E441100A. Poems (1844).
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, November 1844, pp. 621–639.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 350–363.
These volumes, from the pen of Miss Barrett, would be a remarkable publication at any time; but, in the present dearth of poetical genius, their appearance is doubly welcome; their claims on our consideration are doubly strong; and we cannot allow ourselves to pass them over without some detailed notice of their contents. In spite of many blemishes in point of execution, this lady’s poems have left a very favourable impression on our mind. If the poetess does not always command our unqualified approbation, we are at all times disposed to bend in reverence before the deep-hearted and highly accomplished woman—a woman, whose powers appear to us to extend over a wider and profounder range of thought and feeling, than ever before fell within the intellectual compass of any of the softer sex.
If we might venture to divine this lady’s moral and intellectual character from the general tone of her writings, we should say, that never did woman’s mind dwell more habitually among the thoughts of a solemn experience—never was woman’s genius impressed more profoundly with the earnestness of life, or sanctified more purely by the overshadowing awfulness of death. She aspires to write as she has lived; and certainly her poetry opens up many glimpses into the history of a pure and profound heart which has felt and suffered much. At the same time, a reflective cast of intellect lifts her feelings into a higher and calmer region than that of ordinary sorrow. There are certain delicate and felicitous peculiarities in the constitution of her sensibilities, which frequently impart a rare and subtle originality to emotions which are as old, and as widely diffused, as the primeval curse. The spirit of her poetry appears to us to be eminently religious; not because we think her very successful when she deals directly with the mysteries of divine truth, but because she makes us feel, even when handling the least sacred subjects, that we are in the presence of a heart which, in its purity, sees God. In the writings of such a woman, there must be much which is calculated to be a blessing and a benefit to mankind. If her genius always found a suitable exponent in her style, she would stand unrivaled, we think, among the poetesses of England.
But whether it be that Miss Barrett is afraid of degrading poetry to the low rank of an accomplishment—whether it be that she has some peculiar theory of her own on the subject of language, and on the mode in which poetical emotions may be most felicitously expressed—whether it be that nature has denied her the possession of a sound critical judgment, or that she refuses to exercise it in the moment of inspiration—whether it be that she considers the habit of pure and polished composition an attainment of very secondary importance—or whether it be that she has allowed herself to be infected by the prevailing mannerisms of the day—certain it is, that there is a large proportion of her poetry in which she has failed to add the graces of a good style and of careful versification to her other excellent acquirements. That she can write pure English, and that she frequently does so, is undeniable. In some of the extracts which we shall give, we believe that the language could scarcely be improved. But we are constrained to say, that her compositions are very often disfigured by strained or slovenly modes of phraseology, which greatly detract from their impressiveness, and which must materially injure the reputation of their authoress, by turning away many hearts from the homage which they otherwise would most willingly have rendered to her exalted genius.
Miss Barrett is a classical scholar. She surely knows that the great works in which she delights have earned the epithet of classical, and come recommended to the reverence of all mankind, solely in virtue of the scrupulous propriety of their language; and because they are fitted to serve as models of style to all succeeding generations. The purity of their diction, and nothing else, has been their passport to immortality. We cannot but lament that Miss Barrett has not provided [p. 622→] more surely for her future fame, by turning to their best account the lessons which the masterpieces of antiquity are especially commissioned to teach.
Let it not be thought that we would counsel Miss Barrett, or any one else, to propose these works to themselves as direct objects of imitation. Far from it. Such directions would be very vague and unmeaning, and might lead to the commission of the very errors which they aimed at preventing. The words “purity and propriety of diction” are themselves very vague words. Let us say, then, that a style which goes at once to the point, which is felt to get through business, and which carries with it no affectation, either real or apparent, is always a good style; and that no other style is good. This is the quality which may be generalized from the works of the great authors of all ages, as the prime characteristic of all good writing. Their style is always pregnant with a working activity—it impresses us with the feeling that real work is done here. We fear not to say that Milton himself owes much of his reputation to the peremptory and business-like vigour of his style. He never beats about the bush—he never employs language which a plain man would not have employed—if he could. The sublimity of “Paradise Lost” is supported throughout by the direct force of its language—language the most elaborate, but also the most to the point, and the least fantastical, that ever fell from human lips. There are difficulties to encounter in the abstract conception of the poem. The naked argument does not at first recommend itself to our understanding. It is not till we have vanquished those difficulties,—in which step we are mainly assisted by the unparalleled execution of the work,—that all our sympathies gravitate towards the mysterious theme.
Now if it be true that it requires all the force of a thoroughly practical style to reconcile our affections to such remote and obscure conceptions as the fall of man, the war of the rebellious angels, &c., it is peculiarly unfortunate that Miss Barrett, in her opening poem, entitled a “Drama of Exile,” should have ventured to tread on Miltonic ground. For, while our feelings are naturally disposed to fly off at a tangent from the vague and impalpable conceptions which form the staple of her poem, the dreamy and unpractical character of her style makes them fly still further from the subject. The force of her language is not sufficient to bind down and rivet our sympathies to the theme; and the lyrical portions of the drama, in particular, are so inarticulate, that we are compelled to pronounce this composition—partial to it as its authoress is—the least successful of her works.
But it is our wish to do full justice to Miss Barrett’s extraordinary merits, and to convey to our readers a favourable impression of her powers; and therefore we shall say no more at present about the “Drama of Exile,” but shall turn our attention to some of the fairer and less questionable manifestations of her genius. We shall commence with her sonnets; for these appear to us to be by far the most finished of her compositions in point of style; and in depth and purity of sentiment, we think that they surpass any thing she has ever written, with the exception of the poem entitled “Bertha in the Lane,” which we shall quote hereafter. As our first specimen, we select one which she entitles
Discontent.
Light human nature is too lightly tost
And ruffled without cause; complaining on—
Restless with rest—until, being overthrown,
It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost
Or a small wasp have crept to the innermost
Of our ripe peach; or let the wilful sun
Shine westward of our window,—straight we run
A furlong’s sigh, as if the world were lost.
But what time through the heart and through the brain
God hath transfix’d us,—we, so moved before,
Attain to a calm! Ay, shouldering weights of pain,
We anchor in deep waters, safe from shore;
And hear, submissive, o’er the stormy main,
God’s charter’d judgments walk for evermore. [p. 623→]
Yes; we fear it is too true that the voice of God never speaks so articulately to man, as when it speaks in the desperate calm of a soul to which life or death has done its worst. The same solemn thought with which the sonnet concludes, forms the moral of her ballad entitled the “Lay of the Brown Rosary.” It is thus that the heroine of that poem speaks—
Then breaking into tears—“Dear God,” she cried, “and must we see
All blissful things depart from us, or ere we go to Thee?
We cannot guess thee in the wood, or hear thee in the wind?
Our cedars must fall round us, ere we see the light behind?
Ay sooth, we feel too strong in weal, to need thee on that road;
But woe being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on ‘God.’”
Then it is that the despair which blackens the earth strikes clear the face of the sky. Listen again to Miss Barrett, when her soul is cheered by the promises of “Futurity:”—
Futurity.
