E510125A. Poems (1850).
The Examiner, 25 January 1851, pp. 52–53.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 337–340.
It is more than six years since we noticed the first edition of Miss Barrett’s collected poems, but many of her earlier writings were excluded from that publication. This “new edition” comprises her poetry early and late, strengthened by careful revision, and with additions that exhibit, yet more than the change which has merged her name in that of another true poet, the altered aspect of her life and fortunes.
With more than half the poems before us we make acquaintance for the first time, and they have greatly raised our opinion of the writer. In imagination and expression, the first requisites of the art, she stands very high indeed. What she still wants is compression, though not so much as formerly. Her fault has been, not only to use all her thoughts and feelings for whatever she does, but to be equally lavish of multitudes of words in depicting them. We see proof, in the late poems, of a change in this respect; and of as healthy a change in the spiritual experiences recorded. Rich as the age has been in its manifestations of female genius, the two volumes now published in some respects stand alone. They express a genuine and natural poetess, true to the time in which she lives; and they also exhibit the character and learning of a noble-minded Englishwoman, with the taste and accomplishments of an age now passed away. Mrs Browning is true to nature in her poetical genius, because she thinks the thoughts and utters the sentiments which the constitution of her mind, the circumstances in which she is placed, and the influences by which she is surrounded, have cherished and suggested. Yet such has been her spiritual training, and such her habits of temperament and study, that she reminds us more of the great-hearted- Englishwomen of an earlier day, than of those, amiable, excellent, and inspired with true genius as many of them are, who have been formed by the age in which she lives. We think of the wife of Col. Hutchinson, of Lady Fanshawe, of the beloved sister of Boyle, and the confiding admiring friend of Milton, Lady Ranelagh, when we read the poems of Mrs Browning.
From the same school as that of those noble women has issued the writer of these Poems. She has fed upon the classic thoughts of Æschylus, and the old theology of Gregory Nazianzen. She has conversed on terms of sisterly equality with the men whose delight was in the study of such writers. She appreciates the substantial value of the massive thinkers of antiquity. As Milton did, she takes pleasure in the wild imaginings of old romance and legend; but her clear and strong intellect more habitually reposes in the contemplation of ethics based upon reason, and elevated by devotional aspiration. She delights in giving the embodiment of English verse and words to the thoughts and imagery of the Bound Prometheus, and in letting her imagination dwell upon the emotions and struggles of our first parents after the Fall, and the severe yet loving sublimity of the Atoning Sacrifice.
There is another theme to which she loves to recur, and which she treats with an intensity of feeling, a power of imagination, and illustrates with a variety of exquisitely-beautiful imagery, unsurpassed, we might almost say unequalled, by any poet who has gone before her. In many of her minor poems, but above all, in that admirable poem (now for the first time printed) to which she has given the form of a series of sonnets, and which is entitled “From the Portuguese,” we find this theme dwelt upon with noble and eloquent fervour. It describes the solitary wrestling of a strong mind linked to a feeble frame to attain to that enjoyment which faith in the benevolent purpose of present suffering can give; it expresses the struggles of such a mind to resign itself to solitary independence and uncompleted existence, while yearning for the interchange of affection and life as strong as that it feels within; it depicts the misgivings with which the first uncertain gleams of hope that such love and life has been turned towards it are entertained; and closes in the absorbing happiness, tranquil as it is deep, with which full conviction of the glad truth is admitted. Let the reader prepare for the full enjoyment of this remarkable series of sonnets by first reading the verses entitled “Catarina to Camoens.”
