E600409A. Poems Before Congress.
The Morning Herald, 9 April 1860, p. 3.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 384–385.
Some people consider Mrs. Browning to be a great poet. She is so vigorous, has such a command of language, and so abounds with imagery, that she must, they allege, take rank with the first living metrical composers. For our own part we do not consider her verses any better than those which we find so often in pretty little five-shilling volumes on our table, and many of these possess a polish to which the poems of Mrs. Browning can lay no sort of claim. In her present publication we think she has surpassed in her peculiar style any of her former productions. As to the vigour of her works, we have before us proofs sufficient and to spare. The peculiar energy of the following verse it has not fallen to our lot to discover:—
You’ll take back the Grand Duke?
It is not race he is poor in,
Although he never could brook
The patriot cousin at Turin.
His love of kin you discern
By his hate of your flag and me—
So decidedly apt to turn
All colours at sight of the Three.
You’ll call back the Grand Duke.
So vigorous, indeed, is this that it requires a foot note to explain what “the Three” means. And then as to her power of language:—
Rise; prefigure the grand solution
Of earth’s municipal, insular schisms,—
Statesmen draping self-love’s conclusion
In cheap, vernacular patriotisms,
Unable to give up Judæa for Jesus.
If a number of lots were drawn for selected words from “Webster’s Dictionary,” and they were jumbled together in a hat and set down in order as they came out, we should have quite as much sense as in these five lines. But the abundant imagery demands our attention.
Her hair was tawny with gold, her eyes with purple were dark,
Her cheeks’ pale opal burnt with a red and restless spark.
To say nothing of purple eyes, we should much like to see a pale opal cheek. And then the rhymes are so exquisite. Would not any boarding-school governess order a course of “Mangnall’s Questions” for such an effusion as—
You remember the piazzone there, the stand-place
Of marriages a-brim with Florence beauties,
Who lean and melt to music as the band plays,
Or smile and chat with some one who afoot is,
Or on horseback, in observance of male duties?
Again, “borne in” is made to rhyme with “morning,” and over and over again “Emperor” with “evermore.” But the tendency of the poems is most to be objected to. Not only is the rifle movement most superficially sneered at, and Napoleon—the disinterested one—toadied to nauseousness, but in order to make a point for an impossible poem she considers it her duty in her great affection for liberty in Italy and despotism in France—though an ordinary mind would consider them slightly irreconcileable—to indulge in the following pretty piece of abuse of her countrymen:—
“Not so,” I answered, “Evermore
My heart is sore,
For my own land’s sins; for little feet
Of children bleeding along the street.
“For parked-up honours that gainsay
The right of way:
For alms-giving through a door that is
Not open enough for two friends to kiss.
“For love of freedom which abates
Beyond the Straits:
For patriot virtue starved to vice on
Self-praise, self-interest, and suspicion.
“For an oligarchic parliament
And bribes well meant
What curse to another land assign
When heavy-souled for the sins of mine?”
All of which, if not first-class poetry, is spicy defamation. Mrs. Browning’s reverence is much on a par with her patriotism. We have already quoted one gratuitous introduction of a sacred name. Another, of many to be found in the volume, is—
And many murmured, “From this source
What red blood must be poured!”
And some rejoined, “’Tis even worse;
Red tape must be ignored.”
All cursed the doer for an evil
Called here, enlarging on the devil—
There, monkeying the Lord!”
We believe our readers will agree with us, after reading the last line, in our remarks upon this most graceless production, which is conclusive on Mrs. Browning’s pretensions to rank, as her admirers say she does, with the first poets of the day. We can but record our detestation of her doctrine and our dislike of her verses, and express a hope that in future she will choose subjects which she is more competent to deal with, and treat them in language and thoughts more intelligible to ordinary readers.
Reviewed:
Poems Before Congress (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1860.
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