And, O beloved voices! upon which
Ours passionately call, because erelong
Ye brake off in the middle of that song
We sang together softly, to enrich
The poor world with the sense of love, and witch
The heart out of things evil—I am strong,—
Knowing ye are not lost for aye among
The hills, with last year’s thrush. God keeps a niche
In Heaven to hold our idols! and albeit
He brake them to our faces, and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white,—
I know we shall behold them raised, complete,—
The dust shook from their beauty,—glorified
New Memnons singing in the great God-light.
And again, listen to her hallowed and womanly strain when she speaks of “Comfort:”—
Comfort.
Speak low to me, my Saviour—low and sweet
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low,
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so
Who art not miss’d by any that entreat.
Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet—
And if no precious gums my hands bestow,
Let my tears drop like amber, while I go
In reach of thy divinest voice complete
In humanest affection—thus, in sooth
To lose the sense of losing! As a child,
Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore,
Is sung to in its stead by mother’s mouth;
Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled,
He sleeps the faster that he wept before.
How profound and yet how feminine is the sentiment! No man could have written that sonnet. It rises spontaneously from the heart of a Christian woman, which overflows with feelings more gracious and more graceful than ever man’s can be. It teaches us what religious poetry truly is; for it makes affections inspired by the simplest things of earth, to illustrate, with the most artless beauty, the solemn consolations of the Cross.
The pointedness of the following religious sonnet is very striking and sublime. The text is, “And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter.”
The Meaning of the Look.
I think that look of Christ might seem to say—
“Thou Peter! art thou then a common stone
Which I at last must break my heart upon,
For all God’s charge, to his high angels, may
Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday [p. 624→]
Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run
Quick to deny me ’neath the morning sun,—
And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray?—
The cock crows coldly.—Go, and manifest
A late contrition, but no bootless fear!
For when thy deathly need is bitterest,
Thou shalt not be denied, as I am here—
My voice, to God and angels, shall attest,—
Because I know this man, let him be clear.”
One more sonnet, and we bid adieu to these very favourable specimens of Miss Barrett’s genius:—
Patience Taught by Nature.
“O dreary life!” we cry, “O dreary life!”
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds
Unslacken’d the dry land: savannah-swards
Unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees,
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory. O thou God of old!
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these;—
But so much patience, as a blade of grass
Grows by contented through the heat and cold.
There is a poem in these volumes entitled the “Cry of the Human”—some stanzas of which are inspired by profound feeling, and written with a rare force and simplicity of style; but as other parts of it are obscure, and as it appears to us to be of very unequal merit, we shall not quote the whole of it. In addition to the faults which are to be found in the poem itself, its title is objectionable, as embodying one of Miss Barrett’s worst mannerisms, and one for which we think that no allowance ought to be made. She is in the habit of employing certain adjectives in a substantive sense. She does so here. In other places she writes “Heaven assist the Human.” “Leaning from my human,” that is, stooping from my rank as a human being. In one passage she says,
Till the heavenly Infinite
Falling off from our Created—
nature being understood after the word “created.” The word “Divine” is one which she frequently employs in this substantive fashion. She also writes “Chanting down the Golden”—the golden what?
Then the full sense of your mortal
Rush’d upon you deep and loud.
For “mortal,” read “mortality.” It is true that this practice may be defended to a certain extent by the example and authority of Milton. But Miss Barrett is mistaken if she supposes that her frequent and prominent use of such a form of speech, can be justified by the rare and unobtrusive instances of it which are to be found in the Paradise Lost. To use an anomalous expression two or three times in a poem consisting of many thousand lines, is a very different thing from bringing the same anomaly conspicuously forward, and employing it as a common and favourite mode of speech in a number of small poems. In the former case, it will be found that the expression is vindicated by the context, and by the circumstances under which it is employed; in the latter case it becomes a nuisance which cannot be too rigorously put down. One step further and we shall find ourselves talking, in the dialect of Yankeeland, of “us poor Humans!” However, as the point appears to us to be one which does not admit of controversy, we shall say no more on the subject, but shall proceed to the more agreeable duty of quoting the greater portion of Miss Barrett’s poem, which may be regarded as a commentary on the prayer—“The Lord be merciful to us sinners.” [p. 625→]
The Cry of the Human.
“There is no God,” the foolish saith,—
But none, “There is no sorrow;”
And nature oft, the cry of faith,
In bitter need will borrow:
Eyes, which the preacher could not school,
By wayside graves are raised;
And lips say, “God be pitiful,”
Which ne’er said, “God be praised.”
Be pitiful, O God!
The curse of gold upon the land,
The lack of bread enforces—
The rail-cars snort from strand to strand,
Like more of Death’s White horses!
The rich preach “rights” and future days,
And hear no angel scoffing:
The poor die mute—with starving gaze
On corn-ships in the offing.
Be pitiful, O God!
We meet together at the feast—
To private mirth betake us—
We stare down in the winecup, lest
Some vacant chair should shake us!
We name delight, and pledge it round—
“It shall be ours to-morrow!”
God’s seraphs! do your voices sound
As sad in naming sorrow?
Be pitiful, O God!
We sit together, with the skies,
The steadfast skies, above us:
We look into each other’s eyes,—
“And how long will you love us?”—
The eyes grow dim with prophecy,
The voices, low and breathless—
“Till death us part!”—O words, to be
Our best for love the deathless!
Be pitiful, dear God!
We tremble by the harmless bed
Of one loved and departed—
Our tears drop on the lips that said
Last night, “Be stronger-hearted!”
O God—to clasp those fingers close,
And yet to feel so lonely!—
To see a light on dearest brows,
Which is the daylight only!
Be pitiful, O God!
The happy children come to us,
And look up in our faces:
They ask us—Was it thus, and thus,
When we were in their places?—
We cannot speak:—we see anew
The hills we used to live in;
And feel our mother’s smile press through
The kisses she is giving.
Be pitiful, O God!
We pray together at the kirk,
For mercy, mercy, solely—
Hands weary with the evil work,
We lift them to the Holy!
The corpse is calm below our knee—
Its spirit, bright before Thee—
Between them, worse than either, we—
Without the rest or glory!
Be pitiful, O God!
We sit on hills our childhood wist,
Woods, hamlets, streams, beholding!
The sun strikes, through the furthest mist,
The city’s spire to golden.
The city’s golden spire it was,
When hope and health were strongest,
But now it is the churchyard grass
We look upon the longest.
Be pitiful, O God!
And soon all vision waxeth dull—
Men whisper, “He is dying:”
We cry no more, “Be pitiful!”—
We have no strength for crying!—
No strength, no need! Then, Soul of mine,
Look up and triumph rather—
Lo! in the depth of God’s Divine,
The Son adjures the Father—
Be pitiful, O God!
“The Romance of the Swan’s Nest” is written in a different vein. It is characterized by a graceful playfulness of manner and sentiment, which shows how heartily the amiable authoress can enter into the sympathies and enjoyments of a child, and how much she is at home when she engages in lighter dalliance with the muse. We have taken the liberty to print in italics two or three Barrettisms, which however, we believe, are not very reprehensible. On the whole, it is a very pleasing and elegant performance:—
The Romance of the Swan’s Nest.
