E600329B. Poems Before Congress.
North & South Shields Gazette, 29 March 1860, p. 2.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 365–367.
We have here sixty five pages of political poems by Mrs Browning. Mrs Browning has long been resident in Italy, and a deep interest must attach to the feelings entertained by so true a poetess, and so devoted an adherent of the Italian cause about the Emperor Napoleon. They must be in the main coincident with those of the better portion of Italian society. They are the very antipodes of those prevailing in England. Right or wrong, they are likely to be thought less incredible by posterity, than by the majority in Europe at this day. Mrs Browning speaks with the assurance of inspiration, and in her certainty that she is right, and that her countrymen are in mean and sordid error, she hurls denunciations and curses at us. The poems are mostly in a strain of fiery and eloquent, if rather rugged, declamation. She seems to complain of us for judging her hero by the standard of ordinary morals, and to assert that an exceptional position demands—if we may so speak—an exceptional morality. She can fairly blame us for much of the talk about minding our own business, &c., by which our true policy of non-intervention was often justified during the war. And there can be little doubt that both during and since the war we have done some injustice to the Emperor's motives; for we believe he had, along with less laudable feelings, a true sympathy with the Italian cause, and that he would gladly have done more for Italy if he could. It must be granted, too, that the Italians, cruelly oppressed as they were, worthy as they have proved themselves of freedom, would not have been delivered without his assistance. Still, men, who neglect “the smaller morals” must not complain if they are distrusted by their neighbours, who believe in them, and we should not be condemned for our distrust with the exceptions just made, we must protest against Mrs Browning’s political views, before exhibiting them in verse.
Our first extract shall be from
a tale of villa–franca.
A great man (who was crowned one day)
Imagined a great Deed:
He shaped it out of cloud and clay,
He touched it finely till the seed
Possessed the flower: from heart and brain
He fed it with large thoughts humane,
To help a people’s need.
He brought it out into the sun—
They blessed it to his face:
‘O great pure Deed, that hast undone
So many bad and base!
O generous Deed, heroic Deed,
Come forth, be perfected, succeed,
Deliver by God’s grace.’
Then sovereigns, statesmen, north and south,
Rose up in wrath and fear,
And cried, protesting by one mouth,
‘What monster have we here?
A great Deed at this hour of day?
A great just deed—and not for pay?
Absurd,—or insincere.’
‘And if sincere, the heavier blow
In that case we shall bear,
For where’s our blessed ‘status quo,’
Our holy treaties, where,—
Our rights to sell a race, or buy,
Protect and pillage, occupy,
And civilise despair?’
Some muttered that the great Deed meant
A great pretext to sin;
And others, the pretext, so lent,
Was heinous (to begin).
Volcanic terms of ‘great’ and ‘just?’
Admit such tongues of flame, the crust
Of time and law falls in.
A great Deed in this world of ours?
Unheard of the pretence is:
It threatens plainly the great Powers;
Is fatal in all senses.
A just deed in the world?—call out
The rifles! be not slack about
The national defences.
And many murmured, ‘From this source
What red blood must be poured!’
And some rejoined, ‘Tis even worse;
What red tape is ignored!’
All cursed the Doer for an evil
Called here, enlarging on the Devil,—
There, monkeying the Lord!
Some said it could not be explained,
Some, could not be excused;
And others, ‘Leave it unrestrained,
Gehenna’s self is loosed.’
And all cried, ‘Crush it, maim it, gag it!
Set dog-toothed lies to tear it ragged,
Truncated and traduced!’
But He stood sad before the sun,
(The peoples felt their fate).
‘The world is many,—I am one;
My great Deed was too great.
God’s fruit of justice ripens slow:
Men’s souls are narrow; let them grow.
My brothers, we must wait.’
We take the following from the opening poem, in which Mrs Browning hymns the praises of Napoleon.
napoleon iii. in italy.
Ay, it is He,
Who rides at the King’s right hand!
Leave room to his horse and draw to the side,
Nor press too near in the ecstasy
Of a newly-delivered impassioned land:
He is moved, you see,
He who has done it all.
They call it a cold stern face;
But this is Italy
Who rises up to her place!—
For this he fought in his youth,
Of this he dreamed in the past;
The lines of the resolute mouth
Tremble a little at last.
Cry, he has done it all!
‘Emperor
Evermore.’
It is not strange that he did it,
Though the deed may seem to strain
To the wonderful, unpermitted,
For such as lead and reign.
But he is strange, this man:
The people’s instinct found him
(A wind in the dark that ran
Through a chink where was no door),
And elected him and crowned him
Emperor
Evermore.
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?
.......
He will not swagger nor boast
Of his country’s meeds, in a tone
Missuiting a great man most
If such should speak of his own;
Nor will he act, on her side,
From motives baser, indeed,
Than a man of a noble pride
Can avow for himself at need;
Never, for lucre or laurels,
Or custom, though such should be rife,
Adapting the smaller morals
To measure the larger life.
He, though the merchants persuade,
And the soldiers are eager for strife,
Finds not his country in quarrels
Only to find her in trade,—
While still he accords her such honor
As never to flinch for her sake
Where men put service upon her,
Found heavy to undertake
And scarcely like to be paid:
Believing a nation may act
Unselfishly—shiver a lance
(As the least of her sons may, in fact)
And not for a cause of finance.
Emperor
Evermore.
In the concluding stanza the traditional policy ascribed to England of making war for the benefit of her trade is hinted at; but in the following piece we are directly and fiercely exposed and denounced.
a curse for a nation.
Because ye have broken your own chain
With the strain
Of brave men climbing a Nation’s height,
Yet thence bear down with brand and thong
On souls of others,—for this wrong
This is the curse. Write.
Because yourselves are standing straight
In the state
Of Freedom’s foremost acolyte,
Yet keep calm footing all the time
On writhing bond-slaves,—for this crime
This is the curse. Write.
Because ye prosper in God’s name,
With a claim
To honour in the old world’s sight,
Yet do the fiend’s work perfectly
In strangling martyrs,—for this lie
This is the curse. Write.
Ye shall watch while kings conspire
Round the people’s smouldering fire,
And, warm for your part,
Shall never dare—O shame!
To utter the thought into flame
Which burns at your heart.
This is the curse. Write.
Ye shall watch while nations strive
With the bloodhounds, die or survive,
Drop faint from their jaws,
Or throttle them backward to death,
And only under your breath
Shall favor the cause.
This is the curse. Write.
Ye shall watch while strong men draw
The nets of feudal law
To strangle the weak,
And, counting the sin for a sin,
Your soul shall be sadder within
Than the word ye shall speak.
This is the curse. Write.
When good men are praying erect
That Christ may avenge his elect
And deliver the earth,
The prayer in your ears, said low,
Shall sound like the tramp of a foe
That’s driving you forth.
This is the curse. Write.
When wise men give you their praise,
They shall pause in the heat of the phrase,
As if carried too far.
When ye boast your own charters kept true,
Ye shall blush;—for the thing which ye do
Derides what ye are.
This is the curse. Write.
When fools cast taunts at your gate,
Your scorn ye shall somewhat abate
As ye look o’er the wall,
For your conscience, tradition, and name
Explode with a deadlier blame
Than the worst of them all.
This is the curse. Write.
Go, wherever ill deeds shall be done,
Go, plant your flag in the sun
Beside the ill-doers!
And recoil from clenching the curse
Of God’s witnessing Universe
With a curse of yours.
This is the curse. Write.
Reviewed:
Poems Before Congress (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1860.
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