E510400A. Poems (1850).
The Christian Remembrancer, April 1851, pp. 371–382.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 17, 295–301.
[This article begings with a notice of RB’s Poems (1849) and Christmas Eve and Easter Day; see pp. 000–000.]
It is time for us to pass on to Mrs. Browning’s softer, purer, but too ambitious muse. In a very serious preface to the edition of 1844, but repeated in the present, she thus speaks of her own labours, but of the sense of responsibility under which she has written:—
“But if it were not presumptuous language on the lips of one to whom life is more than usually uncertain, my favourite wish for this work would be, that it be received by the public as a step in the right track, towards a future indication of more value and acceptability. I would fain do better, and I feel as if I might do better. I aspire to do better. It is no new form of the nympholepsy of poetry that my ideal should fly before me; and if I cry too hopefully at sight of the white vesture receding between the cypresses, let me be blamed gently, if justly. In any case, while my poems are full of faults,—as I go forward to my critics and confess,—they have my heart and life in them, they are not empty shells. If it must be said of me that I have contributed immemorable verses to the many rejected of the age, it cannot at least be said that I have done so in a light and irresponsible spirit. Poetry has been as serious a thing to me as life itself; and life has been a very serious thing. There has been no playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hours of the poet; I have done my work, so far, as work,—not as mere hand and head work, apart from the personal being,—but as the completest expression of that being to which I would attain; and as work I offer it to the public, feeling its short-comings more deeply than any of my readers, because measured from the height of my aspiration; but feeling also that the reverence and sincerity with which the work was done, should give it some protection from the reverent and sincere.”
—Mrs. Browning’s Poems. Preface, p. xiii.
Probably an extreme estimate of the value and consequence of the work in hand is necessary to the poet. Reduce him to the state of cool dispassionateness of his critics, and it would be impossible for him to write at all. The fervour, the impetuosity, the impression of importance must be there to sustain him in his labours of composition; we cannot expect him to be always justly weighing his own value. What preacher could preach with effect if he did not attach to his own thoughts and words and choice of subject an importance so far undue, that he accords it to no one else, so that he weighs and considers and looks for results which he would think unreasonable in another man, which as a listener he could not sympathise with? It is not just to be hard in contemplating this feeling even when unsanctioned by the event. Nothing probably has been well done that has not been regarded as of some consequence in the doing, and whose progress has not been cheered—at the moment at least—by a feeling of success. It depends on the natural temper how long this feeling lasts, and when diffidence and mistrust, if ever, succeed to it. Mrs. Browning says that an author’s love of his manuscript should be classed by moral philosophers among the natural affections; with her, therefore, [p. 372→] the impression is not transient. Granting all this, we yet believe that the force of this persuasion in the author is no test of the real value of his work. Poetry used to be called a divine madness: there are many authors who have the madness,—the feeling of inspiration, though we see no trace of divinity in the result;—who value those works most, where they have most fancied this influence, disregarding lighter efforts more according to their natural genius, and therefore flowing more easily from them, and centering their hopes of fame where the struggle and effort has been most apparent to themselves. And the disappointment is almost equal to total failure, if they find the world willing to accord praise to what cost them little trouble, while resolute in disregarding or disparaging the labour and toil of their lives. It is provoking to be valued for a ballad or a song, when they had aspired to make us familiar with paradise in an epic; to perceive that where they rejoice in a conflict with difficulty, a battle followed by a victory, we see only an inglorious defeat, an attempt to build a tower without the means to finish it.
Yet while we criticise these higher attempts and prove them unsuccessful, they may yet give indications of power; the too ambitious flight may show at least that the spirit has wings, which we common treaders of the ground know not the temptation of. We should be lenient of failures where anything has been done well; for, every happy thought, every graceful fancy, every musical stanza, bringing to our hearts something brighter and better than the common things of every day, is a boon—something for which we owe thanks—an argument for indulgence, a plea for our most favourable judgment of its author.