Little Ellie sits alone
Mid the beeches of a meadow,
By a stream-side, on the grass:
And the trees are showering down
Doubles of their leaves in shadow,
On her shining hair and face.
She has thrown her bonnet by;
And her feet she has been dipping
In the shallow water’s flow—
Now she holds them nakedly [p. 626→]
In her hands, all sleek and dripping,
While she rocketh to and fro.
Little Ellie sits alone,—
And the smile, she softly useth,
Fills the silence like a speech;
While she thinks what shall be done,—
And the sweetest pleasure, chooseth,
For her future within reach!
Little Ellie in her smile
Chooseth . . . “I will have a lover,
Riding on a steed of steeds!
He shall love me without guile;
And to him I will discover
That swan’s nest among the reeds.
“And the steed shall be red-roan,
And the lover shall be noble,
With an eye that takes the breath,—
And the lute he plays upon
Shall strike ladies into trouble,
As his sword strikes men to death.
“And the steed, it shall be shod
All in silver, housed in azure,
And the mane shall swim the wind!
And the hoofs, along the sod,
Shall flash onward in a pleasure,
Till the shepherds look behind.
“But my lover will not prize
All the glory that he rides in,
When he gazes in my face!
He will say, “O Love, thine eyes
Build the shrine my soul abides in;
And I kneel here for thy grace.”
“Then, ay, then—he shall kneel low—
With the red-roan steed anear him
Which shall seem to understand—
Till I answer, “Rise, and go!
For the world must love and fear him
Whom I gift with heart and hand.”
“Then he will arise so pale,
I shall feel my own lips tremble
With a yes I must not say—
Nathless, maiden-brave, “Farewell,”
I will utter and dissemble—
“Light to-morrow, with to-day.”
“Then he will ride through the hills,
To the wide world past the river,
There to put away all wrong!
To make straight distorted wills,—
And to empty the broad quiver
Which the wicked bear along.
“Three times shall a young foot-page
Swim the stream, and climb the mountain,
And kneel down beside my feet—
“Lo! my master sends this gage,
Lady, for thy pity’s counting!
What wilt thou exchange for it?”
“And the first time, I will send
A white rosebud for a guerdon,—
And the second time, a glove!
But the third time—I may bend
From my pride, and answer—“Pardon,
If he comes to take my love.”
“Then the young foot-page will run,
Then my lover will ride faster,
Till he kneeleth at my knee!
“I am a duke’s eldest son!
Thousand serfs do call me master,—
But, O Love, I love but thee!”
“He will kiss me on the mouth
Then, and lead me as a lover,
Through the crowds that praise his deeds!
And, when soul-tied by one troth,
Unto him I will discover
That swan’s nest among the reeds.”
Little Ellie, with her smile
Not yet ended, rose up gaily,—
Tied the bonnet, donn’d the shoe—
And went homeward, round a mile,
Just to see, as she did daily,
What more eggs were with the two.
Pushing through the elm-tree copse
Winding by the stream, light-hearted,
Where the osier pathway leads—
Past the boughs she stoops—and stops!
Lo! the wild swan had deserted—
And a rat had gnaw’d the reeds.
Ellie went home sad and slow!
If she found the lover ever,
With his red-roan steed of steeds,
Sooth I know not! but I know
She could show him never—never,
That swan’s nest among the reeds!
But the gem of the collection is unquestionably the poem entitled “Bertha in the Lane.” This is the purest picture of a broken heart that ever drew tears from the eyes of woman or of man. Although our extracts are likely to exceed the proportion which they ought to bear to our critical commentary, we must be permitted to quote this poem entire. A grain of such poetry is worth a cart-load of criticism:—
Bertha in the Lane.
Put the broidery-frame away,
For my sewing is all done! [p. 627→]
The last thread is used to-day,
And I need not join it on.
Though the clock stands at the noon,
I am weary! I have sewn
Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown.
Sister, help me to the bed,
And stand near me, dearest-sweet,
Do not shrink nor be afraid,
Blushing with a sudden heat!
No one standeth in the street?—
By God’s love I go to meet,
Love I thee with love complete.
Lean thy face down! drop it in
These two hands, that I may hold
’Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin,
Stroking back the curls of gold.
’Tis a fair, fair face, in sooth—
Larger eyes and redder mouth
Than mine were in my first youth!
Thou art younger by seven years—
Ah!—so bashful at my gaze,
That the lashes, hung with tears,
Grow too heavy to upraise?
I would wound thee by no touch
Which thy shyness feels as such—
Dost thou mind me, dear, so much?
Have I not been nigh a mother
To thy sweetness—tell me, dear?
Have we not loved one another
Tenderly, from year to year;
Since our dying mother mild
Said with accents undefiled,*
“Child, be mother to this child!”
Mother, mother, up in heaven,
Stand up on the jasper sea,
And be witness I have given
All the gifts required of me;—
Hope that bless’d me, bliss that crown’d,
Love, that left me with a wound,
Life itself, that turneth round!
Mother, mother, thou art kind,
Thou art standing in the room,—
In a molten glory shrined,
That rays off into the gloom!
But thy smile is bright and bleak
Like cold waves—I cannot speak;
I sob in it, and grow weak.
Ghostly mother, keep aloof
One hour longer from my soul—
For I still am thinking of
Earth’s warm-beating joy and dole!
On my finger is a ring
Which I still see glittering,
When the night hides every thing.
Little sister, thou art pale!
Ah! I have a wandering brain—
But I lose that fever-bale,
And my thoughts grow calm again.
Lean down closer—closer still!
I have words thine ear to fill,—
And would kiss thee at my will.
Dear, I heard thee in the spring,
Thee and Robert—through the trees,
When we all went gathering
Boughs of May-bloom for the bees.
Do not start so! think instead
How the sunshine overhead
Seem’d to trickle through the shade.
What a day it was, that day!
Hills and vales did openly
Seem to heave and throb away,
At the sight of the great sky:
And the silence, as it stood
In the glory’s golden flood,
Audibly did bud—and bud!
Through the winding hedgerows green,
How we wander’d, I and you,—
With the bowery tops shut in,
And the gates that show’d the view—
How we talk’d there! thrushes soft
Sang our pauses out,—or oft
Bleatings took them, from the croft.
Till the pleasure, grown too strong,
Left me muter evermore;
And, the winding road being long,
I walked out of sight, before;
And so, wrapt in musings fond,
Issued (past the wayside pond)
On the meadow-lands beyond.
I sate down beneath the beech
Which leans over to the lane,
And the far sound of your speech
Did not promise any pain:
And I bless’d you full and free,
With a smile stoop’d tenderly
O’er the May-flowers on my knee.
But the sound grew into word
As the speakers drew more near—
Sweet, forgive me that I heard
What you wish’d me not to hear.
Do not weep so—do not shake—
Oh,—I heard thee, Bertha, make
Good true answers for my sake. [p. 628→]
Yes, and he too! let him stand
In thy thoughts, untouch’d by blame.
Could he help it, if my hand
He had claim’d with hasty claim?
That was wrong perhaps—but then
Such things be—and will, again!
Women cannot judge for men.
Had he seen thee, when he swore
He would love but me alone?
