E450100C. Poems (1844).
The New Quarterly Review, January 1845, pp. 77–98.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 344–349.
[This article reviews three works: Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Barrett; Poems by Frances Anne Butler; and The Star of Attéghéi; The Vision of Schwartz; and other Poems by Frances Brown.]
In devoting a few pages to the poems of Miss Barrett and Mrs. Butler, we are happy to fulfil a promise made not long since to the Poetesses of England. They have hardly been sufficiently considered as a class of writers apart, and holding a distinguished place in our literature. It is true that Christopher North, in the days when he wrote noble poems in magazine articles, has more than once rhapsodized in their praise; and that that accomplished and conscientious editor of our ancient drama, the Rev. A. Dyce, has selected a graceful volume of specimens from their works: but neither the “Edinburgh Critic” nor the “London Antiquarian” has exhausted the subject,—or viewed it, save in one of its many bearings. Strange to say, also, those of the gentler sex who have written on female poetical genius (not rhymed about it) have been, with little exception, awkward, and infelicitous in their essays.
In truth, it would seem as if the Poetesses had been considered as but a questionable sisterhood; lightly mentioned by men, whose coarse disrespect to their sex is fast fading out of the world, together with the euphuism of extravagant compliment by which it was showily veiled, and secretly disliked by women.
[For several pages the reviewer discusses English poetesses in general terms, not reproduced here.] [p. 84→]
It is time to come to the matter in hand—these new poems by Miss Barrett and Mrs. Butler.
The former author has gathered her audience but slowly. Some ten years ago, a translation, by a young lady, of the “Prometheus Bound” of Æschylus, was talked of in one or two literary circles: and to the few who read it, more remarkable even than the knowledge of the dead language, and the sympathy for the sculptural antique Greek drama which that volume manifested, was the preface, with its crowd of thoughts and meanings, one jostling the other so hard for outlet, that none was completely seen. But like essays have been made by other writers, who have subsequently either lost themselves in utter confusion, or disappointed the world by showing that they had delivered themselves of all that was within them, by that first chaotic burst. And with all the promise of rare and herculean power evidenced in Miss Barrett’s first volume, the name of its writer would never have penetrated beyond a [p. 85→] circle of immediate friends by means of its agency. Two or three years later, however, the ballads of “Margret” and the “Poet’s Vow” were published in a periodical; and, in 1838, “The Seraphim” appeared: a sacred poem, in which it was seen that, not only in right of aspiration, but also of power, the authoress did not ill to approach those highest and most solemn themes before which persons of feebler vision are dazzled into blindness, and those less upright of frame “shrink away in fear.” As a poem, however, that shadowing forth of the Hour of the Crucifixion must be felt by every one—Miss Barrett herself among the number—to be a failure; looseness of texture, confusion of metaphor, gratuitous caprices of rhythm, destroy its completeness, and obscure its simplicity. With all its moments of great force,—its beautifully tender distinction between the nature of the two angelic witnesses of the tremendous mysteries of Calvary,—its lyrical bursts of delicious and lofty music,—its similes of a sweep and a boldness, which could but have originated in a mind as rich in genius as in cultivation, “The Seraphim” is still, loose, vague, and fragmentary. It declines into a faint and inconclusive close. Too concentrated, too strangely new, to attract the mass whose notion of religious poetry goes no further than diluted texts of Scripture, the poem still falls utterly short of that nerve and the completeness which command the few at first and convince many afterwards.
The “Drama of Exile,” the principal poem of this new collection, must be ranged, owing to the nature of its subject, in the same class as “The Seraphim;” but the advance made by Miss Barrett in conceptive and executive power is great. It has become known to the public that the art of the authoress is the solace of her sick chamber; and, truly, among many similar manifestations which the biographies of literary women could furnish, there are few more touching to us than the unwearied pursuit of truth and excellence, in spite of pain and languor,—than the growth and nourishing of large and tolerant sympathies, co-existent with devout and sustaining religious fervours, which the poems in these volumes display. Miss Barrett has been neither discouraged into carelessness nor hardened into obstinacy by the limited popularity which attended her first extraordinary efforts. “If it were not presumptuous language,” she says in her eloquent preface, “on the lips of one to whom life is more than usually uncertain, my favourite wish for this work would be, that it be received by the public as a step in the right track towards a future indication of more value and acceptability. I would fain do better,—and I feel as if I might do better,—I aspire to do better.” Receiving these as far [p. 86→] other than the words of course by which authors quivering for praise (not excellence) too often seek to arrest examination and to disarm reproof, we will endeavour to meet Miss Barrett, with that friendly sincerity which is, also, the truest respect. To quote her own counsel, we will do our best to—
Guard her by our truthful words;
and if our defence be insufficient, it shall not be for lack of earnestness.
