_Earth Spirits._
"And we scorn you! there's no pardon
Which can lean to you aright!
When your bodies take the guerdon
Of the death-curse in our sight,
Then the bee that hummeth lowest shall transcend you.
Then ye shall not move an eyelid
Though the stars look down your eyes;
And the earth, which ye defiled,
She shall show you to the skies,--
Lo! these kings of ours--who sought to comprehend you.'
_First Spirit._
And the elements shall boldly
All your dust to dust constrain;
Unresistedly and coldly,
I will smite you with my rain!
From the slowest of my frosts is no receding.
_Second Spirit._
And my little worm, appointed
To assume a royal part,
He shall reign, crown'd and anointed,
O'er the noble human heart!
Give him counsel against losing of that Eden!"
In one of the lyrical effusions, man is informed that when he goes to
heaven--
"Then a _sough of glory_
Shall your entrance greet,
Ruffling round the doorway
The smooth radiance it shall meet."
We wonder what meaning Miss Barrett attaches to the word _sough_! It is
a term expressive of the dreary sighing of autumnal winds, or any sound
still more disconsolate and dreary; and therefore, to talk of a "sough
of glory," is to talk neither more nor less than absolute nonsense.
What can be more unlyrical than this verse?
"Live, work on, oh, Earthy!
By the Actual's tension
Sped the arrow worthy
Of a pure ascension."
We have said that the lyrical effusions interspersed throughout the
"Drama of Exile," are very slovenly and defective in point of rhyme.
What can be worse than "Godhead" and "wooded," "treading" and "Eden,"
"glories" and "floorwise," "calmly" and "palm-tree," "atoms" and
"fathoms," "accompted" and "trumpet," and a hundred others? What can be
worse, do we ask? We answer that there is one species of rhyme which
Miss Barrett is sometimes, though, we are happy to say, very rarely,
guilty of, which is infinitely more reprehensible than any of these
inaccuracies. We allude to the practice of affixing an _r_ to the end of
certain words, in order to make them rhyme with other words which
terminate in that letter. Writers who are guilty of this atrocity are
not merely to be condemned as bad rhymesters: they are to be blamed on
the far more serious ground that they give the sanction and authority of
print to one of the vilest vulgarisms which pollutes the oral language
of certain provincial societies. What makes the practice so offensive in
literary composition is the fact, that the barbarism is one which may
sometimes be actually heard falling from living lips. But for this, it
would be pardonable. We verily believe that Miss Barrett herself does
not talk of "Laura_r_" and "Matilda_r_;" we verily believe that she
would consider any one who does so no fit associate for herself in point
of manners or education:--yet she scruples not to make "Aceldama"(r)
rhyme to "tamer," and "Onora"(r) rhyme to "o'er her." When we think of
these things, we turn to the following "stage-direction" with which her
"Drama of Exile" concludes--"There is a sound through the silence _as of
the falling tears of an angel_." That angel must have been a distressed
critic like ourselves.
Next to the "Drama of Exile," the longest poem in the collection is the
composition entitled "A Vision of Poets." This poem is designed, says
our authoress, "to indicate the necessary relations of genius to
suffering and self-sacrifice." It is stamped throughout with the
thoughtful earnestness of Miss Barrett's character, and is, on the
whole, a very impressive performance. But it would have been more
impressive still if it had been composed after less vicious models, or
if Miss Barrett had trusted more to a style prompted by her own native
powers, and less to the fantastical modes of phraseology which have been
introduced into literature by certain inferior artists of this and the
preceding generation. We cannot read it, however, without appreciating
the fervour which stirs the soul of the authoress through all its
depths, when she declares and upholds the sacred mission of the poet,
and teaches him that he must embrace his destiny with gratitude and
pride, even though the crown which encircles his living brows be one in
which the thorns far out-number the laurel leaves. We shall grace our
pages with a series of portraits, in which Miss Barrett sketches off
first the true poets and then the pretenders. They certainly contain
some good points, although many of her touches must be pronounced
unsuccessful. Let Homer lead the van:--
"Here, Homer, with the broad suspense
Of thunderous brows, and lips intense
Of garrulous god-innocence.