These thoughts, these resolutions, towards a favourable construction are, it must be owned, not seldom called for by the poets of our day. There is an arrogant prying into mysteries amongst them; and many stare, or would stare, at the sun, who are not eagles, and so mistake the rings and spots and fleeting light of a dazed eyesight for a vision of the sun in his strength; who not being able to see down to the bottom of their thoughts, mistake morbid shallows for depths; and because their language is ambiguous, suppose they are speaking oracles. In spite of our sincere admiration of some of Mrs. Browning’s poems, the genuine lasting pleasure we take in their perusal, it requires all our forbearance and charity to feel tolerably patient towards some of her more ambitious efforts, to do them the justice they deserve, to believe there is something real and genuine in what is expressed with so much affectation, that there can be genius in a mind at times so infinitely mistaken in its own capabilities, that there can be awe and reverence in a design which in its [p. 373→] execution expresses so many irreverent ideas, that there can be a poet’s knowledge and sympathies with universal nature, where she so often outrages our taste, our instincts, and our deeper sensibilities.
It is common to regret the affectations and quaintnesses of this author’s phraseology as if her choice of words were something independent of her mode of thought, and as if, were these simplified and made natural, simple and natural thoughts would shine through them. But in fact this defect furnishes the key to the secret of failure wherever there is failure. Simplicity never clothes itself in affected language, nor clear thoughts in obscure words, nor distinct ideas in misty involved expressions. It is because the ideas are farfetched, strained, unnatural, inconsequent, ill-developed, that the wording is newfangled, elaborate, affected, crabbed, confused. When Mrs. Browning has a simple, connected, pathetic, human feeling to express, she does it in perfectly appropriate, natural, graceful language. Where she has fancies half-defined, the fruit of memories and dreams, not distinctly apprehended by the head or embraced by the heart,—conceits they would once have been called,—she has composed a language for them which seems from dreamland also, so showy, so pretentious is it, so little adapted for wakeful thoughts or waking ears.
In writers of more impressibility than imagination, more retentive than observant, it is often interesting to trace through infinite forms of disguise the same original thought or conception. The vigorous invention to which all nature ministers strikes off a scene or an image and forgets it to give place to others, as Beethoven throws a few bars of exquisite melody into the solemn mystic march of his harmonies, and never returns to them again, for other airs equally divine sound through his soul in their stead; but the dreaming musing fancy, which feeds itself from within and treasures and counts up its stores, never parts with an idea which it has once loved, which has once made an impression. The same fancy, perhaps, conceived in childhood, or even infancy, a scene, a glimpse, a stir, an aspect, a motion only, something instantaneous, but vividly expressive of the pathetic, the attractive, the interesting, the terrible, to that individual mind recurs again and again, is part of the writer’s self, so that none of these qualities can be described without these symbols being used in the expression of them. If his line lies in works of imagination, however varied may be his subjects, these original impressions will always be there; some scene or situation, some perplexity or delicate embarrassment, some conflict of feeling and duty, or it may be only mysterious associations with nature as viewed under these impressions, [p. 374→] some effects of light and shade, some position of lines or curves, aspects too evanescent and trivial to be described, will always characterise his delineations of feeling, sentiment, or passion. This we hold to be very perceptible in Mrs. Browning’s writings, and may occasionally make a legitimate excuse for the irritating mannerism of her poetry; the action of leaning, e.g. which all things animate and inanimate perform with her,—sunbeams, clouds, flowers, trees, human souls, memories, &c. &c. (“There’s no pardon which can lean to you aright”)—must have associations with which the reader can have no sympathy, but genuine with her. The words oblique and slant, possessing no doubt some affinity with the first, frequently come in, giving the same impression; trailing and rustling too, both of constant recurrence, have some arbitrary associations in her mind, or in speaking of angels she could not have written, “Soiling the rustling of their innocence,” nor of the roar of wild beasts “trailing along the gorges,” which to us has no meaning. The word drifted in like manner is made to serve many uses for which we do not see its fitness, but for which some recollection we will hope adapts it to the author’s own mind. This habit has of course a tendency to reduce language to a kind of cypher, unintelligible except to the initiated. It cannot be called figurative, because no attempt is made, nor we think could be made, to draw an analogy—it is for the most part purely arbitrary, except for these hidden associations, as in the schoolboy who chose to call his hat his cadwallader on no other ground but because he chose.
