“For an oligarchic parliament,
And bribes well-meant.
What curse to another land assign,
When heavy-souled for the sins of mine?”
“Therefore,” the voice said, “shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
Because thou hast strength to see and hate
A foul thing done within thy gate.”
“Not so,” I answered once again.
“To curse, choose men.
For I, a woman, have only known
How the heart melts and the tears run down.”
“Therefore,” the voice said, “shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
Some women weep and curse, I say
(And no one marvels), night and day.
“And thou shalt take their part to-night,
Weep and write.
A curse from the depths of womanhood
Is very salt, and bitter, and good.”
So thus I wrote, and mourned indeed,
What all may read.
And thus, as was enjoined on me,
I send it over the Western Sea.
THE CURSE.
I.
Because ye have broken your own chain
With the strain
Of brave men climbing a Nation’s height,
Yet thence bear down with brand and thong
On souls of others, — for this wrong
This is the curse. Write.
Because yourselves are standing straight
In the state
Of Freedom’s foremost acolyte,
Yet keep calm footing all the time
On writhing bond-slaves, — for this crime
This is the curse. Write.
Because ye prosper in God’s name,
With a claim
To honour in the old world’s sight,
Yet do the fiend’s work perfectly
In strangling martyrs, — for this lie
This is the curse. Write.
II.
Ye shall watch while kings conspire
Round the people’s smouldering fire,
And, warm for your part,
Shall never dare — O shame!
To utter the thought into flame
Which burns at your heart.
This is the curse. Write.
Ye shall watch while nations strive
With the bloodhounds, die or survive,
Drop faint from their jaws,
Or throttle them backward to death;
And only under your breath
Shall favour the cause.
This is the curse. Write.
Ye shall watch while strong men draw
The nets of feudal law
To strangle the weak;
And, counting the sin for a sin,
Your soul shall be sadder within
Than the word ye shall speak.
This is the curse. Write.
When good men are praying erect
That Christ may avenge his elect
And deliver the earth,
The prayer in your ears, said low,
Shall sound like the tramp of a foe
That’s driving you forth.
This is the curse. Write.
When wise men give you their praise,
They shall pause in the heat of the phrase,
As if carried too far.
When ye boast your own charters kept true
Ye shall blush; for the thing which ye do
Derides what ye are.
This is the curse. Write.
When fools cast taunts at your gate,
Your scorn ye shall somewhat abate
As ye look o’er the wall;
For your conscience, tradition, and name
Explode with a deadlier blame
Than the worst of them all.
This is the curse. Write.
Go, wherever ill deeds shall be done,
Go, plant your flag in the sun
Beside the ill-doers!
And recoil from clenching the curse
Of God’s witnessing Universe
With a curse of yours.
THIS is the curse. Write.
Last Poems
In 1860 the Brownings returned to Rome, only to find that Barrett Browning’s sister Henrietta had died, which made her poorly and depressed. She became gradually weaker, often having recourse to morphine to ease her pain. She died on 29 June 1861 in her husband’s arms. Browning wrote that she died, “smilingly, happily, and with a face like a girl’s. … Her last word was — … ‘Beautiful’”. She was buried in the Protestant English Cemetery of Florence. On Monday, July 1, the shops in the section of the city around Casa Guidi were closed, while the poet’s passing was mourned with ‘unusual demonstrations’, as Browning recorded. The nature of her illness is still unclear, although medical and literary scholars have speculated that long-standing pulmonary problems, combined with palliative opiates, contributed to her death.
First published by Chapman and Hall in 1862, this final collection of poems was arranged and prepared by Robert Browning. It contains a range of works written during her time in Italy, once again demonstrating Barrett Browning’s intense feelings of support for the Italian cause, as well as a separate section of classical translations made from a variety of Greek and Latin authors.
Barrett Browning with her son, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, 1860
CONTENTS
LAST POEMS
LITTLE MATTIE.
A FALSE STEP.
VOID IN LAW.
LORD WALTER’S WIFE.
BIANCA AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES.
MY KATE.
A SONG FOR THE RAGGED SCHOOL OF LONDON.
MAY’S LOVE.
AMY’S CRUELTY.
MY HEART AND I.
THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD.
WHERE’S AGNES?
DE PROFUNDIS.
A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.
FIRST NEWS FROM VILLAFRANCA.
