E600324C. Poems Before Congress.
The Critic, 24 March 1860, p. 362.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 362–364.
In spite of the old saw about the power of popular ballads, we hold it to be an evil day for the Muse when she is pressed into the service of politics. There is something too realistic and too logical in these matters for poetry to deal with, and whenever the attempt has been made to clothe political opinions in poetic form, the result has been to inflame the passions rather than convince the understanding. Popular as it is, no one, we imagine, would use the “Marseillaise” as an argument in favour of an abolition of the monarchy; and the necessity to England of keeping up a dominating naval force is perhaps susceptible of a better and more convincing defence than may be found in that popular and patriotic song of “Rule Britannia.”
In the little volume before us—so very little is it, that the sixty-five pages of verse have to be eked out with thirty-two of advertisements—the authoress of “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” delivers in verse her opinions upon Italian politics. Frankly, we like neither the opinions nor the manner in which they are conveyed. Like Miriam, Mrs. Browning stands before the men of war and proclaims the passage of Italian patriotism through the Red Sea of Magenta and Solferino; but, unlike Miriam, her note is the note of the raven croaking over the slain, rather than the clear song of triumph celebrating the advent of a new-born liberty. Living, as she does, in the very heart of Italian politics, opinions and interests which to us seem very small take with her gigantic proportions. Everything Italian is magnified in her eyes. So enthusiastic is she, that she puts her faith in the purity of Louis Napoleon’s motives, and believes that he came to Italy for no meaner motive than to set Italy free. He is a demigod in her eyes—this fortunate speculator, this shrewd and crafty politician, who shifts nationalities under treaties, as a man would peas under a thimble. She believes that he who has enslaved his own subjects, and holds them bound and gagged with a bayonet at their throats, is the saviour of the world, the proclaimer of the gospel of liberty. She even curses her own country, because England refused to take part in the plan by forging a still stronger fetter whilst she pretended to enfranchise the captive. Some sense of this too great zeal appears to have presented itself to her mind when she penned the following sentence in her preface:
Yet, if the verses should appear to English readers too pungently rendered to admit of a patriotic respect to the English sense of things, I will not excuse myself on such grounds, nor on the ground of my attachment to the Italian people, and my admiration of their heroic constancy and union. What I have written has simply been written because I love truth and justice quand même,—“more than Plato” and Plato’s country, more than Dante and Dante’s country, more even than Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s country.
This is hazy enough; but we presume that “by Plato’s country” Mrs. Browning means Truth, not Greece;—yet why, in that sense, “Plato’s country” should not be synonymous with “Shakespeare’s country” we do not understand.
The following lines to Napoleon III. will serve to give some idea of the nature of Mrs. Browning’s opinions upon Continental politics:
Emperor, Emperor!
From the centre to the shore,
From the Seine back to the Rhine,
Stood eight millions up and swore
By their manhood’s right divine
So to elect and legislate,
This man should renew the line
Broken in a strain of fate
And leagued kings at Waterloo,
When the people’s hands let go.
Emperor
Evermore.
With a universal shout
They took the old regalia out
From an open grave that day;
From a grave that would not close,
Where the first Napoleon lay,
Expectant, in repose,
As still as Merlin, with his conquering face
Turned up in its unquenchable appeal
To men and heroes of the advancing race,—
Prepared to set the seal
Of what has been on what shall be.
Emperor
Evermore.
The thinkers stood aside
To let the nation act.
Some hated the new-constituted fact
Of empire, as pride treading on their pride.
Some quailed, lest what was poisonous in the past
Should graft itself in that Druidic bough
On this green now.
Some cursed, because at last
The open heavens to which they had look’d in vain
For many a golden fall of marvellous rain
Were closed in brass; and some
Wept on because a gone thing could not come;
And some were silent, doubting all things for
That popular conviction,—evermore
Emperor.
The interference of Napoleon and his abandonment of the Italian cause at Villafranca are thus described by Mrs. Browning:
A great man (who was crowned one day)
Imagined a great Deed:
He shaped it out of cloud and clay,
He touched it finely till the seed
Possessed the flower: from heart and brain
He fed it with large thoughts humane,
To help a people’s need.
