ANA-BLANCA CIOCOI-POP

NOTES ON VICTORIAN
POETRY

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements .4
Introduction. An Overview of the Victorian Age 5
General Considerations ..5
Victorianism and Art. The Place of Poetry in the Landscape of
Victorian Literary Productions 8
Religion and Society in the Victorian Age 10
Particularities of Victorian Fiction and Victorian Poetry ..11
Alfred Lord Tennyson ..17
Matthew Arnold ...23
Robert Browning ..30
Elizabeth Barrett Browning ..37
Lesser Victorians
John Clare ..43
Walter Savage Landor 49
Gerard Manley Hopkins .55
Arthur Hugh Clough ..60
The Pre-Raphaelites
Dante Gabriel Rossetti .......................................................................63
Christina Rossetti ...67
Now Read On .72
Alfred Lord Tennyson .73
Matthew Arnold ..99
2

Robert Browning ..112

Elizabeth Barrett Browning .131
John Clare 144
Walter Savage Landor .155
Gerard Manley Hopkins ..160
Arthur Hugh Clough 166
Dante Gabriel Rossetti 170
Christina Rossetti 193

Acknowledgements

My heartfelt gratitude goes out to the President of the Vasile Goldis West
University of Arad, Professor Aurel Ardeleanu, to Mrs. Rector, Professor
Coralia Adina Cotoraci, as well as to Associate Professor Marius Grec, Dean
of the Faculty of Humane, Political and Administrative Studies at VGWUA
for their invaluable support in the publication of this book.

Introduction. An Overview of the Victorian Age

General Considerations
Beginning with the 20th century, the term Victorian, which is used to denote
aspects and events connected to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901),
was associated with such terms as "prudery," "repression," and
"outdatedness." Although these connotations are partially based on facts,
they do not comprise in a sufficiently complex manner the nature of this
highly paradoxical era that was often compared to a second English
Renaissance. Much in the spirit of Elizabethan England, Victorian
England witnessed great financial and technological progress, an expansion
of power, and an impressive development in the field of culture.
In the areas of science and technology, Victorianism introduced the
modern idea of invention - the belief that one can generate solutions to
problems, that society can create new means of improving itself and its
environment. In the sphere of religion, Victorianism meant an age of
increasing doubt it was, in fact, the first that truly questioned organized
Christianity on such a large scale. In what literature and the other arts are
concerned, the Victorians combined Romantic elements such as the
5

elevation of the self through emotion and imagination ,with neoclassical

ones, such as the public role of art and the moral responsibility of the artist.
When we think of ideology, politics, and society, the Victorians can be
equaled with astonishing innovation and change: democracy, feminism,
unionization of workers, socialism, Marxism, and various other modern
movements were shaped during this time. The age of Darwin, Marx,
and Freud (three of the key figures of Victorian thought), was probably not
only the first to experience modern issues but also the first to attempt
modern solutions to them. Victorianism, to put it differently, can be seen as a
parent of modernism, and like any powerful and authoritative parent, it
brought about a powerful reaction against itself.
The Victorian age was not at all simple or unified, and this is only in
part due to Victoria's reign being so long that it covered several historical
and social periods. We can much rather assert that it was an age of profound
paradox. The Catholicism of the Oxford Movement, the Evangelical
movement, the spread of the Broad Church, and the rise of Utilitarianism,
socialism, Darwinism, and scientific agnosticism, were all characteristically
Victorian, on the other hand, so were the writings of Carlyle and Ruskin, the
criticism of Arnold, and the realism of George Eliot and George Bernard
Shaw1.
What sets Victorians apart from any other epoch in English history is
their profound sense of duty and social responsibility, an attitude that sets
them apart from their immediate predecessors, the Romantics, in connection
to which they are often analyzed. Alfred Lord Tennyson, the Victorians;
most revered bard, went to Spain to help the revolutionaries there, as Byron
had done in Greece and Wordsworth in France in this respect one could
1

See Victorian Web.

easily label him Romantic. But it was also Tennyson who drew attention to
the necessity of educating the poor man before making him our master.
Matthew Arnold, another key-figure in Victorian writing, famously stated in
his poem Dover Beach that
[] the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.

But at the same time, he refused to reprint his poem Empedocles on Etna, in
which a Greek philosopher throws himself into a volcano, because he
thought that it set a bad example. It was also Arnold who criticized
an Anglican bishop who pointed out mathematical inconsistencies in the
Bible he criticized him not on grounds of his being wrong, but because he
thought that for a bishop to reveal these things to the general public was an
irresponsible attitude.
Attitudes towards the Victorian age are as far from homogenous as the
age itself. Modern writers who were trying to free themselves from the
influence of their predecessors often regarded the Victorians as repressed,
over-confident, and philistine. We should also bear in mind that the popular
notions of Victorian life as picturesque hardly fit the complexity of Victorian
reality:
That earnest world of Tractarian parsons and Oxford common-rooms, that world
of Hardy's peasants buried deep in English shires, did really exist. Of course it did. But it
was not very important. By and large Victorian England was a tremendously virile and
very terrible affair. If we strip away the gadgets and fashions, Victorian England was not
7

unlike the United States today. There was the same unblinking worship of independence
and of hard cash; there was the same belief in institutions -- patriotism, democracy,
individualism, organized religion, philanthropy, sexual morality, the family, capitalism
and progress; the same overwhelming self-confidence, with its concomitant -- a novel
and adventurous architecture. And, at the core, was the same tiny abscess -- the nagging
guilt as to the inherent contradiction between the morality and the system.2

Victorianism and Art. The Place of Poetry in the Landscape of Victorian

Literary Productions
M. H. Abramss book The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the
Critical Tradition (1953) provides a series of possible answers to the
problem of defining Victorianism in the field of art and literature. Abrams
argues that all discussions of literature focus on four essential elements:
text/work, author, reality/nature, and audience/readership - the difference
consisting merely in which one of the four they emphasize.
First, there is the work, the artistic product itself. And since this is a human product, an
artifact, the second common element is the artificer, the artist. Third, the work is taken to
have a subject which, directly or indirectly, is derived from existing things to be about,
or signify, or reflect something which either is, or bears some relation to, an objective state
of affairs. This third element, whether held to consist of people and actions, ideas and
feelings, material things and events, or super-sensible essences, has frequently been
denoted by that-word-of-all-work, "nature;" but let us use the more neutral and
comprehensive term, universe, instead. For the final element we have the audience: the
listeners, spectators, or readers to whom the work is addressed, or to whom, at any rate, it
becomes available. [6]

See Victorian Web.

Abrams applies the term mimetic to those works of art which are an
imitation of aspects of the universe. A crucial aspect of all such mimetic
writings, and which probably shocks most modern readers, is that the artist
does not have a determinative function, as Abrams puts it, that is to say,
although poets are indispensable, their personal faculties, feelings, or
desires are not called upon to explain the subject matter or form of a poem.
To phrase it differently, it is completely unimportant if the poet is sincere or
original: only accuracy in providing a perfect copy of reality counts.
The next category of writings, that emphasizes the relation of art to its
audience, is called pragmatic, since it looks at the work of art chiefly as a
means to an end, an instrument for getting something done, and tends to
judge its value according to its success in achieving that aim. [] The
central tendency of the pragmatic critic is to conceive a poem as something
made in order to effect certain responses in its readers. Tragedy, for
example, is traditionally supposed to employ only noble characters, elevated
speech, and poetic devices such as metaphor, to create feelings of pity and
fear in the audience. Lyric, satirical, or epic writings have in turn their own
rules, because this kind of critical position considers literature a form of
technology that should produce specific effects in the reader. Here too, the
point is not whether the poet is sincere or original: only effect and
effectiveness, and skill in following literary rules, are deemed important.
Only with the advent of romantic theories we start noticing all the
criteria associated with genuine emotion: spontaneity, sincerity, originality,
and intensity . Poetry is the overflow, utterance, or projection of the thought
and feelings of the poet; or else (in the chief variant formulation) poetry is
defined in terms of the imaginative process which modified and synthesizes
the images, thought, and feelings of the poet. [] A work of art is
9

essentially the internal made external, Abrams notes. Literary genres and
even the readership are no longer central, and the poet's experience becomes
entirely subjective. In the words of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth,
truly great art and literature advance so beyond the readers expectations that
they create the very taste by which it is to be enjoyed. And fourth,
manifestos and prefaces, critics and interpretative criticism, become
centrally important, as does the notion of an avante garde, since someone
has to explain and defend art and artist to audience.
Surprisingly, many nineteenth-century readers and writers believed the
Romantic

approach

equaled

egotism

and

excessive

subjectivity.

Nevertheless, as E. D. H. Johnson pointed out in his The Alien Vision of

Victorian Poetry (1952), Victorian literature set out to find literary and
artistic ways of coping with a series of the ages inherent oppositions: self
and society, personal and political, subjective and objective, public and
private. Consequently, new devices such as the dramatic monologue and
new forms of autobiography and autobiographical fiction were created. In
other words, Victorian literature identified a way to create a mix of what
Abrams calls the pragmatic and the expressive (or Romantic) artistic
expression.
Religion and Society in the Victorian Age
John Ruskin, one of the most prominent figures of the nineteenth century in
England, thought Victorianism to be a dark age, and argued that the darkness
of the times was a result of the lack of faith. He also believed that landscapes
and nature generally speaking can convey a sense of tranquility and even
sanctity, that beauty can, in a mystic way, lead to an understanding of the
10

divine. Art, Ruskin holds, reveals the truth about religion, and the way we
should live, it is the very embodiment of civilization, showing how great or
flawed it is, and it leads us to God (or the principle of Good, as Plato
phrased it). However, in 1862 he published a work entitled Unto These
Last, where he seems to have abandoned mysticism in favour of politics,
bringing up ideas which, forty five years after his death, would be at the very
basis of the Welfare State.
A movement away from religion and towards politics and the social
sciences can also be identified in the fact that in 1867, Karl Marx became
one of the leading figures of European thought, and his revolutionary ideas
led in time to the creation of the Soviet Union, Communist China and all the
other communist regimes from the Iron Curtain countries of Europe to
Vietnam and North Korea. In England, too, his ideology became the creed of
an impressive number of intellectuals. One outcome of this enormous
influence of Marxism in England is for example multiculturalism, the
doctrine that no culture is better than any other, a highly used and abused
notion nowadays, which in fact goes back, as many of the modern notions,
to Victorian times.
Particularities of Victorian Fiction and Victorian Poetry
Much of the literature of the Victorian age is to a large degree the product of
a double awareness. It was above anything else a type of writing which
addressed with great accuracy the needs of the age. In addition to this, one
can safely state that the problems which were part of the Victorian world still
retain their urgency and many of them still await a concrete solution.
Therefore, many if not most of the ideas and themes of Victorian authors
11

remain relevant and interesting even in the twenty-first century. However,

one also has to mention the fact that much of Victorian literature has become
subject to rather harsh criticism in recent years, probably because the
representative writers of that epoch oversubscribed to values which are no
longer part of our own time and paradigm. Yet, this perspective ignores the
fact that nearly all Victorian writers were essentially at odds with their age
and society, and that in their works they habitually spoke not for,
but against the prevailing value-systems of the era. Any reader of Victorian
literature can easily notice the underlying tone of unrest which runs through
so many of the nineteenth century texts, and which is seen by many critics as
typical of the period. What really sets Victorian literature apart from the
literary productions of any other age is this inner conflict, demonstrable
within the work of all representative nineteenth century the writers, between
the public conscience of the author who comes forward as the accredited
literary spokesman of his society, and the private conscience of the artist
who believes that his highest duty must be his own aesthetic creeds.
Victorian literature was first and foremost a literature of ideas, and,
furthermore, of ideas brought into direct relation with the daily concerns of
its readers. If we were to consider for instance the novel, Dickens, George
Eliot, or Jane Austen all quite evidently wrote about themes with great social
significance. Paradoxically, the very fact that these writers allowed
themselves to be involved so profoundly in the life of the times, led to their
literary isolation. Their works, inspired by the hostility towards the progress
of industrial society, place moral authority not in the existing social order but
within the spiritual resources of the individual. Consequently, one can sense
in their work a kind of tension originating in the writers desire to
communicate without betraying his creative beliefs, even when faced with a
12

reading public not really willing to undergo the rigors of aesthetic

experience.3
Victorian poetry is also largely based on this ambivalence; and this is
especially true for Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold, the greatest poetic
voices of their times. The history of nineteenth century English poetry
revolves around a radical shift in the relationship of the poet to his audience:
A divorce between the artist and society first became conspicuous as an element of
the Romantic movement; but even though they had to endure abuse or neglect, the
Romantics did not in any sense think of themselves as abdicating the poet's
traditional

right

to

speak

for

his

age.

Blake, Coleridge,Wordsworth,

Byron, Shelley, Keats were all, it is true, keenly sensitive to their generation's
reluctance to pay attention to what they were saying, but they accepted isolation as a
necessary consequence of their revolutionary program. That they should confess
defeat, with the alternatives either of self-withdrawal or compromise, never
seriously occurred to them. On the contrary, they declared open warfare on the
prejudices which would dispossess them and continued to assert that the poet's
vision is transcendently of intellectual and spiritual truth. 4

Towards the end of the century, however, this conflict thus had almost
completely burned out. In compensation, the aesthetic creed known as art for
art's sake emerged, its main representatives being Walter Pater and
Oscar Wilde, as well as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the field of poetry
and the visual arts. As compared to early Victorian texts, this movement
valued the forms of art more than its message. The missing link between the
Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites is represented by Tennyson, Browning,
and Arnold. According to most critical views, these midway Victorian
3
4

See Victorian Web

See Victorian Web

13

poets, unwilling to indulge in the same majestic self-sufficiency which had

characterized the Romantics, established a complex relationship with their
readership by compromising with the middle-class morality of the time,
and in so doing deliberately sacrificed artistic validity 5. But this simplistic
interpretation of the situation does not do justice to the real meaning of the
endeavor to which Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold were committed. Each
of these poets was seeking to define the sphere within which the modern
poet can exercise his talent, while also considering the tendencies of a
society increasingly vulgarized by the industrialization and materialism of
the nineteenth century. Consequently, this double awareness, which
characterized Victorian literature, became a permanent state of mind for
these poets and was materialized in their efforts to identify a new aesthetic
position for the artist.
It is quite impressive to notice the extent to which the literary careers of
Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold resemble each other, especially since their
poetic personalities were so different. This similitude can only be explained
in terms of the various influences from the outside world, which decisively
shaped their productions. In the early writings of each of these three poets
there is an introspective, even a cloistral atmosphere, which they later
eliminated in the attempt to connect with contemporary lines of thought.
Tennyson succeeded most efficiently in conforming to the Victorian ideal of
the poet as popular bard. As a result of this, he was appointed Poet Laureate
as Wordsworths successor. Brownings progress in terms of popularity was
not so spectacular, but the establishment of the Browning Society in 1881
meant his arrival in the select group of Victorian literary idols. Endowed
with somewhat less poetic talent, Matthew Arnold became a literary
5

See Victorian Web

14

personality and won the prestige of the Oxford Professorship of Poetry only
after turning to prose writing. On the other hand, we should consider that
his inability to adapt his poetry to the demands of the age is probably the
reason why he has attracted far more serious critical attention in recent years
than Tennyson or Browning, who seem to be gradually slipping into
oblivion.
The Victorian poet had to adapt to a reading public considerably larger
and more heterogeneous than any that had existed before. The failure of their
first printed volumes of verse led Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold to
believe that under the existing social, cultural and literary conditions
originality would not entail artistic recognition. Most of the critical reviews
of the day were quite hostile, and poets were used to them, but it was the
disapproval of close friends which really had an impact on them. Friends
and critics alike agreed that the poets needed to become more conscious of
their responsibilities as men of letters. Their poetry was, according to public
opinion, much too introspective and self-obsessed, too often obscure in
content and precious in manner6. All of these shortcomings can be
attributed to immaturity, but they also allow us a glimpse into the ideological
tyranny which Victorianism exercised over its poets.
It is quite obvious from the inconsistencies in their critical reputations
that poets such as Tennyson, Arnold or Browning were never sure enough
of their audience to be able to estimate its response with any degree of
reliability7. Robert Browning masterfully phrased the nature of Victorian art
in his Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, where he referred to artistry as being
battle with the age/ It lives in!
6
7

Victorian web
Victorian Web

15

The distinguishing feature of the literary personalities of Tennyson,

Browning, and Arnold is
a certain aristocratic aloofness, a stubborn intractability which is likely to manifest
itself at just those points where the contemporary social order assumed automatic
conformity with its dictates. Thus, their refusal to be restricted by current
suppositions is less often a subterfuge to cover a fear of failure than a forthright
avowal of the artist's independence from societal pressures whenever these threaten
to inhibit the free play of his imaginative powers.8

Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold never managed to do what the poets

who came after them succeeded in: to disassociate themselves entirely from
their readership. They intuitively knew what their audience was keen on
hearing, and catered to these expectations. On the other hand, we should not
state that they merely shared most of the values that, rightly or wrongly, are
attributed to the Victorians. Such a simplistic outlook ignores that double
awareness which is nowadays considered to be as the landmark of Victorian
literary productions.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

8

Victorian Web

16

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
(Ulysses)

Alfred Lord Tennyson was the Victorians most revered bard. Appointed Poet
Laureate by Queen Victoria, he was for a long time the best-known and most
acclaimed figure of the nineteenth century English literary landscape. In recent
years his reputation has witnessed a certain degree of readjustment, with
Tennyson being increasingly associated with the artificiality and lack of substance
many critics connect to Victorianism. He remains, however, one of the masters of
versification in the English language, and the second most quoted English author
after William Shakespeare.
Born on August 6th, 1809, at Somersby, Lincolnshire, Tennyson was the
fourth of twelve children of George and Elizabeth Tennyson. His childhood was
marked by the familys difficult financial situation, brought about by the fact that
the poets grandfather had decided to make his younger son, Charles, his heir, and
had arranged for Tennysons father to enter the ministry. The contrast between his
familys hardships and the great affluence of his aunt Elizabeth and uncle Charles
Tennyson (who owned several castles) made Tennyson feel particularly uneasy
and deprived and led to a lifelong worry about money.
17

Still another lifelong fear of Tennysons was the one of mental illness,
because many men in his family suffered from a mild form of epilepsy, which in
Victorian times was regarded as a shameful disease. His father and brother Arthur
further worsened their health by excessive drinking. His brother Edward had to be
confined to a mental institution, and when Tennyson was in his late twenties his
fathers physical and mental condition reached a never before low, and he became
paranoid, verbally abusive, and physically violent.
In 1827 Tennyson escaped his troubled home and followed his two older
brothers to Trinity College, Cambridge. Due to their having published Poems by
Two Brothers (with Alfred winning the Chancellor's Gold Medal in 1828 for
Timbuctoo) the Tennyson brothers quickly became public figures at Cambridge. In
1829 The Apostles, an undergraduate club, whose members remained Tennysons
friends all his life, invited him to join. The group, which met regularly to discuss
major philosophical and other issues of the day, included Arthur Henry Hallam,
who would later on become Tennysons best friend.
Hallam, a brilliant young man, much like Robert Browning and Matthew
Arnold, was recognized by all of his contemporaries as possessing an unusually
promising literary talent. The friendship between Hallam and Tennyson lasted
only four years, but it was so fruitful that it had a major influence on the poet. On
a visit to the Tennyson home, Hallam met and later became engaged to Emily
Tennyson, and the two friends looked forward to a life-long companionship.
Hallams death in 1833 (at the frail age of only 22) shattered Tennyson, and his
pain lead to the creation of most of his best verse, including In Memoriam, The
Passing of Arthur, and Ulysses.
Tennyson was one of the Victorian poets most sensitive to criticism coming
from his readers, and thus, the mixed reception of his 1832 volume Poems hurt
him deeply. This harsh criticism led Tennyson not to publish again for nine years.
18

Later on, Tennyson started to worry more and more about his mental health
and finally visited a sanitarium run by Dr. Matthew Allen, with whom he later
invested his inheritance and some of his familys money. When Dr. Allen's
business plans went bankrupt, Tennyson, who did not have enough money to
marry, was forced to beak off his engagement to Emily Sellwood. The success of
his 1842 volume Poems, however, turned Tennyson into a popular poet.
Furthermore, the success of The Princess and In Memoriam, as well as his
appointment in 1850 as Poet Laureate finally turned him into as the most popular
poet of the Victorian age.
By the age of forty-one, Tennyson had published some of his greatest
poems, and his popularity was growing continuously. In 1853, as the Tennysons
were changing location and moving to the Isle of Wight, Prince Albert paid them
an unexpected visit. His love for Tennysons poetry helped consolidate
Tennysons position and the poet in turn dedicated The Idylls of the King to
Alberts memory. Queen Victoria later invited him to court a couple of times, and
at her insistence he accepted the title of Poet Laureate, having previously declined
it.
Apart from his occasional nervous breakdowns, Tennyson suffered from
extreme short-sightedness. It is said that without a monocle he could not even see
enough to eat. This created great difficulty when writing and reading, and led to
the fact that Tennyson composed his poetry inside his head, working on individual
poems for many years on row. During his time at Cambridge he often did not
write down his poems, although his friends continually pushed him to do so. (For
instance, the first version of The Lotos-Eaters was written down by Arthur Hallam
at a meeting of the Apostles.)
Tennyson died on October 6, 1892, at the age of 83.

19

Tennysons Literary Personality

Tennyson was among the Victorian poets the one who best epitomized the
division between the needs of the self and the needs of society. This aspect
appears firstly in his search for a public use for the poetry he wrote, and secondly
in his description of intensely personal experiences, for instance the death of his
best friend Hallam.
In what poetic expression is concerned, Tennyson is often said to have had
a tendency for creating static, lifeless images. For instance in his poem Mariana
(1830) he manages to create intensely visual static panels or tableaux. The poems
seven stanzas use Gothic landscape in the expressionist manner to represent the
state of mind of the lyrical speaker, identified in the epigraph as Mariana of the
moated grange waiting for her lover (from Shakespeares play Measure for
Measure). Although time passes as the reader moves from stanza to stanza,
nothing happens in this poem apart from endless lamentation, which takes the
form of a powerful mental depression.
According to critics, most of Tennysons earlier poems share an absence of
moral or theme. Therefore, in his later years, Tennysons poetic project involved
finding a way to make his writings morally relevant. He succeeded to do so in
The Lady of Shalott, which takes the reader through a series of sharply segmented
panels or sections (similar in structure to the ones in Mariana) leading to a
dramatic moment reminiscent of religious conversion.
The Lady of Shalott is an Arthurian figure invented by Tennyson, who
serves as a symbol for the artist living away from the real world in an ivory
tower. Isolated in her tower, the lady weaves a tapestry that depicts human life,
which she herself can only experience at a distance in a magic mirror. When the
handsome Lancelot whom she sees reflected in the mirror leads her to look
20

directly out her window, her mirror and web shatter, flying apart, and she is hit by
a mortal curse. The poem presents in a symbolical form the problematic relation
of the artist to society. Tennyson, like so many other Victorian artists who felt the
need to keep aesthetic distance while at the same time making bold statements
about their own world, expresses his thoughts about Victorian England by using
mythic, parabolic narratives, set in other places and times.
This is how George P. Landow of Brown University assesses Tennysons
poetic merits:
Tennyson's characteristic poetic structure takes the following form: the main character
progresses through a series of discrete sections or panels that may take the form of
landscapes, states of mind, arguments, or tests, until he has a dream, vision, or other
powerful revelation that effects a conversion to new ways of life and action. What is
perhaps most distinctive about Tennyson's poetic structure is the sharp separation he
achieves between sections in many of his poems. In fact, even when telling a story in an
apparently straightforward chronological form, Tennyson always prefers to progress
through a series of parables, songs, visions, arguments, and actions. His characteristic
use of flashbacks, parabolic commentary, and complex plotting creates a narrative form
in In Memoriam (1850) and The Idylls of the King (1859-1888) that anticipates the
modernist narrative of Faulkner.