If we did not believe in our authoress as really gifted, as possessing real poetic power, we should not spend time in reprobating this unfortunate habit, which must have in great part arisen from her resolute choice of subjects above the power of all but the highest genius. She has chosen themes from which Dante and Milton shrink—hold back in reverent fear,—and this mystic indefinite vague jargon (we will call it) hides from herself the extent of the presumption and the failure. Because her angels do not speak like men, she hopes that they speak like angels. In two poems, “The Seraphim,” and the “Drama of Exile,” angels and demons are the principal speakers. In “The Seraphim,” her earlier work in this class, she had not adopted the grand unintelligible style to the same extent. We are therefore all judges how far she can represent the sublimer intercourse of supernatural intelligences.
We will give our readers some specimens of angel-talk from the opening scene of “The Seraphim.” The time is the crucifixion. Two seraphs, “Ador the strong one,” and “Zerah the bright one,” stand on the outer side of the shut heavenly gate:— [p. 375→]
Ador. O seraph, pause, no more!
Beside this gate of heaven we stand alone.
Zerah. Of heaven!
Ador. Our brother hosts are gone.
Zerah. Are gone!
These opening words give us an insight into the two characters. The Strong One is the instructor, the Bright One the “uncomprehending” listener. They converse on the most awful mysteries in a strain not to increase our awe.
Ador. Peace upon earth come down to it.
Zerah. Ah me,
I hear thereof uncomprehendingly;
Peace where the tempest—where the sighing is,
And worship of the idol stead of His?
Ador. Yes, peace where He is.
Zerah. He!
Say it again.
Ador. Where He is.
Zerah. Can it be
That earth contains a tree
Whose leaves like Eden foliage can be sway’d
By breathing of His voice, nor shrink and fade.
Ador. There is a tree, it hath nor leaf nor root;
Upon it hangs a curse for all its fruit—
For He the crownèd Son
Hath left His crown and throne,
Walks earth in Adam’s clay,
Eve’s snake to bruise and slay.
Zerah. Walks earth in clay?
Ador. And walking in the clay which He created,
He through it shall touch death.
What did I utter? what conceive? Did breath
Of demon howl it in a blasphemy?
Or was it mine own voice, informed, dilated,
By the seven confluent spirits? Speak, answer me!
Who said man’s victim was his Deity?
Zerah. Beloved, beloved, the word came forth from thee.
Thine eyes are rolling in tempestuous light
Above, below, around.
As putting thunder questions, without cloud,
Reverberate without sound.
But our readers have had enough to show that intelligible angels are not Mrs. Browning’s forte. One short example of the unintelligible we must give from the “Drama of Exile,” which we ought to say has in the person of Eve some pathetic expression, though there is little throughout that can be called truly imaginative. Adam generally speaks in geometrical lines and curves, a new, and, we may add, feminine mode of representing his supremacy.
Chorus of Angels. Live, work on, O Earthy!
By the actual’s tension,
Speed the arrow worthy
Of a pure ascension. [p. 376→]
From the low earth wend you,
Reach the heights above you;
From the stripes that wound you,
Seek the loves that love you!
God’s divinest burneth plain
Through the crystal diaphane
Of our loves that love you.
But we will not multiply examples of mingled confusion and poverty of expression, of which this is after all scarcely an average specimen. Nothing can be more helpless, weak, and powerless than her angels; they do nothing but talk, and talk very badly. The angel Gabriel is the whole of one scene telling Lucifer to depart, and the fiend maintains his ground, will not go till he pleases, and moreover insults the archangel by a charge of bad logic:—
Gabriel. Depart.
Lucifer. And where’s the logic of “depart?”
Our lady Eve had half been satisfied
To obey her Maker, if I had not learnt
To fix my postulate better.
