E600418A. Poems Before Congress.
The Guardian, 18 April 1860, p. 348.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 388–389.
What shall we do with Mrs. Browning? Shall we leave her last effusions, more full of politics than of poetry, till their political interest has altogether gone? But Napoleon III. may very probably be a perplexing problem to the world at large for a considerable time to come. Shall we banish her Poems Before Congress to the limbo in which there sleep, neither deserving nor receiving notice, the unsuccessful efforts of a thousand names, which cannot be called forgotten, because they have never been known? But it is the rightful privilege of successful authors not to lose caste by one or two failures, however marked and undoubted. Shall we consider the Poetry apart from the Politics? The analysis would be difficult; and if it could be perfectly made, we have a sad misgiving that the result would be little worth. Shall we consider the Politics apart from the Poetry? It would be disagreeable work; and happily it is not here our vocation. Shall we quote all the bad rhymes which we can find, and urge them as a proof that Mrs. Browning has written hastily and confusedly? This would be a mere evasion: Mrs. Browning has always neglected the nice refinements of rhyme and language, has always been open to the accusations of haste, and obscurity, and confusion; and yet she has written poetry which deserves to be read and to be remembered. The boldest course will perhaps be the fairest. We will quote from the most disagreeable poem in the small volume, the paneygric on Napoleon III., perhaps the most offensive passage. This done, we will try to explain, as briefly and quietly as we may, the unpleasant phenomenon before us, and then quit the subject:—
Autocrat? let them scoff,
Who fail to comprehend
That a ruler incarnate of
The people, must transcend
All common king-born kings.
These subterranean springs
A sudden outlet winning,
Have special virtues to spend.
The people’s blood runs through him,
Dilates from head to foot,
Creates him absolute,
And from this great beginning
Evokes a greater end
To justify and renew him—
Emperor
Evermore.
What! did any maintain
That God or the people (think!)
Could make a marvel in vain?—
Out of the water-jar there,
Draw wine that none could drink?
Is this a man like the rest,
This miracle, made unaware
By a rapture of popular air,
And caught to the place that was best?
You think he could barter and cheat
As vulgar diplomates use,
With the people’s heart in his breast?
Prate a lie into shape
Lest truth should cumber the road;
Play at the fast and loose
Till the world is strangled with tape;
Maim the soul’s complete
To fit the hole of a toad;
And filch the dogman’s meat
To feed the offspring of God?
This praise of Napoleon, so extraordinary in matter and manner, is accompanied by dispraise, quite as extraordinary, of England. Mrs. Browning’s concluding poem is “A Curse for a Nation,” and that nation her own. By a poetical licence, which in the present case we are ill-disposed to tolerate, she represents this curse as written by her, in opposition to her woman’s nature, from the dictation of an angel. We like it too ill to transcribe a single word of it.
From this poem, and from other passages in the volume, we can extract a partial explanation of Mrs. Browning’s lamentable falling off. She is denationalising herself. It is not only that she loves Italy; that fair country had a large share of her heart when she wrote “Casa Guidi Windows.” But a change has come over her since that time. She was then content to think that her young son, though born at Florence, had “brave blue English eyes.” Now, she addresses him in different language:—
The tale is ended, child of mine,
Turned graver at my knee.
They say your eyes, my Florentine,
Are English: it may be:
And yet I’ve marked as blue a pair
Following the doves across the square
At Venice by the sea.
She loves England less, if she loves Italy more. Both in her preface and in her poems, patriotism is in danger of being degraded from a virtue to a weakness, if not to a vice. She warns us against “the Little Pedlingtonism, unworthy of a great nation, and too prevalent among us.” England’s best, because her most spontaneous, national defence does not please her:—
I loved her more in her ancient fashion,
She carries her rifles too thick for me,
Who spares them so in the cause of a brother.
Indeed, Mrs. Browning makes no secret of the breadth of her aspirations. She will never be satisfied,
Till Love’s one centre devour these centres
Of many self-loves; and the patriot’s trick
To better his land by egotist ventures,
Defamed from a virtue, shall make men sick,
As the scalp at the belt of some red hero.
For certain virtues have dropped to zero,
Left by the sun on the mountain’s dewy side:
Churchman’s charities, tender as Nero,
Indian suttee, heathen suicide,
Service to rights divine, proved hollow:
And Heptarchy patriotisms must follow.
Certainly no intelligent person will grieve over this prospect of universal love, if he only sees a hope of bringing it about. For such a task, we fear that Mrs. Browning, in her present mood, would be found an ineffectual ally. We very reluctantly hear her exchanging her “plaintive minors” for execrations which are, by some allopathic virtue, to help towards a general harmony. Forgetting that the voice travels furthest which is most musical in note and most distinct in articulation, she shrieks at the top of her voice till she gives, not masculine strength, but more than masculine hoarseness. She lashes into madness the coursers which draw her poetic chariot; and, as a natural consequence (to use a simile of her own), when she would drive them forth, her chariot-wheels jar at the gate. She has undertaken for herself on the present occasion a very different office from that which she assigns to woman in the “Drama of Exile.” Surely she can find a more worthy occupation than to become a Cassandra in whom nobody ought to believe, or a Pythoness of whose convulsions we are much more certain than of her inspiration.
Since the above remarks were written, we learn from the Athenæum that Mrs. Browning’s “Curse” was directed against the United States, not against England. The statement is made on the authority of the authoress, with a view to correct the misapprehension of other reviewers, who have misunderstood her, as we have done. The Sybil has had to step forward, and explain her own oracle. The explanation is a slight relief. But a double regret remains—first, that Mrs. Browning should have written so obscurely as to require such a comment; and next, that she should have allowed herself to write the “Curse” at all.
Reviewed:
Poems Before Congress (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1860.
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