E620425A. Last Poems (New York).
New-York Daily Tribune, 25 April 1862, p. 2.
Listed in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 368.
The lovers of Mrs. Browning’s rare and admirable genius will welcome these fragrant blossomings of the last years of her life, with a sincere and tender, but scarcely a melancholy interest. Her career was too triumphant to permit even the transient regret that it can no more be darkened by earthly shadows, and has emerged into the light of eternal day. Seldom has a cherished life been brought to a close, leaving such a fresh and lucid impression of completeness. There is no sense of high purposes frustrated by adverse events, of noble powers failing to receive an adequate development, of ardent hopes doomed to wither and perish for lack of congenial satisfactions. With the single exception of infirm bodily health, which, in her case, was rather an aid than a hindrance to the spiritual nature, the sphere of her being was fully rounded, her external relations presenting a beautiful harmony with her highest gifts. In the benefits of early culture, in the power of poetic thought and expression, in the romance of impassioned love, in the sober certainty of domestic joys, in the choicest appliances of art, in a large circle of affection and of fame, and finally in the peaceful close of life, sleeping the “sleep which God gives to his beloved,” her earthly course reminds us of “the bright, consummate flower,” which fills the imagination with its beauty and splendor.
Of the poems contained in this collection, most were left in manuscript at the author’s death, although some have already appeared in different periodicals, and form a portion of the latest edition of her works. Their prevailing tone is one of pensive reflection, often blended with a strain of deep sadness, as if inspired by the presentiment that the voice of the sweet singer would soon be hushed in the awful, mysterious silence, which is more potent than speech. Of this, the following presents a striking example:
de profundis.
i.
The face which, duly as the sun,
Rose up for me with life begun,
To mark all bright hours of the day
With hourly love, is dimmed away—
And yet my days go on, go on.
ii.
The tongue which, like a stream, could run
Smooth music from the roughest stone,
And every morning with “Good day”
Make each day good, is hushed away—
And yet my days go on, go on.
iii.
The heart which, like a staff, was one
For mine to lean and rest upon,
The strongest on the longest day
With steadfast love, is caught away—
And yet my days go on, go on.
iv.
And cold before my Summer’s done,
And deaf in Nature’s general tune,
And fallen too low for special fear,
And here, with hope no longer here—
While the tears drop, my days go on.
v.
The world goes whispering to its own,
“This anguish pierces to the bone;”
And tender friends go sighing round,
“What love can ever cure this wound?”
My days go on, my days go on.
vi.
The past rolls forward on the sun
And makes all night. O dreams begun,
Not to be ended! Ended bliss,
And life that will not end in this!
My days go on, my days go on.
vii.
Breath freezes on my lips to moan:
As one alone, once not alone,
I sit and knock at Nature’s door,
Heart-bare, heart-hungry, very poor,
When desolated days go on.
viii.
I knock and cry—Undone, undone!
Is there no help, no comfort—none?
No gleaning in the wide wheat-plains
Where others drive their loaded wains?
My vacant days go on, go on.
ix.
This Nature, though the snows be down,
Thinks kindly of the bird of June:
The little red hip on the tree
Is ripe for such. What is for me,
Whose days so winterly go on?
x.
No bird am I, to sing in June,
And dare not ask an equal boon.
Good nests and berries red are Nature’s
To give away to better creatures—
And yet my days go on, go on.
xi.
I ask less kindness to be done—
Only to loose these pilgrim-shoon,
(Too early worn and grimed) with sweet
Cool deathly touch to these tired feet,
Till days go out which now go on.
xii.
Only to lift the turf unmown
From off the earth where it has grown,
Some cubit-space, and say “Behold,
Creep in, poor Heart, beneath that fold,
Forgetting how the days go on.”
xiii.
What harm would that do? Green anon
The sward would quicken, overshone
By skies as blue; and crickets might
Have leave to chirp there day and night
While my new rest went on, went on.
xiv.
From gracious Nature have I won
Such liberal bounty? may I run
So, lizard-like, within her side,
And there be safe, who now am tried
By days that painfully go on?
xv.
—A voice reproves me thereupon,
More sweet than Nature’s when the drone
Of bees is sweetest, and more deep
Than when the rivers overleap
The shuddering pines, and thunder on.
xvi.
God’s Voice, not Nature’s Night and noon
He sits upon the great white throne
And listens for the creatures’ praise.
What babble we of days and days?
The Day-spring He, whose days go on.
xvii.
He reigns below, He reigns alone;
Systems burn out and leave His throne;
Fair mists of seraphs melt and fall
Around Him, changeless amid all—
Ancient of Days, whose days go on.
xviii.
He reigns below, He reigns alone,
And, having life in love foregone
Beneath the crown of sovran thorns,
He reigns the Jealous God. Who mourns
Or rules with Him, while days go on?
xix.