It is a fault that this “Drama of Exile” will have to be read twice, by the most highly accomplished reader of poetry, ere its full beauty is apprehended. The more superficial lover of verse (and there may be such, and still true relishers of the greatest poets,) will not be sorry for a few words of description rather than commentary. The poem begins where “Paradise Lost” ends—outside the gate of Eden—with a colloquy betwixt the Guardian Angel and the Arch Tempter. It was impossible, perhaps, for our author so to shrink from the conditions of her own subject as not to exhibit the Evil Principle—but it will be throughout felt, that to grasp what may be called its impersonation, she is unable. Her delineation of the effect of the Dark Presence on purer natures is beautiful. He appears suddenly before the fallen wanderers of the desert—and Eve exclaims—
Adam! hold
My right hand strongly. It is Lucifer—
And we have love to lose.
He questions the angels as to his own portion in Creation—demands of them the cause of the silence of his morning star,
Have ye cast down
Her glory like my glory?—Has she waxed
Mortal like Adam?—Has she learned to hate
Like any Angel?
Second Voice. She is sad for thee;
All things grow sadder to thee, one by one.
And, perhaps, we have had few more passionate and exciting dithyrambics than the chant of the same sad star to the Fallen Angel, with the following beautifully tender close:—
Thine angel glory sinks
Down from me, down from me—
My beauty falls, methinks,
Down from thee, down from thee!
O my light bearer,
O my path preparer,
Gone from me, gone from me
Ai, ai, Heosphoros! [p. 87→]
I cannot kindle underneath the brow
Of this new Angel here, who is not Thou;
All things are altered since that time ago,—
And if I shine at eve I shall not know—
I am strange—I am slow!
Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
Henceforward human eyes of lovers be
The only sweetest sight that I shall see,
With tears between the looks raised up to me.
Ai, ai!
When, having wept all night, at break of day,
Above the folded hills they shall survey
My light, a little trembling, in the grey.
Ai, ai!
And gazing on me, such shall comprehend,
Through all my piteous pomp at morn or even,
And melancholy leaning out of Heaven,
That love, their own divine, may change or end,
That love may close in loss!
Ai, ai! Heosphoros.—(pp. 46, 47.)
These reflexions (so to say) of Terror, and Doubt, and Ruin, upon more innocent and holy creatures, make up a far finer and more shadowy presentment of the Prince of the Powers of the Air, than his own harsh and boastful and impotent speeches. Like most female writers (themselves pure) when they imagine Sin, our authoress has made him display his destroying nature, in place of indicating it. Not even in the moment of triumph over his crushed and cowering prey, would the Serpent unfold his complete scheme of blasphemous evil. To the fullness of terror, concealment and suspense are requisite. Remorse can endure its pangs, when once the worst is known. Temptation, even with those already prostrated by crime, must work by degrees. And, as if Miss Barrett had felt the tremendous difficulty imposed upon her by these everlasting truths, her very verse labours infelicitously so often as it attempts to convey the sophistries or defiances of the Fallen Angel. Remarkable as a contrast, is the gush and flow of melancholy music, in which the Eden Spirits pour out their farewells to the outcasts: first the trees, then the four rivers, then the birds, then the flowers. But for a few concetti, and here and there an obscure word or two, or a very careless rhyme, they might be placed by the side of the lyrics of “Manfred” and “Prometheus Unbound.” They tempt us to linger. But the beauty and the power of the drama are but imperfectly shown in these. To find them, we must follow the shame-stricken outcasts into the wilderness,—we must draw attention to the exquisite womanly tenderness thrown over the [p. 88→] impersonation of Eve. Never has the female nature, as contrasted with the male, been more finely comprehended,—we may add, more unconsciously defended,—than in every word breathed from her lips. To instance: it is night—the wanderers are terrified by the insubordinate shapes of Earth, who, woeful and distracted under the curse, rise to confront and reproach them:—
Eve. Let us travel back,
And stand within the sword-glare till we die;
Believing it is better to meet death
Than suffer desolation.