Further Reading
Kincaid, James R. Tennyson's Major Poems: The Comic and Ironic Patterns. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.

21

Landow, George P. "Closing the Frame: Having Faith and Keeping Faith in
Tennyson's 'The Passing of Arthur.'" Bulletin of the John Rylands University
Library of Manchester, 56, 1974.
Riede, David G. "Tennyson's Poetics of Melancholy and the Imperial
Imagination, Studies in English Literature 40:4, 2000.
Tennyson, H. Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son, New York,
MacMillan: 1897.

Matthew Arnold

22

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
(Dover Beach)

Matthew Arnold, one of the most prominent English poets and critics, was born at
Laleham on the Thames, as the eldest son of Thomas Arnold, historian and great
headmaster of Rugby School, and of Mary Arnold. From his early schooling days
he exhibited an uncommon talent for writing. He was educated at Rugby, where
he won a prize for his poem Alaric at Rome, and Oxford, where he won a prize for
Cromwell, A Prize Poem and graduated with only Second Class honors, to
everyones surprise. Always outwardly sociable during his school days, he had not
yet revealed that hidden ground of thought and of austerity within which was to
appear in his poetry later on. During these years, Thomas Arnold states in
Passages in a Wandering Life, my brother was cultivating his poetic gift
carefully, but his exuberant, versatile nature claimed other satisfactions. His keen
bantering talk made him something of a social lion among Oxford men, he even
began to dress fashionably. In 184, after a short interlude of teaching at Rugby,
he was elected Fellow of Oriel, a great distinction at Oxford.

23

Little is known about his private life during this period. It seems that at
some point he was youthfully enamored of France and of the acting of Rachel,
whom he followed to Paris and watched night after night. It also appears that he
visited George Sand at Nohant on one occasion and made on her the impression
of a Milton jeune et voyageant (a young and wandering Milton). From his
poems dedicated to the mysterious Marguerite and from a thinly veiled reference
in a letter to his friend Arthur Hugh Clough, we may infer that his French
connection was further strengthened by a less intellectual bond. In 1851 Arnold
became an inspector of schools, and almost to the end of his life this job absorbed
the greater part of his time and was responsible for the relatively small number of
poems he wrote. It was the same job, however, that enabled him to marry Frances
Lucy Wightman, a judges daughter.
Arnolds literary career took off unsuccesfully in 1849 with the publication
of The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems by A., which attracted little critical or
public attention and was soon withdrawn from the shelves. Empedocles on Etna
and Other Poems, published in 1852, shared the same fate. He turned to literary
criticism with the preface to the Poems which he issued in 1853 under his own
name. The preface emphasizes the importance of subject in poetry, the clearness
of arrangement, rigor of development, simplicity of style that the Greeks
professed, and contains nearly all the central elements in his later critical theory.
Arnold, however, was still first and foremost a poet, and in 1855 he published
Poems, Second Series, which still did not bring him the public acclaim he craved.
In 1857 he was appointed to the professorship of poetry at Oxford, which
he held for two successive terms of five years, and which made him focus almost
entirely on criticism and neglect poetry. In order to inaugurate the Professorship
with dignity, as he wrote in a letter to a friend, in 1858 he published his tragedy
of Merope.
24

In 1861 On Translating Homer was published, followed in 1862 by Last

Words on Translating Homer unfortunately both volumes were built on rather
arbitrary assumptions and presented no clear-cut conclusions. Especially
characteristic of these two productions is Arnolds argument regarding the need
for an objective and intelligent criticism in England. This line of thought is also
identifiable in The Function of Criticism at the Present Time and The Literary
Influence of Academies, two essays which were published in Criticism (1865),
where the influence of French ideas on Arnold is more than obvious.
After the publication in 1867 of New Poems, and in 1868 of the Essay on
the Study of Celtic Literature, a stimulating study on philology and anthropology,
Arnold turned almost entirely from literature to social and theological writings. In
his desire to bring culture and criticism to the English middle class, he wrote the
intellectually challenging Culture and Anarchy, where he mentions such concepts
as sweetness and light, borrowed from Swift, and Philistine, borrowed from
the German Romantics. A further volume appeared in 1878, called Last Essays on
Church and Religion, and the next year he published Mixed Essays.
In 1883 he received a pension of 250 a year, enabling him to retire from
the job of school inspector, due to which he had traveled through most of England
and made several trips abroad to analyze continental education. The reports he
wrote as a result of these travels were published in book form, and together with
his ordinary reports as a school inspector had an important impact on the English
educational system. Freed from his daily chores, he went on a lecture tour to the
United States9. The three lectures on Numbers, Literature and Science, and
Emerson, which he delivered to American audiences in 1883-84, were afterwards
9

Ironically enough, Arnold was not particularly well received in the US. The American audiences he
lectured to were not mentally ripe for his ideas and outlook. In addition to this, he was even scorned and
ridiculed by journalists. At this time an American newspaper compared him, as he stooped now and then to
look at his manuscript on a music stool, to an elderly bird picking at grapes on a trellis; and another
described him thus: "He has harsh features, supercilious manners, parts his hair down the middle, wears a
single eyeglass and ill-fitting clothes."

25

published as Discourses in America. Arnold told George Russell, his biographer

and editor of his Letters, that of all his prose writings, this collection of speeches
was the one he most wish to be remembered for. He visited America again in 1886
when he went to see his daughter who had married an American. When she
returned the visit in 1888, he went to Liverpool to meet her, and there, while
running to catch a tramcar, suddenly died.
Essays in Criticism: Second Series appeared shortly after his death. This
volume contained the by now world-famous The Study of Poetry, with its
discussion of poetry as a criticism of life. This volume, along with Essays in
Criticism: First Series, contains the prose work by which Arnold is now best
known.
Constantly caught between his image of a poet and that of a critic, Arnold
was, in his private life, the most delightful of companions, at least this is what
G. W. E. Russell states in his Portraits of the Seventies, where he describes him as
a man of the world entirely free from worldliness and a man of letters without
the faintest trace of pedantry. He was a familiar figure at the Athenaeum Club, a
frequent diner-out and guest at great country houses, fond of fishing and shooting,
a pleasant and lively conversationalist, read constantly and complexly, and during
the time when he had to support his family by school inspecting, he sought refuge
in writing by filling notebook after notebook with personal meditations written in
an almost monastic tone. His writings display a sometimes baffling contradiction
between the seriousness of his critical views and the melancholy tone of his
poetry.
J. M. Robertson, in Modern Humanists, notes that apart from this
contradiction, one can notice another important problem concerning Arnolds
writings: few of his ideas were his own, and he failed to reconcile the conflicting
influences which moved him so strongly. Arnold himself confesses to these
26

influences in a letter to Cardinal Newman: There are four people, in especial,

from whom I am conscious of having learnt a very different thing from merely
receiving a strong impression learnt habits, methods, ruling ideas, which are
constantly with me; and the four are Goethe, Wordsworth, Sainte-Beuve, and
yourself. To this enumeration one must necessarily add Arnolds father. The son
strongly resembled the father and this was early pointed out by fellow poet
Charles Algernon Swinburne. Bred within the same Philistinism which as a
cosmopolitan and Apostle of Culture he attacked, he paradoxically remained at
least partially a Philistine to the end of his life.
He derived the subject matter of his narrative poems from various
traditional or literary sources, which does not make him the ideal candidate for
originality. Furthermore, his greatest shortcomings as a poet are his lack of ear
and his incapacity to distinguish between poetry and prose. Interestingly enough,
Arnold himself said about his poetry in 1869 that it represented on the whole, the
main movement of mind of the last quarter of a century. One has to keep in
mind, however, that as Sir Edmund Chambers puts it, in a comparison between
the best works of Matthew Arnold and that of his six greatest contemporaries []
the proportion of work which endures is greater in the case of Matthew Arnold
than in any one of them.
His poetry endures because of its directness, and the literal fidelity of his beautifully
circumstantial description of nature, of scenes, and places, imbued with a kind of
majestic sadness which takes the place of music. Alike in his poetry and in his prose,
which supplies in charm of manner, breadth of subject-matter, and acuteness of
individual judgment, what it lacks in system, a stimulating personality makes itself felt.
He was chiefly valuable to his own age as its severest critic; to ours he represents its
humanest aspirations.10
10

British Authors of the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Stanley Kunitz. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1936. 16-18.

27

Further Reading

Chambers, Sir Edmund. Matthew Arnold. Watson Lecture on English Poetry,

1932, in English Critical Essays: Twentieth Century, ed. Phyllis M. Jones,
London: Oxford University Press, 1933.
Collini, Stefan. Arnold. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Eliot, T. S. "Matthew Arnold", in The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933.
Hamilton, Ian. A Gift Imprisoned: A Poetic Life of Matthew Arnold. London:
Bloomsbury, 1998.
Mazzeno, Laurence W. Matthew Arnold: The Critical Legacy. Woodbridge:
Camden House, 1999.
Murray, Nicholas. A Life of Matthew Arnold. New York: St. Martin's, 1996.
Park, Honan. Matthew Arnold, a Life. New York, McGraw Hill, 1981.
Paul, Herbert W. Matthew Arnold. London: Macmillan, 1902.
Russell, G. W. E. Matthew Arnold. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904.
Saintsbury, George. Matthew Arnold. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company,
1899.
Trilling, Lionel. Matthew Arnold. New York: Norton, 1939.
28

Robert Browning

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our
times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all,
nor be afraid!

29

(Growing Old)

Although Robert Brownings early poetic career was spent in relative obscurity,
he has now come to be accepted as one of the most important poets of the
Victorian age. His chracteristic dramatic monologues and the complex epic The
Ring and the Book (1868-1869), a novel in verse, have guaranteed him a
permanent position in the history of English literature. He was also a gifted
childrens writer, a perfect example in this sense being The Pied Piper of
Hamelin, included at the end of the volume Bells and Pomegranates. The Pied
Piper moved quickly into the canon of childrens literature, where it has
remained ever since, appearing almost as frequently in adapted versions as in
the authors original.
Browning was born on the 7 th of May 1812 in Camberwell, as the only son
of Robert Browning, a clerk in the Bank of England, and an extremely religious
German-Scotch mother, Sarah Anna Wiedemann Browning. His mothers faith
and love of music are frequently thought to be the most important influences on
the poets intellectual and spiritual development, but his fathers scholarly
interests and unusual educational methods were at least equally important. The
son of a prosperous banker, Robert Brownings father had been sent in his youth
to the West Indies to make his own fortune, but he soon found the slave trade
there so difficult to cope with that he returned, wishing to make a name for
himself in art and scholarship instead. The quarrel with his father that folowed led
Brownings father to give up on his dreams and to support himself and his family
by becoming a bank clerk.
Brownings father nevertheless stayed faithful to his passion for literature
and the arts, and in the course of time established a personal library of around six
30

thousand volumes, many of which Browning himself later on searched for poetic
material. In his poem Development, published in the volume Asolando:
Fancies and Facts (1889), Browning remembers at the age of five asking what his
father was reading. To explain the story about the Troyan war, the elder Browning
created a game for the child in which the family pets were assigned roles and
furniture was used to represent the city. Later, when the child had incorporated the
game into his play with his friends, his father introduced him to Alexander Popes
translation of the Iliad. Brownings appetite for the story was thus awakened, and
he decided to learn Greek so as to read the work in the original. These indirect and
ingenuous methods of education doubtlessly left a deep imprint upon him.
In addition to this, Brownings education was conducted to a great extent at
home by his father, which is the explanation behind the wide range of unusual
information the poet incorporated into his work as an adult. His family situation
was also important from a financial perspective: his father, whose artistic and
scholarly ambitions had been destroyed by financial troubles, was more than
willing to support his sons efforts, who decided as a child that he wanted to be a
poet, and never seriously considered any other profession. Browning was
extremely lucky to have both his everyday needs and the financial cost of
publishing his early poems taken care of by his parents.
Brownings early career is described by Ian Jack as a search for an
appropriate poetic form. His first published effort, Pauline: A Fragment of a
Confession (1833), was not precisely what one would call a good start.
Brownings next poetic production, Paracelsus (1835), achieved more critical
acclaim and already displayed traces of the dramatic monologue that Browning
perfected and turned into his distinguishing characteristic over the next years.
Apart from poetry, Browning also wrote several plays, but he was not at all

31

talented for being a playwright. The plays lack of success was doubled by the
poets considerable difficulties in creating theatrical plots.
During the same period Browning wrote The Pied Piper. In May 1842 the
son of one of Brownings close friends, Willie, was sick in bed. Willie liked to
draw and asked Browning to give him some little thing to illustrate while being
bedridden. The poet first wrote a short poem entitled The Cardinal and the Dog,
and then, after being impressed with Willies drawings for it, he came up with
The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The poem shows Browning as a skilled storyteller.
Desperate to rid the city of the rats which are making everyones lives impossible,
the corrupt mayor hires the mysterious piper to charm the rats away. The piper
plays a tune that draws the rats from their holes and leads them to the river Weser,
where they drown. Only one rat escapes by swimming across the river and tells a
moralizing tale to other rats. Once he sees the rats destroyed and their nests
blocked up, the mayor of Hamelin feels secure and denies his agreement with the
piper, refusing to pay him the money he demands. The mayor offered fifty times
the pipers requested fee before the rats were killed, he now offers only fifty
guilders, thinking of all the fine wines he might purchase with the money saved.
The mayor feels confident enough, thinking that the piper cannot restore the rats
to life. The angry piper, seeking revenge, blows a new tune and this time lures the
children of Hamelin to follow him, not to the river but to the Koppelberg, a
mountain west of the city, which opens up to swallow all but one, a lame boy who
cannot walk fast enough to pass through the opening before it closes. The child,
saved by his physical handicap, provides a thoughtful parallel to the rat who
survives by its superior fitness. The Hamelin authorities offer rewards and send
searchers in all directions to find the missing children, but to no avail. Browning
also notes the existence of a population of Saxons in Transylvania that may be
descended from the lost children of Hamelin and ends his poem with the moral
32

that one should always keep ones promises.The poem is utterly charming, and
both its theme and its moral reflect the main directions of Victorian thought.
Earlier critics tended to see Brownings rhyme patterns as appropriate for
light verse such as childrens poems, where the emphasis is on entertainment, but
as a defect in adult poetry, especially with the philosophical and religious
concerns taken up by Victorian verse. He was also frequently attacked for
obscurity in his verse, and much of that obscurity comes from his unreferenced
allusions to his vast and far from homogenous body of readings.
Another narrative poem, How They Brought the Good News from Ghent
to Aix appeared in Brownings collection of dramatic monologues Bells and
Pomegranates. While not necessarily written for children, this poem was printed
separately in a childrens edition after Brownings death and for many years was
commonly included in childrens school texts. The poem dwells on an imaginary
seventeenth-century mission to relieve the city of Aix-la-Chapelle in Germany.
Besides introducing the world to The Pied Piper and establishing the
atmosphere for his future verse, the volume Dramatic Lyrics also had a lasting
effect on Brownings personal life. Elizabeth Barrett greatly admired the book,
and in her 1844 poem Lady Geraldines Courtship she expressed the esteem in
which she held Browning by linking him to William Wordsworth and Alfred
Tennyson as one of the great poets of the age. She eventually met Browning and
the two poets fell deeply in love; unfortunately, Elizabeths father, Edward
Moulton Barrett, did not allow any of his children to marry and leave the home.
On 12 September 1846 they were secretly married, and one week later they
eloped to Italy.
Browning wrote relatively little during their marriage, mainly because the
family frequently moved and also because of Elizabeths frail health. He was
usually busy making all the arrangements for housing and transportation. The
33

Brownings had one child, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, called Pen,
born in 1849 (the same year Brownings mother died). Browning, just like his
own father had done with him, took particular responsibility for his sons
education. However, the poet who some years earlier had produced a major
childrens poem to amuse the son of a friend, wrote no similar creations for his
own son, but continued to work on longer philosophical poems for an adult
audience.
Browning became in his later years that curious phenomenon, the Victorian
sage, famous for his knowledge and his explorations of philosophical questions of
great importance in Victorian life. He witnessed the creation in 1881 of the
Browning Society in his honor, dedicated to the study of the poets work and
thought. Just before his death in 1889, Browning finally published the other poem
written for young Willie Macready, The Cardinal and the Dog. This fifteen-line
poem tells how Cardinal Crescenzio, a representative of the Pope at the Council
of Trent, was frightened by the apparition of a large black dog that only he could
see, after which he became seriously ill; on his deathbed he again saw the dog.
The poem has triggered little critical response and has seldom been anthologized.
Anyone as widely adored as Browning was during the later years of his life
is bound to suffer a decline in critical evaluation after his death. Along with other
Victorians, Browning was dismissed by influential figures among the modernists,
including T.S. Eliot (although Ezra Pound paid tribute to Browning as one of his
literary fathers). Following World War II, however, Brownings reputation has
been revived by a more objective generation of critics who notice his poetic
failings but also trace his influence on the poetic forms and concerns of his
twentieth-century successors. Through all the shifts of critical reputation,
however, Brownings major contribution to the canon of English literature has
retained its popular audience.
34

Further Reading

Chesterton, G.K. Robert Browning, Macmillan, 1903.

DeVane, William Clyde. A Browning Handbook. 2nd. Ed. Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1955.
Drew, Philip. The Poetry of Robert Browning: A Critical Introduction. Methuen,
1970.
Finlayson, Iain. Browning: A Private Life. HarperCollins, 2004.
Garrett, Martin. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. British Library
Writers' Lives, British Library, 2001.
Hudson, Gertrude Reese. Robert Browning's Literary Life from First Work to
Masterpiece. Texas, 1992.
Karlin, Daniel. The Courtship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. Oxford,
1985.
Litzinger, Boyd and Donald Smalley (eds.) Robert Browning: the Critical
Heritage. Routledge, 1995.
Maynard, John. Browning's Youth. Harvard Univ. Press, 1977.
Ryals, Clyde de L. The Life of Robert Browning: a Critical Biography. Blackwell,
1993.

35

Woolford, John and Daniel Karlin. Robert Browning. Longman, 1996.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

36

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach.
(How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways)

Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett was born March 6, 1806 in Durham, England. Her

father, Edward Moulton-Barrett, made most of his quite impressive fortune from
Jamaican sugar plantations, and in 1809 he bought Hope End, a 500-acre estate.
Elizabeth lived a privileged childhood, riding her pony around the grounds,
visiting other families in the neighborhood, and arranging family theatrical
productions with her eleven brothers and sisters. Although frail, she apparently
had no health problems until 1821, when Dr. Coker prescribed opium for a
nervous disorder. Her mother died when she was 22, and critics mark signs of this
loss in her verse novel and most popular masterpiece Aurora Leigh.
Elizabeth, a highly intelligent child, had read a number of Shakespearian
plays, parts of Pope's Homeric translations, passages from Paradise Lost, and the
histories of England, Greece, and Rome, before the age of ten. She was selftaught in almost every aspect. During her teens she read the main Greek and
Latin authors and Dante's Inferno all of them in the original languages. Her
extraordinary appetite for knowledge moved her to learn enough Hebrew to read
the Old Testament from beginning to end. Her enjoyment of the works and subject
matter of Paine, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft was later expressed by her
concern for human rights in her own letters and poems. By the age of twelve she
had written an "epic" poem consisting of four books of rhyming couplets. Barrett

37

later referred to her first literary attempt as, "Pope's Homer done over again, or
rather undone."
In her early twenties, she became a close friend of Hugh Stuart Boyd, a
blind, middle-aged scholar, who revived her interest in Greek studies. During their
friendship Barrett absorbed an astonishing amount of Greek literature Homer,
Pindar, Aristophanes, etc. but after a few years Barrett's fondness for Boyd
diminished. Her intellectual fascination with the classics and metaphysics was
balanced by a religious obsession which she later described as "not the deep
persuasion of the mild Christian but the wild visions of an enthusiast." Her
religious obsession might have also been the result of the fact that her family
attended services at the nearest chapel, and Mr. Barrett was active in Bible and
Missionary societies.
From 1822 on, Elizabeth Barrett's interests became more and more
scholarly and literary. Mr. Barrett's financial losses in the early 30s forced him to
sell Hope End estate, and although never poor, the family moved three times
between 1832 and 1837, finally settling in Wimpole Street in London. In 1838,
The Seraphim and Other Poems appeared, the first volume of Elizabeth's mature
poetry to appear under her own name. That same year her health forced her to
move to Torquay, on the Devonshire coast. Her favorite brother Edward went
along with her; his death by drowning later that year was a blow which from
which she never fully recovered. When she returned to Wimpole Street, she
became an invalid and a recluse, spending most of the next five years in her
bedroom, seeing only one or two people other than her close family.

One of those people was John Kenyon, one of the popular mecenas of the
Victorian age. Her 1844 volume Poems made her one of the most popular writers
38

in the land, and inspired Robert Browning to write to her, telling her how much he
loved her poems. Kenyon arranged for Browning to come see her in May 1845,
and thus began one of the most famous courtships in English literature. Six years
older than him and an invalid, she could not believe that the vigorous and worldly
Browning really loved her as much as he said, and her doubts are expressed in the
Sonnets from the Portuguese which she wrote over the next two years. Love
conquered all, however, and Browning eloped with his beloved to Italy in August
1846. Since they were proper Victorians, however, they got married a week
before.
Mr. Barrett disinherited her (as he did each one of his children who got
married without his permission, and he never gave his permission). Unlike her
brothers and sisters, Elizabeth had inherited some money of her own, so the
Brownings were reasonably comfortable in Italy. In 1849, they had a son, Robert
Wiedeman Barrett Browning.
At her husband's insistence, the second edition of her Poems included her
love sonnets. They greatly increased her popularity and the high critical regard in
which the Victorians held their favorite poetess. Her enormous popularity is
testified by the fact that on Wordsworth's death in 1850, she was seriously
considered for the Laureateship, which however went to Tennyson in the end. Her
growing interest in the Italian struggle for independence is evident in Casa Guidi
Windows (1851) and Poems before Congress (1860). 1857 saw the publication of
the verse-novel Aurora Leigh, commonly considered her finest achievement.
It is still unclear what sort of illness Elizabeth Barrett Browning suffered
of, although medical and literary scholars have enjoyed speculating. Whatever it
was, the opium which was repeatedly prescribed probably made it worse; and
Browning almost certainly lengthened her life by taking her south and by his
solicitous attention. She died in his arms on June 29, 1861.
39

No female poet was more respected and admired by cultured readers in

both the United States and England than Elizabeth Barrett Browning during the
nineteenth century. Her poetry had an immense impact on the works of Emily
Dickinson who admired her as woman of great talent. Barrett's treatment of social
injustice (the slave trade in America, the oppression of the Italians by the
Austrians, child labor in the mines and the mills of England, and the restrictions
placed upon women) is manifested in many of her poems. The first half of Casa
Guidi Windows (1851) was filled with political discourse and the hope that the
newly awakened liberal movements were moving toward unification and freedom
in the Italian states. The second half of the volume, written after liberalism had
been crushed in Italy, is dominated by her disillusionment. After a decade of truce,
Italians once again began to struggle for their freedom, but were forced to agree to
an armistice that would leave Venice under Austrian control. Barrett Browning's
Poems Before Congress (1860) responded to these events by criticizing the
English government for not providing help to the Italians. One of the poems in
this collection, "A Curse For a Nation," which attacked slavery, had been
previously published in an abolitionist journal in Boston, USA.
Aurora Leigh also dealt with social injustice, but its subject was the social
subjugation of women to the dominating male. It also discussed the role of a
woman as a female and poet. Barrett's popularity declined after her death, and
late-Victorian critics thought that although much of her writing would be
forgotten, she would be remembered for "The Cry of the Children", "Isobel's
Child", "Bertha in the Lane", and most of all the Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Virginia Woolf argued that Aurora Leigh's heroine, "with her passionate interest in
the social questions, her conflict as artist and woman, her longing for knowledge
and freedom, is the true daughter of her age."