"There, Shakspeare! on whose forehead climb
The crowns o' the world! Oh, eyes sublime--
With tears and laughters for all time!
"Here, Æschylus--the women swoon'd
_To see so awful_ when he frown'd
As the gods did--he standeth crown'd.
"Euripides, with close and mild
Scholastic lips--that could be wild,
And laugh or sob out like a child
"_Right in the classes._ Sophocles,
With that king's look which down the trees,
Follow'd the dark effigies
"Of the lost Theban! Hesiod old,
Who somewhat blind, and deaf, and cold,
Cared most for gods and bulls! and bold
"Electric Pindar, quick as fear,
With race-dust on his checks, and clear,
Slant startled eyes that seem to hear
"The chariot rounding the last goal,
To hurtle past it in his soul!
And Sappho crown'd with aureole
"Of ebon curls on calmed brows--
O poet-woman! none forgoes
The leap, attaining the repose!
"Theocritus, with glittering locks,
Dropt sideway, as betwixt the rocks
He watch'd the visionary flocks!
"And Aristophanes! who took
The world with mirth, and laughter-struck
The hollow caves of Thought, and woke
"The infinite echoes hid in each.
And Virgil! shade of Mantuan beech
Did help the shade of bay to reach
"And knit around his forehead high!--
For his gods wore less majesty
Than his brown bees humm'd deathlessly.
"Lucretius--nobler than his mood!
Who dropp'd his plummet down the broad
Deep universe, and said 'No God,'
"Finding no bottom. He denied
Divinely the divine, and died
Chief poet on the Tiber-side,
"By grace of God. His face is stern,
As one compell'd, in spite of scorn,
To teach a truth he could not learn.
"And Ossian, dimly seen or guess'd!
Once counted greater than the rest,
When mountain-winds blew out his vest.
"And Spenser droop'd his dreaming head
(With languid sleep-smile you had said
From his own verse engendered)
"On Ariosto's, till they ran
Their locks in one!--The Italian
Shot nimbler heat of bolder man
"From his fine lids. And Dante stern
And sweet, whose spirit was an urn
For wine and milk pour'd out in turn.
"And Goethe--with that reaching eye
His soul reach'd out from far and high,
_And fell from inner entity_.
"And Schiller, with heroic front
Worthy of Plutarch's kiss upon't--
Too large for wreath of modern wont.
"Here Milton's eyes strike piercing-dim!
The shapes of suns and stars did swim
Like clouds on them, and granted him
"God for sole vision! Cowley, there,
Whose active fancy debonaire
Drew straws like amber--foul to fair.
"And Burns, with pungent passionings
Set in his eyes. Deep lyric springs
Are of the fire-mount's issuings.
"And poor, proud Byron--sad as grave
And salt as life! forlornly brave,
And quivering with the dart he drave.
"And visionary Coleridge, who
Did sweep his thoughts as angels do
Their wings, with cadence up the Blue."
"Homer" we are not sure about; we can only hope that there may be people
whom the picture will please. "Shakspeare" is good. "Æschylus" (Miss
Barrett's favourite, too,) is treated very scurvily and very
ungrammatically. What on earth are we to make of the words "the women
swooned to see so awful" &c.? It is well known that no pregnant woman
could look Æschylus in the face when the fit of inspiration was on him,
without having cause to regret her indiscretion. But though delicacy
might have dictated that this fact should be only barely hinted at,
surely grammar need not have miscarried in the statement. The syntax of
the passage will puzzle future commentators as much as some of his own
corrupt choruses. "Euripides" promises well; but the expression, "Right
in the classes," throws our intellect completely on its beam-ends; and
as we cannot right it again, in order to take a second glance at the
poet of Medea, we must pass on to the next. "Sophocles" will be
acceptable to scholars. "Hesiod" is excellent. "Cared most for _gods and
bulls_" is worth any money. "Pindar" and "Sappho" are but so so. The
picture of "Theocritus" is very beautiful. There is nothing particularly
felicitous in the sketch of "Aristophanes." How much more graphic is
what Milton, in one of his prose works, says with respect to the "holy
Chrysostom's" study of the same. Chrysostom, it seems, was a great
student of Aristophanes. Some people might have been, and no doubt were,
scandalized to think that so pious a father of the church should have
made a bosom companion of so profane and virulent a wit: but says
Milton, the holy father was quite right in poring over Aristophanes, for
"_he had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a
rousing sermon_." Put that into verse and it would ring well. We thank
Miss Barrett for the graphic touch of Virgil's "brown bees," which
certainly _are_ better than his gods. "Lucretius" is very finely
painted. "Ossian" looms large through the mist, but walk up to him, and
the pyramid is but a cairn. "Spenser" and "Ariosto," with their locks
blended in one, compose a very sweet picture. "Dante" we will not answer
for. "Goethe" is a perfect enigma. What does the word "fell" mean?
