Even now, with agonizing grasp To all in life its love would clasp, Yet why, immortal, vital spark! Look up, my soul, through prospects dark, Forget, forego thy earthly part, Thine heavenly being trust: Ah, vain attempt! my coward heart Oh ye! who soothe the pangs of death Still, still retain this fleeting breath, Who breathe for me the tender sigh, Whose kindness (though far, far removed) Pride of my life, esteemed, beloved, Oh! do not quite your friend forget, And speak of her with fond regret Who asks your lingering thoughts. On the 29th of June, 1861, this estimable and accomplished lady "put on immor. tality" at Florence, bequeathing to the world a vast amount of intellectual wealth that will endure, to teach the loftiest lessons, to give exceeding joy, and to confer the purest happiness," to the end of time." Little of her outer life is known; nor is it needful that it should be known: her days were passed in calm repose, with the husband by whom she was beloved and reverenced. Extreme delicacy of health rendered essential an almost total absence from "society :" her later years were spent entirely in Italy: "at home" she had congenial tastes as well as occupations, and the result is that the compositions that bear her name are very numerous as well as of rare value, for they were in no case forced from her by the exigencies to which so many Poets have been, unhappily, subjected. If she wrote and printed much, she issued nothing that was careless or heedless, and very little which the reader might desire to see improved by any after thought. Although previous to 1836 some Poems from her pen had found their way into print, it was in that year her literary life may be said to have commenced. I borrow a passage from the "Athenæum" of July 6, 1861, which contains a touching and eloquent tribute to her memory. "In the year 1836, The Romaunt of Margret,' anonymously published in the New Monthly Magazine, startled all true readers of poetry by its daring and deep originality, and clung to the memories of some with such force that they could not be contented without knowing from what stranger came so new and so real an addition to their pleasures." The fame of Miss Elizabeth Barrett soon became "established:" it continued to increase, as year after year, works from her pen issued from the press; and she undoubtedly takes a place among the very highest of the Poets who have written "in the English tongue." I was Editor of the "New Monthly" when the Poem referred to appeared in that Magazine; and I recall with exceeding pleasure the delight I enjoyed in perusing it: it came to me as a mere chance communication: the signature E. B. B. (so it was even then, although the name of Browning did not belong to her until some years afterwards) was quite unknown, and I printed it with some misgiving that a composition so remarkable, so full of original thought and beauty, was not the production of a new writer, but possibly of one who was already famous. Subsequently came other contributions from her pen; and it is among the happiest of my memories that mine was the privilege to be her first introducer to the world for which she has done so much. I had the gratification to receive from Mrs. Browning more than one acknowledgment on that head. Of the time of her birth, and of her marriage (in 1846) to the accomplished Poet whose name she bore and on which she conferred honour, so little is known that we should but confuse our readers if we sought to give details of her useful but uneventful life; and this brief memoir may be fitly closed by another extract from the "Athenæum." "If not strikingly fair to see, she was gentle and unobtrusive in her manners, with a charm which stood in the stead of health and beauty. Never did woman so full of intellectual wealth and poetical fancy take part in society with such an absence of pretension as she did. She was fearless in speculation, credulons in adopting theories, stanch in her partisanship, to no common degree,-the most faithful of friends, the most loving of human beings, to all her kinsfolk. Her intrepidity of thought, her range of acquirement, her power over the poet's art, are the world's property, and her works in part represent these. Those whom she loved, and whom she has left, will remember her (so long as life lasts) by her womanly grace and tenderness, yet more than by her extraordinary and courageous genius." If as yet she has not received in her own country the posthumous honours to which she is entitled-except by the large popularity her works have obtained-at least the City in which she died accorded her fitting homage. The municipality of Florence placed a marble slab on the wall of the house she occupied there: it is thus inscribed:"Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived, wrote, and died in this house: she was a woman who, with a woman's heart, possessed the wisdom of a sage and the spirit of a true poet, and made her poetry a golden band between England and Italy." Is the time to be much longer postponed when England will thus honour her illustrious "dead ?" Ir is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's decaying; It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying: Yet let the grief and humbleness as low as silence languish : Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her anguish. O poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing! O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging! O men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling, Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling! And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story, How discord on the music fell and darkness on the glory, And how when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering lights departed, He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted,— He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation, With quiet sadness and no gloom I learn to think upon him, With meekness that is gratefulness to God whose heaven hath won him, Who suffered once the madness-cloud to His own love to blind him, But gently led the blind along where breath and bird could find him; And wrought within his shattered brain such quick poetic senses As hills have language for, and stars, harmonious influences: The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within its number, And silent shadows from the trees refreshed him like a slumber. Wild timid hares were drawn from woods to share his homecaresses, Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernesses: The very world by God's constraint, from falsehood's ways removing, Its women and its men became, beside him, true and loving. And though, in blindness he remained unconscious of that guiding, And things provided came without the sweet sense of providing, He testified this solemn truth, while frenzy desolated, Like a sick child that knoweth not his mother while she blesses And drops upon his burning brow the coolness of her kisses, That turns his fevered eyes around- "My mother! where's my mother?" As if such tender words and deeds could come from any other! The fever gone, with leaps of heart he sees her bending o'er him, Her face all pale from watchful love, the unweary love she bore him! Thus woke the poet from the dream his life's long fever gave him, Beneath those deep pathetic eyes which closed in death to save him. Thus? oh, not thus! no type of earth can image that awaking, Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs, round him breaking, Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted, deserted!' Deserted! Who hath dreamt that when the cross in darkness rested, Upon the Victim's hidden face no love was manifested? What frantic hands outstretched have e'er the atoning drops averted? What tears have washed them from the soul, that one should be deserted? Deserted! God could separate from his own essence rather; And Adam's sins have swept between the righteous Son and Father: Yea, once, Immanuel's orphaned cry His universe hath shaken It went up single, echoless, "My God, I am forsaken!" It went up from the Holy's lips amid His lost creation, That, of the lost, no son should use those words of desolation! That earth's worst phrenzies, marring hope, should mar not hope's fruition, And I, on Cowper's grave, should see his rapture in a vision. |