His more awful silence, when the agony stood dumb before the love! And I thought how, ‘from the height of this great argument,’ the scenery of the Prometheus would have dwarfed itself even in the eyes of its poet—how the fissures of his rocks and the innumerous smiles of his ocean would have closed and waned into blankness,—and his demigod stood confest, so human a conception as to fall below the aspiration of his own humanity. He would have turned from such to the rent rocks and darkened sun—rent and darkened by a sympathy thrilling through nature, but leaving man’s heart untouched—to the multitudes, whose victim was their Saviour—to the Victim, whose sustaining thought beneath an unexampled agony, was not the Titanic ‘I can revenge,’ but the celestial ‘I can forgive!’”
The poems that follow are on subjects within the compass of her powers—there is beauty in them all—and some of them, we think, are altogether beautiful. From the “Poet’s Vow,” “The Romaunt of Margaret,” “Isobel’s Child,” compositions of considerable length, might be selected passages of deep pathos—especially from the last, in which the workings of a mother’s love through all the phases of fear, [p. 280→] and hope, and despair, and heavenly consolation, are given with extraordinary power, while there is an originality in the whole cast and conception of the strain that beyond all dispute proves the possession of genius. But they are all disfigured by much imperfect and some bad writing—and the fair author is too often seen struggling in vain to give due expression to the feelings that beset her, and entangled in a web of words. “I would fain hope to write hereafter better verses”—and we do not fear that her hopes will not be fulfilled—for she “hath that within which passeth show,” but will, we predict, some day shine forth with conspicuous splendour.
Some of the shorter compositions are almost all we could desire—and let us murmur some of them to ourselves in our Cave.
my doves.
My little doves have left a nest
Upon an Indian tree,
Whose leaves fantastic take their rest
Or motion from the sea:
For, ever there, the sea-winds go
With sunlit paces, to and fro.
The tropic flowers looked up to it,
The tropic stars looked down:
And there my little doves did sit,
With feathers softly brown,
And glittering eyes that showed their right
To general Nature’s deep delight.
And God them taught, at every close
Of water far, and wind
And lifted leaf, to interpose
Their chanting voices kind;
Interpreting that love must be
The meaning of the earth and sea.
Fit ministers! Of living loves,
Their’s hath the calmest sound—
Their living voice the likest moves
To lifeless noises round—
In such sweet monotone as clings
To music of insensate things!
My little doves were ta’en away
From that glad nest of theirs,
Across an ocean foaming aye,
And tempest-clouded airs.
My little doves!—who lately knew
The sky and wave, by warmth and blue!
And now within the city prison,
In mist and chillness pent,
With sudden upward look they listen
For sounds of past content—
For lapse of water, swell of breeze,
Or nut-fruit falling from the trees!
The stir without the glow of passion—
The triumph of the mart—
The gold and silver’s dreary clashing
With man’s metallic heart—
The wheeled pomp, the pauper tread—
These only sounds are heard instead.
Yet still, as on my human hand
Their fearless heads they lean,
And almost seem to understand
What human musings mean—
(With such a plaintive gaze their eyne
Are fastened upwardly to mine!)
Their chant is soft as on the nest,
Beneath the sunny sky:
For love that stirred it in their breast,
Remains undyingly,
And ’neath the city’s shade, can keep
The well of music clear and deep.
And love that keeps the music, fills
With pastoral memories!
All echoings from out the hills,
All droppings from the skies,
All flowings from the wave and wind,
Remembered in their chant I find.
So teach ye me the wisest part,
My little doves! to move
Along the city ways, with heart
Assured by holy love,
And vocal with such songs as own
A fountain to the world unknown.
T’was hard to sing by Babel’s stream—
More hard, in Babel’s street!
But if the soulless creatures deem
Their music not unmeet
For sunless walls—let us begin,
Who wear immortal wings, within!
To me, fair memories belong
Of scenes that erst did bless;
For no regret—but present song,
And lasting thankfulness—
And very soon to break away,
Like types, in purer things than they!
I will have hopes that cannot fade,
For flowers the valley yields—
I will have humble thoughts, instead
Of silent, dewy fields!
My spirit and my God shall be
My sea-ward hill, my boundless sea.
Unambitious verses these—and haply the fair Elizabeth sets no great store by them—recurring in her day-dreams of fame to “The Seraphim.” But they will live in the memory of [p. 281→] many a gentle girl—and mothers will ask their daughters to recite them, that they may watch the workings of nature in the eyes loving innocence—and even fathers looking on and listening—
May from their eyelids wipe the tear
That sacred pity had engendered.
Surely Poetesses (is there such a word?) are very happy, in spite of all the “natural sorrows, griefs, and pains,” to which their exquisitely sensitive being must be perpetually alive. Tighe suffered woman’s worst—wounded affections; nor was Hemans without a like affliction—but she who died first had a cheerful genius, and fancy led her heart into lands of enchantment, where her human life was lulled in repose, and its woes must have often and long been forgotten in the midst of visionary bliss. That other Sweetest Singer had children round her knees, and sufficient happiness it must have been for her, in that long desertion, to see.