[Greek: deinos], we suppose--that is, "not to be trifled with." But
surely it sounds very strange, although it may be true enough, to say
that this "fellness" is occasioned by "inner entity." But perhaps the
line has some deeper meaning, which we are unable to fathom. We have
seen a better picture than that of Goethe in the hour of inspiration,
when his forehead was like a precipice dim with drifting sleet.
"Schiller" is well drawn; evidently from Thorwaldsen's gigantic statue
of the poet. Miss Barrett paints "Milton" in his blindness as seeing all
things in God. But Mallebranche had already taught that God is the
"sole vision" of all of us; and therefore, if that theory be correct,
she has failed to assign to the poet of the Fall any distinctive
attribute which distinguishes him from other men. "Cowley" is well
characterized. "Burns" ought to have been better. "Byron" pleases us.
"Coleridge" has very considerable merit.
As a contrast to the preceding sketches of the true poets, (many of
which, however, we have omitted, and we may also remark, in parenthesis,
that none of our living poets are meddled with,) we now pass before the
eyes of the reader a panorama of _pretenders_. We shall make no remarks
on the expression of their features, leaving Miss Barrett to brand them
as they deserve with her just scorn and indignation--
"One dull'd his eyeballs as they ached,
With Homer's forehead--though he lack'd
An inch of any! And one rack'd
"His lower lip with restless tooth--
As Pindar's rushing words forsooth
Were pent behind it. One, his smooth
"Pink cheeks, did rumple passionate,
Like Æschylus--and tried to prate
On trolling tongue, of fate and fate!
"One set her eyes like Sappho's--or
Any light woman's! one forbore
Like Dante, or any man as poor
"In mirth, to let a smile undo
His hard shut lips. And one, that drew
Sour humours from his mother, blew
"His sunken cheeks out to the size
Of most unnatural jollities,
Because Anacreon looked jest-wise.
"So with the rest.--It was a sight
For great world-laughter, as it might
For great world-wrath, with equal right.
"Out came a speaker from that crowd,
To speak for all--in sleek and proud
Exordial periods, while he bow'd
"His knee before the angel.--'Thus,
O angel! who hast call'd for us,
We bring thee service emulous,--
"'Fit service from sufficient soul--
Hand-service, to receive world's dole--
Lip-service, in world's ear to roll
"'Adjusted concords--soft enow
To hear the winecups passing through,
And not too grave to spoil the show.
"'Thou, certes, when thou askest more,
O sapient angel! leanest o'er
The window-sill of metaphor.
"'To give our hearts up! fie!--That rage
Barbaric, antedates the age!
It is not done on any stage.
"'Because your scald or gleeman went
With seven or nine-string'd instrument
Upon his back--must ours be bent?
"'We are not pilgrims, by your leave,
No, nor yet martyrs! if we grieve,
It is to rhyme to ... summer eve.
"'And if we labour, it shall be
As suiteth best with our degree,
In after-dinner reverie.'
"More yet that speaker would have said--
Poising between his smiles fair-fed,
Each separate phrase till finished:
"But all the foreheads of those born
And dead true poets flash'd with scorn
Betwixt the bay leaves round them worn--
"Ay, jetted such brave fire, that they,
The new-come, shrank and paled away,
Like leaden ashes when the day
"Strikes on the hearth! A spirit-blast,
A presence known by power, at last
Took them up mutely--they had pass'd!"