Thou wert absent,—sent before
To our kin in Sidmouth town.
When he saw thee who art best
Past compare, and loveliest,
He but judged thee as the rest.
Could we blame him with grave words,
Thou and I, Dear, if we might?
Thy brown eyes have looks like birds,
Flying straightway to the light:
Mine are older.—Hush!—Look out—
Up the street! Is none without?
How the poplar swings about!
And that hour—beneath the beech,—
When I listen’d in a dream,
And he said, in his deep speech,
That he owed me all esteem,—
Each word swam in on my brain
With a dim, dilating pain,
Till it burst with that last strain—
I fell flooded with a Dark,
In the silence of a swoon—
When I rose, still cold and stark,
There was night,—I saw the moon:
And the stars, each in its place,
And the May-blooms on the grass,
Seem’d to wonder what I was.
And I walk’d as if apart
From myself, when I could stand—
And I pitied my own heart,
As if I held it in my hand,—
Somewhat coldly,—with a sense
Of fulfill’d benevolence,
And a “poor thing” negligence.
And I answer’d coldly too,
When you met me at the door;
And I only heard the dew
Dripping from me to the floor:
And the flowers I bade you see,
Were too wither’d for the bee,—
As my life, henceforth, for me.
Do not weep so—dear—heart-warm!
It was best as it befell!
If I say he did me harm,
I speak wild,—I am not well.
All his words were kind and good—
He esteem’d me! Only blood
Runs so faint in womanhood.
Then I always was too grave,—
Liked the saddest ballads sung,—
With that look, besides, we have
In our faces, who die young.
I had died, Dear, all the same—
Life’s long, joyous, jostling game
Is too loud for my meek shame.
We are so unlike each other,
Thou and I; that none could guess
We are children of one mother,
But for mutual tenderness.
Thou art rose-lined from the cold,
And meant, verily, to hold
Life’s pure pleasures manifold.
I am pale as crocus grows
Close beside a rose-tree’s root!
Whosoe’er would reach the rose,
Treads the crocus underfoot—
I, like May-bloom on thorn-tree—
Thou, like merry summer-bee!
Fit, that I be pluck’d for thee.
Yet who plucks me?—no one mourns—
I have lived my season out,—
And now die of my own thorns
Which I could not live without.
Sweet, be merry! How the light
Comes and goes! If it be night,
Keep the candles in my sight.
Are there footsteps at the door?
Look out quickly. Yea, or nay?
Some one might be waiting for
Some last word that I might say.
Nay? So best!—So angels would
Stand off clear from deathly road—
Not to cross the sight of God.
Colder grow my hands and feet—
When I wear the shroud I made,
Let the folds lie straight and neat,
And the rosemary be spread—
That if any friend should come,
(To see thee, sweet!) all the room
May be lifted out of gloom.
And, dear Bertha, let me keep
On my hand this little ring,
Which at nights, when others sleep,
I can still see glittering.
Let me wear it out of sight,
In the grave—where it will light
All the Dark up, day and night.
On that grave, drop not a tear!
Else, though fathom-deep the place,
Through the woollen shroud I wear,
I shall feel it on my face.
Rather smile there, blessed one,
Thinking of me in the sun—
Or forget me—smiling on! [p. 629→]
Art thou near me? nearer? so!
Kiss me close upon the eyes—
That the earthly light may go
Sweetly as it used to rise—
When I watch’d the morning-gray
Strike, betwixt the hills, the way
He was sure to come that day.
So—no more vain words be said!
The hosannas nearer roll—
Mother, smile now on thy Dead—
I am death-strong in my soul!
Mystic Dove alit on cross,
Guide the poor bird of the snows
Through the snow-wind above loss!
Jesus, Victim, comprehending
Love’s divine self-abnegation—
Cleanse my love in its self-spending,
And absorb the poor libation!
Wind my thread of life up higher,
Up through angels’ hands of fire!—
I aspire while I expire!
________
*“With accents undefiled;” this is surely a very strange and unaccountable interpolation. How was it possible, or conceivable, that any accents could be defiled, which conveyed the holiest and most pathetic injunction that ever came from the lips of a dying mother?
________
The following extract from a little poem entitled “Sleeping and Watching,” is very touching in its simplicity. Miss Barrett is watching over a slumbering child. How softly does the spirit of the watcher overshadow the cradle with the purest influences of its own sanctified sorrows, while she thus speaks!—
I, who cannot sleep as well,
Shall I sigh to view you?
Or sigh further to foretell
All that may undo you?
Nay, keep smiling, little child,
Ere the sorrow neareth,—
I will smile too! Patience mild
Pleasure’s token weareth.
Nay, keep sleeping, before loss;
I shall sleep though losing!
As by cradle, so by cross,
Sure is the reposing.
And God knows, who sees us twain,
Child at childish leisure,
I am near as tired of pain
As you seem of pleasure;—
Very soon too, by his grace
Gently wrapt around me,
Shall I show as calm a face,
Shall I sleep as soundly!
Differing in this, that you
Clasp your playthings sleeping,
While my hand shall drop the few
Given to my keeping;
Differing in this, that I
Sleeping, shall be colder,
And in waking presently,
Brighter to beholder!
Differing in this beside
(Sleeper, have you heard me?
Do you move, and open wide
Eyes of wonder toward me?)—
That while I draw you withal
From your slumber, solely,—
Me, from mine, an angel shall,
With reveillie holy!
After having perused these extracts, it must be impossible for any one to deny that Miss Barrett is a person gifted with very extraordinary powers of mind, and very rare sensibilities of heart. She must surely be allowed to take her place among the female writers of England as a poetess of no ordinary rank; and if she does not already overtop them all, may she one day stand forth as the queen of that select and immortal sisterhood! It is in her power to do so if she pleases.
It is now our duty to revert to the principal poem in the collection, respecting which we have already ventured to pronounce rather an unfavourable opinion. The “Drama of Exile” is the most ambitious of Miss Barrett’s compositions. It is intended to commemorate the sayings and doings of our First Parents, immediately subsequent to their expulsion from the garden of Eden. Its authoress, with sincere modesty, disclaims all intention of entering into competition with Milton; but the comparison must, of course, force itself upon the reader; and although it was not to be expected that she should rise so soaringly as Milton does above the level of her theme, it was at any rate to be expected that her dramatis personæ should not stand in absolute contrast to his. Yet Milton’s Satan and Miss Barrett’s Lucifer are the very antipodes of each other. Milton’s Satan is a thoroughly practical character, and, if he had been human, he would have made a first-rate man of business in any department of life. Miss Barrett’s Lucifer, on the contrary, is the poorest prater that ever made a point of saying nothing to the purpose, and we feel assured that he could have put his hand to nothing in heaven, on earth, or in hell. He has nothing to do, he does nothing, and [p. 630→] he could do nothing. He seems incapable of excogitating a single plot of treachery, or of carrying into execution a single deed of violence. His thoughts are a great deal too much taken up about his own personal appearance. Gabriel is an equally irresolute character. The following is a portion of a dialogue which takes place between the two; and it is perhaps as fair a sample of the drama as any that we could select. Near the beginning of the poem Gabriel concludes a short address to Lucifer with these words—
Go from us straightway.
