E450500A. Poems (1844).
The Gentleman’s Magazine, May 1845, pp. 513–515.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 389–390.
That Miss Barrett possesses great poetical powers, the possession of which must be delightful in its exercise to herself, and gratifying by the fame attached to them to her friends, no one will deny; but, that she exercises them discreetly, or to the best purpose, we are not equally inclined to admit. The old Greek philosopher said that he had two pupils; one of whom wanted the spur, and the other the bridle. Now a great majority of the poets of the present day seem to us not only to want the bridle, but the martingale also; so headstrong is their pace, so irregular their route, and so bold their undertakings. They have left the highways in which their predecessors were content to travel, to seek out new and untried paths of their own, as modern travellers have forsaken the old roads which the Romans made over the Alpine Hills, for others more devious and less desirable. That Miss Barrett has many warm admirers of her talents we have not to learn: and justly so; but has she no cool-headed friends who would advise, and whose advice would be listened to, to slacken her hasty course; to measure her steps a little more cautiously; and, instead of trying to escape difficulties, to endeavour to overcome them?
We know how much the lofty brotherhood of the poets look down on us the humble critics that venture our remarks on their productions; but one thing at least she may learn, and, learning, believe it true, that no poetry will continue to please, unless the style is correct, and pure, and good: that the flashes of genius contained in it may for a while dazzle and amuse; that the partial voice of friends and contemporaries may for a while preserve it; but that gradually and inevitably, as these pass away, a gloom will settle over it, its occasional brightness and temporary beauty will disappear, and it will sink, like others, into darkness and neglect. Possessing the genius Miss Barrett does, it is something almost dishonourable to avoid the labour necessary to produce it in its proper lustre; she is throwing away the rare and rich gift bestowed upon her, and not assisting nature in bringing to perfection the beautiful and odorous fruits of her prolific fancy.
The drama of Exile, in spite of its many poetical excellences, we do not like at all; nor do we approve of the light and careless (we will use no stronger epithet) language in which the speeches of Lucifer are conveyed; language, we presume, unceremoniously borrowed from the old myste- [p. 514→] ries; but which in them is most disagreeable, and not to be borne in days of purer and better taste and feeling. The subject treated in any manner we should not think a good one; and certainly not in the hands of a poet who is in the habit of indulging her fancy in the wildest flights. There is nothing to touch our feelings, for we sympathize neither with Lucifer nor Gabriel, and care nothing for either: and the ornamental, descriptive, and imaginative portions of the fable are too thickly set with brilliants to suit our taste: ex. gr. the Flower Spirits sing thus:
We are spirit-aromas
Of blossom and bloom;
We call your thoughts home, as
Ye breathe our perfume.
To the amaranth’s splendour
Afire on the slopes;
To the lily-bells tender,
And grey heliotropes.
To the poppy-plains keeping
Such dream-breath, and blé,
That the angels there stepping
Grew whiter to see.
To the nook set with moly
Ye jested one day in,
Till your smile wax’d too holy
And left your lips praying, &c.
We wonder what Mr. Rogers would say to such lines as these! or what he would think of the “white heights of womanhood,” (p. 35,) or “the golden weather,” (p. 58,) or, “footpath all your seas,” (p. 93,) or “without this rule of mandom,” (p. 93,) or such a rhyme as the following (p. 110)!
So when the day of God is
To the thick graves accompted,
Awaking the dead bodies,
The angel of the trumpet, &c.
But Miss Barrett holds accurate rhyming in sovereign contempt, and has invented a kind of pseudo-rhyme, or imitation-rhyme, which answers the purpose as well as plated goods do that of silver. We asked a young lady of our acquaintance to look out one of those imperfect roses for us, and she brought us a little nosegay of them in a very short time, such as “opal and people, feasting and question, eagles and vigils, presence and peasants, doorways and poor was, palace and chalice, branch and grange, panther and saunter, trident and silent, know from and snow storm, islands and silence, angels and candels, iron and inspiring, Æthiopia and mandragora, highway and mihi,” and numberless others, which must have fallen like drops of ink from the author’s pen. But hobbling as well as we can on these jilting final syllables, and hoping to draw purer air at last, we find ourselves plunging into atmosphere in which the multitude of words seems to prevent any ideas from finding room; or at least we find ourselves in a visionary sort of realm, where all thoughts and images are in masquerade, wearing fantastic visors, and clothed in motley garbs, as, for instance,
Then we wring from our souls their applicative strength,
And bend to the cord the strong bow of our ken;
And, bringing our lives to the level of others,
Hold the cup we have filled to their uses at length.
Help me, God! love me, man! I’m man among men;
And my life is a pledge
Of the cup of another’s, &c.
Or,
And, my Plato, the divine one,
If thou know the gods aright,
By their motions as they shine on
With a glorious trail of light;
And your noble Christian bishops,
Who mouthed grandly the last Greek,
Though the sponges on their hyssops
Were distaint with wine—too weak.
And what are sober people to think of such verses as these?
Then, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud the poems
Made by Tuscan flutes, or instruments more various of our own,
Read the pastoral parts of Spenser, or the subtler interflowings
Found in Petrarch’s sonnets,—here’s the book, the leaf is folded down.
Or at times a modern volume—Wordsworth’s solemn-thoughted idyl,
Howitt’s ballad-dew, or Tennyson’s enchanted reverie;
Or from Browning some pomegranate, which, if cut deep down the middle,
Shows a heart within, blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity, &c.
It may seem to Miss Barrett that we act a very unhandsome and ungallant part. We are ready and anxious to admire when we can with consistency to truth and taste; but we do know that obscurity is not sublimity, nor careless bad rhymes any mark of superior talent or poetical power. If Miss Barrett chooses to [p. 515→] walk the earth with the other children of humanity, we are ready to attend in her train; but if she prefers travelling in an air balloon, our gravity will not permit us to mount the car beside her; but we will hail her return to terra firma with satisfaction.
Reviewed:
Poems (EBB), London: Edward Moxon, 1844.
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