Adam. Nay, beloved!
We must not pluck death from the Maker’s hand,
As erst we plucked the apple: we must wait
Until He gives us death as He gave us life;
Nor murmur faintly o’er the primal gift,
Because we spoilt its sweetness with our sin.
Eve. Ah, ah! Dost thou discern what I behold?
Adam. I see all: How the spirits in thine eyes,
From their dilated orbits, bound before
To meet the spectral dread!
Eve. I am afraid—
Ah, ah! The twilight bristles wild with shapes
Of intermittent motion, aspect vague,
And mystic bearings, which o’ercreep the earth,
Keeping slow time with horrors in the blood.
How near they reach .... and far! How grey they move!
Treading upon the darkness without feet,—
And fluttering on the darkness without wings!
Some run like dogs, with noses to the ground;
Some keep one path, like sheep— some rock like trees;
Some glide like a fallen leaf; and some flow on,
Copious as rivers.
Adam. Some spring up like fire;
And some coil....
Eve. Ah, ah! Dost thou pause to say
Like what? Coil like the serpent, when he fell
From all the emerald splendour of his height,
And writhed,—and could not climb against the curse,
Not a ring’s length. I am afraid—afraid—
I think it is God’s will to make me afraid;
Permitting these to haunt us in the place
Of his beloved angels—gone from us,
Because we are not pure. Dear pity of God,
That didst permit the angels to go home
And live no more with us who are not pure,
Save us, too, from a loathly company—
Almost as loathly in our eyes, perhaps,
As we are in the purest!—(pp. 48, 49, 50, vol. i.) [p. 89→]
There are few, we imagine, who will deny the execution of the above passage to belong to a very high order of poetical art. There is no trace of sex upon it, save its fine spirit of tenderness. To continue:—the menacing shapes close round the pair; and the Earth Spirits, typified in the zodiacal appearances, break out into a sullen and angry lamentation. Hear how the Woman, after endeavouring to soothe them by meek submission, bids them look upon her own greater loss; lingering fondly on the past,—
For was I not
At that last sunset seen in Paradise,
When all the westering clouds flashed out in throngs
Of sudden angel faces, face by face,
All hushed and solemn, as a thought of God
Held them suspended,—was I not, that hour,
The lady of the world, princess of life,
Mistress of feast and favour? Could I touch
A rose with my white hand, but it became
Whiter at once? Could I walk leisurely
Along our swarded garden, but the grass
Tracked me with greenness? Could I stand aside
A moment underneath a cornel-tree,
But all the leaves did tremble as alive,
With songs of fifty birds, who were made glad
Because I stood there? Could I turn to look
With these twain eyes of mine, now weeping fast;
Now good for only weeping,—upon man,
Angel, or beast, or bird,—but each rejoiced
Because I looked on him? Alas! alas!
And is this not much woe, to cry “Alas!”—
Speaking of joy? And is not this more shame,
To have made this woe myself, from all that joy?—
To have stretched mine hand, and plucked it from the tree,
And chosen it for fruit? Nay, is not this
Still most despair,—to have halved that bitter fruit,
And ruined so, the sweetest friend I have,
Turning the greatest to mine enemy?—(pp. 65, 66, vol. i.)
We must follow the music of this scene yet a few tones further. In reply to this gentle humility, (undisturbed by the apparition and temptings of Lucifer, who, at length, leaves the pair to discover their misery unmolested,) the Spirits of Earth exalt themselves into a more wrathful antagonism. Taking up the burden of the Demon’s final curse, they burst forth into a lyric, the boldness and the bitterness of which strike us with the strength of contrast, after the passage of fanciful and tender sorrow we have just cited. Figurative expression may be driven to [p. 90→] its extremest limits therein; but the situation (to use a technical phrase) almost excuses some extravagance, when it is borne out by so much vigour.
