Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 125
MOTHER AND POET.
NATURE’S REMORSES.
THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH.
PARAPHRASE ON THEOCRITUS.
THE CYCLOPS.
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.
HOW BACCHUS FINDS ARIADNE SLEEPING.
HOW BACCHUS COMFORTS ARIADNE.
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE.
ANTISTROPHE.
HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.
THE DAUGHTERS OP PANDARUS.
ODE TO THE SWALLOW.
OUT OF MY OWN GREAT WOE.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
A-D E-H I-L M-O P-S T-V W-Z
A CHILD ASLEEP.
A CHILD’S GRAVE AT FLORENCE.
A CHILD’S THOUGHT OF GOD.
A COURT LADY.
A CURSE FOR A NATION.
A DEAD ROSE.
A DENIAL.
A DRAMA OF EXILE
A FALSE STEP.
A FLOWER IN A LETTER.
A HEAVY HEART, BELOVED, HAVE I BORNE
A LAMENT FOR ADONIS
A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE.
A MAN’S REQUIREMENTS.
A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.
A PORTRAIT.
A REED.
A RHAPSODY OF LIFE’S PROGRESS.
A ROMANCE OF THE GANGES.
A SABBATH MORNING AT SEA.
A SEA-SIDE MEDITATION.
A SEA-SIDE WALK.
A SONG AGAINST SINGING.
A SONG FOR THE RAGGED SCHOOL OF LONDON.
A SUPPLICATION FOR LOVE.
A TALE OF VILLAFRANCA.
A THOUGHT FOR A LONELY DEATH-BED.
A VALEDICTION.
A VIEW ACROSS THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA.
A VISION OF LIFE AND DEATH.
A VISION OF POETS
A WOMAN’S SHORTCOMINGS.
A YEAR’S SPINNING.
ACCUSE ME NOT, BESEECH THEE, THAT I WEAR
ADEQUACY.
AMY’S CRUELTY.
AN APPREHENSION.
AN AUGUST VOICE.
AN ESSAY ON MIND. BOOK I.
AN ESSAY ON MIND. BOOK II.
AN ISLAND.
AND THEREFORE IF TO LOVE CAN BE DESERT
AND WILT THOU HAVE ME FASHION INTO SPEECH
AND YET, BECAUSE THOU OVERCOMEST SO
ANTISTROPHE.
AURORA LEIGH. EIGHTH BOOK.
AURORA LEIGH. FIFTH BOOK.
AURORA LEIGH. FIRST BOOK.
AURORA LEIGH. FOURTH BOOK.
AURORA LEIGH. NINTH BOOK
AURORA LEIGH. SECOND BOOK.
AURORA LEIGH. SEVENTH BOOK.
AURORA LEIGH. SIXTH BOOK.
AURORA LEIGH. THIRD BOOK.
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE.
BATTLE OF MARATHON: BOOK I.
BATTLE OF MARATHON: BOOK II
BATTLE OF MARATHON: BOOK III.
BATTLE OF MARATHON: BOOK IV.
BECAUSE THOU HAST THE POWER AND OWN’ST THE GRACE
BELOVED, MY BELOVED, WHEN I THINK
BELOVED, THOU HAST BROUGHT ME MANY FLOWERS
BERTHA IN THE LANE.
BIANCA AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES.
BUT ONLY THREE IN ALL GOD’S UNIVERSE
CALLS ON THE HEART.
CAN IT BE RIGHT TO GIVE WHAT I CAN GIVE?
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. PART I.
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. PART II.
CATARINA TO CAMOENS
CHANGE UPON CHANGE.
CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON.
CHRISTMAS GIFTS.
COMFORT.
CONFESSIONS.
COWPER’S GRAVE.
CROWNED AND BURIED.
CROWNED AND WEDDED.
DE PROFUNDIS.
DIED...
DISCONTENT.
EARTH AND HER PRAISERS.
EARTH.
EPITAPH.
EXAGGERATION.
FELICIA HEMANS
FIRST NEWS FROM VILLAFRANCA.
FIRST TIME HE KISSED ME, HE BUT ONLY KISSED
FUTURITY.
GARIBALDI.
GO FROM ME. YET I FEEL THAT I SHALL STAND
GRIEF.
HEAVEN AND EARTH.
HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.
HECTOR IN THE GARDEN.
HIRAM POWERS’ “GREEK SLAVE.”
HOW BACCHUS COMFORTS ARIADNE.
HOW BACCHUS FINDS ARIADNE SLEEPING.
HOW DO I LOVE THEE? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS
HUGH STUART BOYD.
HUGH STUART BOYD.
HUGH STUART BOYD.
HUMAN LIFE’S MYSTERY.
HYMN.