Lucifer. Wherefore?
Gabriel. Lucifer,
Thy last step in this place, trod sorrow up.
Recoil before that sorrow, if not this sword.
Lucifer. Angels are in the world—wherefore not I?
Exiles are in the world—wherefore not I?
The cursed are in the world—wherefore not I?
Gabriel. Depart.
Lucifer. And where’s the logic of “depart?”
Our lady Eve had half been satisfied
To obey her Maker, if I had not learnt
To fix my postulate better. Dost thou dream
Of guarding some monopoly in heaven
Instead of earth? Why I can dream with thee
To the length of thy wings.
Gabriel. I do not dream.
This is not heaven, even in a dream; nor earth,
As earth was once,—first breathed among the stars,—
Articulate glory from the mouth divine,—
To which the myriad spheres thrill’d audibly,
Touch’d like a lute-string,—and the sons of God
Said amen, singing it. I know that this
Is earth, not new created, but new cursed—
This, Eden’s gate, not open’d, but built up
With a final cloud of sunset. Do I dream?
Alas, not so! this is the Eden lost
By Lucifer the serpent! this the sword
(This sword, alive with justice and with fire,)
That smote upon the forehead, Lucifer
The angel! Wherefore, angel, go … depart—
Enough is sinn’d and suffer’d.
Lucifer. By no means.
It will be observed, that in this passage Gabriel thrice desires Lucifer to “move on;” it will also be observed that Gabriel has a sword—or perhaps it may be the revolving sword which guards Paradise that he speaks of; but be it so or not, he threatens Lucifer with the edge of the sword unless he decamps; and yet, although the warning is repeated, as we have said, three distinct times, and although Lucifer pertinaciously refuses to stir a step, still the weapon remains innocuous, and the arch-fiend remains intact. This is not the way in which Milton manages matters. Towards the conclusion of the fourth book of Paradise Lost, this same Gabriel orders Satan to leave his presence—
Avant!
Fly thither whence thou fledd’st.
The rebel angel refuses to retire:—upon which, without more ado, both sides prepare themselves for battle. On the side of Gabriel
Th’ angelic squadron bright
Turn’d fiery red, sharpening in mooned horns
Their phalanx.
What an intense picture of ardour preparatory to action (it is night, remember) is presented to our imaginations by the words “turned fiery red!”
On t’other side, Satan alarm’d,
Collecting all his might, dilated stood, [p. 631→]
Like Teneriff, or Atlas, unremov’d:
His stature reach’d the sky.
Then would have come the tug of war—then
Dreadful deeds
Might have ensued;
and would have ensued—
Had not soon
The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,
Hung forth in heaven his golden scales.——
The fiend look’d up and knew
His mounted scale aloft; nor more, but fled
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.
But in the interview which Miss Barrett describes between Gabriel and Lucifer, no such headlong propensity to act is manifested by either party—no such crisis ensues to interrupt the fray. Gabriel is satisfied with giving utterance to a feeble threat, which, when he finds that Lucifer pays no attention to it, he never attempts to carry into execution. For no apparent cause, he suddenly changes his tone, and condescends to hold parley with his foe on a variety of not very interesting particulars, informing him, among other things, that he “does not dream!”
The following is Lucifer’s description of our First Mother. It is impregnated with Miss Barrett’s mannerisms, and strongly characterized by that fantastical and untrue mode of picturing sensible objects, which the example of Shelley and Keates tended especially to foster, if they were not the first to introduce it:—
Lucifer. Curse freely! curses thicken. Why, this Eve
Who thought me once part worthy of her ear,
And somewhat wiser than the other beasts,—
Drawing together her large globes of eyes,
The light of which is throbbing in and out
Around their continuity of gaze,—
Knots her fair eyebrows in so hard a knot,
And, down from her white heights of womanhood,
Looks on me so amazed,—I scarce should fear
To wager such an apple as she pluck’d,
Against one riper from the tree of life,
That she could curse too—as a woman may—
Smooth in the vowels.
We do not very well understand why Eve’s curses should have been smoother in the vowels than in the consonants. But as we are no great elocutionists, or at all well conversant with the mysteries of “labials,” “dentals,” and “gutterals,” we shall not contest the point with Lucifer, lest we should only expose our own ignorance.
Respecting the leading conception of her drama, Miss Barrett writes thus:—“My subject was the new and strange experience of the fallen humanity as it went forth from Paradise into the wilderness; with a peculiar reference to Eve’s allotted grief, which, considering that self-sacrifice belonged to her womanhood, and the consciousness of originating the Fall to her offence—appeared to me imperfectly apprehended hitherto, and more expressible by a woman than a man.” No wonder that Miss Barrett failed in her undertaking. In the conception of Eve’s grief as distinguished from Adam’s, and as coloured by the circumstances of her situation—namely, by the consciousness that she had been the first to fall, and the proximate cause of Adam’s transgression—there is certainly no sufficient foundation to sustain the weight of a dramatic poem. At the most, it might have furnished materials for a sonnet. It therefore detracts nothing from the genius of Miss Barrett to say, that her attempt has been unsuccessful. She has tried to make bricks not only without straw, but almost without clay; and that being the case, the marvel is that she should have succeeded so well.
“There was room at least,” con- [p. 632→] tinues Miss Barrett, “for lyrical emotion in those first steps into the wilderness, in that first sense of desolation after wrath, in that first audible gathering of the recriminating ‘groan of the whole creation,’ in that first darkening of the hills from the recoiling feet of angels, and in that first silence of the voice of God.” There certainly was room for lyrical emotion in these first steps into wilderness. All nature might most appropriately be supposed to break forth in melodious regrets around the footsteps of the wanderers: but we cannot think that Miss Barrett has done justice to nature’s strains. Unless lyrical emotion be expressed in language as clear as a mountain rill, and as well defined as the rocks over which it runs, it is much better left unsung. The merit of all lyrical poetry consists in the clearness and cleanness with which it is cut; no tags or loose ends can any where be permitted. But Miss Barrett’s lyrical compositions are frequently so inarticulate, so slovenly, and so defective, both in rhythm and rhyme, that we are really surprised how a person of her powers could have written them, and how a person of any judgment could have published them. Take a specimen, not by any means the worst, from the “Song of the morning star to Lucifer:”—
Mine orbed image sinks
Back from thee, back from thee,
As thou art fallen, methinks,
Back from me, back from me.
O my light-bearer,
Could another fairer
Lack to thee, lack to thee?
Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
I loved thee, with the fiery love of stars.
Who love by burning, and by loving move,
Too near the throned Jehovah, not to love.
Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
Their brows flash fast on me from gliding cars,
Pale-passion’d for my loss.
Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
Mine orbed heats drop cold
Down from thee, down from thee,
As fell thy grace of old
Down from me, down from me.
O my light-bearer,
Is another fairer
Won to thee, won to thee?
Ai, ai, Heosphoros,
Great love preceded loss,
Known to thee, known to thee.
Ai, ai!
Thou, breathing thy communicable grace
Of life into my light,
Mine astral faces, from thine angel face,
Hast inly fed,
And flooded me with radiance overmuch
From thy pure height.