How like a new existence to her heart
Uprose those living flowers beneath her eyes,
now flourishing, when she is gone, in the light of Heaven. Lætitia Landon—a name not to be merged—is a joyous spirit not unacquainted with grief—her genius was invigorated by duty—now it is guarded by love—and in good time—may gentler suns shine again on her laurelled head—returning to us from the “far countrie,” that may even now be inspiring into her startled imagination the beauty of “a New Song.”
And our Elizabeth—she too is happy—though in her happiness she loveth to veil with a melancholy haze the brightness of her childhood—and of her maidenhood—but the clouds we raise we can ourselves dispel—and far away yet beyond the horizon are those that may gather round the decline of her life.
the deserted garden.
I mind me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun,
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.
The beds and walks were vanished quite;
And wheresoe’er had fallen the spade,
The greenest grasses Nature led,
To sanctify her right.
I called it my wilderness,
For no one entered there but I.
The sheep looked in, the grass t’ espy,
And passed ne’ertheless.
The trees were interwoven wild,
And spread their boughs enough about
To keep both sheep and shepherd out,
But not a happy child.
Adventurous joy it was for me!
I crept beneath the boughs, and found
A circle smooth of mossy ground
Beneath a poplar tree.
Old garden rose-trees hedged it in—
Bedropt with roses waxen-white,
Well satisfied with dew and light,
And careless to be seen.
Long years ago it might befall,
When all the garden flowers were trim,
The grave old gardener prided him
On these the most of all;
And Lady stately overmuch,
Who moved with a silken noise,
Blushed near them, dreaming of the voice
That likened her to such!
And these to make a diadem,
She may have often plucked and twined;
Half smiling as it came to mind,
That few would look at them.
Oh! little thought that Lady proud,
A child would watch her fair white rose,
When buried lay her whiter brows,
And silk was changed for shroud!—
Nor thought that gardener, full of scorns
For men unlearn’d and simple phrase,
A child would bring it all its praise,
By creeping through the thorns:
To me upon my low moss seat,
Though never a dream the roses sent
Of science or love’s compliment,
I ween they smelt as sweet.
Nor ever a grief was mine, to see
The trace of human step departed—
Because the garden was deserted.
The blyther place for me!
Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken
Hath childhood ’twixt the sun and sward!
We draw the moral afterward—
We feel the gladness then!
And gladdest hours for me did glide
In silence at the rose-tree wall:
A thrush made gladness musical
Upon the other side. [p. 282→]
Nor he nor I did e’er incline
To mar or pluck the blossoms white—
How should I know but that they might
Lead lives as glad as mine?
To make my hermit-home complete,
I brought clear water from the spring
Praised in its own low murmuring,—
And cresses glossy wet.
And so, I thought my likeness grew
(Without the melancholy tale)
To gentle hermit of the dale,
And Angelina too!
For oft I read within my nook
Such minstrel stories! till the breeze
Made sounds poetic in the trees,—
And then I shut the book.
If I shut this wherein I write,
I hear no more the wind athwart
Those trees!—nor feel that childish heart
Delighting in delight!
My childhood from my life is parted;
My footstep from the moss which drew
Its fairy circle round: anew
The garden is deserted!
Another thrush may there rehearse
The madrigals which sweetest are—
No more for me!—myself afar
Do sing a sadder verse!—
Ah me! ah me! when erst I lay
In that child’s-nest so greenly wrought,
I laughed to myself and thought
“The time will pass away!”
I laughed still, and did not fear
But that, whene’er was past away
The childish time, some happier play
My womanhood would cheer
I knew the time would pass away—
And yet beside the rose-tree wall,
Dear God!—how seldom, if at all,
I looked up to pray!
The time is past—and now that grows
The cypress high among the trees,
And I behold white sepulchres
As well as the white rose—
When wiser, meeker thoughts are given,
And I have learnt to lift my face,
Remembering earth’s greenest place
The colour draws from heaven—
It something saith for earthly pain,
But more for Heavenly promise free,
That I who was, would shrink to be
That happy child again.
“Has not love,” says Elizabeth in her Preface, “a deeper mystery than wisdom, and a more ineffable lustre than power? I believe it has. I venture to believe those beautiful and often-quoted words. ‘God is Love,’ to be even less an expression of condescension towards the finite, than an assertion of essential dignity in Him, who is infinite.” To illustrate that attribute she wrote “The Seraphim.” But there is nothing in that poem so affecting as the following simple lines. They cannot be read without bringing to mind the sum of all consolation, “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
the sleep.
Of all the thoughts of God that are
Borne inward unto souls afar,
Along the Psalmist’s music deep—
Now tell me if that any is,
For gift or grace, surpassing this—
“He giveth His beloved, sleep?”
What would we give to our beloved?
The hero’s heart, to be unmoved—
The poet’s star-tuned harp, to sweep—
The senate’s shout to patriot vows—
The monarch’s crown, to light the brows?
“He giveth His beloved, sleep.”
What do we give to our beloved?
A little faith, all undisproved—
A little dust, to overweep—
And bitter memories, to make
The whole earth blasted for our sake!