I LIFT MY HEAVY HEART UP SOLEMNLY
I LIVED WITH VISIONS FOR MY COMPANY
I NEVER GAVE A LOCK OF HAIR AWAY
I THANK ALL WHO HAVE LOVED ME IN THEIR HEARTS
I THINK OF THEE! — MY THOUGHTS DO TWINE AND BUD
I THOUGHT ONCE HOW THEOCRITUS HAD SUNG
IDOLS.
IF I LEAVE ALL FOR THEE, WILT THOU EXCHANGE
IF THOU MUST LOVE ME, LET IT BE FOR NOUGHT
INCLUSIONS.
INDEED THIS VERY LOVE WHICH IS MY BOAST
INSUFFICIENCY.
INSUFFICIENCY.
IRREPARABLENESS.
IS IT INDEED SO? IF I LAY HERE DEAD
ISOBEL’S CHILD.
ITALY AND THE WORLD.
KING VICTOR EMANUEL ENTERING FLORENCE, APRIL, 1860.
L. E. L.’S LAST QUESTION.
LADY GERALDINE’S COURTSHIP:
LESSONS FROM THE GORSE.
LET THE WORLD’S SHARPNESS, LIKE A CLASPING KNIFE
LIFE AND LOVE.
LIFE.
LITTLE MATTIE.
LORD WALTER’S WIFE.
LOVE.
LOVED ONCE.
MAN AND NATURE.
MARRIAGE OF PSYCHE AND CUPID.
MAY’S LOVE.
MEMORY AND HOPE.
MEMORY.
MERCURY CARRIES PSYCHE TO OLYMPUS.
MINSTRELSY.
MOTHER AND POET.
MOUNTAINEER AND POET.
MY DOVES.
MY FUTURE WILL NOT COPY FAIR MY PAST —
MY HEART AND I.
MY KATE.
MY LETTERS! ALL DEAD PAPER, MUTE AND WHITE!
MY OWN BELOVED, WHO HAST LIFTED ME
MY POET, THOU CANST TOUCH ON ALL THE NOTES
NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY.
NATURE’S REMORSES.
NIGHT AND THE MERRY MAN.
ODE TO THE SWALLOW.
OH, YES! THEY LOVE THROUGH ALL THIS WORLD OF OURS!
ON A PICTURE OF RIEGO’S WIDOW, PLACED IN THE EXHIBITION.
ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH BY B. R. HAYDON.
ONLY A CURL.
OUT OF MY OWN GREAT WOE.
PAIN IN PLEASURE.
PARAPHRASE ON THEOCRITUS.
PARDON, OH, PARDON, THAT MY SOUL SHOULD MAKE
PARTING LOVERS.
PAST AND FUTURE.
PATIENCE TAUGHT BY NATURE.
PERPLEXED MUSIC.
PROMETHEUS BOUND (1833 VERSION)
PROMETHEUS BOUND (1850 VERSION)
PROOF AND DISPROOF.
PSYCHE AND CERBERUS.
PSYCHE AND PAN.
PSYCHE AND PROSERPINE.
PSYCHE AND THE EAGLE.
PSYCHE AND VENUS.
PSYCHE GAZING ON CUPID.
PSYCHE PROPITIATING CERES.
PSYCHE WAFTED BY ZEPHYRUS.
QUEEN ANNELIDA AND FALSE ARCITE.
QUESTION AND ANSWER.
REMONSTRANCE.
REPLY.
RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY.
RIGA’S LAST SONG.
SAY OVER AGAIN, AND YET ONCE OVER AGAIN
; SERAPHIM. EPILOGUE.
SERAPHIM. PART THE FIRST.
SERAPHIM. PART THE SECOND.
SLEEPING AND WATCHING.
SONG OF THE ROSE.
SOUNDS.
SPENSERIAN STANZAS ON A BOY OF THREE YEARS OLD.
STANZAS OCCASIONED BY A PASSAGE IN MR. EMERSON’S JOURNAL
STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF LORD BYRON.
STANZAS: I MAY SING; BUT MINSTREL’S SINGING.
SUBSTITUTION.
SUMMING UP IN ITALY.
TEARS.
THAT DAY.
THE APPEAL.
THE AUTUMN.
THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD.
THE CLAIM.
THE COMPLAINT OF ANNELIDA TO FALSE ARCITE.
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.
THE CRY OF THE HUMAN.
THE CYCLOPS.
THE DANCE.
THE DAUGHTERS OP PANDARUS.
THE DEAD PAN.
THE DEATH-BED OF TERESA DEL RIEGO.
THE DESERTED GARDEN.
THE DREAM.
THE EXILE’S RETURN.
THE FACE OF ALL THE WORLD IS CHANGED, I THINK
THE FIRST TIME THAT THE SUN ROSE ON THINE OATH
THE FORCED RECRUIT.
THE FOURFOLD ASPECT.