Ai, ai!
Thou, with calm, floating pinions both ways spread,
Erect, irradiated,
Didst sting my wheel of glory
On, on before thee,
Along the Godlight, by a quickening touch!
Ha, ha!
Around, around the firmamental ocean,
I swam expanding with delirious fire!
Around, around, around, in blind desire
To be drawn upward to the Infinite—
Ha, ha!
But enough of Ai ai Heosphoros. It may be very right for ladies to learn Greek—not, however, if it is to lead them to introduce such expressions as this into the language of English poetry.
Nor do we think that Miss Barrett’s lyrical style improves when she descends to themes of more human and proximate interest, and makes the “earth-spirits” and the “flower-spirits” pour their lamentations into the ears of the exiled pair. The following is the conclusion of the láyment (as Miss Barrett pronounces the word lament) of the “flower-spirits:”—
We pluck at your raiment,
We stroke down your hair,
We faint in our láment,
And pine into air,
Fare-ye-well—farewell!
The Eden scents, no longer sensible,
Expire at Eden’s door!
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before:
Farewell! the flowers of Eden
Ye shall smell never more.
Would not Miss Barrett’s hair have stood on end if Virgil had written “Arma virumque canto?” Yet surely that false quantity would have been not more repugnant to the genius of Latin verse than her transposition of [p. 633→] accent in the word lamént is at variance with the plainest proprieties of the English tongue.
The “earth spirits” deliver themselves thus:—
Earth Spirits.
And we scorn you! there’s no pardon
Which can lean to you aright!
When your bodies take the guerdon
Of the death-curse in our sight,
Then the bee that hummeth lowest shall transcend you.
Then ye shall not move an eyelid
Though the stars look down your eyes;
And the earth, which ye defiled,
She shall show you to the skies,—
Lo! these kings of ours—who sought to comprehend you.
First Spirit.
And the elements shall boldly
All your dust to dust constrain;
Unresistedly and coldly,
I will smite you with my rain!
From the slowest of my frosts is no receding.
Second Spirit.
And my little worm, appointed
To assume a royal part,
He shall reign, crown’d and anointed,
O’er the noble human heart!
Give him counsel against losing of that Eden!
In one of the lyrical effusions, man is informed that when he goes to heaven—
Then a sough of glory
Shall your entrance greet,
Ruffling round the doorway
The smooth radiance it shall meet.
We wonder what meaning Miss Barrett attaches to the word sough! It is a term expressive of the dreary sighing of autumnal winds, or any sound still more disconsolate and dreary; and therefore, to talk of a “sough of glory,” is to talk neither more nor less than absolute nonsense.
What can be more unlyrical than this verse?
Live, work on, oh, Earthy!
By the Actual’s tension
Speed the arrow worthy
Of a pure ascension.
We have said that the lyrical effusions interspersed throughout the “Drama of Exile,” are very slovenly and defective in point of rhyme. What can be worse than “Godhead” and “wooded,” “treading” and “Eden,” “glories” and “floorwise,” “calmly” and “palm-tree,” “atoms” and “fathoms,” “accompted” and “trumpet,” and a hundred others? What can be worse, do we ask? We answer that there is one species of rhyme which Miss Barrett is sometimes, though, we are happy to say, very rarely, guilty of, which is infinitely more reprehensible than any of these inaccuracies. We allude to the practice of affixing an r to the end of certain words, in order to make them rhyme with other words which terminate in that letter. Writers who are guilty of this atrocity are not merely to be condemned as bad rhymesters: they are to be blamed on the far more serious ground that they give the sanction and authority of print to one of the vilest vulgarisms which pollutes the oral language of certain provincial societies. What makes the practice so offensive in literary composition is the fact, that the barbarism is one which may sometimes be actually heard falling from living lips. But for this, it would be pardonable. We verily believe that Miss Barrett herself does not talk of “Laurar” and “Matildar;” we verily believe that she would consider any one who does so no fit associate for herself in point of manners or education:—yet she scruples not to make “Aceldama”(r) rhyme to “tamer,” and “Onora”(r) rhyme to “o’er her.” When we think of these things, [p. 634→] we turn to the following “stage-direction” with which her “Drama of Exile” concludes—“There is a sound through the silence as of the falling tears of an angel.” That angel must have been a distressed critic like ourselves.
Next to the “Drama of Exile,” the longest poem in the collection is the composition entitled “A Vision of Poets.” This poem is designed, says our authoress, “to indicate the necessary relations of genius to suffering and self-sacrifice”. It is stamped throughout with the thoughtful earnestness of Miss Barrett’s character, and is, on the whole, a very impressive performance. But it would have been more impressive still if it had been composed after less vicious models, or if Miss Barrett had trusted more to a style prompted by her own native powers, and less to the fantastical modes of phraseology which have been introduced into literature by certain inferior artists of this and the preceding generation. We cannot read it, however, without appreciating the fervour which stirs the soul of the authoress through all its depths, when she declares and upholds the sacred mission of the poet, and teaches him that he must embrace his destiny with gratitude and pride, even though the crown which encircles his living brows be one in which the thorns far outnumber the laurel leaves. We shall grace our pages with a series of portraits, in which Miss Barrett sketches off first the true poets and then the pretenders. They certainly contain some good points, although many of her touches must be pronounced unsuccessful. Let Homer lead the van:—
Here, Homer, with the broad suspense
Of thunderous brows, and lips intense
Of garrulous god-innocence.
There, Shakspeare! on whose forehead climb
The crowns o’ the world! Oh, eyes sublime—
With tears and laughters for all time!
Here, Æschylus—the women swoon’d
To see so awful when he frown’d
As the gods did—he standeth crown’d.
Euripides, with close and mild
Scholastic lips—that could be wild,
And laugh or sob out like a child
Right in the classes. Sophocles,
With that king’s look which down the trees,
Follow’d the dark effigies
Of the lost Theban! Hesiod old,
Who somewhat blind, and deaf, and cold,
Cared most for gods and bulls! and bold
Electric Pindar, quick as fear,
With race-dust on his cheeks, and clear,
Slant startled eyes that seem to hear
The chariot rounding the last goal,
To hurtle past it in his soul!
And Sappho crown’d with aureole
Of ebon curls on calmed brows—
O poet-woman! none forgoes
The leap, attaining the repose!
Theocritus, with glittering locks,
Dropt sideway, as betwixt the rocks
He watch’d the visionary flocks!
And Aristophanes! who took
The world with mirth, and laughter-struck
The hollow caves of Thought, and woke
The infinite echoes hid in each.
And Virgil! shade of Mantuan beech
Did help the shade of bay to reach
And knit around his forehead high!—
For his gods wore less majesty
Than his brown bees humm’d deathlessly.
Lucretius—nobler than his mood!
Who dropp’d his plummet down the broad
Deep universe, and said “No God,”
Finding no bottom. He denied
Divinely the divine, and died
Chief poet on the Tiber-side,
By grace of God. His face is stern,
As one compell’d, in spite of scorn,
To teach a truth he could not learn.
And Ossian, dimly seen or guess’d!