He brought it out into the sun—
They blessed it to his face:
“O great pure Deed, that hast undone
So many bad and base!
O generous Deed, heroic Deed,
Come forth, be perfected, succeed,
Deliver by God’s grace.”
* * * *
But He stood sad before the sun
(The peoples felt their fate).
“The world is many,—I am one;
My great Deed was too great.
God’s fruit of justice ripens slow:
Men’s souls are narrow; let them grow.
My brothers, we must wait.”
The curse upon England for her non-intervention is so extraordinary in the violence of its tone and curious bitterness of spirit, that we cannot avoid quoting it:
the curse.
i.
Because ye have broken your own chain
With the strain
Of brave men climbing a Nation’s height,
Yet thence bear down with brand and thong
On souls of others,—for this wrong
This is the curse. Write.
Because yourselves are standing straight
In the state
Of Freedom’s foremost acolyte,
Yet keep calm footing all the time
On writhing bond-slaves,—for this crime
This is the curse. Write.
Because ye prosper in God’s name,
With a claim
To honour in the old world’s sight,
Yet do the fiend’s work perfectly
In strangling martyrs,—for this lie
This is the curse. Write.
ii.
Ye shall watch while kings conspire
Round the people’s smouldering fire,
And, warm for your part,
Shall never dare—O shame!
To utter the thought into flame
Which burns at your heart.
This is the curse. Write.
Ye shall watch while nations strive
With the bloodhounds, die or survive,
Drop faint from their jaws,
Or throttle them backward to death,
And only under your breath
Shall favour the cause.
This is the curse. Write.
Ye shall watch while strong men draw
The nets of feudal law
To strangle the weak,
And, counting the sin for a sin,
Your soul shall be sadder within
Than the word ye shall speak.
This is the curse. Write.
When good men are praying erect
That Christ may avenge his elect
And deliver the earth,
The prayer in your ears, said low,
Shall sound like the tramp of a foe
That’s driving you forth.
This is the curse. Write.
When wise men give you their praise,
They shall pause in the heat of the phrase,
As if carried too far.
When ye boast your own charters kept true,
Ye shall blush;—for the thing which ye do
Derides what ye are.
This is the curse. Write.
When fools cast taunts at your gate,
Your scorn ye shall somewhat abate
As ye look o’er the wall,
For your conscience, tradition, and name
Explode with a deadlier blame
Than the worst of them all.
This is the curse. Write.
Go, wherever ill deeds shall be done,
Go, plant your flag in the sun
Beside the ill-doers!
And recoil from clenching the curse
Of God’s witnessing Universe
With a curse of yours.
This is the curse. Write.
By far the best verses in the volume are those which describe an interesting incident which took place when the French army entered Florence:
Then the noblest lady present took upon her
To speak nobly from her carriage for the rest;
“Pray these officers from France to do us honour
By dancing with us straightway.”—The request
Was gravely apprehended as addressed.
And the men of France bareheaded, bowing lowly,
Led out each a proud signora to the space
Which the startled crowd had rounded for them—slowly,
Just a touch of still emotion in his face,
Not presuming, through the symbol, on the grace.
There was silence in the people: some lips trembled,
But none jested. Broke the music, at a glance:
And the daughters of our princes, thus assembled,
Stepped the measure with the gallant sons of France.
Hush! it might have been a Mass, and not a dance.
And they danced there till the blue that overskied us
Swooned with passion, though the footing seemed sedate;
And the mountains, heaving mighty hearts beside us,
Sighed a rapture in a shadow, to dilate,
And touch the holy stone where Dante sate.
Then the sons of France bareheaded, lowly bowing,
Led the ladies back where kinsmen of the south
Stood, received them;—till, with burst of overflowing
Feeling … husbands, brothers, Florence’s male youth,
Turned, and kissed the martial strangers mouth to mouth.
There is something fine and noble in these verses, which reminds us of her who wrote “Catherina [sic] to Camoens” and “The Poet’s Vow.”
Reviewed:
Poems Before Congress (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1860.
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