THE HOUSE OF CLOUDS.
THE IMAGE OF GOD.
THE KING’S GIFT.
THE LADY’S “YES.”
THE LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY.
THE LITTLE FRIEND.
THE LOOK.
THE LOST BOWER.
THE MASK.
THE MEANING OF THE LOOK.
THE MEASURE.
THE MEDIATOR.
THE MOURNING MOTHER OF THE DEAD BLIND
THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH.
THE PAST.
THE PET-NAME.
THE PICTURE GALLERY AT PENSHURST.
THE POET AND THE BIRD.
THE POET.
THE POET’S VOW
THE PRAYER.
THE PRISONER.
THE PROSPECT.
THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN’S NEST.
THE ROMAUNT OF MARGRET.
THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE.
THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM’S POINT.
THE SEA-MEW.
THE SERAPH AND POET.
THE SLEEP.
THE SOUL’S EXPRESSION.
THE SOUL’S RIALTO HATH ITS MERCHANDISE
THE SOUL’S TRAVELLING.
THE STUDENT.
THE SWORD OF CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI.
THE TEMPEST.
THE TWO SAYINGS.
THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS.
THE VISION OF FAME.
THE WEAKEST THING.
THE WEEPING SAVIOUR.
THE YOUNG QUEEN.
THOU HAST THY CALLING TO SOME PALACE-FLOOR
TO ——
TO A BOY.
TO A POET’S CHILD.
TO BETTINE, THE CHILD-FRIEND OF GOETHE.
TO FLUSH, MY DOG.
TO GEORGE SAND.
TO GEORGE SAND.
TO MY FATHER ON HIS BIRTH-DAY.
TO THE MEMORY OF SIR UVEDALE PRICE, BART.
TO VICTOIRE, ON HER MARRIAGE.
TWO SKETCHES.
UNLIKE ARE WE, UNLIKE, O PRINCELY HEART!
VANITIES.
VERSES TO MY BROTHER.
VICTORIA’S TEARS.
VOID IN LAW.
WEARINESS.
WEEP, AS IF YOU THOUGHT OF LAUGHTER!
WHAT CAN I GIVE THEE BACK, O LIBERAL
WHEN OUR TWO SOULS STAND UP ERECT AND STRONG
WHEN WE MET FIRST AND LOVED, I DID NOT BUILD
WHERE’S AGNES?
WINE OF CYPRUS.
WISDOM UNAPPLIED.
WITH THE SAME HEART, I SAID, I’LL ANSWER THEE
WORK AND CONTEMPLATION.
WORK.
YES, CALL ME BY MY PET-NAME! LET ME HEAR
YET, LOVE, MERE LOVE, IS BEAUTIFUL INDEED
The Non-Fiction
The Via Bocca di Leone, Rome, where the Brownings rented an apartment, 1854-1855
The apartments today
Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets
First published in The Athenæum, 1842
CONTENTS
PART I.
PART II.
SOUL AND BODY.
PART III.
PART IV.
PART I.
THE Greek language was a strong intellectual life, stronger than any similar one which has lived in the breath of “articulately speaking men,” and survived it. No other language has lived so long and died so hard, – pang by pang, each with a dolphin colour – yielding reluctantly to that doom of death and silence which must come at last to the speaker and the speech. Wonderful it is to look back fathoms down the great past, thousands of years away – where whole generations lie unmade to dust – where the sounding of their trumpets, and the rushing of their scythed chariots, and that great shout which brought down the birds stone dead from beside the sun, are more silent than the dog breathing at our feet, or the fly’s paces on our window-pane; and yet, from the heart of which silence, to feel words rise up like a smoke – words of men, even words of women, uttered at first, perhaps, in “excellent low voices,” but audible and distinct to our times, through “the dreadful pother” of life and death, the hissing of the steam-engine and the cracking of the cerement! It is wonderful to look back and listen. Blind Homer spoke this Greek after blind Demodocus, with a quenchless light about his brows, which he felt through his blindness. Pindar rolled his chariots in it, prolonging the clamour of the games. Sappho’s heart beat through it, and heaved up the world’s. Æschylus strained it to the stature of his high thoughts. Plato crowned it with his divine peradventures. Aristophanes made it drunk with the wine of his fantastic merriment. The later Platonists wove their souls away in it, out of sight of other souls. The first Christians heard in it God’s new revelation, and confessed their Christ in it from the suppliant’s knee, and presently from the bishop’s throne. To all times, and their transitions, the language lent itself. Through the long summer of above two thousand years, from the grasshopper Homer sang of, to that grasshopper of Manuel Phile, which might indeed have been “a burden,” we can in nowise mistake the chirping of the bloodless, deathless, wondrous, creature. It chirps on in Greek still. At the close of that long summer, though Greece lay withered to her root, her academic groves and philosophic gardens all leafless and bare, still from the depth of the desolation rose up the voice –
O cuckoo, shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?
which did not grow hoarse, like other cuckoos, but sang not unsweetly, if more faintly than before. Strangely vital was this Greek language –
Some straggling spirits were behind, to be
Laid out with most thrift on its memory.