Once counted greater than the rest,
When mountain-winds blew out his vest, [p. 635→]
And Spenser droop’d his dreaming head
(With languid sleep-smile you had said
From his own verse engendered)
On Ariosto’s, till they ran
Their locks in one!—The Italian
Shot nimbler heat of bolder man
From his fine lids. And Dante stern
And sweet, whose spirit was an urn
For wine and milk pour’d out in turn.
And Goethe—with that reaching eye
His soul reach’d out from, far and high,
And fell from inner entity.
And Schiller, with heroic front
Worthy of Plutarch’s kiss upon’t—
Too large for wreath of modern wont.
Here Milton’s eyes strike piercing-dim!
The shapes of suns and stars did swim
Like clouds from them, and granted him
God for sole vision! Cowley, there,
Whose active fancy debonaire
Drew straws like amber—foul to fair.
And Burns, with pungent passionings
Set in his eyes. Deep lyric springs
Are of the fire-mount’s issuings.
And poor, proud Byron—sad as grave
And salt as life! forlornly brave,
And quivering with the dart he drave.
And visionary Coleridge, who
Did sweep his thoughts as angels do
Their wings, with cadence up the Blue.
“Homer” we are not sure about; we can only hope that there may be people whom the picture will please. “Shakspeare” is good. “Æschylus” (Miss Barrett’s favourite, too,) is treated very scurvily and very ungrammatically. What on earth are we to make of the words “the women swooned to see so awful” &c.? It is well known that no pregnant woman could look Æschylus in the face when the fit of inspiration was on him, without having cause to regret her indiscretion. But though delicacy might have dictated that this fact should be only barely hinted at, surely grammar need not have miscarried in the statement. The syntax of the passage will puzzle future commentators as much as some of his own corrupt choruses. “Euripides” promises well; but the expression, “Right in the classes,” throws our intellect completely on its beam-ends; and as we cannot right it again, in order to take a second glance at the poet of Medea, we must pass on to the next. “Sophocles” will be acceptable to scholars. “Hesiod” is excellent. “Cared most for gods and bulls” is worth any money. “Pindar” and “Sappho” are but so so. The picture of “Theocritus” is very beautiful. There is nothing particularly felicitous in the sketch of “Aristophanes.” How much more graphic is what Milton, in one of his prose works, says with respect to the “holy Chrysostom’s” study of the same. Chrysostom, it seems, was a great student of Aristophanes. Some people might have been, and no doubt were, scandalized to think that so pious a father of the church should have made a bosom companion of so profane and virulent a wit: but says Milton, the holy father was quite right in poring over Aristophanes, for “he had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a rousing sermon.” Put that into verse and it would ring well. We thank Miss Barrett for the graphic touch of Virgil’s “brown bees,” which certainly are better than his gods. “Lucretius” is very finely painted. “Ossian” looms large through the mist, but walk up to him, and the pyramid is but a cairn. “Spenser” and “Ariosto,” with their locks blended in one, compose a very sweet picture. “Dante” we will not answer for. “Goethe” is a perfect enigma. What does the word “fell” mean? δεινος, we suppose—that is, “not to be trifled with.” But surely it sounds very strange, although it may be true enough, to say that this “fellness” is occasioned by “inner entity.” But perhaps the line has some deeper meaning, which we are unable to fathom. We have seen a better picture than that of Goethe in the hour of inspiration, when his forehead was like a precipice dim with drifting sleet. “Schiller” is well drawn; evidently from Thorwaldsen’s gigantic statue of the poet. Miss Barrett paints “Milton” in his blindness as seeing all things in God. But Malle- [p. 636→] branche had already taught that God is the “sole vision” of all of us; and therefore, if that theory be correct, she has failed to assign to the poet of the Fall any distinctive attribute which distinguishes him from other men. “Cowley” is well characterized. “Burns” ought to have been better. “Byron” pleases us. “Coleridge” has very considerable merit.
As a contrast to the preceding sketches of the true poets, (many of which, however, we have omitted, and we may also remark, in parenthesis, that none of our living poets are meddled with,) we now pass before the eyes of the reader a panorama of pretenders. We shall make no remarks on the expression of their features, leaving Miss Barrett to brand them as they deserve with her just scorn and indignation—
One dull’d his eyeballs as they ached,
With Homer’s forehead—though he lack’d
An inch of any! And one rack’d
His lower lip with restless tooth—
As Pindar’s rushing words forsooth
Were pent behind it. One, his smooth
Pink cheeks, did rumple passionate,
Like Æschylus—and tried to prate
On trolling tongue, of fate and fate!
One set her eyes like Sappho’s—or
Any light woman’s! one forbore
Like Dante, or any man as poor
In mirth, to let a smile undo
His hard shut lips. And one, that drew
Sour humours from his mother, blew
His sunken cheeks out to the size
Of most unnatural jollities,
Because Anacreon looked jest-wise.
So with the rest.—It was a sight
For great world-laughter, as it might
For great world-wrath, with equal right.
Out came a speaker from that crowd,
To speak for all—in sleek and proud
Exordial periods, while he bow’d
His knee before the angel.—“Thus,
O angel! who hast call’d for us,
We bring thee service emulous,—
Fit service from sufficient soul—
Hand-service, to receive world’s dole—
Lip-service, in world’s ear to roll
Adjusted concords—soft enow
To hear the winecups passing through,
And not too grave to spoil the show.
Thou, certes, when thou askest more,
O sapient angel! leanest o’er
The window-sill of metaphor.
To give our hearts up! fie!—That rage
Barbaric, antedates the age!
It is not done on any stage.
Because your scald or gleeman went
With seven or nine-string’d instrument
Upon his back—must ours be bent?
We are not pilgrims, by your leave,
No, nor yet martyrs! if we grieve,
It is to rhyme to … summer eve.
And if we labour, it shall be
As suiteth best with our degree,
In after-dinner reverie.”
More yet that speaker would have said—
Poising between his smiles fair-fed,
Each separate phrase till finished:
But all the foreheads of those born
And dead true poets flash’d with scorn
Betwixt the bay leaves round them worn—
Ay, jetted such brave fire, that they,
The new-come, shrank and paled away,
Like leaden ashes when the day
Strikes on the hearth! A spirit-blast,
A presence known by power, at last
Took them up mutely—they had pass’d!
“Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” is a poem of the Tennysonian school. Some pith is put forth in the passionate parts of the poem; but it is deficient throughout in that finished elegance of style which distinguishes the works of the great artist from whom it is imitated. Bertram, a peasant-born poet falls in love with the Lady Geraldine, a woman of high rank and very extensive possessions. He happens to overhear the lady address the following words to a suitor of the same rank with herself, and whose overtures she is declining— [p. 637→]
“Yes, your lordship judges rightly. Whom I marry, shall be noble,
Ay, and wealthy. I shall never blush to think how he was born.”
Upon which, imagining that these words have some special and cutting reference to himself, he passes into the presence of the lady, and rates her in a strain of very fierce invective, which shows that his blood is really up, whatever may be thought of the taste which dictated his language, or of the title he had to take to task so severely a lady who had never given him any sort of encouragement. In a letter to a friend, he thus describes the way in which he went to work—the fourth line is a powerful one—
Oh, she flutter’d like a tame bird, in among its forest-brothers,
Far too strong for it! then drooping, bow’d her face upon her hands—
And I spake out wildly, fiercely, brutal truths of her and others!