It would be unfair to dwell at length on defects and failures in a task of such difficulty, were not the difficulty self-imposed, and the attempt itself a perpetration. Genius is so far an inspiration that certain powers do sanction an entrance upon certain fields of speculation. But our authoress had abundant warnings that the task was above her handling, that it was presumption in her to attempt it. If the analogy of a woman’s minuter sphere and range of observation and weaker physical powers did not of itself dictate a choice of subject more in conformity with her nature and experience, the straits she was put to for language should have acted as a check:—but here has probably lain the unfortunate mistake—it was presumed that the theme was above words, could only be approached, never reached by them, and that all these symbols were an actual approach. “The Vision of Poets,” though not open to the same serious objections, labours under similar drawbacks; it is fatiguing, though implying real powers in the writer, because we are constantly reminded of their inadequacy for the task imposed on them. How refreshing are often Mrs. B.’s simpler lays and ballads, flowing smoothly, full of human feelings and human interests, after these ineffectual soarings and broken flights!—poems which, perhaps, as they have cost her little effort, she may value in proportion,—“The Swan’s Nest,” “My Doves,” “Bertha in the Lane,” though this is tinctured by new-coined words, “The Lost Bower,” “The Romaunt of Margret,” and many others, all evidencing deep sensibilities, a tender human heart, and adequate powers of expression. This [p. 377→] last, as first published in the late edition, though we should not guess recently written, we will extract. The quaint turn of the words is here necessary to sustain the weird supernatural character of the story. It is simple, pathetic, and natural, and the sympathy of external nature with each failing of cherished love leaves a sad, impressive weight on the reader’s mind. Each stanza has the burden “Margret, Margret!” which, for economy of space, the reader must supply. For the same reason we omit the opening stanzas, which picture Margret sitting by a running stream, whose cheerful flow harmonizes with her pleasant thoughts. The time is a summer night, when all nature shares the soothing influence:—
the romaunt of margret.
* * * *
The lady’s shadow lies
Upon the running river,
It lieth no less in its quietness,
For that which resteth never.
Most like a trusting heart
Upon a passing faith,
Or as, upon the course of life
The steadfast doom of death.
Margret, Margret!
The lady doth not move,
The lady doth dream,—
Yet she seeth her shade no longer laid
In rest upon the stream!
It shaketh without wind;
It parteth from the tide;
It standeth upright in the cleft moonlight—
It sitteth at her side.
Look in its face, ladye,
And keep thee from thy swound!
With spirit bold thy pulses hold,
And hear its voice’s sound!
For so will sound thy voice,
When thy face is to the wall;
And such will be thy face, ladye,
When the maidens work thy pall.
“Am I not like to thee?”—
The voice was calm and low,
And between each word you might have heard
The silent forest grow.
“The like may sway the like!
By which mysterious law
Mine eyes from thine and my lips from thine,
The light and breath may draw;—
“My lips do need thy breath,
My lips do need thy smile,
And my pale deep eyne, that light in thine,
Which met the stars erewhile;
Yet go with light and life,
If that thou lovest one,
In all the earth, who loveth thee
As truly as the sun.”
Her cheek had waxèd white,
Like cloud at fall of snow;
Then like to one at set of sun,
It waxèd red also:
For love’s name maketh bold,
As if the loved were near!
And then she sigh’d the deep long sigh
Which cometh after fear.
“Now sooth I fear thee not—
I shall never fear thee now!”
(And a noble sight was the sudden light
Which lit her lifted brow.)
“Can earth be dry of streams;
Or hearts of love?” she said—
“Who doubteth love can know no love;
He is already dead.”
“I have” .... and here her lips
Some words in pause did keep,
And gave the while a quiet smile,
As if they paused in sleep;—
“I have … a brother dear,
A knight of knightly fame,
I broider’d him a knightly scarf
With letters of my name.
“I fed his grey gosshawk,
I kiss’d his fierce bloodhound;
I sate at home when he might come,
And caught his horn’s far sound:
I sang him hunter’s songs,
I pour’d him the red wine—
He look’d across the cup and said,
‘I love thee, sister mine.’” [p. 378→]
It trembled on the grass,
With a low shadowy laughter:
The sounding river which flow’d for ever,
Stood dumb, and stagnant after.
“Brave knight thy brother is,
But better loveth he
Thy chaliced wine than thy chaunted song,
And better both than thee.”
The lady did not heed
The river’s silence, while
Her own thoughts still ran at their will,
And calm was still her smile.