It seemed as if nature could not part with so lovely a tune, as if she felt it ringing on still in her head – or as if she hummed it to herself, as the watchman used to do, with “night wandering round” him, when he watched wearily on the palace roof of the doomed house of Atreus.
But, although it is impossible to touch with a thought the last estate of Greek poetical literature without the wonder occurring of its being still Greek, still poetry, – though we are startled by the phenomenon of life-like sounds coming up from the ashes of a mighty people – at the aspect of an Alcestis returned from the dead, veiled but identical, – we are forced to admit, after the first pause of admiration, that a change has passed upon the great thing we recognize, a change proportionate to the greatness, and involving a caducity. Therefore, in adventuring some imperfect account of the Greek ecclesiastical poets it is right to premise it with the full and frank admission, that they are not accomplished poets, – that they do not, in fact, reach with their highest lifted hand, the lowest foot of those whom the world has honoured as Greek poets, but who have honoured the world more by their poetry. The instrument of the Greek tongue w
as, at the Christian era, an antique instrument, somewhat worn, somewhat stiff in the playing, somewhat deficient in notes which it had once, somewhat feeble and uncertain in such as it retained. The subtlety of the ancient music, the variety of its cadences, the intersections of sweetness in the rise and fall of melodies, rounded and contained in the unity of its harmony, are as utterly lost to this later period as the digamma was to an earlier one. We must not seek for them; we shall not find them; their place knows them no more. Not only was there a lack in the instrument, – there was also a deficiency in the players. Thrown aside, after the old flute-story, by a goddess, it was taken up by a mortal hand – by the hand of men gifted and noble in their generation, but belonging to it intellectually, even by their gifts and their nobleness. Another immortal, a true genius, might, nay, would, have asserted himself, and wrung a poem of almost the ancient force from the infirm instrument. It is easy to fancy, and to wish that it had been so – that some martyr or bishop, when bishops were martyrs, and the earth was still warm with the Sacrificial blood, had been called to the utterance of his soul’s devotion, with the emphasis of a great poet’s power. No one, however, was so called. Of all the names which shall presently be reckoned, and of which it is the object of this sketch to give some account, beseeching its readers to hold several in honourable remembrance, not one can be crowned with a steady hand as a true complete poet’s name. Such a crown is a sacred dignity, and, as it should not be touched idly, it must not be used here. A born Warwick could find, here, no head for a crown.
Yet we shall reckon names “for remembrance,” and speak of things not ignoble – of meek heroic Christians, and heavenward faces washed serene by tears – strong knees bending humbly for the very strength’s sake – bright intellects burning often to the winds in fantastic shapes, but oftener still with an honest inward heat, vehement on heart and brain – most eloquent fallible lips that convince us less than they persuade – a divine loquacity of human falsities – poetical souls, that are not souls of poets! Surely not ignoble things! And the reader will perceive at once that the writer’s heart is not laid beneath the wheels of a cumbrous ecclesiastical antiquity – that its intent is to love what is loveable, to honour what is honourable, and to kiss both through the dust of centuries, but by no means to recognize a hierarchy, whether in the church or in literature.
If, indeed, an opinion on the former relation might be regarded here, it would be well to suggest, that to these “Fathers,” as we call them filially, with heads turned away, we owe more reverence for the greyness of their beards than theologic gratitude for the outstretching of their hands. Devoted and disinterested as many among them were, they, themselves, were at most times evidently and consciously surer of their love, in a theologic sense, than of their knowledge in any. It is no place for a reference to religious controversy; and if it were, we are about to consider them simply as poets, without trenching on the very wide ground of their prose works and ecclesiastical opinions. Still one passing remark may be admissible, since the fact is so remarkable – how any body of Christian men can profess to derive their opinions from “the opinions of the Fathers,” when all bodies might do so equally. These fatherly opinions are, in truth, multiform, and multitudinous as the fatherly “sublime grey hairs.” There is not only a father a-piece for every child, but, not to speak it unfilially, a piece of every father for every child. Justin Martyr would, of himself, set up a wilderness of sects, besides “something over” for the future ramifications of each several one. What then should be done with our “Fathers”? Leave them to perish by the time-Ganges, as old men innocent and decrepit, and worthy of no use or honour? Surely not. We may learn of them, if God will let us, love, and love is much – we may learn devotedness of them and warm our hearts by theirs; and this, although we rather distrust them as commentators, and utterly refuse them the reverence of our souls, in the capacity of theological oracles.