I, she planted in the desert, swathed her, windlike, with my sands.
I pluck’d up her social fictions, bloody-rooted, though leaf-verdant,—
Trod them down with words of shaming,—all the purples and the gold,
And the ‘landed stakes’ and Lordships—all that spirits pure and ardent
Are cast out of love and reverence, because chancing not to hold.
“For myself I do not argue,” said I, “though I love you, Madam,
But for better souls, that nearer to the height of yours have trod—
And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam,
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God.
“Yet, O God” (I said,) “O grave” (I said,) “O mother’s heart and bosom!
With whom first and last are equal, saint and corpse and little child!
We are fools to your deductions, in these figments of heart-closing!
We are traitors to your causes, in these sympathies defiled!
“Learn more reverence, madam, not for rank or wealth—that needs no learning;
That comes quickly—quick as sin does! ay, and often works to sin;
But for Adam’s seed, man! Trust me, ’tis a clay above your scorning,
With God’s image stamp’d upon it, and God’s kindling breath within.
“What right have you, Madam, gazing in your shining mirror daily,
Getting, so, by heart, your beauty, which all others must adore,—
While you draw the golden ringlets down your fingers, to vow gaily, . .
You will wed no man that’s only good to God,—and nothing more.”
In the second stanza, we cannot make out the construction of the words, “all that spirits pure and ardent are cast out of love and reverence.” This vigorous tirade is continued throughout several stanzas. The poor lady merely utters the word “Bertram,” and the lover is carried to bed in a fainting fit when his passion is expended. When he recovers he indites the aforesaid letter. After he has dispatched it, the lady enters his apartment: oh, blessed and gracious apparition! We quote the dénouement, omitting one or two stanzas—
Soh! how still the lady standeth! ’tis a dream—a dream of mercies!
’Twixt the purple lattice-curtains, how she standeth still and pale!
’Tis a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to soften his self-curses—
Sent to sweep a patient quiet, o’er the tossing of his wail.
“Eyes,” he said, “now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo me?
Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone!
Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye ever burning torrid,
O’er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone?” [p. 638→]
Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,—
And approach’d him slowly, slowly, in a gliding measured pace;
With her two white hands extended, as if praying one offended,
And a look of supplication, gazing earnest in his face.
Said he—“Wake me by no gesture,—sound of breath, or stir of vesture;
Let the blessed apparition melt not yet to its divine!
No approaching—hush! no breathing! or my heart must swoon to death in
The too utter life thou bringest—O thou dream of Geraldine!”
Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling—
But the tears ran over lightly from her eyes, and tenderly;
“Dost thou, Bertram, truly love me? Is no woman far above me,
Found more worthy of thy poet-heart, than such a one as I?”
Said he—“I would dream so ever, like the flowing of that river,
Flowing ever in a shadow, greenly onward to the sea;
So, thou vision of all sweetness—princely to a full completeness,—
Would my heart and life flow onward—deathward—through this dream of thee!”
Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,—
While the shining tears ran faster down the blushing of her cheeks;
Then with both her hands enfolding both of his, she softly told him,
“Bertram, if I say I love thee, … ’tis the vision only speaks.”
Soften’d, quicken’d to adore her, on his knee he fell before her—
And she whisper’d low in triumph—“It shall be as I have sworn!
Very rich he is in virtues,—very noble—noble, certes;
And I shall not blush in knowing, that men call him lowly born!”
With the exception of the line, and the other expressions which we have printed in italics, we think that the whole tone of this finale is “beautiful exceedingly;” although, if we may express our private opinion, we should say that the lover, after his outrageous demeanour, was very unworthy of the good fortune that befell him. But, in spite of the propitious issue of the poem, we must be permitted (to quote one of Miss Barrett’s lines in this very lay) to make our “critical deduct ions for the modern writers’ fault.” Will she, or any one else tell us the meaning of the second line in this stanza? Or, will she maintain that it has any meaning at all? Lady Geraldine’s possessions are described—
She has halls and she has castles, and the resonant steam-eagles
Follow far on the directing of her floating dove-like hand—
With a thund’rous vapour trailing, underneath the starry vigils,
So to mark upon the blasted heaven, the measure of her land.”
We thought that steam-coaches generally followed the directing of no hand except the “stoker’s;” but it certainly is always much liker a raven than a dove. “Eagles and vigils” is not admissible as a rhyme; neither is “branch and grange.” Miss Barrett says of the Lady Geraldine that she had “such a gracious coldness” that her lovers “could not press their futures on the present of her courtesy.” Is that human speech? One other objection and our carpings shall be dumb. Miss Barrett, in our opinion, has selected a very bad, dislocated, and unmelodious metre for the story of Lady Geraldine’s courtship. The poem reads very awkwardly in consequence of the rhymes falling together in the alternate lines and not in couplets. Will Miss Barrett have the goodness to favour the public with the sequel of this poem? We should like to know how the match between the peasant’s son and the peer’s daughter was found to answer. [p. 639→]
Those among our readers who may have attended principally to the selections which we made from these volumes before we animadverted on the “Drama of Exile,” may perhaps be of opinion that we have treated Miss Barrett with undue severity, and have not done justice the vigour and rare originality of her powers; while others, who may have attended chiefly to the blemishes of style and execution which we have thought it our duty to point out in our later quotations, may possibly think that we have ranked her higher than she deserves. We trust that those who have carefully perused both the favourable and unfavourable extracts, will give us credit for having steered a middle course, without either running ourselves aground on the shoals of detraction, or oversetting the ship by carrying too much sail in favour of our authoress. And although they may have seen that our hand was sometimes unsteady at the helm, we trust that it has always been when we felt apprehensive that the current of criticism was bearing us too strongly towards the former of these perils. If any of our remarks have been over harsh, we most gladly qualify them by saying, that, in our humble opinion, Miss Barrett’s poetical merits infinitely outweigh her defects. Her genius is profound, unsullied, and without a flaw. The imperfections of her manner are mere superficial blot which a little labour might remove. Were the blemishes of her style tenfold more numerous than they are, we should still revere this poetess as one of the noblest of her sex; for her works have impressed us with the conviction, that powers such as she possesses are not merely the gifts or accomplishments of a highly intellectual woman; but that they are closely intertwined with all that is purest and loveliest in goodness and in truth.
It is plain that Miss Barrett would always write well if she wrote simply from her own heart, and without thinking of the compositions of any other author—at least let her think of them only in so far as she is sure that they embody great thoughts in pure and appropriate language, and in forms of construction which will endure the most rigid scrutiny of common sense and unperverted taste. If she will but wash her hands completely of Æschylus and Milton, and all other poets, either great, or whom she takes for such, and come before the public in the graces of her own feminine sensibilities, and in the strength of her own profound perceptions, her sway over human hearts will be more irresistible than ever, and she will have nothing to fear from a comparison with the most gifted and illustrious of her sex.
[James Ferrier]
Reviewed:
Poems (EBB), London: Edward Moxon, 1844.
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