40

Woolf's praise of that work

prompted the modern critical reevaluation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and

today it attracts more attention than the rest of her poetry.
Further Reading

Creston, Dormer. Andromeda in Wimpole Street: The Romance of Elizabeth

Barrett Browning. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1929.
Everett, Glenn. Life of Elizabeth Browning. The Victorian Web 2002.
Forster, Margaret. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. New York: Random House,
Vintage Classics, 2004.
Hayter, Alethea. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. London: Longmans, Green & Co.,
1965.
Kaplan, Cora. Aurora Leigh And Other Poems. London: The Womens Press
Limited, 1978.
Lewis, Linda. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Spiritual Progress. Missouri:
Missouri University Press. 1997.
Mander, Rosalie. Mrs Browning: The Story of Elizabeth Barrett. London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980.
Markus, Julia. Dared and Done: Marriage of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert
Browning. Ohio University Press, 1995.

41

Peterson, William S. Sonnets From The Portuguese. Massachusetts: Barre

Publishing, 1977.
Pollock, Mary Sanders. Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning: A Creative
Partnership. England: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2003.
Stephenson, Glennis. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Poetry of Love. Ann
Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1989.

42

John Clare

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,

My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am, and live with shadows tost.
(I Am)

John Clare (13 July 1793 20 May 1864) was an English poet, the son of a farm
labourer, who came to be known for his idyllic representations of the English
countryside and his lamentation of its destruction at the hands of industrialization.
His poetic productions suffered a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and
he is now considered to be among the most important 19th-century poets. His
biographer Jonathan Bate states that Clare was "the greatest labouring-class poet
that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of
nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self".
Clare was born in Helpston, close to the city of Peterborough in
Northamptonshire and this is why he was often called "The Northamptonshire
Peasant Poet".
He became an agricultural labourer while still a child; however, he attended
school in Glinton church until he was twelve. In his early adult years, Clare
became a pot boy in the Blue Bell public house and there he fell in love with
Mary Joyce; but her father, a wealthy farmer, forbade her to meet him. Thereafter
he was a gardener at Burghley House. He enlisted in the militia, tried camp life
with the gypsies, and worked in Pickworth as a lime burner. In the following year
43

he was forced to accept parish relief, a thing that greatly humiliated and distressed
him. Malnutrition going back to his childhood may be the main reason behind his
5-foot stature and may have contributed to his poor physical health in later life.
While he was struggling to make ends meet, Clare had bought a copy of
Thomson's Seasons and began to write poems and sonnets. In an attempt to stop
his parents' eviction from their home, Clare offered his poems to a local
bookseller named Edward Drury. Drury sent Clare's poetry to his cousin John
Taylor of the publishing firm of Taylor & Hessey, who had published the work of
John Keats. Taylor published Clare's Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and
Scenery in 1820. This book was highly praised, and in the next year his Village
Minstrel and other Poems was published.
Meanwhile he had married Martha ("Patty") Turner in 1820. Soon,
however, his income became insufficient, and in 1823 he was nearly penniless.
The Shepherd's Calendar (1827) met with little success. As he worked again in
the fields his health temporarily improved; but he soon became seriously ill. Earl
FitzWilliam presented him with a new cottage and a piece of ground, but Clare
could not settle in his new home.
Clare was constantly torn between the two worlds of literary London and
his often illiterate neighbours; between the need to write poetry and the need for
money to feed and clothe his children. His health began to seriously suffer, and he
had bouts of severe depression, which became worse after his sixth child was born
in 1830 and as his poetry sold less well. In 1832, his friends and his London
patrons clubbed together to move the family to a larger cottage with a
smallholding in the village of Northborough, not far from Helpston. However, he
felt only more alienated and depressed.
His last work, the Rural Muse (1835), was noticed favourably by reviewers,
but this was not enough to support his wife and seven children. Clare's mental
44

health began to collapse. As his alcohol consumption steadily increased along

with his dissatisfaction with his own identity, Clare's behaviour became more
erratic. A notable instance of this behaviour was demonstrated in his interruption
of a performance of The Merchant of Venice, in which Clare verbally assaulted
Shylock. He was becoming a burden to Patty and his family, and in July 1837, on
the recommendation of his publishing friend, John Taylor, Clare went of his own
volition (accompanied by a friend of Taylor's) to Dr Matthew Allen's private
asylum High Beach. Taylor had assured Clare that there he would receive the best
medical care.
During his first few asylum years in Essex (18371841), Clare re-wrote
famous poems and sonnets by Lord Byron. His own version of Child Harold
became a lament for past lost love, and Don Juan, A Poem became a
misogynistic rant of an aging dandy. Clare also took credit for Shakespeare's
plays, claiming to be the Renaissance genius himself. "I'm John Clare now," the
poet claimed to a newspaper editor, "I was Byron and Shakespeare formerly." In
1841, Clare ran away from the asylum in Essex, to walk home, believing that he
was to meet his first love Mary Joyce; Clare was convinced that he was married
with children to her and Martha as well. He did not believe her family when they
told him she had died accidentally three years earlier in a house fire. He remained
free, mostly at home in Northborough, for the five months following, but
eventually Patty called the doctors and on Christmas 1841, Clare was committed
to the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum. He remained here for the rest of his
life under the care of Dr Thomas Octavius Prichard, who encouraged and helped
him to write. Here he wrote possibly his most famous poem, I Am.
He died on 20 May 1864, in his 71st year. Clare's gravestone bares the
inscriptions "To the Memory of John Clare The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet"
and "A Poet is Born not Made". In his time, Clare was commonly known as "the
45

Northamptonshire Peasant Poet". His formal education was brief, his other
employment and class-origins were lowly. Clares main merit is to have resisted
the use of the increasingly standardised English grammar and orthography in his
poetry, often comparing 'grammar' (in a wider sense of orthography) to tyrannical
government and slavery. He also wrote in his Northamptonshire dialect,
introducing local words to the literary canon.
In his early life he struggled to find a place for his poetry in the changing
literary fashions of the day. He also felt that he did not belong with other peasants.
Clare once wrote
I live here among the ignorant like a lost man in fact like one whom the rest seemes
careless of having anything to do withthey hardly dare talk in my company for fear I
should mention them in my writings and I find more pleasure in wandering the fields
than in musing among my silent neighbours who are insensible to everything but toiling
and talking of it and that to no purpose.

It is common to see an absence of punctuation in many of Clare's original

writings, although many publishers felt the need to change this in the majority of
his work. Clare often argued with his editors about how his poems should be
presented to the reading public.
His dominant themes were largely the result of Clares growing up during a
period of massive changes in both town and countryside as the Industrial
Revolution changed the face of Europe. Many former agricultural workers,
including children, moved away from the countryside to over-crowded cities,
following factory work. The Agricultural Revolution saw pastures ploughed up,
trees and hedges uprooted, the fens drained and the common land enclosed. This
destruction of a centuries-old way of life saddened Clare deeply. His political and
social views were predominantly conservative ("I am as far as my politics reaches
46

'King and Country'no Innovations in Religion and Government say I."). He

refused even to complain about the subordinate position to which English society
relegated him, humbly stating that "with the old dish that was served to my
forefathers I am content."
His early work delights in nature and the human activities connected to it.
Poems such as Winter Evening, Haymaking and Wood Pictures in Summer
celebrate the beauty of the world and the simplicity of rural life, where animals
must be fed and crops harvested in a cycle that ensures balance and harmony. In
his rural-inspired he often used poetic forms such as the sonnet and the rhyming
couplet. His later poetry is more meditative and use forms similar to the folk
songs and ballads of his youth.
His knowledge of the natural world went far beyond that of the major
Romantic poets. However, poems such as I Am show a metaphysical depth
comparable to the one of his great contemporary poets. Clare was the most
influential poet, aside from Wordsworth to practice in an older poetic style.
Clare was relatively forgotten during the later nineteenth century, but
interest in his work was revived in 1908, 1920 and 1935. The largest collection of
original Clare manuscripts are housed at Peterborough Museum, where they are
available to view by appointment.
Further Reading
Bate, Jonathan. John Clare: A Biography. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Grainger, Margaret (ed), "The Natural History Prose Writings of John Clare",
Oxford English Texts, Oxford University Press, 1983.
Sales, Roger. John Clare: A Literary Life. Palgrave Macmillian, 2002.
47

Summerfield, Geoffrey, Hugh Haughton, Adam Phillips, "John Clare in Context",

Cambridge University Press, 1994.

48

Walter Savage Landor

No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken,

Than that the largest heart is soonest broken.
(No Truer Word)

Walter Savage Landor was born on 30 January 1775 and died on 17 September
1864. He was one of the most controversial and frequently misunderstood English
writers and poets of the Victorian Age. His best known productions are the prose
piece Imaginary Conversations, and the poem Rose Aylmer, but the critical
recognition he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched
by public popularity. As valuable as his work was, it was overshadowed by his
difficult character and heated temper, which often got him into problems of
various sorts.
In a long and active life of eighty-nine years Landor produced a
considerable amount of literary output, among which prose, lyrical poetry, and
political writings, including epigrams. His prose and poetry have received most
acclaim, but critics are divided in their preference between them and he is now
often described as 'a poet's poet', meaning that he was more widely appreciated by
his own kind than by the Victorian readership. Landors prose is best represented
by the Imaginary Conversations. In this work he referred to a vast array of
historical characters from Greek philosophers to contemporary writers and
composed conversations between pairs of characters that covered areas of
philosophy, politics, romance and many other topics. This work catered to
Landors natural ability for writing dialogue much more than his plays. Although
49

these have many quotable passages the overall effect suffered because he never
properly learned the art of drama.
Landor wrote sensitive and beautiful poetry. His love poems were inspired
by some of his female romantic ideals Ione, Ianthe, Rose Aylmer and Rose
Paynter. Equally sensitive are his domestic poems about his sister and his
children. In the course of his career Landor wrote for various journals on a range
of topics that interested him from anti-Pitt politics to the unification of Italy. He
was also a master of the epigram which he used to good effect and wrote
satirically to avenge himself on politicians and other people who upset him.
Landor also wrote over three hundred Latin poems, political tracts and
essays, but these have generally been ignored by criticism. He found Latin useful
for expressing things that might otherwise have been viewed as indecent or
unattractive by Victorian standards.
Landors life is just as fascinating as is his work and can be described as an
amazing collection of incidents and misfortunes, many of them caused by himself
but some no fault of his own. His difficult nature and hot-headed temperament,
combined with a complete contempt for authority, landed him in a great deal of
trouble over the years. By a succession of bizarre circumstances, he was
successively thrown out of Rugby, Oxford and even from the family home. In the
course of his life he came into conflict repeatedly with his political enemies - the
supporters of Pitt - but also with a succession of Lord Lieutenants, Bishops, Lord
Chancellors, Spanish officers, Italian Grand Dukes, nuncio legatos, lawyers and
other minor officials. He usually gained the upper hand, if not with an immediate
hilarious response, then possibly many years later with a biting epithet. Many
times his friends had to come to his rescue in facing his opponents or in
encouraging him to moderate his behaviour. His friends were also active in the
desperate attempts to get his work published, where he offended or felt cheated by
50

a succession of publishers who found his work either unsellable or unpublishable.

He was repeatedly involved in legal disputes with his neighbours whether in
England or Italy. Fate dealt with him unfairly when he tried to put into practice his
bold and generous ideas to improve the lot of man, or when he was mistaken at
one time for an agent of the Prince of Wales and at another for a tramp. His
stormy marriage with his wife resulted in a long separation, and then when she
had finally taken him back to a series of sad attempts to escape.
In spite of all of this, Landor was often described as the kindest and
gentlest of men. He had lots of friends who went to great lengths to help him as
his loyalty and liberality of heart were as inexhaustible as his bounty and
beneficence of hand. It was said that praise and encouragement, deserved or
undeserved, came more readily to his lips than challenge or defiance. The
numerous accounts of those with whom he came in contact reveal that he was
fascinating company. His passionate compassion, his bitter and burning pity for
all wrongs endured in all the world, found outlet in his lifelong defence of
tyrannicide. His tender and ardent love of children, of animals and of flowers
makes fragrant alike the pages of his writing and the records of his life.
In 1808 he wanted to take part in the Peninsular War. At the age of thirtythree, he left England for Spain as a volunteer to serve in the national army
against Napoleon. He was disappointed not to take part in any real action and
found himself giving support at Bilbao where he was nearly captured. A couple of
months later Landor returned to England. The Spanish Government offered its
thanks to him, and King Ferdinand appointed him a Colonel in the Spanish Army.
The Spanish experience provided inspiration for the tragedy of Count
Julian, based on Julian, count of Ceuta. Although this demonstrated Landor's
distinctive style of writing, it suffered from his failure to study the art of drama
and so made little impact on the English stage. The plot is difficult to follow
51

unless the story is previously known and concerns a complicated situation after
the defeat of the last Visigoth King of Spain. The theme is the one of crime
leading to crime. Thomas de Quincey later wrote of the work "Mr Landor is
probably the one man in Europe that has adequately conceived the situation, the
stern self-dependency and monumental misery of Count Julian". Fellow poet
Swinburne described it as "the sublimest poem published in our language,
between the last masterpiece of Milton (Samson Agonistes) and the first
masterpiece of Shelley, (Prometheus Unbound) one equally worthy to stand
unchallenged beside either for poetic perfection as well as moral majesty. The
superhuman isolation of agony and endurance which encircles and exalts the hero
is in each case expressed with equally appropriate magnificence of effect. The
style of Count Julian, if somewhat deficient in dramatic ease and the fluency of
natural dialogue, has such might and purity and majesty of speech as elsewhere
we find only in Milton so long and so steadily sustained."
Before going to Spain, he had been looking for a property and settled on a
ruined Benedictine abbey. He sold the property which he inherited from his father,
and persuaded his mother to sell her estate to contribute to the purchase cost. He
wanted to become a model country gentleman, planting trees, importing sheep
from Spain, and improving the roads.
In 1811 he went to a ball in Bath and seeing a pretty girl exclaimed "That's
the nicest girl in the room, and I'll marry her". She was Julia Thuillier, the
daughter of an impoverished Swiss banker who had an unsuccessful business at
Banbury and had gone to Spain, leaving his family at Bath. They married at St
James Church Bath on 24 May 1811 and settled for a while at Llanthony Abbey.
His countryside life, however, offered him little satisfaction. He had
frequent quarrels with his neighbors and was even accused of having provoked
the death of a man who drank himself to death. He wasted much effort and money
52

in noble attempts to improve the land, and to relieve the poverty and raise the
condition of the lower class inhabitants. The final straw was when he let his
farmland to a man who was incompetent and extravagant and paid no rent. After
an expensive action to recover the debts from him, Landor finally had enough of
countryside life, and decided to leave, abandoning Llanthony to his creditors
principally to his mother.
In 1814 Landor left England for Jersey, where he had a quarrel with his
wife and set off for France on his own. Eventually she joined him at Tours as did
his brother Robert. However, Landor soon became dissatisfied with Tours and
after a series of conflicts with his landlady set off in September 1815 with his
wife and brother on a journey to Italy.
While in Italy, Landor busied himself with new editions of his works and
interested himself in the unification of Italy. In 1861, Browning left Italy after the
death of his wife. Landor afterwards seldom left the house and remained petulant
and uncomfortable, occasionally visited by his sons. He was much concerned
about the fate of his picture collection, little of which had any merit, and about
preparations for his grave as he hoped to be buried at Widcombe near Bath. He
published some Imaginary Conversations in the 'Atheneum' in 1861-2 and in
1863 published a last volume of Heroic Idyls, with Additional Poems, English and
Latin, described by Swinburne as " the last fruit of a genius which after a life of
eighty-eight years had lost nothing of its majestic and pathetic power, its exquisite
and exalted".
Almost the last event of his life was a visit in 1864 from the poet
Swinburne, who visited Florence specifically to see him, and dedicated to him the
'Atlanta in Calydon'. In 1864 on May Day Landor said to his landlady "I shall
never write again. Put out the lights and draw the curtains". A few months later he
died quietly in Florence at the age of 89. He was buried not after all at Widcombe
53

but in the English Cemetery, Florence, near the tomb of his friend, Elizabeth
Barrett Browning.
Further Reading

Bicknell, Titus. "Calamus Ense Potentior Est: Walter Savage Landor's Poetic War
of Words", 1996.
Chambers, E K (ed). Landor: Poetry and Prose, 1946.
Elwin, Malcolm. Landor: A Replevin, 1958.
Forster, John. The Works and Life of Walter Savage Landor, 8 vols., 1846.
Pinsky, Robert. Landor's Poetry, 1968.
Proudfit, Charles L. (ed.). Landor as Critic, 1979.
Rostrevor Hamilton, G. Walter Savage Landor, 1960.
Super, R.H. Walter Savage Landor, 1977.

54

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things-For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
(Pied Beauty)

Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on 28 July 1844 and died on 8 June 1889. He
was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, and after his
death he came to be regarded as one of the leading Victorian poets. His
experimental explorations in prosody (especially sprung rhythm) and his use of
imagery established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional
verse.
Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in Stratford, Essex as the first of nine
children. His father founded a marine insurance firm and, at one time, was the
British consul general in Hawaii. He was also, for a time, the church warden at St
John-at-Hampstead and a published writer and poet. He reviewed poetry for The
Times and wrote one novel. Hopkins mother was the daughter of a London
physician, particularly fond of music and of reading, especially German
philosophy, literature and the novels of Dickens. Both parents were deeply
religious High Church Anglicans. Hopkins's first ambitions were to be a painter,
and he was inspired, as an adult, by the work of John Ruskin and the PreRaphaelites.
55

Manley Hopkins moved his family to Hampstead in 1852, near to where

John Keats had lived thirty years before. At ten years old Gerard Manley Hopkins
was sent to board at Highgate School and, while studying Keats's poetry,
composed "The Escorial" (1860), his earliest poem. Here he also attempted
asceticism for the first time. He once argued that most people drank more liquids
than they really needed and bet that he could go without drinking for a week. He
persisted until his tongue was black and he fainted. On another occasion, he
abstained from salt for a week.
At Balliol College, Oxford, he studied the great classics. Hopkins was an
unusually sensitive and shy student and poet, as witnessed by his class-notes and
early poetic pieces. It was at Oxford that he forged a lifelong friendship with
Robert Bridges (who later became Poet Laureate). Hopkins was deeply impressed
in the work of Christina Rossetti and she became one of his greatest contemporary
influences, meeting him in 1864. During this time he studied with the prestigious
writer and critic Walter Pater, who tutored him in 1866 and who remained a friend
till September 1879 when Hopkins left Oxford. During the time spent at Oxford
he became more studious and began recording his "sins" in his diary. As an
undergraduate he engaged in friendships that may be viewed as romantic, though
they tended to be idealised and spiritualised. In particular, he found it hard to
accept his sexual attraction to other men, including a deep infatuation for Digby
Mackworth Dolben. There is nothing to suggest, however, any physical
consummation and indeed he seems to have remained celibate throughout his life.
He exercised a strict self-control in regard to his homosexual desire. It was during
this time that he began to consider choosing the cloister.
On 18 January 1866 Hopkins composed his most ascetic poem, The Habit
of Perfection. On 23 January he included poetry in the list of things to be given
up for Lent. In July he decided to become a Catholic. He was received into the
56

Church on 21 October 1866. In May 1868 he made a bonfire of his poems and
gave up poetry almost entirely for seven years. The decision to convert estranged
him from both his family and a number of his acquaintances. After his graduation
in 1867 Hopkins was provided a teaching post at the Oratory in Birmingham.
While there he was inspired to begin teaching himself the violin. He also felt the
call to enter the ministry and decided to become a Jesuit, pausing only to visit
Switzerland, which officially forbade Jesuits to enter.
Hopkins began his novitiate in the Society of Jesus in September 1868
taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Writing would remain something
of a concern for him as he felt that his interest in poetry prevented him from
wholly devoting himself to his religion. However, after reading Duns Scotus in
1872, he saw that the two did not necessarily conflict. Unable to suppress his
desire to describe the natural world, he also wrote music, sketched, and for church
occasions he wrote some "verses," as he called them. He would later write
sermons and other religious pieces.
While he was studying in the Jesuit house of theological studies, he was
asked by his religious superior to write a poem to commemorate the foundering of
a German ship in a storm. So in 1875 he was moved to take up poetry once more
and write a lengthy poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland. The work displays
both the religious concerns and some of the unusual meter and rhythms of his
subsequent poetry not present in his few remaining early works. It not only
depicts the dramatic events and heroic deeds but also tells of the poet's reconciling
the terrible events with God's higher purpose. The poem was accepted but not
printed by a Jesuit publication, and this rejection fuelled his ambivalence about
his poetry. Most of his poetry remained unpublished until after his death.
Hopkins chose the austere and restrictive life of a Jesuit and was at times
gloomy. The brilliant student who had left Oxford with a first class honours
57

degree failed his final theology exam. This failure almost certainly meant that,
though ordained in 1877, Hopkins would not progress in the order. In 1877 he
wrote Gods Grandeur, an array of sonnets and finished The Windhover only a
few months before his ordination. Though rigorous, isolated and sometimes
unpleasant, his life during Jesuit training had at least some stability; the uncertain
and varied work after ordination was even harder on his sensibilities. In October
1877, not long after he completed The Sea and the Skylark and only a month
after he had been ordained as a priest, Hopkins took up his duties as subminister
and teacher at Mount St. Marys College, Chesterfield. In July 1878 he became
curate at the Jesuit church in Mount Street, London. In December he became
curate at St. Aloysiuss Church, Oxford, then moving to Manchester, Liverpool
and Glasgow.
In 1884 he became professor of Greek and Latin at University College
Dublin. This position, as well as his isolation in Ireland deepened his gloom and
his poems of the time, such as I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, reflected this.
They came to be known as the "terrible sonnets," not because of their quality but
because they perfectly expressed the melancholy and depression which
characterized the later part of Hopkins' life.
During the last five years of his life, his work load was extremely heavy. In
addition to this, he was very unhappy with living in Dublin, away from England
and his friends. His general health deteriorated as his eyesight began to fail. He
felt confined and abandoned. As a devout Jesuit, he found himself in an artistic
dilemma. To subdue any egotism which would violate the humility required by his
religious position, he decided never to publish his poems. But Hopkins realized
that any true poet requires an audience for criticism and encouragement. This
conflict between his religious obligations and his poetic talent caused him to feel
that he had failed at both.
58

Hopkins died of typhoid fever in 1889 and was buried in Glasnevin

Cemetery. He is thought to have suffered throughout his life from what today
might be diagnosed as either bipolar disorder or chronic depression, as well as
occasional bouts of anxiety. However, on his death bed, his last words reportedly
were, "I am so happy, I am so happy. I loved my life."
Further Reading

Abbot, Claude Colleer (Ed.). The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert
Bridges, London: Oxford University Press, 1955.
Martin, Robert Bernard. Gerard Manley Hopkins A Very Private Life, London:
Flamingo/HarperCollins Publishers, 1992.
Sagar, Keith,. "Hopkins and the Religion of the Diamond Body", in Literature
and the Crime Against Nature, London: Chaucer Press, 2005.
Stiles, Cheryl. "Hopkins-Stricken: Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Selective
Bibliography, Berkeley Electronic Press, 2010.
White, Norman. Hopkins A Literary Biography, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1992.

