"Dreadful deeds
Might have ensued;"
and would have ensued--
"Had not soon
The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,
Hung forth in heaven his golden scales."--
"The fiend look'd up and knew
His mounted scale aloft; nor more, but fled
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night."
But in the interview which Miss Barrett describes between Gabriel and
Lucifer, no such headlong propensity to act is manifested by either
party--no such crisis ensues to interrupt the fray. Gabriel is satisfied
with giving utterance to a feeble threat, which, when he finds that
Lucifer pays no attention to it, he never attempts to carry into
execution. For no apparent cause, he suddenly changes his tone, and
condescends to hold parley with his foe on a variety of not very
interesting particulars, informing him, among other things, that he
"does not dream!"
The following is Lucifer's description of our First Mother. It is
impregnated with Miss Barrett's mannerisms, and strongly characterized
by that fantastical and untrue mode of picturing sensible objects, which
the example of Shelley and Keates tended especially to foster, if they
were not the first to introduce it:--
"_Lucifer._ Curse freely! curses thicken. Why, this Eve
Who thought me once part worthy of her ear,
And somewhat wiser than the other beasts,--
Drawing together _her large globes of eyes,
The light of which is throbbing in and out
Around their continuity of gaze_,--
Knots her fair eyebrows in so hard a knot,
And, down from _her white heights of womanhood_,
Looks on me so amazed,--I scarce should fear
To wager such an apple as she pluck'd,
Against one riper from the tree of life,
That she could curse too--as a woman may--
_Smooth in the vowels_."
We do not very well understand why Eve's curses should have been
smoother in the vowels than in the consonants. But as we are no great
elocutionists, or at all well conversant with the mysteries of
"labials," "dentals," and "gutterals," we shall not contest the point
with Lucifer, lest we should only expose our own ignorance.
Respecting the leading conception of her drama, Miss Barrett writes
thus:--"My subject was the new and strange experience of the fallen
humanity as it went forth from Paradise into the wilderness; with a
peculiar reference to Eve's allotted grief, which, considering that
self-sacrifice belonging to her womanhood, and the consciousness of
originating the Fall to her offence--appeared to me imperfectly
apprehended hitherto, and more expressible by a woman than a man." No
wonder that Miss Barrett failed in her undertaking. In the conception of
Eve's grief as distinguished from Adam's, and as coloured by the
circumstances of her situation--namely, by the consciousness that she
had been the _first_ to fall, and the proximate cause of Adam's
transgression--there is certainly no sufficient foundation to sustain
the weight of a dramatic poem. At the most, it might have furnished
materials for a sonnet. It therefore detracts nothing from the genius of
Miss Barrett to say, that her attempt has been unsuccessful. She has
tried to make bricks not only without straw, but almost without clay;
and that being the case, the marvel is that she should have succeeded so
well.
"There was room at least," continues Miss Barrett, "for lyrical emotion
in those first steps into the wilderness, in that first sense of
desolation after wrath, in that first audible gathering of the
recriminating 'groan of the whole creation,' in that first darkening of
the hills from the recoiling feet of angels, and in that first silence
of the voice of God." There certainly _was_ room for lyrical emotion in
these first steps into wilderness. All nature might most appropriately
be supposed to break forth in melodious regrets around the footsteps of
the wanderers: but we cannot think that Miss Barrett has done justice to
nature's strains. Unless lyrical emotion be expressed in language as
clear as a mountain rill, and as well defined as the rocks over which it
runs, it is much better left unsung. The merit of all lyrical poetry
consists in the clearness and cleanness with which it is cut; no tags or
loose ends can any where be permitted. But Miss Barrett's lyrical
compositions are frequently so inarticulate, so slovenly, and so
defective, both in rhythm and rhyme, that we are really surprised how a
person of her powers could have written them, and how a person of any
judgment could have published them. Take a specimen, not by any means
the worst, from the "Song of the morning star to Lucifer:"--
"Mine orbed image sinks
Back from thee, back from thee,
As thou art fallen, methinks,
Back from me, back from me.
O my light-bearer,
Could another fairer
Lack to thee, lack to thee?
Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
I loved thee, with the fiery love of stars.
Who love by burning, and by loving move,
Too near the throned Jehovah, not to love.
Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
Their brows flash fast on me from gliding cars,
Pale-passion'd for my loss.
Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
"Mine orbed heats drop cold
Down from thee, down from thee,
As fell thy grace of old
Down from me, down from me.
O my light-bearer,
Is another fairer
Won to thee, won to thee?
Ai, ai, Heosphoros,
Great love preceded loss,
Known to thee, known to thee.
Ai, ai!
Thou, breathing they communicable grace
Of life into my light
Mine astral faces, from thine angel face,
Hast inly fed,
And flooded me with radiance overmuch
From thy pure height.
Ai, ai!
Thou, with calm, floating pinions both ways spread,
Erect, irradiated,
Didst sting my wheel of glory
On, on before thee,
Along the Godlight, by a quickening touch!
Ha, ha!
Around, around the firmamental ocean,
I swam expanding with delirious fire!
Around, around, around, in blind desire
To be drawn upward to the Infinite--
Ha, ha!"
But enough of _Ai ai Heosphoros_. It may be very right for ladies to
learn Greek--not, however, if it is to lead them to introduce such
expressions as this into the language of English poetry.
Nor do we think that Miss Barrett's lyrical style improves when she
descends to themes of more human and proximate interest, and makes the
"earth-spirits" and the "flower-spirits" pour their lamentations into
the ears of the exiled pair. The following is the conclusion of the
_láyment_ (as Miss Barrett pronounces the word _lament_) of the
"flower-spirits:"--
"We pluck at your raiment,
We stroke down your hair,
We faint in our _láment_,
And pine into air.
Fare-ye-well--farewell!
The Eden scents, no longer sensible,
Expire at Eden's door!
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before:
Farewell! the flowers of Eden
Ye shall smell never more."
Would not Miss Barrett's hair have stood on end if Virgil had written
"Arma virumque _canto_?" Yet surely that false quantity would have been
not more repugnant to the genius of Latin verse than her transposition
of accent in the word _lamént_ is at variance with the plainest
proprieties of the English tongue.