Reviews

E620521A. Last Poems (New York).

The Burlington Free Press (Vermont), 21 May 1862, p. 2.

Listed in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 368.

The admirers of Mrs. Browning’s poetry,—and there are more in this country than even in her own native England—will welcome with a sad pleasure these the last poems of their favorite. This little blue and gold volume contains twenty-seven pieces of various styles, most of which were found in manuscript after Mrs. Browning’s death. Some will be recognized by the reader as having appeared in the Independent. There are also a number of translations from Greek and Latin poets.

These little poems well illustrate the versatility of Mrs. Browning’s pen, and the range of her mind; for they are of all styles. A Song for the Ragged Schools:

Children small

Spilt like blots above the city,

Quay and street and palace wall—

An ode “to King Victor Emanuel;” Pan inventing the flute; sonnets; love-songs; “The North and the South”—the last one she wrote,—but it is useless to particularize. There are hardly two of them in the same strain; yet all are characteristic, there is the startling figure, the quaint turn, the happy conceit, the old rhyme, the obscure line, that ever appear as the distinguishing marks of Mrs. Browning’s poems. Is it not sad that these are “the last?”

Reviewed:

Last Poems (EBB), New York: James Miller, 1862.

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