“My little sister wears
The look our mother wore:
I smooth her locks with a golden comb—
I bless her evermore.
“I gave her my first bird
When first my voice it knew,
I made her share my posies rare,
And told her where they grew.
I taught her God’s dear name;
With prayer and praise to tell
She look’d from heaven into my face
And said,—‘I love thee well.’”
It trembled on the grass
With a low shadowy laughter:
You could see each bird, as it woke and stared
Through the shrivell’d foliage after.
“Fair child thy sister is;
But better loveth she
Thy golden comb, than thy gather’d flowers,
And better both than thee.”
The lady did not heed
The withering on the bough,
Still calm her smile, albeit the while
A little pale her brow.
“I have a father old,
The lord of ancient halls,
A hundred friends are in his court,
But only me he calls.”
The father loves his daughter, but still better his castle and his state, and at the spirit’s refutation the moon and stars grow dim.
The lady did not heed
That the far stars did fail,
Still calm her smile, albeit the while ......
Nay, but she is not pale!
“I have a more than friend
Across the mountains dim,
No other’s voice is soft to me
Unless it nameth him.
“Though louder beats mine heart,
I know his tread again—
And his far plume aye, unless turn’d away,
For the tears do blind me then.
We brake no gold, a sign
Of stronger faith to be;
But I wear his last look in my soul,
Which said, I love but thee!”
It trembled on the grass
With a low shadowy laughter,
And the wind did toll, as a passing soul
Were sped by church-bell after;
And shadows stead of light
Fell from the stars above
In flakes of darkness on her face
Still bright with trusting love.
“He loved but only thee!
That love is transient too,
The wild hawk’s bill doth dabble still
I’the mouth that vow’d thee true.
Will he open his dull eyes
When tears fall on his brow?
Behold the death-worm to his heart
Is a dearer thing than thou.”
Her face was on the ground—
None saw the agony!
But the men at sea did that night agree,
They heard a drowning cry.
And when the morning brake,
Fast roll’d the river’s tide,
With the green trees waving over head,
And a white corse lain beside.
A knight’s bloodhound and he
The funeral watch did keep,
With a thought of the chase he stroked its face,
As it howl’d to see him weep.
A fair child kiss’d the dead
But shrank before the cold,
And alone, yet proudly, in his hall
Did stand a baron old.
“Hang up my harp again,
I have no voice for song,
Not song but wail, and mourners pale,
Not bards to love belong.
O failing human love!
O light by darkness known!
O false, the while thou treadest earth!
O deaf beneath the stone!”
Margret, Margret. [p. 379→]
This image of trusting love must be contrasted with another, in Mrs. Browning’s more peculiar vein,—from which, however, we have space for only a short extract—more ambitious, with some vigour of description and a certain real interest in the story, but appealing very little to our personal sympathies. “The Courtship of Lady Geraldine” is enacted by a poet of great genius but low birth; the genius of course must be taken on trust, but we think there are various indications of “the low birth” to be gathered from his own narrative. In fact, the poet is not a gentleman. He shows himself affected by details of mere show and splendour which he pretends to despise, humbled by the consciousness of a difference of position where he need not be, and insolently resentful of slights which were never intended, and which only a very low form of pride would take as such. It is wonderful to us how the authoress can take any pleasure in her own creation,—can admire the style of character she has so truthfully drawn. For us, we can only say we never encountered a more inflated, pragmatical, and we believe, if seen in real life, insufferable fellow. The poet writes the history of his loves. He is visiting the heiress, falls in love with her, and narrates the conflict of his feelings to his friend. His part in the affair has certainly a very selfish interested look; he thinks only of himself, hates and despises the society he comes in contact with, and yet is afraid of it. We have no end of his scorn and contempt for rank, wealth, station, everything he does not possess, along with an inordinate value for himself; and all the while an eye for state, for property and fine things, which must have betrayed themselves to his associates and rendered him an object of little respect to them. The Lady Geraldine, however, sees nothing of all this; his poetry has won her heart, and his pride and other disagreeable qualities seem only to rivet the chain. He has been some time at her castle in Sussex, his feelings all the while working up to a high pitch of suppressed excitement; when he overhears, as is the custom in fiction, a nobleman making the Lady Geraldine an offer; she refuses him, on which the earl says something inaudible to our friend.
