E391026A. Findens’ Tableaux (1840).
The Athenæum, 26 October 1839, pp. 809–810.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 409–411.
The designs in Findens’ Tableaux are after the fashion of their class; but some of them are very beautifully engraved—the Beacon, as it is called, is deserving of especial mention for its brilliant effect. The novelty to which we have alluded is the encircling these designs with a sort of arabesque border, in which a series of small groups illustrates the principal points in the story. Miss Mitford, the editor, is also the principal contributor: and where shall we find a pleasanter narrator of a short healthy, racy, story, just such a one as is sure to be the gem of an Annual! She has, however, secured some worthy assistants in Miss Barrett, Barry Cornwall, Mr. Kenyon, Mr. J.R. Chorley, Mr. Horne, and others. Tales require more space than we can afford, and are not exactly suited to our purpose. We shall therefore steal a few verses from a wild legend, entitled “The Brown Rosarie,” by Miss Barrett. The reader must understand that our extract is but a fragment of the poem:
’Tis a morn for a bridal. The merry bride-bell
Ringeth clear through the greenwood that skirts the chapelle;
And the priest at the altar awaiteth the bride,
And the grave young sacristans jest slyly aside
At the work shall be doing.
While down through the wood rides that fair companie,
The youths with the courtship, the maids with the glee,
Till the chapel-cross opens to sight, and at once
All the maids sigh demurely, and think, for the nonce,
So endeth a wooing!
And the bride and the bridegroom are leading the way,
With his hand on her rein, and a word yet to say;
Her dropped lids suggest the replyings beneath,
And the little quick smiles come and go with her breath
If she sigheth or speaketh.
And the tender bride-mother breaks off unaware,
From an Ave to trow that her daughter is fair;
But, in nearing the chapel, and glancing before,
She seeth her little son stand at the door—
Is it play that he seeketh? [p. 810→]
Is it play? when his eyes wander innocent, wild,
Yet sublimed with a sadness unfitting a child.
He trembles not, weeps not, his passion is done,
And meekly he kneels in their midst, with the sun
On his head like a glory.
O merry fair maids, ye are many,” he cried,
“But in fairness and vileness who matcheth the bride?
O merry brave youths, ye are many, but whom
For courage and woe can ye match with the groom,
As ye see them before ye?”
Outspake the bride’s mother—“The vileness is thine,
Who would’st shame thine own sister, a bride at the shrine!”
Outspake the bride’s lover, “The vileness is mine,
If he shame mine own wife at the hearth or the shrine!
And his charge be unproved.”
“Bring the charge, prove the charge, brother! Speak it aloud,
That thy father and hers hear it deep in the shroud!”
—“O father, thou seest—for dead eyes can see—
How she wears on her bosom a brown rosarie,
O father beloved.”
Outlaughed the bridegroom, and outlaughed all
The maidens and youths by that chapel wall—
“So she weareth no love-gift, kind brother,” quoth he,
“She may wear an she listeth a brown rosarie,
Like a pure-hearted lady.”
Then swept through the chapel the long bridal train,
Though he spake to the bride she replied not again;
On, as one in a dream, pale and stately she went
Where the altar lamps burn o’er the great sacrament,
Faint with daylight, but steady!
But her brother had passed between them and her,
And calmly knelt down on the high altar stair—
Of an infantine aspect so stern to the view
That the priest could not smile as he used to do
When a child knelt before him.
He knelt like a child, marble-carved and white,
That appeareth to pray on the tomb of a knight;
With a look taken up to each iris of stone,
From the greatness and death where he kneeleth, and none
From the mother who bore him!
“In your chapel, O priest, ye have wedded and shriven
Fair wives for the hearth, and fair sinners for heaven!
But this fairest, my sister, ye think now to wed,
Bid her kneel where she standeth, and shrive her instead.
Oh shrive her, and wed not![”]
In tears, the bride’s mother, “O priest, unto thee
Would he lie, as he lied to this fair companie!”
In wrath, the bride’s lover, “This lie shall be clear,
Speak it out, boy! The saints in their niches shall hear!
Be the charge proved or said not![”]
Serene in his childhood he lifted his face,
And his voice sounded holy and fit for the place,
“Look down from your niches, ye still saints, and see
How she wears on her bosom a brown rosarie.
Doth she wear it for praying?”
The youths looked aside—to laugh there were a sin,
And the maidens’ lips trembled with smiles shut within;
Quoth the priest, “Thou art wild, pretty boy! blessed she
Who prefers at her bridal a brown rosarie
To a worldly arraying.”
The bridegroom spake low, and led onward the bride,
And before the high altar they kneel side by side;
The rite book is opened, the rite is begun—
They have knelt down together to rise up as one!
Who laughed by the altar?
The maidens looked upward, the youths looked around,
The bridegroom’s eye flashed from his prayer at the sound;
And each saw the bride as if no bride she were,
Gazing cold at the priest without gesture of prayer
As he read from the psalter.
The priest never knew that she did so, but still
He felt a power on him too strong for his will;
And whenever the great name was there to be read,
His voice sunk to silence—that could not be said,
Or the air could not hold it!
“I have sinned,” quoth he. “I have sinned I wot;”
And the tears ran adown his old cheeks at the thought:
They dropped on the book, but he read on the same,
And aye was the silence where should be the name,
The sacristans have told it.
The rite book is closed, the rite being done—
They who knelt down together have risen as one;
Fair riseth the bride—Oh, a fair bride is she,
But for all (think the maidens) that brown rosarie,
No saint at her praying!
What aileth the bridegroom? he stands stony-eyed;
Then suddenly turning he kisseth the bride—
Cold, cold. He glanced upward, fear-strikcn and mute:
“Mine own wife,” he said, and fell stark at her foot
In the word he was saying.
They have lifted him up, but his head sinks away,
And his face showeth bleak in the sunlight and grey;
Leave him now where he lieth, for oh, nevermore
Will he kneel at an altar or stand on a floor,
With that wife gazing on him!
Long and still was her gaze, while they chafed him there
And breathed in the mouth whose last life kissed her!
But when they stood up—only they! with a start,
The shriek from her soul struck her pale lips apart,
She hath loved and foregone him.
And low on his body she sinketh adown:
“Didst call me thine own wife, beloved, thine own?
Then take thine own with thee! Thy coldness is warm
To the world’s cold without thee! Come, teach me thy calm,
I would learn it, beloved!”
She looked in his face earnest, long, as in sooth
There were hope of an answer, then kissed his mouth,
And with head on his bosom, wept, wept bitterly,
“Now, O God, take pity,—take pity on me.
Let the sin be removed!”
She was ware of a shadow that crossed where she lay,
She was ware of a presence that curdled the day,
Wild she sprang to her feet. “I surrender to thee,
The broken vows witness the foul rosarie,
I am ready for dying!”
She dashed it in scorn to the hollow-paved ground,
Where it fell mute as snow; and a weird music sound
Crept up—like a chill—up the aisles long and dim,
As the fiends tried to mock at the choristers’ hymn
But moaned in the trying.
We are much tempted to steal a little Spanish song, by Mr. H.F. Chorley, and, indeed, the whole tale, into which it has been so gracefully woven by Miss Mitford; but we must have the following, by Mr. Kenyon, and be content with it.
[The review concludes with an extract from “To an Æolian Harp” by John Kenyon; this we omit.]
Reviewed:
Findens’ Tableaux, ed. M.R. Mitford, London: 1840.
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