E561206A. Aurora Leigh (New York, 1857).
The Albion, 6 December 1856, pp. 577 and 585.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 312–313.
“Aurora Leigh” is the longest English poem that has been published for years, and—take it all in all—it is one of the very best. It has many faults, especially in its earlier portions—faults of rhythm and diction; but as you read on, you become so interested in the story that you cease to care for them. You are mastered—at least we were—by the form and beauty of the whole.
We shall not unfold the plot—it is too psychological and subtle to be summed up in a brief space—but send you to the book for it. This we will say though, that it is an excellent plot, consistent and natural in its parts, and harmonious as a whole. The scenes are laid in England, Italy, and France. Time, the present day; dramatis personæ flesh-and-blood men and women, of different ranks in life. Judged as a romantic love-tale, “Aurora Leigh” is not more exaggerated—poem though it be—than the best novels of our best women novelists; for instance, Miss Bronté and Julia Kavanagh. Indeed Mrs. Browning reminds us of these ladies in many respects. Her new poem is such a novel as one of them might have written, except that it is finer than theirs would have been, because poetry is finer than prose.
“Aurora Leigh” has all the qualities of Mrs. Browning’s previous poems—sincerity and strength of thought—splendour and energy of style—an embodied passionateness, so to speak. It has also other qualities not found in them; a more profound knowledge of life and the human soul, a deeper intellectual culture, considerable skill in sketching character, a vein of biting sarcasm, a wonderful power of painting landscapes; in short it is, what the last poem of so true a poet should be, the best thing that she has yet done.
We scarcely know what to quote from “Aurora Leigh,” having marked so many passages for that purpose. Now we are tempted to copy a couple of landscapes, and now a full-length portrait of an English nobleman, a subordinate, but beautiful character. But these are rather too long; so we give instead a number of isolated passages—“orient pearls at random strung.”—We follow the plan of the compilers of “Elegant Extracts,” and fit them with headings.
the need of love.
The love of all
(To risk, in turn, a woman’s paradox,)
Is but a small thing to the love of one.
You bid a hungry child be satisfied
With a heritage of many corn-fields: nay,
He says he’s hungry,—he would rather have
That little barley-cake you keep from him
While reckoning up his harvests.
give women their just dues.
The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase,
“Let no one be called happy till his death.”
To which I add,—Let no one till his death
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work
Until the day’s out and the labour done;
Then bring your gauges. If the day’s work’s scant,
Why, call it scant; affect no compromise;
And, in that we have nobly striven at least,
Deal with us nobly, women though we be,
And honour us with truth, if not with praise.
a lover solicits pardon.
I love you. If I spoke untenderly
This morning, my beloved, pardon it;
And comprehend me that I loved you so,
I set you on the level of my soul,
And overwashed you with the bitter brine
Of some habitual thoughts. Henceforth, my flower,
Be planted out of reach of any such,
And lean the side you please, with all your leaves!
Write woman’s verses and dream woman’s dreams;
But let me feel your perfume in my home,
To make my sabbath after working days;
Bloom out your youth beside me,—be my wife.
love of romance in girls.
Girls are girls, beside,
Thought I, and like a wedding by one rule.
You seldom catch these birds, except with chaff:
They feel it almost an immoral thing
To go out and be married in broad day,
Unless some winning special flattery should
Excuse them to themselves for’t, .... “No one parts
Her hair with such a silver line as you,
One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown!”
Or else .... “You bite your lip in such a way,
It spoils me for the smiling of the rest”—
And so on. Then a worthless gaud or two,
To keep for love,—a ribbon for the neck.
Or some glass pin—they have their weight with girls.
the humility of true love.
It pleasures him to stoop for buttercups;
I would not be a rose upon the wall
A queen might stop at, near the palace-door,
To say to a courtier, “Pluck that rose for me,
‘It’s prettier than the rest.’ O Romney Leigh!
I’d rather far be trodden by his foot,
Than lie in a great queen’s bosom.”
a classical picture.
Let me bring the sketch.
A tiptoe Danae, overbold and hot;
Both arms a-flame to meet her wishing Jove
Halfway, and burn him down; the face
And breasts upturned and straining, the loose locks
All glowing with the anticipated gold.
Or here’s another on the self-same theme.
She lies here—flat upon her prison floor,
The long hair swathed about her to the heel,
Like wet sea-weed. You dimly see her through
The glittering haze of that prodigious rain,
Half blotted out of nature by a love
As heavy as fate.
an impure woman, no true mother.
The priest who stole a lamb to offer him,
Was still a thief. And if a woman steals
(Through God’s own barrier-hedges of true love,
Which fence out licence in securing love)
A child like this, that smiles so in her face,
She is no mother, but a kidnapper,
And he’s a dismal orphan .. not a son:
Whom all her kisses cannot feed so full
He will not miss hereafter a pure home
To live in, a pure heart to lean against,
A pure good mother’s name and memory
To hope by, when the world grows thick and bad,
And he feels out for virtue.
Reviewed:
Aurora Leigh (EBB), New York: C.S. Francis & Co., 1857.
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