What he said again, I know not. It is likely that his trouble
Worked his pride up to the surface, for she answer’d in slow scorn—
“And your Lordship judges rightly. Whom I marry, shall be noble;
Ay, and wealthy. I shall never blush to think how he was born.”
There, I madden’d! her words stung me! Life swept through me into fever,
And my soul sprang up astonish’d; sprang, full statured in an hour!
Know you what it is when anguish, with apocalyptic never
To a Pythian height dilates you,—and despair sublimes to power?
From my brain, the soul-wings budded!—waved a flame about my body,
Whence conventions coiled to ashes! I felt self-drawn out, as man,
From amalgamate false natures; and I saw the skies grow ruddy
With the deepening feet of angels, and I knew what spirits can! [p. 380→]
I was mad—inspired—say either! anguish worketh inspiration!
Was a man, or beast—perhaps so; for the tiger roars when spear’d;
And I walk’d on, step by step, along the level of my passion—
Oh my soul! and pass’d the doorway to her face, and never fear’d.
He had left her,—peradventure, when my footsteps proved my coming—
But for her—she half arose, then sate—grew scarlet and grew pale:
Oh, she trembled!—’tis so always with a worldly man or woman,
In the presence of true spirits—what else can they do but quail?
Oh, she flutter’d like a tame bird, in amongst its forest-brothers,
Far too strong for it! then drooping, bow’d her face upon her hands—
And I spake out wildly, fiercely, brutal truths of her and others!
I she planted in the desert, swathed her, wind-like, with my sands.
I pluck’d up her social fictions, bloody-rooted though leaf-verdant,—
Trod them down with words of shaming,—all the purples and the gold,
And the “landed stakes” and Lordships—all that spirits pure and ardent
Are cast out of love and reverence, because chancing not to hold.
“For myself I do not argue,” said I, “though I love you, Madam,
But for better souls, that never to the height of yours have trod—
And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam,
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God.
“Yet, O God” (I said), “O grave” (I said), “O mother’s heart and bosom,
With whom first and last are equal, saint and corpse and little child!
We are fools to your deductions, in these figments of heart-closing!
We are traitors to your causes, in these sympathies defiled!
Learn more reverence, Madam, not for rank or wealth—that needs no learning;
That comes quickly—quick as sin does! ay, and often works to sin;
But for Adam’s seed, man! trust me, ’tis a clay above your scorning,
With God’s image stamp’d upon it, and God’s kindling breath within.”
He then condescends to a strain somewhat less abusive, and speaks of her beauty and his love; consoling himself by casting this stain on her “ermined pride,” that I—
“Love you, Madam—dare to love you—to my grief and your dishonour—
To my endless desolation and your impotent disdain!”
* * * *
But at last there came a pause. I stood all vibrating with thunder,
Which my soul had used. The silence drew her face up like a call.
Could you guess what word she utter’d? She look’d up as if in wonder,
With tears beaded on her lashes, and said “Bertram!” it was all.
The calm of the word and voice overcome our hero, till at length he is—
So struck backward, and exhausted with that inward flow of passion
Which had pass’d, in deadly rushing, into forms of abstract truth,—
With a logic agonizing through unfit denunciation,—
And with youth’s own anguish turning grimly grey the hairs of youth,
that utterly prostrated by his own vehemence and her gentleness, he falls at her feet in a dead faint; and when he comes to himself, finds himself alone, and writes his whole narrative to his friend,
While still, in hot and heavy splashes, fell his tears on every leaf. [p. 381→]
Throwing himself back in his chair, after this exciting task, a vision meets his eyes. The Lady Geraldine has, unheard, entered the open casement of the moon-lit room; illuminated, we must presume, by other light as well, or, standing, as she is described, with her back to the light, we know not how the eyes, “shining with a torrid brightness over the desolate sand desert of the poet’s heart,” could have exercised such power. The pictures, however, are often unformed and indistinct. The scene is a pretty one.
With a murmurous stir, uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain
Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows;
While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise for ever,
Through the open casement whiten’d by the moonlight’s slant repose.