59

Arthur Hugh Clough

Ah yet, when all is thought and said,

The heart still overrules the head;
Still what we hope we must believe,
And what is given us receive;
Must still believe, for still we hope
That in a world of larger scope,
What here is faithfully begun
Will be completed, not undone.
(Through a Glass Darkly)

Arthur Hugh Clough (pronounced "cluff"), was a nineteenth century English poet
whose experiments with literary language and subject were ahead of his time. He
was born in 1819 to James and Ann (Perfect) Clough in Liverpool. One
biographer describes his father as an "intermittently unsuccessful cotton merchant
from the North Wales landed gentry" and his mother as more solidly middleclass. In 1829 he entered Rugby school, perhaps the most important independent
school in Victorian England.
The next few years are among the most important both in Clough's life.
Thomas Arnold, who had just taken over as Headmaster of Rugby the year before,
had begun to institute his reforms just as Clough entered the institution, but the
precise changes the headmaster made to the curriculum are far less important than
the moral spirit with which he ran the school. Clough rapidly became a favorite of
Dr. Arnold, who in turn became a substitute father, since Clough's parents were
60

living in the US. His intellect made him a model student (at 15 he was reading
Niebuhr and Schleiermacher in German), and his awareness of his role as a model
for his fellows (he eventually became Head of the School, an honorary position
Arnold created for the boy whom he wanted to set the school's standard) made
him a brilliant example of the success of Arnold's methods.
He and the people around him came to expect too much of him. After his
Rugby career, mere success was not enough: everyone thought him destined to
distinguish himself in any career he chose. His years at Oxford's best college,
Balliol, were troubled. He put off his honors exams several times because he felt
unprepared, and before he took them in 1841, his father went bankrupt for the
second time. That meant that Arthur could expect no help from his father and that
his career now depended upon his score on the exam. When he received only
merely respectable second-class honors, he walked the fifty miles to Rugby to tell
Dr. Arnold, "I have failed." He lost a competition for a Balliol Fellowship but won
another the following year at Oriel, a less prestigious college.
Like so many other Victorian writers who began as Evangelicals, Clough
eventually renounced his childhood beliefs. The seriousness he had learned under
Arnold at Rugby left him no room for intellectual evasion, or even for the vaguely
Christian stoicism which his good friend Matthew Arnold achieved. In 1848 he
realized that if he continued his Oriel Fellowship beyond the next year he would
have to be ordained in the Church of England and would have to sign the ThirtyNine Articles. Since he could not do so in good conscience, he resigned his
fellowship.
After this he went to France in support of the revolution of 1848 and then to
Italy the following year to participate in Mazzini's republic, getting trapped in
Rome when it fell to the French, an experience described in Amours de Voyage.
He returned to London to become principal of the (Unitarian) University Hall and
61

Professor of English at University College. He soon found the Unitarians as rigid

in their way as the Anglicans were, and he resigned in 1852. Hoping to obtain a
position at Harvard, he traveled to Boston and looked up Emerson (whom he had
met on Emerson's European tour), but nothing came of it, and he returned home to
take a job in the Education Office. He was now able to marry Blanche Smith, and
shortly thereafter he spent much time helping his wife's cousin, Florence
Nightingale, lobby for reform in hospitals and in the nursing profession.
Throughout the '50s he was at work on a translation of Plutarch's Lives (1859) and
a large poem, Mari Magno, wich vaguely resembled the Canterbury Tales in
structure. He died in Florence, November 13, 1861, at the age of only 42.
Further Reading

Biswas, Robindra. Arthur Hugh Clough: Towards a Reconsideration, 1972.

Kenny, Anthony. Arthur Hugh Clough, a Poet's Life, 2005.
Lowry, Howard F. and Ralph Leslie Rusk (eds). Emerson-Clough Letters,
Hamden: Archon Books, 1968.
Paolucci, Stefano. Emerson Writes to Clough: A Lost Letter Found in Italy, in
Emerson Society Papers, vol. 19, n. 1, Spring 2008.
Waddington, Samuel. Arthur Hugh Clough: A Monograph, 1883.

62

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:-Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes upcast;
And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past
To signal-fires, Oblivion's flight to scare;
And Youth, with still some single golden hair
Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last
Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;
And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.
Love's throne was not with these; but far above
All passionate wind of welcome and farewell.
(The House of Life)

Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, who later changed the order of his names to stress
his kinship with the great Italian poet, was born in London on May 12, 1828, to
Gabriele and Frances (Polidori) Rossetti.
His father was an Italian patriot exiled from Naples for his political activity
and a Dante scholar who became professor of Italian at King's College, London,
in 1831. Since Mrs. Rossetti was also half-Italian, the children grew up fluent in
both English and Italian. As part of the large Italian expatriate community in
London, they welcomed other exiles; and although they were certainly not
wealthy, Professor Rossetti was able to support the family comfortably until his
eyesight and general health deteriorated in the 40s. Certainly none of the family
seems to have been obsessed with money the way that Tennyson was, for
instance.
63

Dante attended King's College School from 1837 to 1842, when he left to
prepare for the Royal Academy at F. S. Cary's Academy of Art. In 1846 he was
accepted into the Royal Academy but was there only a year before he became
dissatisfied and left to study under the guidance of Ford Madox Brown. In 1848
he, William Holman Hunt, and John Everett Millais began to call themselves the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. This group attracted numerous other young painters,
poets, and critics.
In 1849 he exhibited his first important paintings, The Girlhood of Mary
Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini. At about the same time he met Elizabeth Eleanor
Siddal, a milliner's assistant, who became a model for many of his paintings and
sketches. They were engaged in 1851 but did not marry until 1860, perhaps
because of her ill health, his financial difficulties, or a simple unwillingness to
make the commitment.
Rossetti met William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and A.C. Swinburne in
1856. After an engagement lasting nearly ten years, Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal
were married barely 20 months before she died from a self-administered overdose
of morphia on February 10, 1862. Although suicide was suspected, the coroner
generously decided that her death was accidental.
After her death Rossetti moved to 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where he
continued painting and writing poetry, gaining patrons enough to become
relatively well-off financially speaking. Another of his models, Fanny Cornforth,
became his mistress and housekeeper, but because of her full-bodied blondness,
never one of his idealized women. That role was filled first by Lizzie Siddal;
occasionally by models like Ruth Herbert and Annie Miller; but most famously by
Janey Morris. Rossetti's choice of models and his idealization of them helped
change the concept of feminine beauty in the Victorian period to the tall, thin,
long-necked, long-haired stunners of frail health that we see in paintings like
64

Beata Beatrix, Pandora, Proserpine, La Pia, and La Donna della Finestra. In

1871 Morris visited Iceland, leaving Rossetti together with Jane and the children.
Although biographers still argue about what exactly went on among them, the
love triangle was in any case a difficult situation for all concerned.
In the late '60s Rossetti began to suffer from headaches and bad eyesight,
and began to take chloral mixed with whiskey to cure insomnia. Chloral
accentuated the depression and paranoia already existent in Rossetti's nature, and
in the summer of 1872 he suffered a mental breakdown, complete with
hallucinations and accusing voices. He was taken to Scotland, where he attempted
suicide, but gradually recovered, and within a few months was able to paint again.
His health continued to deteriorate slowly (he was still taking chloral), but did not
much interfere with his work. He died in 1882.
Further Reading

Doughty, Oswald. A Victorian Romantic: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, London:

Frederick Muller, 1949.
Drew, Rodger. The Stream's Secret: The Symbolism of Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 2006.
Fredeman, William E. (Ed.). The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 7
Vols. Brewer, Cambridge, 20028.
Hilto, Timoth. The Pre-Raphelites. London: Thames and Hudson, New York:
Abrams, 1970.

65

Marsh, Jan. The Pre-Raphaelites: Their Lives in Letters and Diaries. London:
Collins & Brown, 1996.
McGann, J. J. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Game that Must be Lost. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
Roe, Dinah. The Rossettis in Wonderland. A Victorian Family History. Haus
Publishing, London, 2011.

66

Christina Rossetti

For there is no friend like a sister

In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.
(Goblin Market and Other Poems)

Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 29 December 1894) was an

English poet, sister to Pre-Raphaelite poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who
wrote primarily romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is perhaps best
known for her long poem Goblin Market, and her love poem Remember.
She was born in London to Gabriele Rossetti, a poet and a political exile
from Vasto, Abruzzo, and Frances Polidori. She had two brothers and a sister:
Dante became an influential artist and poet, and William and Maria both became
writers. Christina, the youngest, was a lively child. She dictated her first story to
her mother before she had learned to write.
Young Christina was educated at home by her mother, who made her read
religious works, classics, fairy tales and novels. The influence of the work of
Dante Alighieri, Petrarch and other Italian writers filled the home and would have
a deep impact on Rossetti's later writing. Their home was open to visiting Italian
scholars, artists and revolutionaries. The family home was also within easy reach
of Madam Tussauds, London Zoo and the newly opened Regent's Park, which she
visited regularly; in contrast to her parents, Rossetti was very much a London
child, and, it seems, a happy one.
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In the 1840s, her family faced severe financial difficulties due to the
deterioration of her father's physical and mental health. In 1843, he was diagnosed
with persistent bronchitis, possibly tuberculosis, and faced losing his sight. He
gave up his teaching post at King's College and though he lived another 11 years,
he suffered from depression and was never physically well again. Rossetti's
mother began teaching in order to keep the family out of poverty and Maria
became a live-in governess, a prospect that Christina Rossetti dreaded. At this
time her brother William was working for the Excise Office and Gabriel was at art
school, leading Christina's life at home to become one of increasing isolation.
When she was 14, Rossetti suffered a nervous breakdown and left school. Bouts
of depression and related illness followed. During this period she, her mother, and
her sister became deeply interested in the Anglo-Catholic movement that
developed in the Church of England. Religious devotion came to play a major role
in Rossetti's life.
In her late teens, Rossetti became engaged to the painter James Collinson,
the first of three suitors. He was, like her brothers Dante and William, one of the
founding members of the avant-garde artistic group, the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood. The engagement was broken in 1850 when he reverted to
Catholicism. Later she became involved with the linguist Charles Cayley, but
declined to marry him, also for religious reasons. The third offer came from the
painter John Brett, whom she also refused.
Rossetti sat for several of Dante Rossetti's most famous paintings. In 1848,
she was the model for the Virgin Mary in his first completed oil painting, The
Girlhood of Mary Virgin, which was the first work to be inscribed with the initials
'PRB', later revealed to signify the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The following
year she sat again for his Annunciation, Ecce Ancilla Domini. A line from her
poem "Who shall deliver me?" inspired the famous painting by Fernand Khnopff
68

called "I lock my door upon myself". In 1849 she became seriously ill again,
suffering from depression and sometime around 1857 had a major religious crisis.
Rossetti began writing down and dating her poems from 1842, mostly
imitating her favorite poets. From 1847 she began experimenting with verse forms
such as sonnets, hymns and ballads, drawing narratives from the Bible, folk tales
and the lives of the saints. Her early pieces often feature meditations on death and
loss, in the Romantic tradition. She published her first two poems ("Death's Chill
Between" and "Heart's Chill Between"), which appeared in the Athenaeum, in
1848 when she was 18.
Her most famous collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems, appeared in
1862, when she was 31. It received widespread critical praise, establishing her as
the main female poet of the time. Hopkins, Swinburne and Tennyson lauded her
work and with the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1861 Rossetti was
hailed as her natural successor. The title poem is one of Rossetti's best known
works. Although it is ostensibly about two sisters' misadventures with goblins,
critics have interpreted the piece in a variety of ways: seeing it as an allegory
about temptation and salvation; a commentary on Victorian gender roles and
female agency; and a work about erotic desire and social redemption. Rossetti
was a volunteer worker from 1859 to 1870 at the St. Mary Magdalene "house of
charity" in Highgate, a refuge for former prostitutes and it is suggested Goblin
Market may have been inspired by the "fallen women" she came to know. There
are parallels with Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner given both poems'
religious themes of temptation, sin and redemption by vicarious suffering. She
was ambivalent about women's suffrage, but many scholars have identified
feminist themes in her poetry. She was opposed to slavery (in the American
South), cruelty to animals (in the prevalent practice of animal experimentation),
and the exploitation of girls in under-age prostitution.
69

Rossetti maintained a very large circle of friends and correspondents and

continued to write and publish for the rest of her life, primarily focusing on
devotional writing and children's poetry. In 1892, Rossetti wrote The Face of the
Deep, a book of devotional prose. In the later decades of her life, Rossetti suffered
from Graves Disease, diagnosed in 1872 suffering a nearly fatal attack in the early
1870s. In 1893, she developed breast cancer and though the tumour was removed,
she suffered a recurrence in September 1894. She died on 29 December 1894 and
was buried in Highgate Cemetery.
Although Rossetti's popularity during her lifetime did not approach that of
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, her standing remained strong after her death. In the
early 20th century Rossetti's popularity faded in the wake of Modernism. Scholars
began to explore Freudian themes in her work, such as religious and sexual
repression, reaching for personal, biographical interpretations of her poetry. In the
1970s academics began to critique her work again, looking beyond the lyrical
Romantic sweetness to her mastery of prosody and versification. Feminists held
her as symbol of constrained female genius, placed as a leader of 19th century
poets. Her work strongly influenced the work of such writers as Ford Madox
Ford, Virginia Woolf, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Jennings, and Philip
Larkin. Critic Basil de Selincourt stated that she was "all but our greatest woman
poet incomparably our greatest craftswoman probably in the first twelve of
the masters of English verse".

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Further Reading

Bell, Mackenzie. Christina Rossetti: A Biographical and Critical Study, Boston:

Roberts, 1898.
Proctor, Ellen A. A Brief Memoir of Christina G. Rossetti, London: Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1895.
Sandars, Mary F. The Life of Christina Rossetti, London: Hutchinson, 1930.
Sawtell, Margaret. Christina Rossetti: Her Life and Religion, London: Mowbray,
1955.
Zaturenska, Marya. Christina Rossetti: A Portrait with a Background, New York:
Macmillan, 1949.

71

NOW READ ON

72

POEMS BY ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur (excerpt)

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere,

First made and latest left of all the knights,
Told, when the man was no more than a voice
In the white winter of his age, to those
With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds.
For on their march to westward, Bedivere,
Who slowly paced among the slumbering host,
Heard in his tent the moanings of the King:
"I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.
O me! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world,
But had not force to shape it as he would,
Till the High God behold it from beyond,
And enter it, and make it beautiful?
Or else as if the world were wholly fair,
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim,
And have not power to see it as it is:
Perchance, because we see not to the close;-For I, being simple, thought to work His will,
And have but stricken with the sword in vain;
And all whereon I lean'd in wife and friend
Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm
Reels back into the beast, and is no more.
My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death:
Nay--God my Christ--I pass but shall not die."
Then, ere that last weird battle in the west,
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There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain kill'd

In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown
Along a wandering wind, and past his ear
Went shrilling, "Hollow, hollow all delight!
Hail, King! to-morrow thou shalt pass away.
Farewell! there is an isle of rest for thee.
And I am blown along a wandering wind,
And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight."
And fainter onward, like wild birds that change
Their season in the night and wail their way
From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream
Shrill'd; but in going mingled with dim cries
Far in the moonlit haze among the hills,
As of some lonely city sack'd by night,
When all is lost, and wife and child with wail
Pass to new lords; and Arthur woke and call'd,
"Who spake? A dream. O light upon the wind,
Thine, Gawain, was the voice--are these dim cries
Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild
Mourn, knowing it will go along with me?"
This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake:
"O me, my King, let pass whatever will,
Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field;
But in their stead thy name and glory cling
To all high places like a golden cloud
For ever: but as yet thou shalt not pass.
Light was Gawain in life, and light in death
Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man;
And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise-I hear the steps of Modred in the west,
And with him many of thy people, and knights
Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown
Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee.
Right well in heart they know thee for the King.
Arise, go forth and conquer as of old."
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"Far other is this battle in the west
Whereto we move, than when we strove in youth,
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And brake the petty kings, and fought with Rome,

Or thrust the heathen from the Roman wall,
And shook him thro' the north. Ill doom is mine
To war against my people and my knights.
The king who fights his people fights himself.
And they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke
That strikes them dead is as my death to me.
Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way
Thro' this blind haze, which ever since I saw
One lying in the dust at Almesbury,
Hath folded in the passes of the world."
Then rose the King and moved his host by night,
And ever push'd Sir Modred, league by league,
Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse-A land of old upheaven from the abyss
By fire, to sink into the abyss again;
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,
And the long mountains ended in a coast
Of ever-shifting sand, and far away
The phantom circle of a moaning sea.
There the pursuer could pursue no more,
And he that fled no further fly the King;
And there, that day when the great light of heaven
Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year,
On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed.
Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight
Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west.
A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea:
Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew
Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold
With formless fear; and ev'n on Arthur fell
Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought.
For friend and foe were shadows in the mist,
And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew;
And some had visions out of golden youth,
And some beheld the faces of old ghosts
Look in upon the battle; and in the mist
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Was many a noble deed, many a base,

And chance and craft and strength in single fights,
And ever and anon with host to host
Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn,
Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash
Of battleaxes on shatter'd helms, and shrieks
After the Christ, of those who falling down
Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist;
And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights,
Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies,
Sweat, writhings, anguish, labouring of the lungs
In that close mist, and cryings for the light,
Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead.
Last, as by some one deathbed after wail
Of suffering, silence follows, or thro' death
Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore,
Save for some whisper of the seething seas,
A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day
Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came
A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew
The mist aside, and with that wind the tide
Rose, and the pale King glanced across the field
Of battle: but no man was moving there;
Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon,
Nor yet of heathen; only the wan wave
Brake in among dead faces, to and fro
Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down
Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen,
And shiver'd brands that once had fought with Rome,
And rolling far along the gloomy shores
The voice of days of old and days to be.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere,
And whiter than the mist that all day long
Had held the field of battle was the King:

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"Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world,

And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move,
And beats upon the faces of the dead,
My dead, as tho' they had not died for me?-O Bedivere, for on my heart hath fall'n
Confusion, till I know not what I am,
Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King.
Behold, I seem but King among the dead."
Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere: "My King,
King everywhere! and so the dead have kings,
There also will I worship thee as King.
Yet still thy life is whole, and still I live
Who love thee; but who hates thee, he that brought
The heathen back among us, yonder stands,
Modred, unharm'd, the traitor of thine house."
Then spake the King: "My house hath been my doom.
But call not thou this traitor of my house
Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me.
My house are rather they who sware my vows,
Yea, even while they brake them, own'd me King.
And well for thee, saying in my dark hour,
When all the purport of my throne hath fail'd,
That quick or dead thou hottest me for King.
King am I, whatsoever be their cry;
And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see
Yet, ere I pass." And uttering this the King
Made at the man: then Modred smote his liege
Hard on that helm which many a heathen sword
Had beaten thin; while Arthur at one blow,
Striking the last stroke with Excalibur,
Slew him, and all but slain himself, he fell.
So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's Table, man by man,
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Had fall'n in Lyonnesse about their lord,

King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land:
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
They sleep--the men I loved. I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made,-Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more; but, let what will be, be,
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm
That without help I cannot last till morn.
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,
Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm
Rose up from out the bosom of the lake,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
Holding the sword--and how I row'd across
And took it, and have worn it, like a king;
And, wheresoever I am sung or told
In aftertime, this also shall be known:
But now delay not: take Excalibur,
And fling him far into the middle mere:
Watch what thou sest, and lightly bring me word."
To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:
"It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,
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Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm-A little thing may harm a wounded man;
Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word."
So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept,
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock,
Came on the shining levels of the lake.
There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon,
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long
That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood,
This way and that dividing the swift mind,
In act to throw: but at the last it seem'd
Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd
There in the many-knotted waterflags,
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.
So strode he back slow to the wounded King.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave?
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?"
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag."
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To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:

"Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name,
Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight:
For surer sign had follow'd, either hand
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.
This is a shameful thing for men to lie.
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again,
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word."
Then went Sir Bedivere the second time
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought;
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote
His palms together, and he cried aloud:
"And if indeed I cast the brand away,
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note,
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth,
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.
What good should follow this, if this were done?
What harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey,
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand
An act unprofitable, against himself?
The King is sick, and knows not what he does.
What record, or what relic of my lord
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath
And rumours of a doubt? But were this kept,
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,
Some one might show it at a joust of arms,
Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur,
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.'
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So might some old man speak in the aftertime

To all the people, winning reverence.
But now much honour and much fame were lost."
So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,
And hid Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded King.
Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:
"What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"I heard the water lapping on the crag,
And the long ripple washing in the reeds."
To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:
"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!
Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye
That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art,
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,
In whom should meet the offices of all,
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;
Either from lust of gold, or like a girl
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence:
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,
I will arise and slay thee with my hands."
Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges, lightly, plunged
Among the bulrush beds, and clutch'd the sword,
And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand
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Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,

And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the Northern Sea.
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur:
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.
And lightly went the other to the King.
Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:
"Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?"
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men,
So great a miracle as yonder hilt.
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;
But when I look'd again, behold an arm,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere."
And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:
"My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone.
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,
And bear me to the margin; yet I fear
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die."
So saying, from the pavement he half rose,
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,
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And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes

As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere
Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears,
And would have spoken, but he found not words;
Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,
And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs.
But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard,
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King,
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, "Quick, quick!
I fear it is too late, and I shall die."
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd,
Larger than human on the frozen hills.
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad.
Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves
And barren chasms, and all to left and right
The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels-And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,
And the long glories of the winter moon.
Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,
Beneath them; and descending they were ware
That all the decks were dense with stately forms,
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream--by these
Three Queens with crowns of gold: and from them rose
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars,
And, as it were one voice, an agony
Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes,
Or hath come, since the making of the world.
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Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge."

