E600324B. Poems Before Congress.
The Bookseller, 24 March 1860, p. 160.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 361–362.
This volume contains eight poems, which, in our judgment, are not worthy of their author. There is little sweetness in their numbers, and, except in one or two instances, not strength enough to atone for the deficiency.
Mrs. Browning could not but feel intensely upon the subjects of Italian wrongs and Italian freedom, and it is not to be wondered at, perhaps, if her feeling has somewhat influenced her opinions, and interfered with the music of her verse.
The book begins with a long poetical tribute to “Napoleon III. in Italy.” Mrs. Browning is flushed with admiration of this “ruler incarnate of the people;” this hero, who,
Might have had the world with him,
But chose to side with suffering men,
And had the world against him when
He came to deliver Italy.
“Measure him,” she exclaims,
Measure him ere he depart
With those who have governed and led;
Larger so much by the heart,
Larger so much by the head.
The style in which this “sublime deliverer” is eulogized, is not more unpalatable than is the spirit of the “Curse for a Nation,” with which the author concludes her volume. Anything fiercer than this poem we have scarcely seen, though it might have been more effective. From the “summits of love,” is it, that Mrs. Browning sends forth this curse to her brothers of “love and blood” across the “western sea”? Truly, it seems to us, that if her heart had been sorer for her “own land’s sins,” it would also have been gentler towards them.
This poem is altogether distasteful. We turn from it with pleasure to such a lay as the “Court Lady,” which, as a whole, is, perhaps, the best piece in the collection. The melody of rhyme and rhythm in these lines is singularly pleasant after the kind of uncouthness we find in other parts of the book. Recalling, as this poem does, some of Mrs. Browning’s former sweetness and purity, we cannot but wish she would leave politics, avoid cursing, and sing to us in the strains of bygone days.
Reviewed:
Poems Before Congress (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1860.
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