"Lady Geraldine's Courtship" is a poem of the Tennysonian school. Some
pith is put forth in the passionate parts of the poem; but it is
deficient throughout in that finished elegance of style which
distinguishes the works of the great artist from whom it is imitated.
Bertram, a peasant-born poet falls in love with the Lady Geraldine, a
woman of high rank and very extensive possessions. He happens to
overhear the lady address the following words to a suitor of the same
rank with herself, and whose overtures she is declining--
"Yes, your lordship judges rightly. Whom I marry, shall be noble,
Ay, and wealthy. I shall never blush to think how he was born."
Upon which, imagining that these words have some special and cutting
reference to himself, he passes into the presence of the lady, and rates
her in a strain of very fierce invective, which shows that his blood is
really up, whatever may be thought of the taste which dictated his
language, or of the title he had to take to task so severely a lady who
had never given him any sort of encouragement. In a letter to a friend,
he thus describes the way in which he went to work--the fourth line is a
powerful one--
"Oh, she flutter'd like a tame bird, in among its forest-brothers,
Far too strong for it! then drooping, bow'd her face upon her hands--
And I spake out wildly, fiercely, brutal truths of her and others!
_I, she planted the desert, swathed her, windlike, with my sands._
"I pluck'd up her social fictions, bloody-rooted, though leaf verdant,--
Trod them down with words of shaming,--all the purples and the gold,
And the 'landed stakes' and Lordships--all that spirits pure and ardent
Are cast out of love and reverence, because chancing not to hold.
"'For myself I do not argue,' said I, 'though I love you, Madam,
But for better souls, that nearer to the height of yours have trod--
And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam,
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God.
"'Yet, O God' (I said,) 'O grave' (I said,) 'O mother's heart and bosom!
With whom first and last are equal, saint and corpse and little child!
We are fools to your deductions, in these figments of heart-closing!
We are traitors to your causes, in these sympathies defiled!
"'Learn more reverence, madam, not for rank or wealth--_that_ needs
no learning;
_That_ comes quickly--quick as sin does! ay, and often works to sin;
But for Adam's seed, MAN! Trust me, 'tis a clay above your scorning,
With God's image stamp'd upon it, and God's kindling breath within.
"'What right have you, Madam, gazing in your shining mirror daily,
Getting, so, by heart, your beauty, which all others must adore,--
While you draw the golden ringlets down your fingers, to vow gaily,...
You will wed no man that's only good to God,--and nothing more.'"
In the second stanza, we cannot make out the construction of the words,
"all that spirits pure and ardent are cast out of love and reverence."
This vigorous tirade is continued throughout several stanzas. The poor
lady merely utters the word "Bertram," and the lover is carried to bed
in a fainting fit when his passion is expended. When he recovers he
indites the aforesaid letter. After he has dispatched it, the lady
enters his apartment: oh, blessed and gracious apparition! We quote the
_dénouement_, omitting one or two stanzas--
Soh! how still the lady standeth! 'tis a dream--a dream of mercies!
'Twixt the purple lattice-curtains, how she standeth still and pale!
'Tis a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to soften his self-curses--
Sent to _sweep_ a patient quiet, o'er the tossing of his wail.
'Eyes,' he said, 'now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo me?
_Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone!_
Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye ever burning torrid,
O'er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone?'
"Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,--
And approach'd him slowly, slowly, in a gliding measured pace;
With her two white hands extended, as if praying one offended,
And a look of supplication, gazing earnest in his face.
"Said he--'Wake me by no gesture,--sound of breath, or stir of vesture;
Let the blessed apparition melt not yet _to its divine_!
No approaching--hush! no breathing! or my heart must swoon to death in
The too utter life thou bringest--O thou dream of Geraldine!'
"Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling--
But the tears ran over lightly from her eyes, and tenderly;
'Dost thou, Bertram, truly love me? Is no woman far above me,
Found more worthy of thy poet-heart, than such a one as _I_?'
"Said he--'I would dream so ever, like the flowing of that river,
Flowing ever in a shadow, greenly onward to the sea;
So, thou vision of all sweetness--princely to a full completeness,--
Would my heart and life flow onward--deathward--through this dream of THEE!'
"Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,--
While the shining tears ran faster down the blushing of her cheeks;
Then with both her hands enfolding both of his, she softly told him,
'Bertram, if I say I love thee,... 'tis the vision only speaks.'
"Soften'd, quicken'd to adore her, on his knee he fell before her--
And she whisper'd low in triumph--'It shall be as I have sworn!
Very rich he is in virtues,--very noble--noble certes;
And I shall not blush in knowing, that men call him lowly born!"
With the exception of the line, and the other expressions which we have
printed in italics, we think that the whole tone of this _finale_ is
"beautiful exceedingly;" although, if we may express our private
opinion, we should say that the lover, after his outrageous demeanour,
was very unworthy of the good fortune that befell him. But, in spite of
the propitious issue of the poem, we must be permitted (to quote one of
Miss Barrett's lines in this very lay) to make our "critical deductions
for the modern writers' fault." Will she, or any one else tell us the
meaning of the second line in this stanza? Or, will she maintain that it
has any meaning at all? Lady Geraldine's possessions are described--
"She has halls and she has castles, and the resonant steam-eagles
_Follow far on the directing of her floating dove-like hand_--
With a thund'rous vapour trailing, underneath the starry vigils,
So to mark upon the blasted heaven, the measure of her land."
We thought that steam-coaches generally followed the directing of no
hand except the "stoker's;" but _it_ certainly is always much liker a
raven than a dove. "Eagles and vigils" is not admissible as a rhyme;
neither is "branch and grange." Miss Barrett says of the Lady Geraldine
that she had "such a gracious coldness" that her lovers "could not
_press their futures_ on the present of her courtesy." Is that human
speech? One other objection and our carpings shall be dumb. Miss
Barrett, in our opinion, has selected a very bad, dislocated, and
unmelodious metre for the story of Lady Geraldine's courtship. The poem
reads very awkwardly in consequence of the rhymes falling together in
the alternate lines and not in couplets. Will Miss Barrett have the
goodness to favour the public with the sequel of this poem? We should
like to know how the match between the peasant's son and the peer's
daughter was found to answer.
Those among our readers who may have attended principally to the
selections which we made from these volumes before we animadverted on
the "Drama of Exile," may perhaps be of opinion that we have treated
Miss Barrett with undue severity, and have not done justice to the
vigour and rare originality of her powers; while others, who may have
attended chiefly to the blemishes of style and execution which we have
thought it our duty to point out in our later quotations, may possibly
think that we have ranked her higher than she deserves. We trust that
those who have carefully perused both the favourable and unfavourable
extracts, will give us credit for having steered a middle course,
without either running ourselves aground on the shoals of detraction, or
oversetting the ship by carrying too much sail in favour of our
authoress. And although they may have seen that our hand was sometimes
unsteady at the helm, we trust that it has always been when we felt
apprehensive that the current of criticism was bearing us too strongly
towards the former of these perils. If any of our remarks have been over
harsh, we most gladly qualify them by saying, that, in our humble
opinion, Miss Barrett's poetical merits infinitely outweigh her defects.
Her genius is profound, unsullied, and without a flaw. The imperfections
of her manner are mere superficial blot which a little labour might
remove. Were the blemishes of her style tenfold more numerous than they
are, we should still revere this poetess as one of the noblest of her
sex; for her works have impressed us with the conviction, that powers
such as she possesses are not merely the gifts or accomplishments of a
highly intellectual woman; but that they are closely intertwined with
all that is purest and loveliest in goodness and in truth.
It is plain that Miss Barrett would always write well if she wrote
simply from her own heart, and without thinking of the compositions of
any other author--at least let her think of them only in so far as she
is sure that they embody great thoughts in pure and appropriate
language, and in forms of construction which will endure the most rigid
scrutiny of common sense and unperverted taste. If she will but wash her
hands completely of Æschylus and Milton, and all other poets, either
great, or whom she takes for such, and come before the public in the
graces of her own feminine sensibilities, and in the strength of her own
profound perceptions, her sway over human hearts will be more
irresistible than ever, and she will have nothing to fear from a
comparison with the most gifted and illustrious of her sex.