So to the barge they came. There those three Queens
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.
But she, that rose the tallest of them all
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands,
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud,
And dropping bitter tears against a brow
Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white
And colourless, and like the wither'd moon
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops
Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls-That made his forehead like a rising sun
High from the das-throne--were parch'd with dust
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,
Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.
So like a shatter'd column lay the King;
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.
Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:
"Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight.
Such times have been not since the light that led
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.
But now the whole Round Table is dissolved
Which was an image of the mighty world,
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds."

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And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge:

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou sest--if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)-To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.
But when that moan had past for evermore,
The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn
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Amazed him, and he groan'd, ``The King is gone.''

And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,
"From the great deep to the great deep he goes."
Whereat he slowly turn'd and slowly clomb
The last hard footstep of that iron crag;
Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet, and cried,
"He passes to be King among the dead,
And after healing of his grievous wound
He comes again; but--if he come no more-O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat,
Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three whereat we gazed
On that high day, when, clothed with living light,
They stood before his throne in silence, friends
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?"
Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint
As from beyond the limit of the world,
Like the last echo born of a great cry,
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice
Around a king returning from his wars.
Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb
Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw,
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
Down that long water opening on the deep
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
From less to less and vanish into light.
And the new sun rose bringing the new year.

86

In Memoriam A. H. H.: The Prelude

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.
Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, thou.
Our wills are ours, we know not how,
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
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Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me,
What seem'd my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.
Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.
Mariana

With blackest moss the flower-plots

Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
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When thickest dark did trance the sky,

She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,
And wild winds bound within their cell,
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The shadow of the poplar fell

Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices call'd her from without.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loath'd the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then, said she, "I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
O God, that I were dead!"
The Charge Of The Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,
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All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
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Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade ?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
The Lady of Shalott (1842)

PART I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
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By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
By the margin, willow veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower'd Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers " 'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."
PART II
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
And moving thro' a mirror clear
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That hangs before her all the year,

Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.
PART III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
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The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,

Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash'd into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
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"The curse is come upon me," cried

The Lady of Shalott.
PART IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.
And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold ser in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance-With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right-The leaves upon her falling light-Thro' the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
96

Till her blood was frozen slowly,

And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.
Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross'd themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."
Break, Break, Break

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

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O, well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

98

POEMS BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

Dover Beach

The sea is calm to-night.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

99

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Growing Old

What is it to grow old?

Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye?
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?
Yes, but not for this alone.
Is it to feel our strength Not our bloom only, but our strength -decay?
Is it to feel each limb
Grow stiffer, every function less exact,
Each nerve more weakly strung?
Yes, this, and more! but not,
Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be!
'Tis not to have our life
Mellowed and softened as with sunset-glow,
A golden day's decline!
'Tis not to see the world
As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirred;
And weep, and feel the fulness of the past,
The years that are no more!
It is to spend long days
100

And not once feel that we were ever young.

It is to add, immured
In the hot prison of the present, month
To month with weary pain.
It is to suffer this,
And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel:
Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion -none.
It is -last stage of all When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man.
Immortality

Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,

We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And, Patience! in another life, we say
The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn
The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they,
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing--only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.

101

Morality
We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides;
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides.
But tasks in hours of insight will'd
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.
With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.
Not till the hours of light return,
All we have built do we discern.
Then, when the clouds are off the soul,
When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,
Ask, how she view'd thy self-control,
Thy struggling, task'd morality-Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air,
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.
And she, whose censure thou dost dread,
Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek,
See, on her face a glow is spread,
A strong emotion on her cheek!
'Ah, child!' she cries, 'that strife divine,
Whence was it, for it is not mine?
'There is no effort on my brow-I do not strive, I do not weep;
I rush with the swift spheres and glow
In joy, and when I will, I sleep.
Yet that severe, that earnest air,
I saw, I felt it once--but where?
'I knew not yet the gauge of time,
Nor wore the manacles of space;
I felt it in some other clime,
102

I saw it in some other place.

'Twas when the heavenly house I trod,
And lay upon the breast of God.'
Rugby Chapel

Coldly, sadly descends

The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;--hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows;--but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.
There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the autumn evening. But ah!
That word, gloom, to my mind
Brings thee back, in the light
Of thy radiant vigour, again;
In the gloom of November we pass'd
Days not dark at thy side;
Seasons impair'd not the ray
Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear.
Such thou wast! and I stand
In the autumn evening, and think
Of bygone autumns with thee.
Fifteen years have gone round
Since thou arosest to tread,
In the summer-morning, the road
Of death, at a call unforeseen,
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Sudden. For fifteen years,

We who till then in thy shade
Rested as under the boughs
Of a mighty oak, have endured
Sunshine and rain as we might,
Bare, unshaded, alone,
Lacking the shelter of thee.
O strong soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? For that force,
Surely, has not been left vain!
Somewhere, surely afar,
In the sounding labour-house vast
Of being, is practised that strength,
Zealous, beneficent, firm!
Yes, in some far-shining sphere,
Conscious or not of the past,
Still thou performest the word
Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live-Prompt, unwearied, as here!
Still thou upraisest with zeal
The humble good from the ground,
Sternly repressest the bad!
Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse
Those who with half-open eyes
Tread the border-land dim
'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st,
Succourest!--this was thy work,
This was thy life upon earth.
What is the course of the life
Of mortal men on the earth?-Most men eddy about
Here and there--eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,
Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust,
Striving blindly, achieving
Nothing; and then they die-104

Perish;--and no one asks

Who or what they have been,
More than he asks what waves,
In the moonlit solitudes mild
Of the midmost Ocean, have swell'd,
Foam'd for a moment, and gone.
And there are some, whom a thirst
Ardent, unquenchable, fires,
Not with the crowd to be spent,
Not without aim to go round
In an eddy of purposeless dust,
Effort unmeaning and vain.
Ah yes! some of us strive
Not without action to die
Fruitless, but something to snatch
From dull oblivion, nor all
Glut the devouring grave!
We, we have chosen our path-Path to a clear-purposed goal,
Path of advance!--but it leads
A long, steep journey, through sunk
Gorges, o'er mountains in snow.
Cheerful, with friends, we set forth-Then on the height, comes the storm.
Thunder crashes from rock
To rock, the cataracts reply,
Lightnings dazzle our eyes.
Roaring torrents have breach'd
The track, the stream-bed descends
In the place where the wayfarer once
Planted his footstep--the spray
Boils o'er its borders! aloft
The unseen snow-beds dislodge
Their hanging ruin; alas,
Havoc is made in our train!
Friends, who set forth at our side,
Falter, are lost in the storm.
We, we only are left!
With frowning foreheads, with lips
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Sternly compress'd, we strain on,

On--and at nightfall at last
Come to the end of our way,
To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks;
Where the gaunt and taciturn host
Stands on the threshold, the wind
Shaking his thin white hairs-Holds his lantern to scan
Our storm-beat figures, and asks:
Whom in our party we bring?
Whom we have left in the snow?
Sadly we answer: We bring
Only ourselves! we lost
Sight of the rest in the storm.
Hardly ourselves we fought through,
Stripp'd, without friends, as we are.
Friends, companions, and train,
The avalanche swept from our side.
But thou woulds't not alone
Be saved, my father! alone
Conquer and come to thy goal,
Leaving the rest in the wild.
We were weary, and we
Fearful, and we in our march
Fain to drop down and to die.
Still thou turnedst, and still
Beckonedst the trembler, and still
Gavest the weary thy hand.
If, in the paths of the world,
Stones might have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit, of that we saw
Nothing--to us thou wage still
Cheerful, and helpful, and firm!
Therefore to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself;
And, at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd! to come,
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Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.

And through thee I believe
In the noble and great who are gone;
Pure souls honour'd and blest
By former ages, who else-Such, so soulless, so poor,
Is the race of men whom I see-Seem'd but a dream of the heart,
Seem'd but a cry of desire.
Yes! I believe that there lived
Others like thee in the past,
Not like the men of the crowd
Who all round me to-day
Bluster or cringe, and make life
Hideous, and arid, and vile;
But souls temper'd with fire,
Fervent, heroic, and good,
Helpers and friends of mankind.
Servants of God!--or sons
Shall I not call you? Because
Not as servants ye knew
Your Father's innermost mind,
His, who unwillingly sees
One of his little ones lost-Yours is the praise, if mankind
Hath not as yet in its march
Fainted, and fallen, and died!
See! In the rocks of the world
Marches the host of mankind,
A feeble, wavering line.
Where are they tending?--A God
Marshall'd them, gave them their goal.
Ah, but the way is so long!
Years they have been in the wild!
Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks
Rising all round, overawe;
Factions divide them, their host
Threatens to break, to dissolve.
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--Ah, keep, keep them combined!

Else, of the myriads who fill
That army, not one shall arrive;
Sole they shall stray; in the rocks
Stagger for ever in vain,
Die one by one in the waste.
Then, in such hour of need
Of your fainting, dispirited race,
Ye, like angels, appear,
Radiant with ardour divine!
Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.
Ye alight in our van! at your voice,
Panic, despair, flee away.
Ye move through the ranks, recall
The stragglers, refresh the outworn,
Praise, re-inspire the brave!
Order, courage, return.
Eyes rekindling, and prayers,
Follow your steps as ye go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our files,
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march,
On, to the bound of the waste,
On, to the City of God.
The Buried Life

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,

Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
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To which thy light words bring no rest,

And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.
Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved
Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest
Of men, and alien to themselves--and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!
But we, my love!--doth a like spell benumb
Our hearts, our voices?--must we too be dumb?
Ah! well for us, if even we,
Even for a moment, can get free
Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;
For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!
Fate, which foresaw
How frivolous a baby man would be-By what distractions he would be possess'd,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity-That it might keep from his capricious play
His genuine self, and force him to obey
Even in his own despite his being's law,
Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
The unregarded river of our life
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be
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Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,

Though driving on with it eternally.
But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us--to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.
And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.
And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves-Hardly had skill to utter one of all
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress'd.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true!
And then we will no more be rack'd
With inward striving, and demand
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
Their stupefying power;
Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!
Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul's subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey
A melancholy into all our day.
Only--but this is rare-When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
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When our world-deafen'd ear

Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd-A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.
A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
And hears its winding murmur; and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea where it goes.

111

POEMS BY ROBERT BROWNING

A Grammarian's Funeral Shortly after the Revival of Learning

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,

Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;
Clouds overcome it;
No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's
Circling its summit.
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:
Wait ye the warning?
Our low life was the level's and the night's;
He's for the morning.
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!
This is our master, famous, calm and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.
Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,
Safe from the weather!
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He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,

Singing together,
He was a man born with thy face and throat,
Lyric Apollo!
Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note
Winter would follow?
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,
Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!
My dance is finished"?
No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side,
Make for the city!)
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
Over men's pity;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
Bent on escaping:
"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled
Show me their shaping,
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,-Give!"--So, he gowned him,
Straight got by heart that book to its last page:
Learned, we found him.
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,
Accents uncertain:
"Time to taste life," another would have said,
"Up with the curtain!"
This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?
Patience a moment!
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
Still there's the comment.
Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,
Painful or easy!
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
Ay, nor feel queasy."
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the whole, then execute the parts-Fancy the fabric
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Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!
(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place
Gaping before us.)
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace
(Hearten our chorus!)
That before living he'd learn how to live-No end to learning:
Earn the means first--God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.
Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes:
Live now or never!"
He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever."
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:
Calculus racked him:
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:
Tussis attacked him.
"Now, master, take a little rest!"--not he!
(Caution redoubled
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)
Not a whit troubled,
Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.
Oh, if we draw a circle premature,
Heedless of far gain,
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure
Bad is our bargain!
Was it not great? did not he throw on God,
(He loves the burthen)-God's task to make the heavenly period
Perfect the earthen?
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant?
He would not discount life, as fools do here,
Paid by instalment.
He ventured neck or nothing--heaven's success
114

Found, or earth's failure:

"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes:
Hence with life's pale lure!"
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That, has the world here--should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife:
While he could stammer
He settled Hoti's business--let it be!-Properly based Oun-Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,
Dead from the waist down.
Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:
Hail to your purlieus,
All ye highfliers of the feathered race,
Swallows and curlews!
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below
Live, for they can, there:
This man decided not to Live but Know-Bury this man there?
Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened,
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send!
Lofty designs must close in like effects:
Loftily lying,
Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects,
Living and dying.
115

Among the Rocks

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth,

This autumn morning! How he sets his bones
To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet
For the ripple to run over in its mirth;
Listening the while, where on the heap of stones
The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.
That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;
Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows.
If you loved only what were worth your love,
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:
Make the low nature better by your throes!
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!
Caliban upon Setebos or, Natural Theology in the Island

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself."

(David, Psalms 50.21)
['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,
Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,
With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.
And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,
And feels about his spine small eft-things course,
Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:
And while above his head a pompion-plant,
Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye,
Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,
And now a flower drops with a bee inside,
And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,-He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross
And recross till they weave a spider-web
(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times)
And talks to his own self, howe'er he please,
116

Touching that other, whom his dam called God.

Because to talk about Him, vexes--ha,
Could He but know! and time to vex is now,
When talk is safer than in winter-time.
Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep
In confidence he drudges at their task,
And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,
Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]
Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!
'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.
'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,
But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;
Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:
Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,
And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.
'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease:
He hated that He cannot change His cold,
Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish
That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived,
And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine
O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,
A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave;
Only, she ever sickened, found repulse
At the other kind of water, not her life,
(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun)
Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe,
And in her old bounds buried her despair,
Hating and loving warmth alike: so He.
'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,
Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.
Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;
Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,
That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown
He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye
By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue
That pricks deep into oak warts for a worm,
117

And says a plain word when she finds her prize,

But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves
That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks
About their hole--He made all these and more,
Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?
He could not, Himself, make a second self
To be His mate; as well have made Himself:
He would not make what He mislikes or slights,
An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains:
But did, in envy, listlessness or sport,
Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be-Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,
Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,
Things He admires and mocks too,--that is it.
Because, so brave, so better though they be,
It nothing skills if He begin to plague.
Look, now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,
Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,
Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,-Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,
Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain;
Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme,
And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.
Put case, unable to be what I wish,
I yet could make a live bird out of clay:
Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban
Able to fly?--for, there, see, he hath wings,
And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire,
And there, a sting to do his foes offence,
There, and I will that he begin to live,
Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns
Of grigs high up that make the merry din,
Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not.
In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay,
And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh;
And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,
Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,
Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,-Well, as the chance were, this might take or else
Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry,
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And give the mankin three sound legs for one,

Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg
And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.
Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,
Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,
Making and marring clay at will? So He.
'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,
Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.
'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs
That march now from the mountain to the sea;
'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.
'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots
Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;
'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,
And two worms he whose nippers end in red;
As it likes me each time, I do: so He.
Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main,
Placable if His mind and ways were guessed,
But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!
Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself,
And envieth that, so helped, such things do more
Than He who made them! What consoles but this?
That they, unless through Him, do nought at all,
And must submit: what other use in things?
'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint
That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay
When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue:
Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay
Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt:
Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth
"I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,
I make the cry my maker cannot make
With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!'
Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.

119

But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?

Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that,
What knows,--the something over Setebos
That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,
Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.
There may be something quiet o'er His head,
Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,
Since both derive from weakness in some way.
I joy because the quails come; would not joy
Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:
This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.
'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,
But never spends much thought nor care that way.
It may look up, work up,--the worse for those
It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos
The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,
Who, making Himself feared through what He does,
Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar
To what is quiet and hath happy life;
Next looks down here, and out of very spite
Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,
These good things to match those as hips do grapes.
'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.
Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books
Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:
Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,
Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;
Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;
Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe
The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;
And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,
A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,
Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,
And saith she is Miranda and my wife:
'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane
He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;
Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,
Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,
And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge
In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban;
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A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.

'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way,
Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.
His dam held that the Quiet made all things
Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so.
Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.
Had He meant other, while His hand was in,
Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,
Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,
Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint
Like an orc's armour? Ay,--so spoil His sport!
He is the One now: only He doth all.
'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.
Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?
'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast
Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose,
But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate
Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.
Also it pleaseth Setebos to work,
Use all His hands, and exercise much craft,
By no means for the love of what is worked.
'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world
When all goes right, in this safe summer-time,
And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,
Than trying what to do with wit and strength.
'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs,
And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,
And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,
And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,
And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,
Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.
No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake;
'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.
'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!
One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.
He hath a spite against me, that I know,
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Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why?

So it is, all the same, as well I find.
'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm
With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises
Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave,
Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck,
Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue,
And licked the whole labour flat: so much for spite.
'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)
Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade:
Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!
'Dug up a newt He may have envied once
And turned to stone, shut up Inside a stone.
Please Him and hinder this?--What Prosper does?
Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He!
There is the sport: discover how or die!
All need not die, for of the things o' the isle
Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;
Those at His mercy,--why, they please Him most
When . . . when . . . well, never try the same way twice!
Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.
You must not know His ways, and play Him off,
Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself:
'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears
But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,
And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:
'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise,
Curls up into a ball, pretending death
For fright at my approach: the two ways please.
But what would move my choler more than this,
That either creature counted on its life
To-morrow and next day and all days to come,
Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart,
"Because he did so yesterday with me,
And otherwise with such another brute,
So must he do henceforth and always."--Ay?
Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means!
'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.

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'Conceiveth all things will continue thus,

And we shall have to live in fear of Him
So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,
If He have done His best, make no new world
To please Him more, so leave off watching this,-If He surprise not even the Quiet's self
Some strange day,--or, suppose, grow into it
As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we,
And there is He, and nowhere help at all.
'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.
His dam held different, that after death
He both plagued enemies and feasted friends:
Idly! He doth His worst in this our life,
Giving just respite lest we die through pain,
Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end.
Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire
Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself,
Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,
Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.
'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball
On head and tail as if to save their lives:
Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.
Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose
This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,
And always, above all else, envies Him;
Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights,
Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh,
And never speaks his mind save housed as now:
Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here,
O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?"
'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off,
Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,
Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,
Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste:
While myself lit a fire, and made a song
And sung it, "What I hate, be consecrate
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To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate

For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?"
Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,
Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,
That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch
And conquer Setebos, or likelier He
Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.
Love Among The Ruins
I.
Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop--Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
II.
Now,---the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,
Twelve abreast.
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III.
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone--Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
IV.
Now,---the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Through the chinks--Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
V.
And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away--That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
125

Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come.
VI.
But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,---and then,
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
VII.
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--Gold, of course.
Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.

126

My Last Duchess
FERRARA.
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fr Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
``Fr Pandolf'' by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fr Pandolf chanced to say ``Her mantle laps
``Over my lady's wrist too much,'' or ``Paint
``Must never hope to reproduce the faint
``Half-flush that dies along her throat:'' such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart---how shall I say?---too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace---all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,---good! but thanked
Somehow---I know not how---as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech---(which I have not)---to make your will
127

Quite clear to such an one, and say, ``Just this

``Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
``Or there exceed the mark''---and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
---E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
Porphyria's Lover

The rain set early in to-night,

The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
128

And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me---she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
129

And I, its love, am gained instead!

Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!

130

POEMS BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

Aurora Leigh (excerpts)

[Book 1]
I am like,
They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows
Howbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth
Of delicate features, -- paler, near as grave ;
But then my mother's smile breaks up the whole,
And makes it better sometimes than itself.
So, nine full years, our days were hid with God
Among his mountains : I was just thirteen,
Still growing like the plants from unseen roots
In tongue-tied Springs, -- and suddenly awoke
To full life and life 's needs and agonies,
With an intense, strong, struggling heart beside
A stone-dead father. Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning. His last word was, `Love --'
`Love, my child, love, love !' -- (then he had done with grief)
`Love, my child.' Ere I answered he was gone,
And none was left to love in all the world.
There, ended childhood. What succeeded next
I recollect as, after fevers, men
Thread back the passage of delirium,
Missing the turn still, baffled by the door ;
Smooth endless days, notched here and there with knives ;
A weary, wormy darkness, spurr'd i' the flank
With flame, that it should eat and end itself
Like some tormented scorpion. Then at last
I do remember clearly, how there came
A stranger with authority, not right,
(I thought not) who commanded, caught me up
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From old Assunta's neck ; how, with a shriek,

She let me go, -- while I, with ears too full
Of my father's silence, to shriek back a word,
In all a child's astonishment at grief
Stared at the wharf-edge where she stood and moaned,
My poor Assunta, where she stood and moaned !
The white walls, the blue hills, my Italy,
Drawn backward from the shuddering steamer-deck,
Like one in anger drawing back her skirts
Which supplicants catch at. Then the bitter sea
Inexorably pushed between us both,
And sweeping up the ship with my despair
Threw us out as a pasture to the stars.
Ten nights and days we voyaged on the deep ;
Ten nights and days, without the common face
Of any day or night ; the moon and sun
Cut off from the green reconciling earth,
To starve into a blind ferocity
And glare unnatural ; the very sky
(Dropping its bell-net down upon the sea
As if no human heart should 'scape alive,)
Bedraggled with the desolating salt,
Until it seemed no more that holy heaven
To which my father went. All new and strange
The universe turned stranger, for a child.
Then, land ! -- then, England ! oh, the frosty cliffs
Looked cold upon me. Could I find a home
Among those mean red houses through the fog ?
And when I heard my father's language first
From alien lips which had no kiss for mine
I wept aloud, then laughed, then wept, then wept,
And some one near me said the child was mad
Through much sea-sickness. The train swept us on.
Was this my father's England ? the great isle ?
The ground seemed cut up from the fellowship
Of verdure, field from field, as man from man ;
The skies themselves looked low and positive,
As almost you could touch them with a hand,
And dared to do it they were so far off
From God's celestial crystals ; all things blurred
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And dull and vague. Did Shakspeare and his mates

Absorb the light here ? -- not a hill or stone
With heart to strike a radiant colour up
Or active outline on the indifferent air.
I think I see my father's sister stand
Upon the hall-step of her country-house
To give me welcome. She stood straight and calm,
Her somewhat narrow forehead braided tight
As if for taming accidental thoughts
From possible pulses ; brown hair pricked with grey
By frigid use of life, (she was not old
Although my father's elder by a year)
A nose drawn sharply yet in delicate lines ;
A close mild mouth, a little soured about
The ends, through speaking unrequited loves
Or peradventure niggardly half-truths ;
Eyes of no colour, -- once they might have smiled,
But never, never have forgot themselves
In smiling ; cheeks, in which was yet a rose
Of perished summers, like a rose in a book,
Kept more for ruth than pleasure, -- if past bloom,
Past fading also.
She had lived, we'll say,
A harmless life, she called a virtuous life,
A quiet life, which was not life at all,
(But that, she had not lived enough to know)
Between the vicar and the country squires,
The lord-lieutenant looking down sometimes
From the empyrean to assure their souls
Against chance-vulgarisms, and, in the abyss
The apothecary, looked on once a year
To prove their soundness of humility.
The poor-club exercised her Christian gifts
Of knitting stockings, stitching petticoats,
Because we are of one flesh after all
And need one flannel (with a proper sense
Of difference in the quality) -- and still
The book-club, guarded from your modern trick
Of shaking dangerous questions from the crease,
Preserved her intellectual. She had lived
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A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage,