“He giveth His beloved, sleep.”
“Sleep soft beloved!” we sometimes say,
But have no tune to charm away,
Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep;
But never doleful dream again
Shall break the happy slumber, when
“He giveth His beloved, sleep!”
O earth, so full of dreary noises!
O men, with wailing in your voices!
O delved gold, the wailer’s heap!
O strife, O curse, that o’er it fall!
God makes a silence through you all,
And giveth His beloved, sleep!
His dews drop mutely on the hill;
His cloud above it saileth still,
Though on its slope men toil and reap!
More softly than the dew is shed,
Or cloud is floated overhead,
“He giveth His beloved, sleep.”
Yea! men may wonder while they scan
A living, thinking, feeling man, [p. 283→]
In such a rest his heart to keep;
But angels say—and through the word
I ween their blessed smile is heard—
“He giveth His beloved, sleep!”
For me my heart that erst did go
Most like a tired child at a show,
That sees through tears the jugglers leap,
Would now its wearied vision close,
Would childlike on His love repose,
Who giveth His beloved, sleep!
And friends!—dear friends!—when it shall be
That this low breath is gone from me,
And round my bier ye come to weep—
Let one, most loving of you all,
Say, “Not a tear must o’er her fall—
He giveth His beloved, sleep!”
Cowper has found at last the best of biographers in Southey; and Southey—should he see them—and surely he will—though we think he has somewhere said that he seldom reads the verses of the day—will not withhold his praise from the affecting and beautiful lines on Cowper’s Grave. Had they been anonymous, we should have attributed them to Caroline Bowles.
cowper’s grave.
It is a place where poets crowned
May feel the heart’s decaying—
It is a place where happy saints
May weep amid their praying—
Yet let the grief and humbleness,
As low as silence, languish;
Earth surely now may give her calm
To whom she gave her anguish.
O poets! from a maniac’s tongue
Was poured the deathless singing!
O Christians! at your cross of hope
A hopeless hand was clinging!
O men! this man, in brotherhood,
Your weary paths beguiling,
Groaned inly while he taught you peace,
And died while ye were smiling!
And now, what time ye all may read
Through dimming tears his story—
How discord on the music fell,
And darkness on the glory—
And how, when one by one, sweet sounds
And wandering lights departed,
He wore no less a loving face,
Because so broken-hearted—
He shall be strong to sanctify
The poet’s high vocation,
And bow the meekest Christian down
In meeker adoration:
Nor ever shall he be in praise,
By wise or good forsaken;
Named softly, as the household name
Of one whom God hath taken!
With sadness that is calm, not gloom,
I learn to think upon him;
With meekness that is gratefulness,
On God whose heaven hath won him—
Who suffered once the madness-cloud,
Toward His love to blind him;
But gently led the blind along
Where breath and bird could find him;
And wrought within his shattered brain,
Such quick poetic senses,
As hills have language for, and stars,
Harmonious influences!
The pulse of dew upon the grass,
His own did calmly number;
And silent shadow from the trees
Fell o’er him like a slumber.
The very world, by God’s constraint,
From falsehood’s chill removing,
Its women and its men became
Beside him, true and loving!—
And timid hares were drawn from woods
To share his home caresses.
Uplooking to his human eyes
With silvan tendernesses.
But while, in blindness he remained
Unconscious of the guiding,
And things provided came without
The sweet sense of providing,
He testified this solemn truth,
Though frenzy desolated—
Nor man, nor nature satisfy,
When only God created!
Like a sick child that knoweth not
His mother while she blesses,
And droppeth on his burning brow
The coolness of her kisses;
That turns his fevered eyes around—
“My mother! where’s my mother?”
As if such tender words and looks
Could come from any other!
The fever gone, with leaps of heart
He sees her bending o’er him;
Her face all pale from watchful love,
Th’ unweary love she bore him!
Thus, woke the poet from the dream
His life’s long fever gave him,
Beneath these deep pathetic eyes
Which closed in death, to save him!
Thus! oh, not thus! no type of earth
Could image that awaking,
Wherein he scarcely heard the chant
Of seraphs, round him breaking— [p. 284→]
Or felt the new immortal throb
Of soul from body parted;
But felt those eyes alone, and knew
“My Saviour! not deserted!”
Deserted! who hath dreamt that when
The cross in darkness rested,
Upon the Victim’s hidden face
No love was manifested?
What frantic hands outstretched have e’er
Th’ atoning drops averted—
What tears have washed them from the soul—
That one should be deserted?
Deserted! God could separate
From His own essence rather:
And Adam’s sins have swept between
The righteous Son and Father—
Yea! once, Immanuel’s orphaned cry,
His universe hath shaken—
It went up single, echoless,
“My God. I am forsaken!”
It went up from the Holy’s lips
Amid his lost creation,
That of the lost, no son should use
Those words of desolation;
That earth’s word frenzies, marring hope,
Should mar not hope’s fruition;
And I, on Cowper’s grave, should see
His rapture, in a vision!
[John Wilson]
Reviewed:
The Seraphim, and Other Poems (EBB), London: Saunders & Otley, 1838.
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