Lucifer. Go! I rejoice and curse you! [Vanishes
Gentle 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, crowned and anointed,
O’er the noble human heart!
Give him counsel against losing of that Eden!
Adam. Do ye scorn us? Back your scorn
Toward your faces gray and lorn,
As the wind drives back the rain,
Thus I drive the passion-strife;
I, who stand beneath God’s sun,
Made like God, and, though undone,
Not unmade for love and life.
Lo! ye utter words in vain!
By my free will that chose sin,
By mine agony within,
Round the passage of the fire;
By the pinings which disclose
—— That my native soul is higher
Than what it chose,—
We are yet too high, O Spirits, for your disdain!
Eve. Nay, beloved! If these be low,
We confront them with no height;
We stooped down to their level
In working them that evil:
And their scorn that meets our blow,
Scathes aright.
Amen. Let it be so.[p. 91→]
Earth Spirits. We shall triumph, triumph greatly,
When ye lie beneath the sward!
There my lily shall grow stately,
Though ye answer not a word,
And her fragrance shall be scornful of your silence.
While your throne, ascending calmly,
We, in heirdom of your soul,
Flash the river, lift the palm-tree,
The dilated ocean, roll
With the thoughts that throbbed within you—round the islands.
Alp and torrent shall inherit
Your significance of will;
With the grandeur of your spirit
Shall our broad savannahs fill—
In our minds, your exultations shall be springing.
Even your parlance which inveigles,
By our rudeness shall be won:
Hearts poetic, in our eagles,
Shall beat up against the sun,
And pour downward in articulate clear singing.
(pp. 78, 79, 80, vol. i.)
Our vow of rigid truth does not bind us to specify the strained rhymes which somewhat mar the turbulent and animated music of this chorus. An echo of the antique drama and lyric is there, which few have caught so well; and let any who may be disposed to cavil at the temerity of its imagery, turn to more correct and more insipid verse, which has passed for sacred poetry, if they will; we shall hardly join their company. But we are bound to call attention to a more serious blemish in the drama—the appearance of the Divine Personage as an interlocutor. Not however with regard to its propriety or impropriety. To discuss that question, would lead into questions and contemplations, which, at best, intermix ungraciously with artistic disquisitions; and, besides, in her preface, Miss Barrett, not unaware of the objections which may be raised, has stated her own views with such earnestness and candour, that the subject may be fairly left. But when,—after the prophetic visions of life and maternity, the dim shadowing forth of a coming race of human beings has been vouchsafed to the outcasts from Eden, to raise them out of utter despair and the terrors of annihilation—the Highest, “made man,” appeareth, the poem sinks at once. The long strain of prophecy and admonition put into the Divine lips—the hope held out to mortals of reconciliation, through faith, and suffering, and holiness, is told out in language which (to speak plainly, [p. 92→] not profanely) has at once the echo of the tabernacle, and the stiffness of a metaphysical essay. Moreover, neither the celestial Appearance, nor His speech were needed. One so exquisitely skilled in symbols as Miss Barrett; who can describe the progress of event and of eloquence so distinctly by its effect, (witness her whole treatment of the most awful moments of the vision of Calvary in “The Seraphim,”) would have given far more spirituality and sublimity to her work, had she forborne such direct dealing and interpretation as is here to be found. No person who examines the whole tenor of her writings, can conscientiously accuse her of irreverence; but here is a serious defect in poetic taste. In place of the glory round the Throne, so exceeding bright that few might look upon it and live, we are shown a pale and formal shape;—holy fear necessarily superinducing timidity, and the finite imagination of man finding language of necessity too feeble and limited to convey any direct idea of the Infinite.