Accounting that to leap from perch to perch
Was act and joy enough for any bird.
Dear heaven, how silly are the things that live
In thickets, and eat berries !
I, alas,
A wild bird scarcely fledged, was brought to her cage,
And she was there to meet me. Very kind.
Bring the clean water, give out the fresh seed.
She stood upon the steps to welcome me,
Calm, in black garb. I clung about her neck, -Young babes, who catch at every shred of wool
To draw the new light closer, catch and cling
Less blindly. In my ears, my father's word
Hummed ignorantly, as the sea in shells,
`Love, love, my child.' She, black there with my grief,
Might feel my love -- she was his sister once,
I clung to her. A moment, she seemed moved,
Kissed me with cold lips, suffered me to cling,
And drew me feebly through the hall into
The room she sate in.
There, with some strange spasm
Of pain and passion, she wrung loose my hands
Imperiously, and held me at arm's length,
And with two grey-steel naked-bladed eyes
Searched through my face, -- ay, stabbed it through and through,
Through brows and cheeks and chin, as if to find
A wicked murderer in my innocent face,
If not here, there perhaps. Then, drawing breath,
She struggled for her ordinary calm
And missed it rather, -- told me not to shrink,
As if she had told me not to lie or swear, -`She loved my father, and would love me too
As long as I deserved it.' Very kind.
[Book 5]
AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature ? -- with the lava-lymph
134

That trickles from successive galaxies

Still drop by drop adown the finger of God
In still new worlds ? -- with summer-days in this ?
That scarce dare breathe they are so beautiful ?-With spring's delicious trouble in the ground,
Tormented by the quickened blood of roots,
And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves
In token of the harvest-time of flowers ?-With winters and with autumns, -- and beyond,
With the human heart's large seasons, when it hopes
And fears, joys, grieves, and loves ? -- with all that strain
Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh
In a sacrament of souls ? with mother's breasts
Which, round the new-made creatures hanging there,
Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres ? -With multitudinous life, and finally
With the great escapings of ecstatic souls,
Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,
Their radiant faces upward, burn away
This dark of the body, issuing on a world,
Beyond our mortal ? -- can I speak my verse
Sp plainly in tune to these things and the rest,
That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,
As having the same warrant over them
To hold and move them if they will or no,
Alike imperious as the primal rhythm
Of that theurgic nature ? I must fail,
Who fail at the beginning to hold and move
One man, -- and he my cousin, and he my friend,
And he born tender, made intelligent,
Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides
Of difficult questions ; yet, obtuse to me,
Of me, incurious ! likes me very well,
And wishes me a paradise of good,
Good looks, good means, and good digestion, -- ay,
But otherwise evades me, puts me off
With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness, -Too light a book for a grave man's reading ! Go,
Aurora Leigh : be humble.
There it is,
135

We women are too apt to look to One,

Which proves a certain impotence in art.
We strain our natures at doing something great,
Far less because it 's something great to do,
Than haply that we, so, commend ourselves
As being not small, and more appreciable
To some one friend. We must have mediators
Betwixt our highest conscience and the judge ;
Some sweet saint's blood must quicken in our palms
Or all the life in heaven seems slow and cold :
Good only being perceived as the end of good,
And God alone pleased, -- that's too poor, we think,
And not enough for us by any means.
Ay, Romney, I remember, told me once
We miss the abstract when we comprehend.
We miss it most when we aspire, -- and fail.
Yet, so, I will not. -- This vile woman's way
Of trailing garments, shall not trip me up :
I 'll have no traffic with the personal thought
In art's pure temple. Must I work in vain,
Without the approbation of a man ?
It cannot be ; it shall not. Fame itself,
That approbation of the general race,
Presents a poor end, (though the arrow speed,
Shot straight with vigorous finger to the white,)
And the highest fame was never reached except
By what was aimed above it. Art for art,
And good for God Himself, the essential Good !
We 'll keep our aims sublime, our eyes erect,
Although our woman-hands should shake and fail ;
And if we fail .. But must we ? -Shall I fail ?
The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase,
`Let no one be called happy till his death.'
To which I add, -- Let no one till his death
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work
Until the day 's out and the labour done,
Then bring your gauges. If the day's work 's scant,
Why, call it scant ; affect no compromise ;
And, in that we have nobly striven at least,
136

Deal with us nobly, women though we be.

And honour us with truth if not with praise.
De Profundis
I
The face, which, duly as the sun,
Rose up for me with life begun,
To mark all bright hours of the day
With hourly love, is dimmed away
And yet my days go on, go on.
II
The tongue which, like a stream, could run
Smooth music from the roughest stone,
And every morning with ' Good day'
Make each day good, is hushed away,
And yet my days go on, go on.
III
The heart which, like a staff, was one
For mine to lean and rest upon,
The strongest on the longest day
With steadfast love, is caught away,
And yet my days go on, go on.
IV
And cold before my summer's done,
And deaf in Nature's general tune,
And fallen too low for special fear,
And here, with hope no longer here,
While the tears drop, my days go on.
V

137

The world goes whispering to its own,

This anguish pierces to the bone;
And tender friends go sighing round,
What love can ever cure this wound ?'
My days go on, my days go on.
VI
The past rolls forward on the sun
And makes all night. O dreams begun,
Not to be ended! Ended bliss,
And life that will not end in this!
My days go on, my days go on.
VII
Breath freezes on my lips to moan:
As one alone, once not alone,
I sit and knock at Nature's door,
Heart-bare, heart-hungry, very poor,
Whose desolated days go on.
VIII
I knock and cry, Undone, undone!
Is there no help, no comfort, none?
No gleaning in the wide wheat plains
Where others drive their loaded wains?
My vacant days go on, go on.
IX
This Nature, though the snows be down,
Thinks kindly of the bird of June:
The little red hip on the tree
Is ripe for such. What is for me,
Whose days so winterly go on?
X
138

No bird am I, to sing in June,

And dare not ask an equal boon.
Good nests and berries red are Nature's
To give away to better creatures,
And yet my days go on, go on.
XI
I ask less kindness to be done,
Only to loose these pilgrim shoon,
(Too early worn and grimed) with sweet
Cool deadly touch to these tired feet.
Till days go out which now go on.
XII
Only to lift the turf unmown
From off the earth where it has grown,
Some cubit-space, and say Behold,
Creep in, poor Heart, beneath that fold,
Forgetting how the days go on.
XIII
What harm would that do? Green anon
The sward would quicken, overshone
By skies as blue; and crickets might
Have leave to chirp there day and night
While my new rest went on, went on.
XIV
From gracious Nature have I won
Such liberal bounty? may I run
So, lizard-like, within her side,
And there be safe, who now am tried
By days that painfully go on?
XV
139

A Voice reproves me thereupon,

More sweet than Nature's when the drone
Of bees is sweetest, and more deep
Than when the rivers overleap
The shuddering pines, and thunder on.
XVI
God's Voice, not Nature's! Night and noon
He sits upon the great white throne
And listens for the creatures' praise.
What babble we of days and days?
The Day-spring He, whose days go on.
XVII
He reigns above, He reigns alone;
Systems burn out and have his throne;
Fair mists of seraphs melt and fall
Around Him, changeless amid all,
Ancient of Days, whose days go on.
XVIII
He reigns below, He reigns alone,
And, having life in love forgone
Beneath the crown of sovran thorns,
He reigns the Jealous God. Who mourns
Or rules with Him, while days go on?
XIX
By anguish which made pale the sun,
I hear Him charge his saints that none
Among his creatures anywhere
Blaspheme against Him with despair,
However darkly days go on.
XX
140

Take from my head the thorn-wreath brown!

No mortal grief deserves that crown.
O supreme Love, chief misery,
The sharp regalia are for Thee
Whose days eternally go on!
XXI
For us, whatever's undergone,
Thou knowest, willest what is done,
Grief may be joy misunderstood;
Only the Good discerns the good.
I trust Thee while my days go on.
XXII
Whatever's lost, it first was won;
We will not struggle nor impugn.
Perhaps the cup was broken here,
That Heaven's new wine might show more clear.
I praise Thee while my days go on.
XXIII
I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on:
Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on.
XXIV
And having in thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smilingso I. THY DAYS GO ON.

141

How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

My Letters! All Dead Paper. . . (Sonnet XXVIII)

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!

And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee tonight.
This saidhe wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand. . . a simple thing,
Yes I wept for itthis . . . the paper's light. . .
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thineand so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this . . . 0 Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
142

Sonnet V - I Lift My Heavy Heart up Solemnly

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen grayness. If thy foot in scorn
Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
It might be well perhaps. But if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The gray dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,
O my Beloved, will not shield thee so,
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
The hair beneath. Stand farther off then! go.

Sonnet XIV - If Thou Must Love Me, Let It Be for Nought

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smileher lookher way
Of speaking gently,for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.
143

POEMS BY JOHN CLARE

A World For Love

Oh, the world is all too rude for thee, with much ado and care;
Oh, this world is but a rude world, and hurts a thing so fair;
Was there a nook in which the world had never been to sear,
That place would prove a paradise when thou and Love were near.
And there to pluck the blackberry, and there to reach the sloe,
How joyously and happily would Love thy partner go;
Then rest when weary on a bank, where not a grassy blade
Had eer been bent by Trouble's feet, and Love thy pillow made.
For Summer would be ever green, though sloes were in their prime,
And Winter smile his frowns to Spring, in beauty's happy clime;
And months would come, and months would go, and all in sunny mood,
And everything inspired by thee grow beautifully good.
And there to make a cot unknown to any care and pain,
And there to shut the door alone on singing wind and rain-Far, far away from all the world, more rude than rain or wind,
Oh, who could wish a sweeter home, or better place to find?
Than thus to love and live with thee, thou beautiful delight!
Than thus to live and love with thee the summer day and night!
The Earth itself, where thou hadst rest, would surely smile to see
Herself grow Eden once again, possest of Love and thee
Death

Why should man's high aspiring mind

Burn in him with so proud a breath,
144

When all his haughty views can find

In this world yields to death?
The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise,
The rich, the poor, the great, and small,
Are each but worm's anatomies
To strew his quiet hall.
Power may make many earthly gods,
Where gold and bribery's guilt prevails,
But death's unwelcome, honest odds
Kick o'er the unequal scales.
The flattered great may clamours raise
Of power, and their own weakness hide,
But death shall find unlooked-for ways
To end the farce of pride,
An arrow hurtled eer so high,
From een a giant's sinewy strength,
In Time's untraced eternity
Goes but a pigmy length;
Nay, whirring from the tortured string,
With all its pomp of hurried flight,
Tis by the skylark's little wing
Outmeasured in its height.
Just so man's boasted strength and power
Shall fade before death's lightest stroke,
Laid lower than the meanest flower,
Whose pride oer-topt the oak;
And he who, like a blighting blast,
Dispeopled worlds with war's alarms
Shall be himself destroyed at last
By poor despised worms.
Tyrants in vain their powers secure,
And awe slaves' murmurs with a frown,
For unawed death at last is sure
To sap the babels down.
A stone thrown upward to the sky
Will quickly meet the ground agen;
145

So men-gods of earth's vanity

Shall drop at last to men;
And Power and Pomp their all resign,
Blood-purchased thrones and banquet halls.
Fate waits to sack Ambition's shrine
As bare as prison walls,
Where the poor suffering wretch bows down
To laws a lawless power hath passed;
And pride, and power, and king, and clown
Shall be Death's slaves at last.
Time, the prime minister of Death!
There's nought can bribe his honest will.
He stops the richest tyrant's breath
And lays his mischief still.
Each wicked scheme for power all stops,
With grandeurs false and mock display,
As eve's shades from high mountain tops
Fade with the rest away.
Death levels all things in his march;
Nought can resist his mighty strength;
The palace proud, triumphal arch,
Shall mete its shadow's length.
The rich, the poor, one common bed
Shall find in the unhonoured grave,
Where weeds shall crown alike the head
Of tyrant and of slave.
I Am

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,

My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
146

And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best-Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.
Love Lives Beyond The Tomb

Love lives beyond

The tomb, the earth, which fades like dewI love the fond,
The faithful, and the true.
Love lies in sleep,
The happiness of healthy dreams,
Eve's dews may weep,
But love delightful seems.
'Tis seen in flowers,
And in the even's pearly dew
On earth's green hours,
And in the heaven's eternal blue.
'Tis heard in spring
When light and sunbeams, warm and kind,
On angels wing
Bring love and music to the wind.
And where is voice
So young, so beautiful, so sweet
147

As nature's choice,
Where spring and lovers meet?
Love lies beyond
The tomb, the earth, the flowers, and dew.
I love the fond,
The faithful, young, and true.
Rural Morning

Soon as the twilight through the distant mist

In silver hemmings skirts the purple east,
Ere yet the sun unveils his smiles to view
And dries the morning's chilly robes of dew,
Young Hodge the horse-boy, with a soodly gait,
Slow climbs the stile, or opes the creaky gate,
With willow switch and halter by his side
Prepared for Dobbin, whom he means to ride;
The only tune he knows still whistling oer,
And humming scraps his father sung before,
As 'Wantley Dragon,' and the 'Magic Rose,'
The whole of music that his village knows,
Which wild remembrance, in each little town,
From mouth to mouth through ages handles down.
Onward he jolls, nor can the minstrel-throngs
Entice him once to listen to their songs;
Nor marks he once a blossom on his way;
A senseless lump of animated clay-With weather-beaten hat of rusty brown,
Stranger to brinks, and often to a crown;
With slop-frock suiting to the ploughman's taste,
Its greasy skirtings twisted round his waist;
And hardened high-lows clenched with nails around,
Clamping defiance oer the stoney ground,
The deadly foes to many a blossomed sprout
That luckless meets him in his morning's rout.
In hobbling speed he roams the pasture round,
Till hunted Dobbin and the rest are found;
148

Where some, from frequent meddlings of his whip,

Well know their foe, and often try to slip;
While Dobbin, tamed by age and labour, stands
To meet all trouble from his brutish hands,
And patient goes to gate or knowly brake,
The teasing burden of his foe to take;
Who, soon as mounted, with his switching weals,
Puts Dob's best swiftness in his heavy heels,
The toltering bustle of a blundering trot
Which whips and cudgels neer increased a jot,
Though better speed was urged by the clown-And thus he snorts and jostles to the town.
And now, when toil and summer's in its prime,
In every vill, at morning's earliest time,
To early-risers many a Hodge is seen,
And many a Dob's heard clattering oer the green.
Now straying beams from day's unclosing eye
In copper-coloured patches flush the sky,
And from night's prison strugglingly encroach,
To bring the summons of warm day's approach,
Till, slowly mounting oer the ridge of clouds
That yet half shows his face, and half enshrouds,
The unfettered sun takes his unbounded reign
And wakes all life to noise and toil again:
And while his opening mellows oer the scenes
Of wood and field their many mingling greens,
Industry's bustling din once more devours
The soothing peace of morning's early hours:
The grunt of hogs freed from their nightly dens
And constant cacklings of new-laying hens,
And ducks and geese that clamorous joys repeat
The splashing comforts of the pond to meet,
And chirping sparrows dropping from the eaves
For offal kernels that the poultry leaves,
Oft signal-calls of danger chittering high
At skulking cats and dogs approaching nigh.
And lowing steers that hollow echoes wake
Around the yard, their nightly fast to break,
149

As from each barn the lumping flail rebounds

In mingling concert with the rural sounds;
While oer the distant fields more faintly creep
The murmuring bleatings of unfolding sheep,
And ploughman's callings that more hoarse proceed
Where industry still urges labour's speed,
The bellowing of cows with udders full
That wait the welcome halloo of 'come mull,'
And rumbling waggons deafening again,
Rousing the dust along the narrow lane,
And cracking whips, and shepherd's hooting cries,
From woodland echoes urging sharp replies.
Hodge, in his waggon, marks the wondrous tongue,
And talks with echo as he drives along;
Still cracks his whip, bawls every horse's name,
And echo still as ready bawls the same:
The puzzling mystery he would gladly cheat,
And fain would utter what it can't repeat,
Till speedless trials prove the doubted elf
As skilled in noise and sounds as Hodge himself;
And, quite convinced with the proofs it gives,
The boy drives on and fancies echo lives,
Like some wood-fiend that frights benighted men,
The troubling spirit of a robber's den.
And now the blossom of the village view,
With airy hat of straw, and apron blue,
And short-sleeved gown, that half to guess reveals
By fine-turned arms what beauty it conceals;
Whose cheeks health flushes with as sweet a red
As that which stripes the woodbine oer her head;
Deeply she blushes on her morn's employ,
To prove the fondness of some passing boy,
Who, with a smile that thrills her soul to view,
Holds the gate open till she passes through,
While turning nods beck thanks for kindness done,
And looks--if looks could speak-proclaim her won.
With well-scoured buckets on proceeds the maid,
And drives her cows to milk beneath the shade,
Where scarce a sunbeam to molest her steals-150

Sweet as the thyme that blossoms where she kneels;

And there oft scares the cooing amorous dove
With her own favoured melodies of love.
Snugly retired in yet dew-laden bowers,
This sweetest specimen of rural flowers
Displays, red glowing in the morning wind,
The powers of health and nature when combined.
Last on the road the cowboy careless swings,
Leading tamed cattle in their tending strings,
With shining tin to keep his dinner warm
Swung at his back, or tucked beneath his arm;
Whose sun-burnt skin, and cheeks chuffed out with fat,
Are dyed as rusty as his napless hat.
And others, driving loose their herds at will,
Are now heard whooping up the pasture-hill;
Peeled sticks they bear of hazel or of ash,
The rib-marked hides of restless cows to thrash.
In sloven garb appears each bawling boy,
As fit and suiting to his rude employ;
His shoes, worn down by many blundering treads,
Oft show the tenants needing safer sheds:
The pithy bunch of unripe nuts to seek,
And crabs sun-reddened with a tempting cheek,
From pasture hedges, daily puts to rack
His tattered clothes, that scarcely screen the back,-Daubed all about as if besmeared with blood,
Stained with the berries of the brambly wood
That stud the straggling briars as black as jet,
Which, when his cattle lair, he runs to get;
Or smaller kinds, as if beglossed with dew
Shining dim-powdered with a downy blue,
That on weak tendrils lowly creeping grow
Where, choaked in flags and sedges, wandering slow,
The brook purls simmering its declining tide
Down the crooked boundings of the pasture-side.
There they to hunt the luscious fruit delight,
And dabbling keep within their charges' sight;
Oft catching prickly struttles on their rout,
And miller-thumbs and gudgeons driving out,
151

Hid near the arched brig under many a stone

That from its wall rude passing clowns have thrown.
And while in peace cows eat, and chew their cuds,
Moozing cool sheltered neath the skirting woods,
To double uses they the hours convert,
Turning the toils of labour into sport;
Till morn's long streaking shadows lose their tails,
And cooling winds swoon into faultering gales;
And searching sunbeams warm and sultry creep,
Waking the teazing insects from their sleep;
And dreaded gadflies with their drowsy hum
On the burnt wings of mid-day zephyrs come,-Urging each lown to leave his sports in fear,
To stop his starting cows that dread the fly;
Droning unwelcome tidings on his ear,
That the sweet peace of rural morn's gone by.
Summer Evening

The frog half fearful jumps across the path,

And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath;
My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive,
Till past, and then the cricket sings more strong,
And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with their fretting song.
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare,
Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank
The yellowhammer flutters in short fears
From off its nest hid in the grasses rank,
And drops again when no more noise it hears.
Thus nature's human link and endless thrall,
Proud man, still seems the enemy of all.

152

The Dying Child

He could not die when trees were green,

For he loved the time too well.
His little hands, when flowers were seen,
Were held for the bluebell,
As he was carried o'er the green.
His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee;
He knew those children of the spring:
When he was well and on the lea
He held one in his hands to sing,
Which filled his heart with glee.
Infants, the children of the spring!
How can an infant die
When butterflies are on the wing,
Green grass, and such a sky?
How can they die at spring?
He held his hands for daisies white,
And then for violets blue,
And took them all to bed at night
That in the green fields grew,
As childhood's sweet delight.
And then he shut his little eyes,
And flowers would notice not;
Birds' nests and eggs caused no surprise,
He now no blossoms got;
They met with plaintive sighs.
When winter came and blasts did sigh,
And bare were plain and tree,
As he for ease in bed did lie
His soul seemed with the free,
He died so quietly.

153

The Instinct of Hope

Is there another world for this frail dust

To warm with life and be itself again?
Something about me daily speaks there must,
And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?
'Tis nature's prophesy that such will be,
And everything seems struggling to explain
The close sealed volume of its mystery.
Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
As seeming anxious of eternity,
To meet that calm and find a resting place.
E'en the small violet feels a future power
And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,
And surely man is no inferior flower
To die unworthy of a second spring?
The Peasant Poet

He loved the brook's soft sound,

The swallow swimming by.
He loved the daisy-covered ground,
The cloud-bedappled sky.
To him the dismal storm appeared
The very voice of God;
And when the evening rack was reared
Stood Moses with his rod.
And everything his eyes surveyed,
The insects in the brake,
Were creatures God Almighty made,
He loved them for His sake-A silent man in life's affairs,
A thinker from a boy,
A peasant in his daily cares,
A poet in his joy.
154

POEMS BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

A Critic

With much ado you fail to tell

The requisites for writing well;
But, what bad writing is, you quite
Have proved by every line you write.
A Prophecy

Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak

Four not exempt from pride some future day.
Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek,
Over my open volume you will say,
This man loved me! then rise and trip away.
A Poet Leaving Athens

Speak not too ill of me, Athenian friends!

Nor ye, Athenian sages, speak too ill!
From others of all tribes am I secure.
I leave your confines: none whom you caress,
Finding me hungry and athirst, shall dip
Into Cephisos the grey bowl to quench
My thirst, or break the horny bread, and scoop
Stiffly around the scanty vase, wherewith
To gather the hard honey at the sides,
And give it me for having heard me sing.
Sages and friends! a better cause remains
155

For wishing no black sail upon my mast.

'Tis, friends and sages! lest, when other men
Say words a little gentler, ye repent,
Yet be forbidden by stern pride to share
The golden cup of kindness, pushing back
Your seats, and gasping for a draught of scorn.
Alas! shall this too, never lackt before,
Be, when you most would crave it, out of reach?
Thus on the plank, now Neptune is invoked,
I warn you of your peril: I must live,
And ye, O friends, howe'er unwilling, may.
Do You Remember Me? Or Are You Proud?

"Do you remember me? or are you proud?"

Lightly advancing thro' her star-trimm'd crowd,
Ianthe said, and lookt into my eyes,
"A yes, a yes, to both: for Memory
Where you but once have been must ever be,
And at your voice Pride from his throne must rise."
God Scatters Beauty

God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers

O'er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours.
A hundred lights in every temple burn,
And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn.
I Entreat You, Alfred Tennyson

I entreat you, Alfred Tennyson,

Come and share my haunch of venison.
156

I have too a bin of claret,

Good, but better when you share it.
Tho' 'tis only a small bin,
There's a stock of it within.
And as sure as I'm a rhymer,
Half a butt of Rudeheimer.
Come; among the sons of men is one
Welcomer than Alfred Tennyson?
I Strove with None

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.

Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art:
I warm'd both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
Judge And Thief

O'erfoaming with rage

The foul-mouth'd judge Page
Thus question'd a thief in the dock:
'Didst never hear read
In the church, lump of lead!
Loose chip from the devil's own block!
'Thou shalt not steal?'' 'Yea,'
The white chap did say,
''Thou shalt not:' but thou was the word.
Had he piped out 'Jem Hewitt!
Be sure you don't do it,'
I'd ha' thought of it twice ere I did it, my lord.'

157

From Myrtis

Friends, whom she lookd at blandly from her couch

And her white wrist above it, gem-bedewd,
Were arguing with Pentheusa: she had heard
Report of Creons death, whom years before
She listend to, well-pleasd; and sighs arose;
For sighs full often fondle with reproofs
And will be fondled by them. When I came
After the rest to visit her, she said,
Myrtis! how kind! Who better knows than thou
The pangs of love? and my first love was he!
Tell me (if ever, Eros! are reveald
Thy secrets to the earth) have they been true
To any love who speak about the first?
What! shall these holier lights, like twinkling stars
In the few hours assignd them, change their place,
And, when comes ampler splendor, disappear?
Idler I am, and pardon, not reply,
Implore from thee, thus questiond; well I know
Thou strikest, like Olympian Jove, but once.
On Living Too Long

Is it not better at an early hour

In its calm cell to rest the weary head,
While birds are singing and while blooms the bower,
Than sit the fire out and go starvd to bed?
Remain!

Remain, ah not in youth alone!

--Tho' youth, where you are, long will stay-158

But when my summer days are gone,

And my autumnal haste away.
'Can I be always by your side?'
No; but the hours you can, you must,
Nor rise at Death's approaching stride,
Nor go when dust is gone to dust.

POEMS BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

159

Easter Communion

Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast:

God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.
You striped in secret with breath-taking whips,
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced
To crosses meant for Jesu's; you whom the East
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,
God shall o'er-brim the measures you have spent
With oil of gladness, for sackcloth and frieze
And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment
Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.
Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent:
Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees.
I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day,

What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
160

The lost are like this, and their scourge to be

As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
Hope Holds to Christ

........
Hope holds to Christ the minds own mirror out
To take His lovely likeness more and more.
It will not well, so she would bring about
An ever brighter burnish than before
And turns to wash it from her welling eyes
And breathes the blots off all with sighs on sighs.
Her glass is blest but she as good as blind
Holds till hand aches and wonders what is there;
Her glass drinks light, she darkles down behind,
All of her glorious gainings unaware.
........
I told you that she turned her mirror dim
Betweenwhiles, but she sees herself not Him.
........
On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People
A Brother and Sister
O I admire and sorrow! The hearts eye grieves
Discovering you, dark tramplers, tyrant years.
A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves,
And beautys dearest veriest vein is tears.
Happy the father, mother of these! Too fast:
Not that, but thus far, all with frailty, blest
In one fair fall; but, for times aftercast,
Creatures all heft, hope, hazard, interest.
And are they thus? The fine, the fingering beams
161

Their young delightful hour do feature down

That fleeted else like day-dissolvd dreams
Or ringlet-race on burling Barrow brown.
She leans on him with such contentment fond
As well the sister sits, would well the wife;
His looks, the souls own letters, see beyond,
Gaze on, and fall directly forth on life.
But ah, bright forelock, cluster that you are
Of favoured make and mind and health and youth,
Where lies your landmark, seamark, or souls star?
Theres none but truth can stead you. Christ is truth.
There s none but good can b good, both for you
And what sways with you, maybe this sweet maid;
None good but Goda warning wavd to
One once that was found wanting when Good weighed.
Man lives that list, that leaning in the will
No wisdom can forecast by gauge or guess,
The selfless self of self, most strange, most still,
Fast furled and all foredrawn to No or Yes.
Your feast of; that most in you earnest eye
May but call on your banes to more carouse.
Worst will the best. What worm was here, we cry,
To have havoc-pocked so, see, the hung-heavenward boughs?
Enough: corruption was the worlds first woe.
What need I strain my heart beyond my ken?
O but I bear my burning witness though
Against the wild and wanton work of men.
.......

Patience, Hard Thing! The Hard Thing But To Pray

162

Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,

But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart's ivy, Patience masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.
We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.
And where is he who more and more distils
Delicious kindness?He is patient. Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.
The Alchemist in the City

My window shews the travelling clouds,

Leaves spent, new seasons, alter'd sky,
The making and the melting crowds:
The whole world passes; I stand by.
They do not waste their meted hours,
But men and masters plan and build:
I see the crowning of their towers,
And happy promises fulfill'd.
And I - perhaps if my intent
Could count on prediluvian age,
The labours I should then have spent
Might so attain their heritage,
But now before the pot can glow
With not to be discover'd gold,
163

At length the bellows shall not blow,

The furnace shall at last be cold.
Yet it is now too late to heal
The incapable and cumbrous shame
Which makes me when with men I deal
More powerless than the blind or lame.
No, I should love the city less
Even than this my thankless lore;
But I desire the wilderness
Or weeded landslips of the shore.
I walk my breezy belvedere
To watch the low or levant sun,
I see the city pigeons veer,
I mark the tower swallows run
Between the tower-top and the ground
Below me in the bearing air;
Then find in the horizon-round
One spot and hunger to be there.
And then I hate the most that lore
That holds no promise of success;
Then sweetest seems the houseless shore,
Then free and kind the wilderness,
Or ancient mounds that cover bones,
Or rocks where rockdoves do repair
And trees of terebinth and stones
And silence and a gulf of air.
There on a long and squared height
After the sunset I would lie,
And pierce the yellow waxen light
With free long looking, ere I die.

164

St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

Laybrother of the Society of Jesus
Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say;
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;
But be the war within, the brand we wield
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,
Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.
Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.

POEMS BY ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

165

Ah! Yet Consider it Again!

"Old things need not be therefore true,"
O brother men, nor yet the new;
Ah! still awhile the old thought retain,
And yet consider it again!
The souls of now two thousand years
Have laid up here their toils and tears,
And all the earnings of their pain,-Ah, yet consider it again!
We! what do we see? each a space
Of some few yards before his face;
Does that the whole wide plan explain?
Ah, yet consider it again!
Alas! the great world goes its way,
And takes its truth from each new day;
They do not quit, nor can retain,
Far less consider it again.
Across the Sea Along the Shore
Across the sea, along the shore,
In numbers more and ever more,
From lonely hut and busy town,
The valley through, the mountain down,
What was it ye went out to see,
Ye silly folk Galilee?
The reed that in the wind doth shake?
The weed that washes in the lake?
The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?
A young man preaching in a boat.
What was it ye went out to hear
By sea and land from far and near?
A teacher? Rather seek the feet
166

Of those who sit in Moses' seat.

Go humbly seek, and bow to them,
Far off in great Jerusalem.
From them that in her courts ye saw,
Her perfect doctors of the law,
What is it came ye here to note?
A young man preaching in a boat.
A prophet! Boys and women weak!
Declare, or cease to rave;
Whence is it he hath learned to speak?
Say, who his doctrine gave?
A prophet? Prophet wherefore he
Of all in Israel tribes?
He teacheth with authority,
And not as do the Scribes.
All Is Well
Whate'er you dream, with doubt possessed,
Keep, keep it snug within your breast,
And lay you down and take your rest;
And when you wake, to work again,
The wind it blows, the vessel goes,
And where and whither, no one knows.
'Twill all be well: no need of care;
Though how it will, and when, and where,
We cannot see, and can't declare.
In spite of dreams, in spite of thought,
'Tis not in vain, and not for nought,
The wind it blows, the ship it goes,
Though where and whither, no one knows.

In a London Square
167

Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane,

East wind and frost are safely gone;
With zephyr mild and balmy rain
The summer comes serenly on;
Earth, air, and sun and skies combine
To promise all that's kind and fair: But thou, O human heart of mine,
Be still, contain thyself, and bear.
December days were brief and chill,
The winds of March were wild and drear,
And, nearing and receding still,
Spring never would, we thought, be here.
The leaves that burst, the suns that shine,
Had, not the less, their certain date: And thou, O human heart of mine,
Be still, refrain thyself, and wait.
How In All Wonder...
How in all wonder Columbus got over,
That is a marvel to me, I protest,
Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover,
Frobisher, Dampier, Drake and the rest.
Bad enough all the same,
For them that after came,
But, in great Heaven's name,
How he should ever think
That on the other brink
Of this huge waste terra firma should be,
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.
How a man ever should hope to get thither,
E'e'n if he knew of there being another side;
But to suppose he should come any whither,
Sailing right on into chaos untried,
Across the whole ocean,
In spite of the motion,
To stick to the notion
168

That in some nook or bend

Of a sea without end
He should find North and South Amerikee,
Was a pure madness as it seems to me.
What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy,
Judged that the earth like an orange was round,
None of them ever said, 'Come along, follow,
Sail to the West, and the East will be found.'
Many a day before
Ever they'd touched the shore
Of the San Salvador,
Sadder and wiser men
They'd have turned back again;
And that he did not, but did cross the sea,
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.
And that he crossed and that we cross the sea
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.

POEMS BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

169

A Last Confession

Our Lombard country-girls along the coast

Wear daggers in their garters: for they know
That they might hate another girl to death
Or meet a German lover. Such a knife
I bought her, with a hilt of horn and pearl.
Father, you cannot know of all my thoughts
That day in going to meet her,that last day
For the last time, she said;of all the love
And all the hopeless hope that she might change
And go back with me. Ah! and everywhere,
At places we both knew along the road,
Some fresh shape of herself as once she was
Grew present at my side; until it seemed
So close they gathered round methey would all
Be with me when I reached the spot at last,
To plead my cause with her against herself
So changed. O Father, if you knew all this
You cannot know, then you would know too, Father,
And only then, if God can pardon me.
What can be told I'll tell, if you will hear.
I passed a village-fair upon my road,
And thought, being empty-handed, I would take
Some little present: such might prove, I said,
Either a pledge between us, or (God help me!)
A parting gift. And there it was I bought
The knife I spoke of, such as women wear.
That day, some three hours afterwards, I found
For certain, it must be a parting gift.
And, standing silent now at last, I looked
Into her scornful face; and heard the sea
Still trying hard to din into my ears
Some speech it knew which still might change her heart,
If only it could make me understand.
170

One moment thus. Another, and her face

Seemed further off than the last line of sea,
So that I thought, if now she were to speak
I could not hear her. Then again I knew
All, as we stood together on the sand
At Iglio, in the first thin shade o' the hills.
Take it, I said, and held it out to her,
While the hilt glanced within my trembling hold;
Take it and keep it for my sake, I said.
Her neck unbent not, neither did her eyes
Move, nor her foot left beating of the sand;
Only she put it by from her and laughed.
Father, you hear my speech and not her laugh;
But God heard that. Will God remember all?
It was another laugh than the sweet sound
Which rose from her sweet childish heart, that day
Eleven years before, when first I found her
Alone upon the hill-side; and her curls
Shook down in the warm grass as she looked up
Out of her curls in my eyes bent to hers.
She might have served a painter to pourtray
That heavenly child which in the latter days
Shall walk between the lion and the lamb.
I had been for nights in hiding, worn and sick
And hardly fed; and so her words at first
Seemed fiftul like the talking of the trees
And voices in the air that knew my name.
And I remember that I sat me down
Upon the slope with her, and thought the world
Must be all over or had never been,
We seemed there so alone. And soon she told me
Her parents both were gone away from her.
I thought perhaps she meant that they had died;
But when I asked her this, she looked again
Into my face and said that yestereve
They kissed her long, and wept and made her weep,
And gave her all the bread they had with them,
And then had gone together up the hill
Where we were sitting now, and had walked on
Into the great red light; and so, she said,
171

I have come up here too; and when this evening

They step out of the light as they stepped in,
I shall be here to kiss them. And she laughed.
Then I bethought me suddenly of the famine;
And how the church-steps throughout all the town,
When last I had been there a month ago,
Swarmed with starved folk; and how the bread was weighed
By Austrians armed; and women that I knew
For wives and mothers walked the public street,
Saying aloud that if their husbands feared
To snatch the children's food, themselves would stay
Till they had earned it there. So then this child
Was piteous to me; for all told me then
Her parents must have left her to God's chance,
To man's or to the Church's charity,
Because of the great famine, rather than
To watch her growing thin between their knees.
With that, God took my mother's voice and spoke,
And sights and sounds came back and things long since,
And all my childhood found me on the hills;
And so I took her with me.
I was young.
Scarce man then, Father: but the cause which gave
The wounds I die of now had brought me then
Some wounds already; and I lived alone,
As any hiding hunted man must live.
It was no easy thing to keep a child
In safety; for herself it was not safe,
And doubled my own danger: but I knew
That God would help me.
Yet a little while
Pardon me, Father, if I pause. I think
I have been speaking to you of some matters
There was no need to speak of, have I not?
You do not know how clearly those things stood
Within my mind, which I have spoken of,
Nor how they strove for utterance. Life all past
Is like the sky when the sun sets in it,
Clearest where furthest off.
I told you how
172

She scorned my parting gift and laughed. And yet

A woman's laugh's another thing sometimes:
I think they laugh in Heaven. I know last night
I dreamed I saw into the garden of God,
Where women walked whose painted images
I have seen with candles round them in the church.
They bent this way and that, one to another,
Playing: and over the long golden hair
Of each there floated like a ring of fire
Which when she stooped stooped with her, and when she rose
Rose with her. Then a breeze flew in among them,
As if a window had been opened in heaven
For God to give His blessing from, before
This world of ours should set; (for in my dream
I thought our world was setting, and the sun
Flared, a spent taper; ) and beneath that gust
The rings of light quivered like forest-leaves.
Then all the blessed maidens who were there
Stood up together, as it were a voice
That called them; and they threw their tresses back,
And smote their palms, and all laughed up at once,
For the strong heavenly joy they had in them
To hear God bless the world. Wherewith I woke:
And looking round, I saw as usual
That she was standing there with her long locks
Pressed to her side; and her laugh ended theirs.
For always when I see her now, she laughs.
And yet her childish laughter haunts me too,
The life of this dead terror; as in days
When she, a child, dwelt with me. I must tell
Something of those days yet before the end.
I brought her from the cityone such day
When she was still a merry loving child,
The earliest gift I mind my giving her;
A little image of a flying Love
Made of our coloured glass-ware, in his hands
A dart of gilded metal and a torch.
And him she kissed and me, and fain would know
Why were his poor eyes blindfold, why the wings
And why the arrow. What I knew I told
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Of Venus and of Cupid,strange old tales.

And when she heard that he could rule the loves
Of men and women, still she shook her head
And wondered; and, Nay, nay, she murmured still,
So strong, and he a younger child than I!
And then she'd have me fix him on the wall
Fronting her little bed; and then again
She needs must fix him there herself, because
I gave him to her and she loved him so,
And he should make her love me better yet,
If women loved the more, the more they grew.
But the fit place upon the wall was high
For her, and so I held her in my arms:
And each time that the heavy pruning-hook
I gave her for a hammer slipped away
As it would often, still she laughed and laughed
And kissed and kissed me. But amid her mirth,
Just as she hung the image on the nail,
It slipped and all its fragments strewed the ground:
And as it fell she screamed, for in her hand
The dart had entered deeply and drawn blood.
And so her laughter turned to tears: and Oh!
I said, the while I bandaged the small hand,
That I should be the first to make you bleed,
Who love and love and love you!kissing still
The fingers till I got her safe to bed.
And still she sobbed,not for the pain at all,
She said, but for the Love, the poor good Love
You gave me. So she cried herself to sleep.
Another later thing comes back to me.
'Twas in those hardest foulest days of all,
When still from his shut palace, sitting clean
Above the splash of blood, old Metternich
(May his soul die, and never-dying worms
Feast on its pain for ever! ) used to thin
His year's doomed hundreds daintily, each month
Thirties and fifties. This time, as I think,
Was when his thrift forbad the poor to take
That evil brackish salt which the dry rocks
Keep all through winter when the sea draws in.
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The first I heard of it was a chance shot

In the street here and there, and on the stones
A stumbling clatter as of horse hemmed round.
Then, when she saw me hurry out of doors,
My gun slung at my shoulder and my knife
Stuck in my girdle, she smoothed down my hair
And laughed to see me look so brave, and leaped
Up to my neck and kissed me. She was still
A child; and yet that kiss was on my lips
So hot all day where the smoke shut us in.
For now, being always with her, the first love
I hadthe father's, brother's lovewas changed,
I think, in somewise; like a holy thought
Which is a prayer before one knows of it.
The first time I perceived this, I remember,
Was once when after hunting I came home
Weary, and she brought food and fruit for me,
And sat down at my feet upon the floor
Leaning against my side. But when I felt
Her sweet head reach from that low seat of hers
So high as to be laid upon my heart,
I turned and looked upon my darling there
And marked for the first time how tall she was;
And my heart beat with so much violence
Under her cheek, I thought she could not choose
But wonder at it soon and ask me why;
And so I bade her rise and eat with me.
And when, remembering all and counting back
The time, I made out fourteen years for her
And told her so, she gazed at me with eyes
As of the sky and sea on a grey day,
And drew her long hands through her hair, and asked me
If she was not a woman; and then laughed:
And as she stooped in laughing, I could see
Beneath the growing throat the breasts half-globed
Like folded lilies deepset in the stream.
Yes, let me think of her as then; for so
Her image, Father, is not like the sights
Which come when you are gone. She had a mouth
Made to bring death to life,the underlip
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Sucked in, as if it strove to kiss itself.

Her face was pearly pale, as when one stoops
Over wan water; and the dark crisped hair
And the hair's shadow made it paler still:
Deep-serried locks, the dimness of the cloud
Where the moon's gaze is set in eddying gloom.
Her body bore her neck as the tree's stem
Bears the top branch; and as the branch sustains
The flower of the year's pride, her high neck bore
That face made wonderful with night and day.
Her voice was swift, yet ever the last words
Fell lingeringly; and rounded finger-tips
She had, that clung a little where they touched
And then were gone o' the instant. Her great eyes,
That sometimes turned half dizzily beneath
The passionate lids, as faint, when she would speak,
Had also in them hidden springs of mirth,
Which under the dark lashes evermore
Shook to her laugh, as when a bird flies low
Between the water and the willow-leaves,
And the shade quivers till he wins the light.
I was a moody comrade to her then,
For all the love I bore her. Italy,
The weeping desolate mother, long has claimed
Her sons' strong arms to lean on, and their hands
To lop the poisonous thicket from her path,
Cleaving her way to light. And from her need
Had grown the fashion of my whole poor life
Which I was proud to yield her, as my father
Had yielded his. And this had come to be
A game to play, a love to clasp, a hate
To wreak, all things together that a man
Needs for his blood to ripen; till at times
All else seemed shadows, and I wondered still
To see such life pass muster and be deemed
Time's bodily substance. In those hours, no doubt,
To the young girl my eyes were like my soul,
Dark wells of death-in-life that yearned for day.
Sig.
And though she ruled me always, I remember
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That once when I was thus and she still kept

Leaping about the place and laughing, I
Did almost chide her; whereupon she knelt
And putting her two hands into my breast
Sang me a song. Are these tears in my eyes?
'Tis long since I have wept for anything.
I thought that song forgotten out of mind;
And now, just as I spoke of it, it came
All back. It is but a rude thing, ill rhymed,
Such as a blind man chaunts and his dog hears
Holding the platter, when the children run
To merrier sport and leave him. Thus it goes:
La bella donna*
Piangendo disse:
Come son fisse
Le stelle in cielo!
Quel fiato anelo
Dello stanco sole,
Quanto m' assonna!
E la luna, macchiata
Come uno specchio
Logoro e vecchio,
Faccia affannata,
Che cosa vuole?
Ch stelle, luna, e sole,
Ciascun m' annoja
E m' annojano insieme;
Non me ne preme
N ci prendo gioja.
E veramente,
Che le spalle sien franche
E la braccia bianche
She wept, sweet lady,
And said in weeping:
What spell is keeping
The stars so steady?
Why does the power
Of the sun's noon-hour
To sleep so move me?
And the moon in heaven,
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Stained where she passes

As a worn-out glass is,
Wearily driven,
Why walks she above me?
Stars, moon, and sun too,
I'm tired of either
And all together!
Whom speak they unto
That I should listen?
For very surely,
Though my arms and shoulders
Dazzle beholders,
And my eyes glisten,
All's nothing purely!
What are words said for
At all about them,
If he they are made for
Can do without them?
She laughed, sweet lady,
And said in laughing:
His hand clings half in
My own already!
Oh! do you love me?
Oh! speak of passion
In no new fashion,
No loud inveighings,
But the old sayings
You once said of me.
You said: As summer,
Through boughs grown brittle,
Comes back a little
Ere frosts benumb her,
So bring'st thou to me
All leaves and flowers,
Though autumn's gloomy
To-day in the bowers.
Oh! does he love me,
When my voice teaches
The very speeches
He then spoke of me?
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Alas! what flavour

Still with me lingers?
(But she laughed as my kisses
Glowed in her fingers
With love's old blisses.)
Oh! what one favour
Remains to woo him,
Whose whole poor savour
Belongs not to him?
E il seno caldo e tondo,
Non mi fa niente.
Che cosa al mondo
Posso pi far di questi
Se non piacciono a te, come dicesti?
La donna rise
E riprese ridendo:
Questa mano che prendo
dunque mia?
Tu m' ami dunque?
Dimmelo ancora,
Non in modo qualunque,
Ma le parole
Belle e precise
Che dicesti pria.
Siccome suole
La state talora
(Dicesti) un qualche istante
Tornare innanzi inverno,
Cos tu fai ch' io scerno
Le foglie tutte quante,
Ben ch' io certo tenessi
Per passato l' autunno.
Eccolo il mio alunno!
Io debbo insegnargli
Quei cari detti istessi
Ch' ei mi disse una volta!
Oim! Che cosa dargli,
(Ma ridea piano piano
Dei baci in sulla mano,)
Ch' ei non m'abbia da lungo tempo tolta?
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That I should sing upon this bed!with you

To listen, and such words still left to say!
Yet was it I that sang? The voice seemed hers,
As on the very day she sang to me;
When, having done, she took out of my hand
Something that I had played with all the while
And laid it down beyond my reach; and so
Turning my face round till it fronted hers,
Weeping or laughing, which was best? she said.
But these are foolish tales. How should I show
The heart that glowed then with love's heat, each day
More and more brightly?when for long years now
The very flame that flew about the heart,
And gave it fiery wings, has come to be
The lapping blaze of hell's environment
Whose tongues all bid the molten heart despair.
Yet one more thing comes back on me to-night
Which I may tell you: for it bore my soul
Dread firstlings of the brood that rend it now.
It chanced that in our last year's wanderings
We dwelt at Monza, far away from home,
If home we had: and in the Duomo there
I sometimes entered with her when she prayed.
An image of Our Lady stands there, wrought
In marble by some great Italian hand
In the great days when she and Italy
Sat on one throne together: and to her
And to none else my loved one told her heart.
She was a woman then; and as she knelt,
Her sweet brow in the sweet brow's shadow there,
They seemed two kindred forms whereby our land
(Whose work still serves the world for miracle)
Made manifest herself in womanhood.
Father, the day I speak of was the first
For weeks that I had borne her company
Into the Duomo; and those weeks had been
Much troubled, for then first the glimpses came
Of some impenetrable restlessness
Growing in her to make her changed and cold.
And as we entered there that day, I bent
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My eyes on the fair Image, and I said

Within my heart, Oh turn her heart to me!
And so I left her to her prayers, and went
To gaze upon the pride of Monza's shrine,
Where in the sacristy the light still falls
Upon the Iron Crown of Italy,
On whose crowned heads the day has closed, nor yet
The daybreak gilds another head to crown.
But coming back, I wondered when I saw
That the sweet Lady of her prayers now stood
Alone without her; until further off,
Before some new Madonna gaily decked,
Tinselled and gewgawed, a slight German toy,
I saw her kneel, still praying. At my step
She rose, and side by side we left the church.
I was much moved, and sharply questioned her
Of her transferred devotion; but she seemed
Stubborn and heedless; till she lightly laughed
And said: The old Madonna? Aye indeed,
She had my old thoughts,this one has my new.
Then silent to the soul I held my way:
And from the fountains of the public place
Unto the pigeon-haunted pinnacles,
Bright wings and water winnowed the bright air;
And stately with her laugh's subsiding smile
She went, with clear-swayed waist and towering neck
And hands held light before her; and the face
Which long had made a day in my life's night
Was night in day to me; as all men's eyes
Turned on her beauty, and she seemed to tread
Beyond my heart to the world made for her.
Ah there! my wounds will snatch my sense again:
The pain comes billowing on like a full cloud
Of thunder, and the flash that breaks from it
Leaves my brain burning. That's the wound he gave,
The Austrian whose white coat I still made match
With his white face, only the two grew red
As suits his trade. The devil makes them wear
White for a livery, that the blood may show
Braver that brings them to him. So he looks
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Sheer o'er the field and knows his own at once.