But we have not space for his uncertainty, or her slow advance; till at length—
Ever, ever more the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,—
While the shining tears ran faster down the blushing of her cheeks;
Then with both her hands enfolding both of his, she softly told him,
“Bertram, if I say I love thee, .... ’tis the vision only speaks.”
Soften’d, quicken’d, to adore her, on his knee he fell before her—
And she whisper’d low in triumph—“It shall be as I have sworn!
Very rich he is in virtues—very noble—noble, certes;
And I shall not blush in knowing, that men call him lowly born!”
We cannot but hold it a great mistake to make the poetic gift stepping-stone to worldly station,—to represent a man as making a “good thing” of his genius, so that it should induct him into the actual possession, title deeds and all—not that spiritual possession which he always had, beyond their real owners—of manors, and woods, and streams. It is bringing the real too close upon the ideal. The poet above all men should have nobility enough to ennoble his wife; he needs not to be aggrandised by her. And unquestionably Geraldine would see her Bertram’s genius degenerate. He would cease to be a poet in the absorbing cares and pleasures of a landed proprietor, and in this capacity would make a very poor and awkward figure; it is not in nature but she must in time grow ashamed of her choice.
The poem is distinguished by many characteristic ambiguities of language, which we are not bound to believe can by any ingenuity be unravelled into sense; as for example where Bertram gets into a passion, and—
Saw the skies grow ruddy
With the deepening feet of angels;
or where Geraldine leaves the room with “level fronting eyelids,” or where “slowly round she swept her eyelids.” Again, very little meaning is there in the following fervent declamation:—
Oh, the blessed woods of Sussex, I can hear them still around me,
With their leafy tide of greenery still rippling up the wind!
Oh, the cursed woods of Sussex! Oh, the cruel love that bound me
Up against the boles of cedars, to be shamèd where I pined. [p. 382→]
We wish we could present our readers with some varied specimens of our authoress’s happier manner, but our space will not allow us to do her this justice. The merit of her best poems lies not in the felicity of the parts, but in the agreeable flow, and the pleasant impression the whole leaves behind. The faults are easily caught and laid before another eye, the beauties elude this treatment; and so it happens that we can prove the one, and can only ask the reader unacquainted with the volumes themselves to believe the other. We have been struck, pleased, our sympathies have been roused, but we find that in order to make our readers share these feelings with us, they should read the whole poem. She is too diffuse, too little careful, to finish, correct, polish, to have passages of choice excellence of expression. She is fanciful rather than imaginative, and Fancy, as opposed to her severer loftier sister, is lavish and luxuriant. Fancy lets her tendrils and waste branches grow wild in careless profusion. Imagination condenses her powers into the very excellence of her tree—its fruit. There are notices throughout Mrs. Browning’s works of a state of suffering and ill-health, from which we trust she is now recovered, which may well account for this omission of the most irksome part of a poet’s duties, and perhaps also for the restless diffuse flow of the verse: that excitability which rousing the fancy tends to obscure the judgment. We are not without warm sympathy for the possible cause, while in our present capacity we have only to do with results. Descriptions of nature, for example, may well not be characterised by exact accurate truth, from a “Prisoner” who ever says—
“I count the dismal time by months and years,
Since last I felt the greensward under foot,
And the great breath of all things, summer—mute
Met mine upon my lips. Now earth appears
As strange to me as dreams of distant spheres,
Or thoughts of Heaven we weep at.”
A season of mental or bodily suffering is certainly not the most favourable for clear thought or beautiful expression. But the memory of pain—the recollection of sorrow and suffering in some form, is indeed almost essential to that mind which is to have influence over others. It must have had losses, to realize, so as to be able to show to others, its gains; and whatever losses Mrs. Browning’s mind may have sustained by unusual trials and privations, all that it possesses of truth, feeling, pathos, and knowledge of the true ends of life, no doubt owes much of its force and persuasiveness, its claim on our sympathies, to these soul-exercises.
[The balance of this article contains notices of works by Philip James Bailey, Thomas Westwood, and the Brontë sisters, which we omit.]
Reviewed:
Poems (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1850.
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