KING VICTOR EMANUEL ENTERING FLORENCE, APRIL, 1860.
THE SWORD OF CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI.
SUMMING UP IN ITALY.
DIED...
THE FORCED RECRUIT.
GARIBALDI.
ONLY A CURL.
A VIEW ACROSS THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA.
THE KING’S GIFT.
PARTING LOVERS.
MOTHER AND POET.
NATURE’S REMORSES.
THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH.
TRANSLATIONS.
PARAPHRASE ON THEOCRITUS.
THE CYCLOPS.
PARAPHRASES ON APULEIUS.
PSYCHE GAZING ON CUPID.
PSYCHE WAFTED BY ZEPHYRUS.
PSYCHE AND PAN.
PSYCHE PROPITIATING CERES.
PSYCHE AND THE EAGLE.
PSYCHE AND CERBERUS.
PSYCHE AND PROSERPINE.
PSYCHE AND VENUS.
MERCURY CARRIES PSYCHE TO OLYMPUS.
MARRIAGE OF PSYCHE AND CUPID.
PARAPHRASES ON NONNUS.
HOW BACCHUS FINDS ARIADNE SLEEPING.
HOW BACCHUS COMFORTS ARIADNE.
PARAPHRASE ON HESIOD.
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE.
PARAPHRASE ON EURIPIDES.
ANTISTROPHE.
PARAPHRASES ON HOMER.
HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.
THE DAUGHTERS OP PANDARUS.
PARAPHRASE ON ANACREON.
ODE TO THE SWALLOW.
PARAPHRASES ON HEINE.
OUT OF MY OWN GREAT WOE.
Robert Browning by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1855
The first edition
LAST POEMS
ADVERTISEMENT.
These Poems are given as they occur on a list drawn up last June. A few had already been printed in periodicals.
There is hardly such direct warrant for publishing the Translations; which were only intended, many years ago, to accompany and explain certain Engravings after ancient Gems, in the
projected work of a friend, by whose kindness they are now recovered: but as two of the original series (the “Adonis” of Bion and “Song to the Rose” from Achilles Tatius) have subsequently appeared, it is presumed that the remainder may not improperly follow.
A single recent version is added.
LONDON: February 1862.
TO “GRATEFUL FLORENCE,”
TO THE MUNICIPALITY HER REPRESENTATIVE,
AND TO TOMMASEO ITS SPOKESMAN,
MOST GRATEFULLY.
LITTLE MATTIE.
I.
Dead! Thirteen a month ago!
Short and narrow her life’s walk;
Lover’s love she could not know
Even by a dream or talk:
Too young to be glad of youth,
Missing honour, labour, rest,
And the warmth of a babe’s mouth
At the blossom of her breast.
Must you pity her for this
And for all the loss it is,
You, her mother, with wet face,
Having had all in your case?
II.
Just so young but yesternight,
Now she is as old as death.
Meek, obedient in your sight,
Gentle to a beck or breath
Only on last Monday! Yours,
Answering you like silver bells
Lightly touched! An hour matures:
You can teach her nothing else.
She has seen the mystery hid
Under Egypt’s pyramid:
By those eyelids pale and close
Now she knows what Rhamses knows.
III.
Cross her quiet hands, and smooth
Down her patient locks of silk,
Cold and passive as in truth
You your fingers in spilt milk
Drew along a marble floor;
But her lips you cannot wring
Into saying a word more,
“Yes,” or “No,” or such a thing:
Though you call and beg and wreak
Half your soul out in a shriek,
She will lie there in default
And most innocent revolt.
IV.
Ay, and if she spoke, maybe
She would answer, like the Son,
“What is now ‘twixt thee and me?”
Dreadful answer! better none.
Yours on Monday, God’s to-day!
Yours, your child, your blood, your heart,
Called ... you called her, did you say,
“Little Mattie” for your part?
Now already it sounds strange,
And you wonder, in this change,
What He calls His angel-creature,
Higher up than you can reach her.
V.
‘T was a green and easy world
As she took it; room to play
(Though one’s hair might get uncurled
At the far end of the day).
What she suffered she shook off
In the sunshine; what she sinned
She could pray on high, enough
To keep safe above the wind.
If reproved by God or you,
‘T was to better her, she knew;
And if crossed, she gathered still
‘T was to cross out something ill.
VI.