Give me a draught of water in that cup;
My voice feels thick; perhaps you do not hear;
But you must hear. If you mistake my words
And so absolve me, I am sure the blessing
Will burn my soul. If you mistake my words
And so absolve me, Father, the great sin
Is yours, not mine: mark this: your soul shall burn
With mine for it. I have seen pictures where
Souls burned with Latin shriekings in their mouths:
Shall my end be as theirs? Nay, but I know
'Tis you shall shriek in Latin. Some bell rings,
Rings through my brain: it strikes the hour in hell.
You see I cannot, Father; I have tried,
But cannot, as you see. These twenty times
Beginning, I have come to the same point
And stopped. Beyond, there are but broken words
Which will not let you understand my tale.
It is that then we have her with us here,
As when she wrung her hair out in my dream
To-night, till all the darkness reeked of it.
Her hair is always wet, for she has kept
Its tresses wrapped about her side for years;
And when she wrung them round over the floor,
I heard the blood between her fingers hiss;
So that I sat up in my bed and screamed
Once and again; and once to once, she laughed.
Look that you turn not now,she's at your back:
Gather your robe up, Father, and keep close,
Or she'll sit down on it and send you mad.
At Iglio in the first thin shade o' the hills
The sand is black and red. The black was black
When what was spilt that day sank into it,
And the red scarcely darkened. There I stood
This night with her, and saw the sand the same.
What would you have me tell you? Father, father,
How shall I make you know? You have not known
The dreadful soul of woman, who one day
Forgets the old and takes the new to heart,
Forgets what man remembers, and therewith
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Forgets the man. Nor can I clearly tell

How the change happened between her and me.
Her eyes looked on me from an emptied heart
When most my heart was full of her; and still
In every corner of myself I sought
To find what service failed her; and no less
Than in the good time past, there all was hers.
What do you love? Your Heaven? Conceive it spread
For one first year of all eternity
All round you with all joys and gifts of God;
And then when most your soul is blent with it
And all yields song together,then it stands
O' the sudden like a pool that once gave back
Your image, but now drowns it and is clear
Again,or like a sun bewitched, that burns
Your shadow from you, and still shines in sight.
How could you bear it? Would you not cry out,
Among those eyes grown blind to you, those ears
That hear no more your voice you hear the same,
God! what is left but hell for company,
But hell, hell, hell?until the name so breathed
Whirled with hot wind and sucked you down in fire?
Even so I stood the day her empty heart
Left her place empty in our home, while yet
I knew not why she went nor where she went
Nor how to reach her: so I stood the day
When to my prayers at last one sight of her
Was granted, and I looked on heaven made pale
With scorn, and heard heaven mock me in that laugh.
O sweet, long sweet! Was that some ghost of you,
Even as your ghost that haunts me now,twin shapes
Of fear and hatred? May I find you yet
Mine when death wakes? Ah! be it even in flame,
We may have sweetness yet, if you but say
As once in childish sorrow: Not my pain,
My pain was nothing: oh your poor poor love,
Your broken love!
My Father, have I not
Yet told you the last things of that last day
On which I went to meet her by the sea?
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O God, O God! but I must tell you all.

Midway upon my journey, when I stopped
To buy the dagger at the village fair,
I saw two cursed rats about the place
I knew for spiesblood-sellers both. That day
Was not yet over; for three hours to come
I prized my life: and so I looked around
For safety. A poor painted mountebank
Was playing tricks and shouting in a crowd.
I knew he must have heard my name, so I
Pushed past and whispered to him who I was,
And of my danger. Straight he hustled me
Into his booth, as it were in the trick,
And brought me out next minute with my face
All smeared in patches and a zany's gown;
And there I handed him his cups and balls
And swung the sand-bags round to clear the ring
For half an hour. The spies came once and looked;
And while they stopped, and made all sights and sounds
Sharp to my startled senses, I remember
A woman laughed above me. I looked up
And saw where a brown-shouldered harlot leaned
Half through a tavern window thick with vine.
Some man had come behind her in the room
And caught her by her arms, and she had turned
With that coarse empty laugh on him, as now
He munched her neck with kisses, while the vine
Crawled in her back.
And three hours afterwards,
When she that I had run all risks to meet
Laughed as I told you, my life burned to death
Within me, for I thought it like the laugh
Heard at the fair. She had not left me long;
But all she might have changed to, or might change to,
(I know nought sinceshe never speaks a word)
Seemed in that laugh. Have I not told you yet,
Not told you all this time what happened, Father,
When I had offered her the little knife,
And bade her keep it for my sake that loved her,
And she had laughed? Have I not told you yet?
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Take it, I said to her the second time,

Take it and keep it. And then came a fire
That burnt my hand; and then the fire was blood,
And sea and sky were blood and fire, and all
The day was one red blindness; till it seemed,
Within the whirling brain's eclipse, that she
Or I or all things bled or burned to death.
And then I found her laid against my feet
And knew that I had stabbed her, and saw still
Her look in falling. For she took the knife
Deep in her heart, even as I bade her then,
And fell; and her stiff bodice scooped the sand
Into her bosom.
And she keeps it, see,
Do you not see she keeps it?there, beneath
Wet fingers and wet tresses, in her heart.
For look you, when she stirs her hand, it shows
The little hilt of horn and pearl,even such
A dagger as our women of the coast
Twist in their garters.
Father, I have done:
And from her side now she unwinds the thick
Dark hair; all round her side it is wet through,
But, like the sand at Iglio, does not change.
Now you may see the dagger clearly. Father,
I have told all: tell me at once what hope
Can reach me still. For now she draws it out
Slowly, and only smiles as yet: look, Father,
She scarcely smiles: but I shall hear her laugh
Soon, when she shows the crimson steel to God.

185

A Sea-Spell
For one of his own pictures

Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree,

While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell
Between its chords; and as the wild notes swell,
The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea.
But to what sound her listening ear stoops she?
What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear,
In answering echoes from what planisphere,
Along the wind, along the estuary?
She sinks into her spell: and when full soon
Her lips move and she soars into her song,
What creatures of the midmost main shall throng
In furrowed self-clouds to the summoning rune,
Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry,
And up her rock, bare breasted, comes to die?
Adieu

Waving whispering trees,

What do you say to the breeze
And what says the breeze to you?
'Mid passing souls ill at ease,
Moving murmuring trees,
Would ye ever wave an Adieu?
Tossing turbulent seas,
Winds that wrestle with these,
Echo heard in the shell,
'Mid fleeting life ill at ease,
Restless ravening seas,
Would the echo sigh Farewell?
Surging sumptuous skies,
For ever a new surprise,
Clouds eternally new,
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Is every flake that flies,

Widening wandering skies,
For a signFarewell, Adieu?
Sinking suffering heart
That know'st how weary thou art,
Soul so fain for a flight,
Aye, spread your wings to depart,
Sad soul and sorrowing heart,
Adieu, Farewell, Good-night.
At the Sun-Rise in 1848

God said, Let there be light; and there was light.

Then heard we sounds as though the Earth did sing
And the Earth's angel cried upon the wing:
We saw priests fall together and turn white:
And covered in the dust from the sun's sight,
A king was spied, and yet another king.
We said: The round world keeps its balancing;
On this globe, they and we are opposite,
If it is day with us, with them 'tis night.
Still, Man, in thy just pride, remember this:
Thou hadst not made that thy sons' sons shall ask
What the word king may mean in their day's task,
But for the light that led: and if light is,
It is because God said, Let there be light.
Beauty and The Bird

She fluted with her mouth as when one sips,

And gently waved her golden head, inclin'd
Outside his cage close to the window-blind;
Till her fond bird, with little turns and dips,
Piped low to her of sweet companionships.
And when he made an end, some seed took she
187

And fed him from her tongue, which rosily

Peeped as a piercing bud between her lips.
And like the child in Chaucer, on whose tongue
The Blessed Mary laid, when he was dead,
A grain,who straightway praised her name in song:
Even so, when she, a little lightly red,
Now turned on me and laughed, I heard the throng
Of inner voices praise her golden head.
Broken Music

The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears

Her nursling's speech first grow articulate;
But breathless with averted eyes elate
She sits, with open lips and open ears,
That it may call her twice. 'Mid doubts and fears
Thus oft my soul has hearkened; till the song,
A central moan for days, at length found tongue,
And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears.
But now, whatever while the soul is fain
To list that wonted murmur, as it were
The speech-bound sea-shell's low importunate strain, No breath of song, thy voice alone is there,
O bitterly beloved! and all her gain
Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer.
Fiammetta

Behold Fiammetta, shown in Vision here.

Gloom-girt 'mid Spring-flushed apple-growth she stands;
And as she sways the branches with her hands,
Along her arm the sundered bloom falls sheer,
In separate petals shed, each like a tear;
While from the quivering bough the bird expands
188

His wings. And lo! thy spirit understands

Life shaken and shower'd and flown, and Death drawn near.
All stirs with change. Her garments beat the air:
The angel circling round her aureole
Shimmers in flight against the tree's grey bole:
While she, with reassuring eyes most fair,
A presage and a promise stands; as 'twere
On Death's dark storm the rainbow of the Soul.
Sonnet LXXVIII: Body's Beauty

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told

(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)
That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.
Sonnet LXXXV: Vain Virtues

What is the sorriest thing that enters Hell?

None of the sins,but this and that fair deed
Which a soul's sin at length could supersede.
These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell
Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel
Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves
Of anguish, while the pit's pollution leaves
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Their refuse maidenhood abominable.

Night sucks them down, the tribute of the pit,
Whose names, half entered in the book of Life,
Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair
And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit
To gaze, but, yearning, waits his destined wife,
The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.
Sonnet VII: Supreme Surrender

To all the spirits of Love that wander by

Along his love-sown harvest-field of sleep
My lady lies apparent; and the deep
Calls to the deep; and no man sees but I.
The bliss so long afar, at length so nigh,
Rests there attained. Methinks proud Love must weep
When Fate's control doth from his harvest reap
The sacred hour for which the years did sigh.
First touched, the hand now warm around my neck
Taught memory long to mock desire: and lo!
Across my breast the abandoned hair doth flow,
Where one shorn tress long stirred the longing ache:
And next the heart that trembled for its sake
Lies the queen-heart in sovereign overthrow.
Sonnet XI: The Love-Letter

Warmed by her hand and shadowed by her hair

As close she leaned and poured her heart through thee,
Whereof the articulate throbs accompany
The smooth black stream that makes thy whiteness fair,
Sweet fluttering sheet, even of her breath aware,
Oh let thy silent song disclose to me
That soul wherewith her lips and eyes agree
Like married music in Love's answering air.
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Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought,

Her bosom to the writing closelier press'd,
And her breast's secrets peered into her breast;
When, through eyes raised an instant, her soul sought
My soul, and from the sudden confluence caught
The words that made her love the loveliest.
The Staircase Of Notre Dame, Paris

As one who, groping in a narrow stair,

Hath a strong sound of bells upon his ears,
Which, being at a distance off, appears
Quite close to him because of the pent air:
So with this France. She stumbles file and square
Darkling and without space for breath: each one
Who hears the thunder says: It shall anon
Be in among her ranks to scatter her.
This may be; and it may be that the storm
Is spent in rain upon the unscathed seas,
Or wasteth other countries ere it die:
Till she,having climbed always through the swarm
Of darkness and of hurtling sound,from these
Shall step forth on the light in a still sky.
The Mirror

She knew it not:most perfect pain

To learn: this too she knew not. Strife
For me, calm hers, as from the first.
'Twas but another bubble burst
Upon the curdling draught of life,
My silent patience mine again.
As who, of forms that crowd unknown
Within a distant mirror's shade,
Deems such an one himself, and makes
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Some sign; but when the image shakes

No whit, he finds his thought betray'd,
And must seek elsewhere for his own.
The Sin Of Detection

She bowed her face among them all, as one

By one they rose and went. A little scorn
They showeda very little. More forlorn
She seemed because of that: she might have grown
Proud else in her turn, and have so made known
What she well knewthat the freehearted corn,
Kissed by the hot air freely all the morn,
Is better than the weed which has its own
Foul glut in secret. Both her white breasts heaved
Like heaving water with their weight of lace;
And her long tresses, full of musk and myrrh,
Were shaken from the braids her fingers weaved,
So that they hid the shame in her pale face.
Then I stept forth, and bowed addressing her.

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POEMS BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

A Better Resurrection

I have no wit, no words, no tears;

My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears.
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perished thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

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A Bruised Reed Shall He Not Break

I will accept thy will to do and be,

Thy hatred and intolerance of sin,
Thy will at least to love, that burns within
And thirsteth after Me:
So will I render fruitful, blessing still,
The germs and small beginnings in thy heart,
Because thy will cleaves to the better part.
Alas, I cannot will.
Dost not thou will, poor soul? Yet I receive
The inner unseen longings of the soul,
I guide them turning towards Me; I control
And charm hearts till they grieve:
If thou desire, it yet shall come to pass,
Though thou but wish indeed to choose My love;
For I have power in earth and heaven above.
I cannot wish, alas!
What, neither choose nor wish to choose? and yet
I still must strive to win thee and constrain:
For thee I hung upon the cross in pain,
How then can I forget?
If thou as yet dost neither love, nor hate,
Nor choose, nor wish,resign thyself, be still
Till I infuse love, hatred, longing, will.
I do not deprecate.
A Diamond or A Coal?

A diamond or a coal?
A diamond, if you please:
Who cares about a clumsy coal
Beneath the summer trees?
A diamond or a coal?
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A coal, sir, if you please:

One comes to care about the coal
What time the waters freeze.
A Daughter of Eve

A fool I was to sleep at noon,

And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.
My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.
Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.
Blind from My Birth

Blind from my birth,

Where flowers are springing
I sit on earth
All dark.
Hark! hark!
A lark is singing.
His notes are all for me,
For me his mirth: Till some day I shall see
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Beautiful flowers
And birds in bowers
Where all Joy Bells are ringing.
By the Sea

Why does the sea moan evermore?

Shut out from heaven it makes its moan,
It frets against the boundary shore;
All earth's full rivers cannot fill
The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.
Sheer miracles of loveliness
Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed:
Anemones, salt, passionless,
Blow flower-like; just enough alive
To blow and multiply and thrive.
Shells quaint with curve, or spot, or spike,
Encrusted live things argus-eyed,
All fair alike, yet all unlike,
Are born without a pang, and die
Without a pang, and so pass by.
Noble Sisters

'Now did you mark a falcon,

Sister dear, sister dear,
Flying toward my window
In the morning cool and clear?
With jingling bells about her neck,
But what beneath her wing?
It may have been a ribbon,
Or it may have been a ring.'
'I marked a falcon swooping
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At the break of day;

And for your love, my sister dove,
I 'frayed the thief away.'
'Or did you spy a ruddy hound,
Sister fair and tall,
Went snuffing round my garden bound,
Or crouched by my bower wall?
With a silken leash about his neck;
But in his mouth may be
A chain of gold and silver links,
Or a letter writ to me.'
'I heard a hound, highborn sister,
Stood baying at the moon;
I rose and drove him from your wall
Lest you should wake too soon.'
'Or did you meet a pretty page
Sat swinging on the gate;
Sat whistling whistling like a bird,
Or may be slept too late;
With eaglets broidered on his cap,
And eaglets on his glove?
If you had turned his pockets out,
You had found some pledge of love.'
'I met him at this daybreak,
Scarce the east was red:
Lest the creaking gate should anger you,
I packed him home to bed.'
'Oh patience, sister. Did you see
A young man tall and strong,
Swift-footed to uphold the right
And to uproot the wrong,
Come home across the desolate sea
To woo me for his wife?
And in his heart my heart is locked,
And in his life my life.'
'I met a nameless man, sister,
Hard by your chamber door:
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I said: Her husband loves her much.

And yet she loves him more.'
'Fie, sister, fie, a wicked lie,
A lie, a wicked lie,
I have none other love but him,
Nor will have till I die.
And you have turned him from our door,
And stabbed him with a lie:
I will go seek him thro' the world
In sorrow till I die.'
'Go seek in sorrow, sister,
And find in sorrow too:
If thus you shame our father's name
My curse go forth with you.'
Sleeping at Last

Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over,

Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,
Cold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover,
Sleeping at last.
No more a tired heart downcast or overcast,
No more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover,
Sleeping at last in a dreamless sleep locked fast.
Fast asleep. Singing birds in their leafy cover
Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast.
Under the purple thyme and the purple clover
Sleeping at last.

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A Dream

Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)

We stood together in an open field;
Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,
Sporting at ease and courting full in view.
When loftier still a broadening darkness flew,
Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;
Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;
So farewell life and love and pleasures new.
Then as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground,
Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops,
I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep:
But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops
Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound
Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.
A Birds-Eye View

'Croak, croak, croak,'

Thus the Raven spoke,
Perched on his crooked tree
As hoarse as hoarse could be.
Shun him and fear him,
Lest the Bridegroom hear him;
Scout him and rout him
With his ominous eye about him.
Yet, 'Croak, croak, croak,'
Still tolled from the oak;
From that fatal black bird,
Whether heard or unheard:
'O ship upon the high seas,
Freighted with lives and spices,
Sink, O ship,' croaked the Raven:
'Let the Bride mount to heaven.'
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In a far foreign land,

Upon the wave-edged sand,
Some friends gaze wistfully
Across the glittering sea.
'If we could clasp our sister,'
Three say, 'now we have missed her!'
'If we could kiss our daughter!'
Two sigh across the water.
Oh, the ship sails fast
With silken flags at the mast,
And the home-wind blows soft;
But a Raven sits aloft,
Chuckling and choking,
Croaking, croaking, croaking:
Let the beacon-fire blaze higher;
Bridegroom, watch; the Bride draws nigher.
On a sloped sandy beach,
Which the spring-tide billows reach,
Stand a watchful throng
Who have hoped and waited long:
'Fie on this ship, that tarries
With the priceless freight it carries.
The time seems long and longer:
O languid wind, wax stronger;'
Whilst the Raven perched at ease
Still croaks and does not cease,
One monotonous note
Tolled from his iron throat:
'No father, no mother,
But I have a sable brother:
He sees where ocean flows to,
And he knows what he knows, too.'
A day and a night
They kept watch worn and white;
A night and a day
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For the swift ship on its way:

For the Bride and her maidens
Clear chimes the bridal cadence
For the tall ship that never
Hove in sight for ever.
On either shore, some
Stand in grief loud or dumb
As the dreadful dread
Grows certain though unsaid.
For laughter there is weeping,
And waking instead of sleeping,
And a desperate sorrow
Morrow after morrow.
Oh, who knows the truth,
How she perished in her youth,
And like a queen went down
Pale in her royal crown:
How she went up to glory
From the sea-foam chill and hoary,
From the sea-depth black and riven
To the calm that is in Heaven?
They went down, all the crew,
The silks and spices too,
The great ones and the small,
One and all, one and all.
Was it through stress of weather,
Quicksands, rocks, or all together?
Only the Raven knows this,
And he will not disclose this.
After a day and year
The bridal bells chime clear;
After a year and a day
The Bridegroom is brave and gay:
Love is sound, faith is rotten;
The old Bride is forgotten:
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Two ominous Ravens only

Remember, black and lonely.
Twist Me A Crown of Wind-Flowers

Twist me a crown of wind-flowers;

That I may fly away
To hear the singers at their song,
And players at their play.
Put on your crown of wind-flowers:
But whither would you go?
Beyond the surging of the sea
And the storms that blow.
Alas! your crown of wind-flowers
Can never make you fly:
I twist them in a crown to-day,
And to-night they die.
A Farm Walk

The year stood at its equinox

And bluff the North was blowing,
A bleat of lambs came from the flocks,
Green hardy things were growing;
I met a maid with shining locks
Where milky kine were lowing.
She wore a kerchief on her neck,
Her bare arm showed its dimple,
Her apron spread without a speck,
Her air was frank and simple.
She milked into a wooden pail
And sang a country ditty,
An innocent fond lovers' tale,
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That was not wise nor witty,

Pathetically rustical,
Too pointless for the city.
She kept in time without a beat
As true as church-bell ringers,
Unless she tapped time with her feet,
Or squeezed it with her fingers;
Her clear unstudied notes were sweet
As many a practised singer's.
I stood a minute out of sight,
Stood silent for a minute
To eye the pail, and creamy white
The frothing milk within it;
To eye the comely milking maid
Herself so fresh and creamy:
'Good day to you,' at last I said;
She turned her head to see me:
'Good day,' she said with lifted head;
Her eyes looked soft and dreamy,
And all the while she milked and milked
The grave cow heavy-laden:
I've seen grand ladies plumed and silked,
But not a sweeter maiden;
But not a sweeter fresher maid
Than this in homely cotton,
Whose pleasant face and silky braid
I have not yet forgotten.
Seven springs have passed since then, as I
Count with a sober sorrow;
Seven springs have come and passed me by,
And spring sets in to-morrow.
I've half a mind to shake myself
Free just for once from London,
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To set my work upon the shelf

And leave it done or undone;
To run down by the early train,
Whirl down with shriek and whistle,
And feel the bluff North blow again,
And mark the sprouting thistle
Set up on waste patch of the lane
Its green and tender bristle.
And spy the scarce-blown violet banks,
Crisp primrose leaves and others,
And watch the lambs leap at their pranks
And butt their patient mothers.
Alas, one point in all my plan
My serious thoughts demur to:
Seven years have passed for maid and man,
Seven years have passed for her too;
Perhaps my rose is overblown,
Not rosy or too rosy;
Perhaps in farmhouse of her own
Some husband keeps her cosy,
Where I should show a face unknown.
Good-bye, my wayside posy.

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