E620503A. Last Poems.
The Illustrated London News, 3 May 1862, p. 452.
Listed in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 368.
A volume entitledLast Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which has been published by Chapman and Hall, will necessarily arrest attention. The last written words of one who has occupied a large space in a department of literature daily growing more confined, in the sense of its containing anything worth talking about, appeal with peculiar force to the sympathies of those who have been accustomed to intercommunication with the gifted woman who is now no more. She had done enough, perhaps, for fame, but not enough for the requirements of the appreciative circle in which, as a poetess, she moved and had her being. Many would have been glad if the book just issued had been double in size; but as it stands we believe that it contains within it much that is suggestive of all the qualities of the writer. The poems, we are told, are given as they occur in a list drawn up last year. A few have already been printed in periodicals, and are at once distinguishable, for they are not likely to be otherwise than familiar to those who take up the present volume. To the original poems are added some translations, which were only intended, many years ago, to accompany and explain certain engravings from current gems in the projected work of a friend, and some hesitation is expressed by the editor as to whether there is sufficient warrant for publishing them. Two of the original series (the “Adonis” of Bion and “The Song to the Rose,” from Achilles Tatius) having, however, appeared, it has been thought that the remainder might not improperly follow. Probably this portion of the work will be most welcome, for it contains some admirable specimens of the author’s powers. Take, for instance, the hackneyed passage from “The Iliad”—the parting of Hector and Andromache—and few will, we think, deny that for the march and rhythm of the verse, which yet has almost a Homeric vigour, and the closeness yet elegance of the translation, the passage has been never better, if so well, rendered. One or two of the paraphrases on Apuleius are charming; such, for example, as “Psyche and Pan,” and “Psyche Propitiating Ceres.” But, as has been hinted, this part of the book has been to us particularly agreeable. Of the other poems, it is hardly necessary to say much, for what could be said more effectual than that they contain all the characteristics of the writer? If we were to point to one or two as having specially interested us, we could instance the lines headed “Void in Law,” and one which immediately follows it, “Lord Walter’s Wife,” as notable for the tact and grace and deep feeling with which they deal with most delicate subjects. Most of the poems that stand in the later pages of the volume have had their inspiration in the recent events in Italy, and bear on them the impress of the author’s opinions stamped with the force which might have been expected. In itself, and on its own merits, this collection would have stood on strong ground with that public which Mrs. Browning has been wont to address; but it ought to be received as a precious relic of one who has gone.
Reviewed:
Last Poems (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1862.
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