By anguish which made pale the sun,
I hear Him charge his saints that none
Among his creatures anywhere
Blaspheme against Him with despair,
However darkly days go on.
xx.
Take from my head the thorn-wreath brown!
No mortal grief deserves that crown.
O supreme Love, chief Misery,
The sharp regalia are for Thee
Whose days eternally go on!
xxi.
For us,—whatever’s undergone,
Thou knowest, willest what is done.
Grief may be joy misunderstood;
Only the Good discerns the good.
I trust Thee while my days go on.
xxii.
Whatever’s lost, it first was won;
We will not struggle nor impugn.
Perhaps the cup was broken here,
That Heaven’s new wine might show more clear.
I praise Thee while my days go on.
xxiii.
I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on:
Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on.
xxiv.
And having in Thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smiling—so I. Thy days go on.
The exquisite lines below, which express the sincerest pathos of grief, are evidently drawn from her quick sympathy with human sorrow rather than from personal experience:
my heart and i.
i.
Enough! we’re tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason’s knife,
As heaven’s sweet life renews earth’s life
With which we’re tired, my heart and I.
ii.
You see we’re tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colors could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune’s end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we’re tired, my heart and I.
iii.
How tired we feel, my heart and I!
We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang gray and uncurled
About men’s eyes indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet:
What do we here, my heart and I?
iv.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sat with me ’neath the lime
To watch the sunset from the sky.
“Dear love, you’re looking tired,” he said;
I, smiling at him, shook my head:
’Tis now we’re tired, my heart and I.
v.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
Though now none takes me on his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm
Till each quick breath end in a sigh
Of happy languor. Now, alone,
We lean upon this graveyard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.
vi.
Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
Of powers and pleasures? Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even
A pretty child, or God’s blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.
vii.
Yet who complains? My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by!
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used—well enough,
I think, we’ve fared, my heart and I.
In this quaint picture of feminine loveliness, we find a more cheerful movement, although closing with the shadow of the grave:
my kate.
i.
She was not as pretty as women I know,
And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow
Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long trodden ways,
While she’s still remembered on warm and cold days—
My Kate.
ii.
Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;
You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face;
And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth—
My Kate.
iii.
Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,
You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke:
When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,
Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone—
My Kate.
iv.
I doubt if she said to you much that could act
As a thought or suggestion: she did not attract
In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer
’Twas her thinking of others, made you think of her—
My Kate.
v.
She never found fault with you, never implied
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town
The children were gladder that pulled at her gown—
My Kate.
vi.
None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall;
They knelt more to God than they used—that was all:
If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant,
But the charm of her presence was felt when she went—
My Kate.
vii.
The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude,
She took as she found them, and did them all good;
It always was so with her—see what you have!
She has made the grass greener even here . . . with her grave—
My Kate.
viii.
My dear one!—when thou wast alive with the rest,
I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best:
And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part
As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart—
My Kate?
The biographical sketch by Mr. Tilton which introduces the volume presents a detail of many interesting particulars in Mrs. Browning’s life, and a critical estimate of her writings. “Mrs. Browning’s imagination,” says the writer, “threw a glow over her whole nature. This strange faculty acts not only by itself, but upon all the other faculties of the mind: upon the Affections—setting apart the objects of them as sacred from the common world, and clothing them with white raiment like the saints: upon the Reason—giving dignity and grandeur to the intellectual convictions: upon the higher Moral Nature—inspiring faith and worship to a greater grasp of the spiritual and invisible, and leading the soul upward to that Mount of Vision whence there is fore-looking into the other world. Mrs. Browning’s imagination struck a stimulating power into all her faculties. It kindled her affectional nature until out of this grew her glowing ideal of womanly love and devotion: a conception of womanhood which hallows the mind into a half-awe on receiving it from her pages; which made Mr. Ruskin pronounce her Eve in the Drama of Exile incomparably superior to Milton’s, and her Duchess May the finest female character brought into literature since Shakspeare’s day. It quickened her logical faculties; giving them clearness of insight in all the great ranges of social problems and political questions; creating within her a noble intellectual sympathy for the age in which she lived as the grandest of the ages. It gave illumination to her moral and religious nature; unveiling before her that spiritual realm which to others is wrapped with impenetrable clouds; catching her up into the rapture of clear visions of such glories as Milton saw in his blindness; fitting her thereby to be the true religious teacher and comforter; giving her the power to incite other souls to yearnings like her own, to fill them with vague unrests and aspirations after a higher life, to bear them up into the shadowy realm of the Infinite and Eternal, to quicken them to a nobler faith in the one living and true God.”
Reviewed:
Last Poems (EBB), New York: James Miller, 1862.
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