From haunted spring, and dale, Edged with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat. 95 1 Hellas. The ancient Greeks called their country Hellas; the Romans gave it the name Græcia. 95 9 Æthiopia: a country of Africa, south of Egypt. 95 10 Pygmies. Greek legend tells of a nation of dwarfs dwelling on the banks of the Upper Nile. Every spring the cranes made war on them and devoured them. 95 11 mandragora: a vegetable narcotic to which many superstitions were attached by the ancients. 95 13 lotus: the Egyptian water lily. 96 23-24 According to the Ptolemaic system of the universe, nine transparent spheres, carrying the sun, moon, planets, and fixed stars, revolved round the earth, which was stationary. 97 64 Jove: Jupiter, or Zeus, the chief god of the Greeks and Romans, king of Olympus and of earth. The eagle was his attendant bird. 98 80 the Muses: the nine daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne, goddesses of poetry, history, and other arts and sciences. 98 83 Niobe. According to Greek mythological legend, Niobe, the mother of twelve children, taunted Latona, who had only two, - Apollo and Diana. In revenge Latona's children caused all the sons and daughters of Niobe to die. She, inconsolable, wept herself to death and was changed into a stone from which ran water. There is a fine group of Niobe and her children, probably by the Greek sculptor Praxiteles, in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 98 86 Pallas: Pallas Athene, or Minerva, was the goddess of wisdom. 98 94 Mænads: a name of the Bacchantes. In the festivals of Bacchus their actions were those of mad women. 98 97 Evohe: a joyous shout used in the festivals of Bacchus. 98 106 Aphrodite: the Greek name of Venus. 98 107 native foam. Cf. Lady Geraldine's Courtship, 28 222 and note. 98 108 cestus: the girdle of Venus, which had the magical power of 99 110 Ai Adonis: a sign of woe. Adonis was a beautiful youth 99 113 the Loves. Cupid, the son of Venus, is always represented as 99 115 Frore: frozen (obsolete). 99 120 Hermes: the Greek name of Mercury, the herald of the gods. 99 127 Cybele (known also as Rhea: cf. note, p. 157): a Greek god- 99 136 Vesta. In Roman mythology Vesta was the goddess of the 100 149 obolus: a small Greek coin. 100 162-181. An allusion to Plutarch's story. 102 201 Dodona: the most ancient oracle in Greece. 102 204 Pythia: the priestess of Apollo, who delivered the answers 102 214 of yore: literally, of years. 102 220 Schiller (1759-1805). The great German poet, in his poem takes a different view. Mrs. Browning 102 230 aureole: a luminous emanation, or cloud, surrounding a figure or an object. 103 236 Phœbus: Apollo, the sun. 103 241 illumed: illumined. A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT First printed in The Cornhill Magazine, then under Thackeray's editorship, July, 1860. Pan is treated throughout the poem as the god of poets and the inventor of the syrinx, or Pandean pipes. He is always represented as having horns, a goat's beard, a crooked nose, pointed ears, a tail, and goat's feet. SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE Privately printed, 1847, as "Sonnets, by E. B. B.," and first offered to the public in Vol. II of Poems, 1850. These forty-four sonnets (the sonnet entitled Future and Past was incorporated as No. 42 of the Sonnets from the Portuguese in the edition of 1856) were written by Elizabeth Barrett during the period of Robert Browning's courtship and engagement, and were not shown to him until some months after their marriage. Edmund Gosse, in Critical Kit-Kats (1896), relates the story as told him by Robert Browning: "One day early in 1847, their breakfast being over, Mrs. Browning went upstairs, while her husband stood at the window watching the street till the table should be cleared. He was presently aware of some one behind him, although the servant was gone. It was Mrs. Browning, who held him by the shoulder to prevent his turning to look at her, and at the same time pushed a packet of papers into the pocket of his coat. She told him to read that and to tear it up if he did not like it; and then she fled again to her own room." Recognizing their greatness, Browning felt that he dared not reserve to himself "the finest sonnets written in any language since Shakespeare's," and persuaded his wife to print them. He suggested the title Sonnets from the Portuguese (Mrs. Browning proposed Sonnets translated from the Bosnian) because one of his favorite poems in her works was Catarina to Camöens. Catarina, wrote Mrs. Browning in 1855 to Ruskin, who had admired the poem, "is his [i.e. Browning's] favourite among my poems for some personal fanciful reasons besides the rest." The sonnets here selected are numbered in the series I, X, XIV, XX, XXVI, and XLIII, respectively. EXAGGERATION, ADEQUACY, AND INSUFFICIENCY These three sonnets were first published in Poems, 1844. LIFE AND LOVE First printed in Vol. II of Poems, 1850. INCLUSIONS First printed in Vol. II of Poems, 1850. A DENIAL First printed in the 1856 edition of the collected poems. PROOF AND DISPROOF First printed in the 1856 edition of the collected poems. QUESTION AND ANSWER First printed in the 1856 edition of the collected poems. These five poems, like the Sonnets from the Portuguese, are a commentary on the poetess's love story. A DRAMA OF EXILE (LINES 417-550; 1823-1907) First printed in Vol. I of Poems, 1844. In her preface to the poems published in 1844 Miss Barrett herself refers to the subject of this poem thus: "My subject was the new and strange experience of the fallen humanity, as it went forth from Paradise into the wilderness; with a peculiar reference to Eve's allotted grief, which, considering that self-sacrifice belonged to her womanhood, and the consciousness of originating the Fall to her offence, - appeared to me imperfectly apprehended hitherto, and more expressible by a woman than a man." The poem, in fact, is an expression of the idea that the woman who brought sin into the world shall free the world from sin. The passages here selected are those that embody the woman's point of view and are therefore of special interest psychologically. The form approaches that of the Greek drama and consists of 2270 lines of blank verse interspersed in the Greek manner with many beautiful lyrics. She says herself, "I never wrote any poem with so much sense of pleasure in the composition, and so rapidly, with continuous flow- from fifty to a hundred lines a day, and quite in a glow of pleasure and impulse all through." The scene of the drama is the outer side of the gate of Eden shut fast with cloud, from the depth of which revolves a sword of fire self-moved. In the first passage Adam and Eve are in the extremity of the sword-glare, and in the second they have moved farther on, and a wild, open country is seen vaguely in the approaching night. The vision of Christ appears in the midst of the zodiac, which pales before the heavenly light. 117 13, 14 Cf. Genesis iii. 15. 119 82 sublimate: purify, idealize (properly a process in chemistry by which a solid substance is brought by heat into a state of vapor). 121 7 afflatus: an impelling mental force acting from within; hence religious, poetic, or oratorical inspiration. 121 20 dark: darkness (adjective for noun). 122 61 forfeit: deprived of by one's own act. A VISION OF POETS (LINES 214-423) ... First printed in Vol. II of Poems, 1844. In this poem, of which only the portion that presents the great poets of the world is given here, Miss Barrett endeavored to indicate the necessary relations of genius to suffering and self-sacrifice. "I have attempted to express in this poem my view of the mission of the poet, of the self-abnegation implied in it, of the great work involved in it, . . . and of the obvious truth, above all, that if knowledge is power, suffering should be acceptable as a part of knowledge." It is written in stanzas, each one an octosyllabic triplet. Tennyson's Two Voices (1833) is in the same meter, but Miss Barrett in a letter to Robert Browning written in 1846 disclaims any debt to Tennyson, even for the "rhymetical form" of the poem. Robert Browning greatly admired the passage selected here: "A line, a few words, and the man is there," was his criticism. 124 18 woof: the threads that run from side to side of a web. 124 19 architrave: in architecture that which rests immediately on a column, and supports those portions of the structure that are above it. 125 42 Sinai's Law. Cf. Exodus xix et seq. 126 77-78 Cf. Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn: 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 127 81 cilix: the hair shirt worn by monks and ascetics next the skin as a means of mortifying the flesh without ostentation. 127 82 Homer, the earliest of Greek poets, lived probably 850-800 B.C. His name is inseparably connected with the world epics, the Iliad (the wrath of Achilles) and the Odyssey (the wanderings and return of Ulysses). It is probable that the poems are by several hands, and that when they were finished they were designated by the name of one of the authors Homer. Cf. Tennyson, The Palace of Art: And there the Ionian father of the rest; A million wrinkles carved his skin; |