Enough of our grave objection. A few more words will enable us to take leave of the poem, which, despite this cardinal fault, is a most remarkable work. The contumacious Spirits of the Earth, rebuked by the vision, cease to menace the man and woman, and renew their vows of allegiance in a lyric, the deep meaning and tuneful softness of which is as remarkable as the audacious imagery and exciting cadences of the one we have just quoted. The drama is brought to a harmonious close by their burden—“exiled is not lost”—as our first parents issue forth into the world to fulfil their appointed task. We entreat all students of religious Art of the loftiest order, to test the accuracy of our sketch, by reference to the complete work. They will find, we think, the beauty far outweighing the blemish.
The minor poems in Miss Barrett’s volumes, counting her ballads as such, will be infinitely more popular than the ambitious essay we have just left; for which reason, it seems to us less needful to dwell upon them. In all, however, great and most satisfactory progress is discernible since we first met Miss Barrett in print; and to those who raise the convenient plea of “not understanding” her, by way of excuse for not admiring, we will point out “The Romaunt of the Page” as one of the most pathetic, yet nervous, romances in rhyme of loyal love and constancy which has been recently sung—Browning’s “Count Gismond” not forgotten. With ourselves—but this may lie in individual sympathy—“The Lay of the Brown Rosary,” with its charmingly musical versification, and “The Rhyme of the Duchess May,” are greater favourites. On “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,” some slight remarks have been offered in a [p. 93→] previous number. On the subjects of all of these poems, we may remark, that if Duty is increasingly accepted, in these our times, as the loftiest theme of the Poet’s muse,—thus proving that we have joyfully and wisely come forth from that deification of mere passion and false heroism, whereby we were some twenty years ago deluded—this same Duty is not the finite and selfish prudence with which it has been so often confounded by the advocates (so called) of nature and emotion. Never were generosity, and self-sacrifice, and loyalty so perpetually chosen for themes as now—rarely have they been more nobly illustrated. It is to their apotheosis, that the last and the most beautiful, if not the most vigorous, of Mr. Browning’s dramas—we mean “Colombe’s Birthday”—is devoted. It is true, that his Duchess of Cleves chooses well for her own happiness in preferring the pale unworldly advocate, Valence, to his princely rival; and an obscure home of love brightened by spiritual life, to a palace, in which love has no time to grow for the restlessness of ambition. But the choice is not one of calculation, impulse, and trust—but an instant recognition of what is true and noble. The amount of the sacrifice is distinctly counted over to us in a moment of suspense; but the actors in the deed have small time to adjust, and reckon, and “decide upon mature consideration.” We could point, did time and space permit, to other works of recent date, in which the same high notes are struck. Who will dare, when such are coming forth, for the sake of a few incompletenesses and mannerisms, to lament over English poetry as on the wane? For ourselves ...... but the matter in hand is not what may be anticipated, but Miss Barrett’s ballads.
To one of these we must point, the rare and mournful delicacy of which places it very high among love poems; nor are we repelled from it because of some of those fantastic expressions and confusions of imagery, which the poet will lay aside, year by year, blemish it; this is “Bertha in the Lane.” The following verses, of their kind, could be hardly amended. To introduce them, it is enough to say, that the elder of two sisters, having finished a wedding gown for the younger, lays down to rest.
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.
* * * * * * [p. 94→]
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?
* * * * * *
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
Seemed to trickle through the shade.
* * * * * *
Through the winding hedgerows green
How we wandered, I and you—
With the bowery tops shut in,
And the gates that showed the view,—
How we talked 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 way-side 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 blessed you full and free,
With a smile stooped 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 wished me not to hear.
Do not weep so—do not shake—
Oh,—I heard thee, Bertha, make
Good true answers for my sake. [p. 95→]
Yes and he too! let him stand
In thy thoughts untouched by blame.
Could he help it, if thy hand
He had claimed with hasty claim?
That was wrong, perhaps—but then
Such things be—and will, again!
Women cannot judge for men.
* * * * * *
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!—(pp. 191 to 197, vol. ii.)
We must, of necessity, omit many stanzas: giving one (others of like conceit having been already passed over) in proof that we have not complained without cause, of flaws of taste which injure an otherwise beautiful pastoral, even now worth all the “Florizels” and “Amandas” ever penned by the chroniclers of Arcadian love and sorrow. After this terrible discovery comes the agony, which is truthfully described—then,
And I walked 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 fulfilled benevolence,
And a “Poor thing” negligence.—(pp. 98, vol. ii.)