But no one capable of appreciating poetry will rest satisfied with a partial and incomplete knowledge of the poems here presented to them. Fragmentary and occasional as the majority of them appear to be, they are for the most part linked together by a subtle interconnection of sympathies and meaning. They who are yet altogether unacquainted with them, and are desirous of entering into the fullest sense of their beauty, will do well to begin by reading “The Drama of Exile,” and “The Seraphim,” with the sonnets inscribed to the late Mr Stuart Boyd, and the poem of “Cyprus Wine” inscribed to him. From these may be caught the writer’s favourite studies and prevailing habits of thought. After this the “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,” and “The Romaunt of the Page,” will show how delicate, pure, and intense a spirit of womanly love is connected with this masculine and far-reaching intellect. In “The Lay of brown Rosary,” and “The Romaunt of Margret,” will be recognised a delicate and fanciful power of giving reality to the vague and bodiless suggestions of legendary superstition that has rarely been surpassed. “Bertha in the Lane” is a variation of the theme of concealed love, strengthened by devotion and self-sacrifice, very pathetic, and quite original in conception. The “Romance of the Swan’s Nest” is a delightfully natural picture of romance with reality beside it. “Hector in the [p. 53→] Garden,” and the verses on “My Dog Flush,” are of the class which impart poetic character to the homeliest household associations. “The House of Clouds” evinces the faculty which gives to airy nothings “a local habitation and a name.” The “Rhyme of the Duchess May” tells a story of woman’s fidelity and spirit in a series of clear pictures, coloured with romantic feeling and true poetic grace. Nor less tender and imaginative are the “Lay of the Early Rose,” the “Loved One,” and the “Child’s Grave at Florence.” And the crown and completion of these excellencies will be found in the sonnets, “From the Portuguese,” that monologue of a strong soul rescued by love from all its doubts and misgivings.
Mrs Browning’s poems are of the class the full beauty and value of which can but scantily be indicated by extracts. Yet it would not be difficult to select passages instinct with a life and beauty of their own, if space were at our disposal. We would gladly have quoted, for instance, from the lay of the brown rosary, which is the legend of a maiden who has forgone her eternal hopes of future life for prolonged present life to be united to an earthly lover. Let the reader observe the last twenty stanzas; and then, for a beautiful contrast with the wild theme of that poem, touched as it is at the close with a bright sunset flash of redeeming mercy, read the tender and delicate lines entitled “A Portrait,” at page 309 of the second volume.
An invaluable lesson is conveyed in a highly-finished sonnet, called “The Prospect,” at the close of the first volume. Another entitled “Perplexed Music”—and the two sonnets on “Future” and “Past”—are also full of pathetic meaning. This accumulation of contrasting images, in enumeration of the features of city life, we find in a new poem called “The Soul’s Trembling:”
The champ of the steeds on the silver bit,
As they whirl the rich man’s chariot by;
The beggar’s whine as he looks at it,—
But it goes too fast for charity.
The trail, on the street, of the poor man’s broom,
That the lady, who walks to her palace-home,
On her silken skirt, may catch no dust:
The tread of the business-men who must
Count their per cents, by the paces they take:
The cry of the babe, unheard of its mother
Though it lie on her breast, while she thinks of the other
Laid yesterday where it will not wake.
The flower-girl’s prayer to buy roses and pinks,
Held out in the smoke, like stars by day;
The gin-door’s oath, that hollowly chinks
Guilt upon grief, and wrong upon hate:
The cabman’s cry to get out of the way;
The dustman’s call down the area-grate:
The young maid’s jest, and the old wife’s scold,
The haggling talk of the boys at a stall;
The fight in the street, which is backed for gold,—
The plea of the lawyers in Westminster Hall;
The drop on the stones, of the blind man’s staff,
As he trades in his own grief’s sacredness;
The brothel’s shriek, and the Newgate laugh,
The hum upon ’Change, and the organ’s grinding,
The grinder’s face being nevertheless
Dry and vacant of even woe,
While the children’s hearts are leaping so
At the merry music’s winding!
The black-plumed funeral’s creeping train,
Long and slow (and yet they will go
As fast as Life, though it hurry and strain!)
Creeping the populous houses through,
And nodding their plumes at either side,—
At many a house where an infant, new
To the sunshiny world, has just struggled and cried:
At many a house, where sitteth a bride
Trying the morrow’s coronals,
With a scarlet blush, to-day.—
Slowly creep the funerals,
As none should hear the noise and say,
The living, the living, must go away
To multiply the dead!
The reader will thank us for subjoining the brief poems which follow, and which are complete in themselves:
a man’s requirements.
Love me, sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing,—
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.
Love me with thine open youth
In its frank surrender;
With the vowing of thy mouth,
With its silence tender.
Love me with thine azure eyes,
Made for earnest granting!
Taking colour from the skies,
Can Heaven’s truth be wanting?
Love me with their lids, that fall,
Snow-like at first meeting:
Love me with thine heart, that all
The neighbours then see beating.
Love me with thine hand stretched out
Freely—open-minded:
Love me with thy loitering foot,—
Hearing one behind it.
Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;
Love me with thy blush that burns
When I murmur “Love me!”
