— *1* The first, from the line quoted, extends through 55 lines — "To see thee for a moment as thou art." No. 2 consists of the 18 lines beginning, "They came to me in my first dawn of life." No. 3, the 11 lines of the Andromeda picture. No. 4, the 59 lines beginning, "Night, and one single ridge of narrow path" (to "delight"). *2* No. IV. comprises the 29 lines beginning, "The centre fire heaves underneath the earth," down to "ancient rapture." *3* No. V. The 6 lines beginning, "That autumn ere has stilled." *4* The 22 lines beginning, "As, shall I say, some Ethiop." *5* The 29 lines beginning, "For he, — for he." *6* To these 32 selections there must now be added "Now", "Summum Bonum", "Reverie", and the "Epilogue", from "Asolando". —
It is here — I will not say in `Flower o' the Vine', nor even venture to restrictively affirm it of that larger and fuller compilation we have agreed, for the moment, to call "Transcripts from Life" — it is here, in the worthiest poems of Browning's most poetic period, that, it seems to me, his highest greatness is to be sought. In these "Men and Women" he is, in modern times, an unparalleled dramatic poet. The influence he exercises through these, and the incalculably cumulative influence which will leaven many generations to come, is not to be looked for in individuals only, but in the whole thought of the age, which he has moulded to new form, animated anew, and to which he has imparted a fresh stimulus. For this a deep debt is due to Robert Browning. But over and above this shaping force, this manipulative power upon character and thought, he has enriched our language, our literature, with a new wealth of poetic diction, has added to it new symbols, has enabled us to inhale a more liberal if an unfamiliar air, has, above all, raised us to a fresh standpoint, a standpoint involving our construction of a new definition.
Here, at least, we are on assured ground: here, at any rate, we realise the scope and quality of his genius. But, let me hasten to add, he, at his highest, not being of those who would make Imagination the handmaid of the Understanding, has given us also a Dorado of pure poetry, of priceless worth. Tried by the severest tests, not merely of substance, but of form, not merely of the melody of high thinking, but of rare and potent verbal music, the larger number of his "Men and Women" poems are as treasurable acquisitions, in kind, to our literature, as the shorter poems of Milton, of Shelley, of Keats, and of Tennyson. But once again, and finally, let me repeat that his primary importance — not greatness, but importance — is in having forced us to take up a novel standpoint, involving our construction of a new definition.
Chapter 7.
There are, in literary history, few `scenes de la vie privee' more affecting than that of the greatest of English poetesses, in the maturity of her first poetic period, lying, like a fading flower, for hours, for days continuously, in a darkened room in a London house. So ill was Miss Elizabeth Barrett, early in the second half of the forties, that few friends, herself even, could venture to hope for a single one of those Springs which she previsioned so longingly. To us, looking back at this period, in the light of what we know of a story of singular beauty, there is an added pathos in the circumstance that, as the singer of so many exquisite songs lay on her invalid's sofa, dreaming of things which, as she thought, might never be, all that was loveliest in her life was fast approaching — though, like all joy, not without an equally unlooked-for sorrow. "I lived with visions for my company, instead of men and women . . . nor thought to know a sweeter music than they played to me."
This is not the occasion, and if it were, there would still be imperative need for extreme concision, whereon to dwell upon the early life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The particulars of it are familiar to all who love English literature: for there is, in truth, not much to tell — not much, at least, that can well be told. It must suffice, here, that Miss Barrett was born on the 4th of March 1809,* and so was the senior, by three years, of Robert Browning.
— * Should be 1806. See note in Table of Contents. — A. L., 1996. —
By 1820, in remote Herefordshire, the not yet eleven-year-old poetess had already "cried aloud on obsolete Muses from childish lips" in various "nascent odes, epics, and didactics." At this time, she tells us, the Greeks were her demi-gods, and she dreamt much of Agamemnon. In the same year, in suburban Camberwell, a little boy was often wont to listen eagerly to his father's narrative of the same hero, and to all the moving tale of Troy. It is significant that these two children, so far apart, both with the light of the future upon their brows, grew up in familiarity with something of the antique beauty. It was a lifelong joy to both, that "serene air of Greece". Many an hour of gloom was charmed away by it for the poetess who translated the "Prometheus Bound" of Aeschylus, and wrote "The Dead Pan": many a happy day and memorable night were spent in that "beloved environment" by the poet who wrote "Balaustion's Adventure" and translated the "Agamemnon".
The chief sorrow of her life, however, occurred in her thirty-first year. She never quite recovered from the shock of her well-loved brother Edward's tragic death, a mysterious disaster, for the foundering of the little yacht `La Belle Sauvage' is almost as inexplicable as that of the `Ariel' in the Spezzian waters beyond Lerici. Not only through the ensuing winter, but often in the dreams of after years, "the sound of the waves rang in my ears like the moans of one dying."
The removal of the Barrett household to Gloucester Place, in Western London, was a great event. Here, invalid though she was, she could see friends occasionally and get new books constantly. Her name was well known and became widely familiar when her "Cry of the Children" rang like a clarion throughout the country. The poem was founded upon an official report by Richard Hengist Horne, the friend whom some years previously she had won in correspondence, and with whom she had become so intimate, though without personal acquaintance, that she had agreed to write a drama in collaboration with him, to be called "Psyche Apocalypte", and to be modelled on "Greek instead of modern tragedy."