What a pity that so vivid a picture of the bewildering distress of the first sudden sorrow should be spoiled by the puerile familiarity of the last cited line! The next and subsequent verses are redeeming; but as we are, for the moment, in Iago’s vein—nay, rather as we desire to give honourable praise its fullest worth, by an honest pointing out of defects which need but be mentioned and considered, to disappear,—we will pass on to two later verses—both of which are marred in their conclusion—the first, by too great liberty of rhyme; the second, by too great a liberty of language.
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. [p. 96→]
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.—(p. 200, vol. ii.)
“May not look gloomy”—“may be filled with light,” is the meaning of the last line. “Lifted out” expresses it very awkwardly—substituting a false metaphor for a natural image; and spoiling one of the sweetest passages of the tale. Similar small inadvertences—the employment of what is distant and secondary, in place of the direct and obvious words which suggest themselves, when the passage is considered—have largely contributed to the reputation which Miss Barrett possesses with some, namely, of being too recondite and mystical for general comprehension. It were lost love and labour to point these out, did not the author show the candour of the true artist, as distinguished from the self-occupation of the poetaster. Some of the best verses of “Lady Geraldine” are injured by like specks; and the whole of the “Vision of Poets” suffers from them so largely, that in spite of the nobility of its plan and import, its cumbrous machinery and its involved phraseology, we fear, will stand between it and the place it would otherwise deserve so well to occupy.
We are unable to dwell upon the shorter poems of Miss Barrett, save to mark our high esteem for their merit, and to insist that, so various are “Pan is Dead,” “The House of Clouds,” “A Flower in a Letter,” “Crowned and Buried,” and “The Cry of the Children,” both in style and subject, as to justify the most earnest and friendly remonstrances against a mannered phraseology. In the sonnets such a curiosa felicitas is more pardonable, though not necessary. The following two, the finest in the book, are almost clear of the fault,—the latter especially,—though the verse of both lacks polishing:—
Grief.
I tell you hopeless grief is passionless,—
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air,
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
In souls, as countries, lieth silent—bare [p. 97→]
Under the bleaching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead, in silence like to death:
Most like a monumental statue, set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe,
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath!
Touch it—the marble eyelids are not wet—
If it could weep, it could arise and go.—(p. 129, vol. i.)
Cheerfulness taught by Reason.
I think we are too ready to complain
In this fair world of God’s. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the scope
Of yon grey blank of sky, we might be faint
To muse upon Eternity’s constraint
Round our aspirant souls. But since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop
For a few days consumed in loss and taint?
O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted,—
And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road—
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and though unshod
To meet the flints?—At least it may be said,
“Because the way is short, I thank thee god.”
(p. 144, vol. i.)
We must leave Miss Barrett somewhat abruptly, taking the occasion of a coincidence to be found in the volume of her sister-poet; who, also, after much sorrow and weariness of heart, utters thus her lesson of resignation. The comparison of the styles, too, (both how clear of the feebleness of sex, and yet how widely different!) will be neither useless nor uninteresting.
[The review continues with Mrs. Butler’s Poems in which the reviewer makes a comparison between Mrs. Butler and EBB.] [p. 98→]
But the most casual observer must be aware, that whereas Miss Barrett writes with views and theories of Art clear to herself, and for purposes rarely lost sight of, Mrs. Butler utters her verse half consciously, in some moment of enjoyment, or excitement, or restless pain—when there is little thought of design or ordinance—and that the strain, if left incomplete, is rarely resumed. Both writers are singularly clear of feminine prettinesses—the peculiarities of Miss Barrett arising more from study and seclusion than from sex. But this point granted,—probably no two minds were ever more dissimilar in their similarities; probably no two lives ever laid wider apart, in their tone and experience, than those of the diligent and retired student of the old Greek fathers—and the last of the Juliets.
[The review concludes with commentary on the lyrics of Francis Browne.]
[Henry Fothergill Chorley]
Reviewed:
Poems (EBB), London: Edward Moxon, 1844.
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