E620600A. Last Poems.
The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, June 1862, pp. 90–91.
Listed in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 368.
We cannot omit to notice, in a lady’s journal, the Last Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (Chapman and Hall.) They are rather disappointing, and contain more of her worst, perhaps, than her wondrous best. So much petulance, arrogance, and inconsequence, were, surely, never joined to so much genius. The majority of the verses are about Italy, and the volume is dedicated to the city of Florence. If English hearts had been as hysterically irritable as Mrs. Browning’s, she would not have been as dearly loved as she was. Her death came like a personal affliction to many of us; and we speak freely of these poems, not because we feel coldly, but because her memory is precious, and we have the right of affection to speak our minds. But our readers would rather have one of the poems than any amount of talk about them, and we give them the most quotable of the number:—
VOID IN LAW.
i.
Sleep, little babe, on my knee,
Sleep, for the midnight is chill,
And the moon has died out in the tree,
And the great human world goeth ill.
Sleep, for the wicked agree:
Sleep, let them do as they will.
Sleep.
ii.
Sleep, thou hast drawn from my breast
The last drop of milk that was good;
And now, in a dream, suck the rest,
Lest the real should trouble thy blood.
Suck, little lips dispossessed,
As we kiss in the air whom we would.
Sleep.
iii.
O lips of thy father! the same,
So like! Very deeply they swore
When he gave me his ring and his name,
To take back, I imagined, no more!
And now is all changed like a game,
Though the old cards are used as of yore?
Sleep. [p. 91→]
iv.
“Void in law,” said the Courts. Something wrong
In the forms? Yet, “Till death part us two,
I, James, take thee, Jessie,” was strong,
And One witness competent. True
Such a marriage was worth an old song,
Heard in Heaven, though, as plain as the New.
Sleep.
v.
Sleep, little child, his and mine!
Her throat has the antelope curve,
And her cheek just the colour and line
Which fade not before him nor swerve:
Yet she has no child!—the divine
Seal of right upon loves that deserve.
Sleep.
vi.
My child! though the world take her part,
Saying “She was the woman to choose,
He had eyes, was a man in his heart”—
We twain the decision refuse:
We—weak as I am, as thou art—
Cling on to him, never to loose.
Sleep.
vii.
He thinks that, when done with this place,
All’s ended? he’ll new-stamp the ore?
Yes, Cæsar’s—but not in our case.
Let him learn we are waiting before
The grave’s mouth, the heaven’s gate, God’s face,
With implacable love evermore.
Sleep.
viii.
He’s ours, though he kissed her but now;
He’s ours, though she kissed in reply;
He’s ours, though himself disavow,
And God’s universe favour the lie;
Ours to claim, ours to clasp, ours below,
Ours above—if we live, if we die.
Sleep.
ix.
Ah, baby, my baby, too rough
Is my lullaby? What have I said?
Sleep! When I’ve wept long enough,
I shall learn to weep softly instead,
And piece with some alien stuff
My heart to lie smooth for thy head.
Sleep.
x.
Two souls met upon thee, my sweet;
Two loves led thee out to the sun:
Alas, pretty hands, pretty feet,
If the one who remains (only one)
Set her grief at thee, turned in a heat
To thine enemy—were it well done?
Sleep.
xi.
May He of the manger stand near
And love thee! An infant He came
To His own, who rejected Him here,
But the Magi brought gifts all the same.
I hurry the cross on my dear!
My gifts are the griefs I declaim!
Sleep.
A little more space permits us to quote another of the “Last Poems:”—
AMY’S CRUELTY.
i.
Fair Amy of the terraced house,
Assist me to discover
Why you, who would not hurt a mouse,
Can torture so your lover.
ii.
You give your coffee to the cat,
You stroke the dog for coming,
And all your face grows kinder at
The little brown bee’s humming.
iii.
But when he haunts your door—the town
Marks coming and marks going—
You seem to have stitched your eyelids down
To that long piece of sewing!
iv.
You never give a look, not you,
Nor drop him a “Good morning,”
To keep his long day warm and blue,
So fretted by your scorning.
v.
She shook her head—“The mouse and bee
For crumb or flower will linger;
The dog is happy at my knee,
The cat purrs at my finger.
vi.
But he—to him, the least thing given
Means great things at a distance;
He wants my world, my sun, my heaven,
Soul, body, whole existence.
vii.
They say love gives as well as takes;
But I’m a simple maiden—
My mother’s first smile when she wakes
I still have smiled and prayed in.
viii.
I only know my mother’s love,
Which gives all and asks nothing;
And this new loving sets the groove
Too much the way of loathing.
ix.
Unless he gives me all in change,
I forfeit all things by him;
The risk is terrible and strange—
I tremble, doubt, deny him.
x.
He’s sweetest friend, or hardest foe,
Best angel, or worst devil;
I either hate or—love him so,
I can’t be merely civil!
xi.
You trust a woman who puts forth
Her blossoms thick as summer’s?
You think she dreams what love is worth,
Who casts it to new-comers?
xii.
Such love’s a cowslip-ball to fling,
A moment’s pretty pastime;
I give—all me, if anything,
The first time and the last time.
xiii.
Dear neighbour of the trellised house,
A man should murmur never,
Though treated worse than dog and mouse,
Till doted on for ever!”
We are vexed to have to add that the book is not as nicely printed and got-up as it ought to be, considering what it is, and who are the publishers.
Reviewed:
Last Poems (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1862.
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