You, you had the right, you thought,
To survey her with sweet scorn,
Poor gay child, who had not caught
Yet the octave-stretch forlorn
Of your larger wisdom! Nay,
Now your places are changed so,
In that same superior way
She regards you dull and low
As you did herself exempt
From life’s sorrows. Grand contempt
Of the spirits risen awhile,
Who look back with such a smile!
VII.
There’s the sting of’t. That, I think,
Hurts the most a thousandfold!
To feel sudden, at a wink,
Some dear child we used to scold,
Praise, love both ways, kiss and tease,
Teach and tumble as our own,
All its curls about our knees,
Rise up suddenly full-grown.
Who could wonder such a sight
Made a woman mad outright?
Show me Michael with the sword
Rather than such angels, Lord!
A FALSE STEP.
I.
Sweet, thou hast trod on a heart.
Pass; there’s a world full of men;
And women as fair as thou art
Must do such things now and then.
II.
Thou only hast stepped unaware, —
Malice, not one can impute;
And why should a heart have been there
In the way of a fair woman’s foot?
III.
It was not a stone that could trip,
Nor was it a thorn that could rend:
Put up thy proud under-lip!
‘T was merely the heart of a friend.
IV.
And yet peradventure one day
Thou, sitting alone at the glass,
Remarking the bloom gone away,
Where the smile in its dimplement was,
V.
And seeking around thee in vain
From hundreds who flattered before,
Such a word as “Oh, not in the main
Do I hold thee less precious, but more!”...
VI.
Thou’lt sigh, very like, on thy part,
“Of all I have known or can know,
I wish I had only that Heart
I trod upon ages ago!”
VOID IN LAW.
I.
Sleep, little babe, on my knee,
Sleep, for the midnight is chill,
And the moon has died out in the tree,
And the great human world goeth ill.
Sleep, for the wicked agree:
Sleep, let them do as they will.
Sleep.
II.
Sleep, thou hast drawn from my breast
The last drop of milk that was good;
And now, in a dream, suck the rest,
Lest the real should trouble thy blood.
Suck, little lips dispossessed,
As we kiss in the air whom we would.
Sleep.
III.
O lips of thy father! the same,
So like! Very deeply they swore
When he gave me his ring and his name,
To take back, I imagined, no more!
And now is all changed like a game,
Though the old cards are used as of yore?
Sleep.
IV.
“Void in law,” said the Courts. Something wrong
In the forms? Yet, “Till death part us two,
I, James, take thee, Jessie,” was strong,
And ONE witness competent. True
Such a marriage was worth an old song,
Heard in Heaven though, as plain as the New.
Sleep.
V.
Sleep, little child, his and mine!
Her throat has the antelope curve,
And her cheek just the colour and line
Which fade not before him nor swerve:
Yet she has no child! — the divine
Seal of right upon loves that deserve.
Sleep.
VI.
My child! though the world take her part,
Saying “She was the woman to choose;
He had eyes, was a man in his heart,” —
We twain the decision refuse:
We ... weak as I am, as thou art, ...
Cling on to him, never to loose.
Sleep.
VII.
He thinks that, when done with this place,
All’s ended? he’ll new-stamp the ore?
Yes, Caesar’s —
but not in our case.
Let him learn we are waiting before
The grave’s mouth, the heaven’s gate, God’s face
With implacable love evermore.
Sleep.
VIII.
He’s ours, though he kissed her but now,
He’s ours, though she kissed in reply:
He’s ours, though himself disavow,
And God’s universe favour the lie;
Ours to claim, ours to clasp, ours below,
Ours above, ... if we live, if we die.
Sleep.
IX.
Ah baby, my baby, too rough
Is my lullaby? What have I said?
Sleep! When I’ve wept long enough
I shall learn to weep softly instead,
And piece with some alien stuff
My heart to lie smooth for thy head.
Sleep.
X.
Two souls met upon thee, my sweet;
Two loves led thee out to the sun:
Alas, pretty hands, pretty feet,
If the one who remains (only one)
Set her grief at thee, turned in a heat
To thine enemy, — were it well done?
Sleep.
XI.
May He of the manger stand near
And love thee! An infant He came
To His own who rejected Him here,
But the Magi brought gifts all the same.
I hurry the cross on my Dear!
My gifts are the griefs I declaim!
Sleep.
LORD WALTER’S WIFE.
I.
“But why do you go?” said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the
Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Page 116