Love me with thy thinking soul—
Break it to love-sighing;
Love me with thy thoughts that roll
On through living—dying.
Love me in thy gorgeous airs,
When the world has crowned thee!
Love me, kneeling at thy prayers,
With the angels round thee.
Love me pure, as musers do,
Up the woodlands shady:
Love me gaily, fast, and true,
As a winsome lady,
Through all hopes that keep us brave,
Further off or nigher,
Love me for the house and grave,—
And for something higher.
Thus, if thou wilt prove me, dear,
Woman’s love no fable,
I will love thee—half-a-year—
As a man is able.
l.e.l.’s last question.
____
“Do you think of me as I think of you?”
From her poem written during the voyage to the Cape.
i.
“Do you think of me as I think of you,
My friends, my friends?”—She said it from the sea,
The English minstrel in her minstrelsy;
While, under brighter skies than erst she knew,
Her heart grew dark,—and groped there, as the blind,
To reach across the waves, friends left behind—
“Do you think of me as I think of you?”
ii.
It seemed not much to ask—As I of you?—
We all do ask the same. No eyelids cover
Within the meekest eyes, that question over,—
And little, in the world, the Loving do,
But sit (among the rocks?) and listen for
The echo of their own love evermore—
“Do you think of me as I think of you?”
iii.
Love-learned she had sung of love and love.—
And, like a child, that, sleeping with dropt head
Upon the fairy-book he lately read,
Whatever household noises round him move,
Hears in his dream some elfin turbulence,—
Even so, suggestive to her inward sense,
All sounds of life assumed one tune of love.
iv.
And when the glory of her dream withdrew,—
When knightly gestes and courtly pageantries
Were broken in her visionary eyes,
By tears the solemn seas attested true,—
Forgetting that sweet lute beside her hand,
She asked not,—Do you praise me, O my land?—
But,—“Think ye of me, friends, as I of you?”
v.
Hers was the hand that played for many a year,
Love’s silver phrase for England,—smooth and well!
Would God, her heart’s more inward oracle
In that lone moment, might confirm her dear!
For when her questioned friends in agony
Made passionate response,—“We think of thee,”—
Her place was in the dust, too deep to hear.
vi.
Could she not wait to catch their answering breath?
Was she content—content—with ocean’s sound,
Which dashed its mocking infinite around
One thirsty for a little love?—beneath
Those stars, content,—where last her song had gone,—
They, mute and cold in radiant life,—as soon
Their singer was to be, in darksome death?
vii.
Bring your vain answers—cry, “We think of thee!”
How think ye of her? warm in long ago
Delights?—or crowned with budding bays? Not so.
None smile and none are crowned where lieth she,—
With all her visions unfulfilled, save one—
Her childhood’s—of the palm-trees in the sun—
And lo! their shadow on her sepulchre!
viii.
“Do you think of me as I think of you?”—
O friends,—O kindred,—O dear brotherhood
Of all the world! what are we, that we should
For covenants of long affection sue?
Why press so near each other, when the touch
Is barred by graves? Not much, and yet too much,
Is this “Think of me as I think of you.”
ix.
But while on mortal lips I shape anew
A sigh to mortal issues,—verily
Above the unshaken stars that see us die,
A vocal pathos rolls! and He who drew
All life from dust, and for all, tasted death,
By death and life and love, appealing, saith,
Do you think of me as I think of you?
We shall close our extracts with five sonnets of the series entitled “From the Portuguese.” They tell their own story.
I thought how once Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, ..
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery while I strove, ..
“Guess now who holds thee?”—“Death!” I said.
But there,
The silver answer rang .. “Not Death, but Love.”
____
Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses, and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears, even, can make mine, to ply thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
A poor, tired, wandering singer? .. singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—
And Death must dig the level where these agree.
____
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
“I love her for her smile .. her look .. her way
Of speaking gently, .. for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,
Since one might well forget to weep who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou may’st love on through love’s eternity.
____
I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully
I ring out to the full brown length and say
“Take it.” My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee,
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more. It only may
Now shade on two pale cheeks, the mark of tears,
Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
Through sorrow’s trick. I thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first; but Love is justified:
Take it thou, .. finding pure, from all those years,
The kiss my mother left here when she died.
____
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise;
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith;
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
[John Forster]
Reviewed:
Poems (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1850.
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