The Browning's: A Literary Love Story
One of my favorite stories is the love story between Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Indeed, they have been considered one of the most romantic literary couple from the Victorian age. After reading her poems for the first time, Robert wrote to her: "I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett--I do, as I say, love these verses with all my heart."
With that first meeting of hearts and minds, a love affair would blossom between the two. Elizabeth told Mrs. Martin that she was "getting deeper and deeper into correspondence with Robert Browning, poet and mystic; and we are growing to be the truest of friends." During the 20 months of their courtship, the couple exchanged nearly 600 letters. But what is love without obstacles and hardships? As Frederic Kenyon writes, "Mr. Browning knew that he was asking to be allowed to take charge of an invalid's life—believed indeed that she was even worse than was really the case, and that she was hopelessly incapacitated from ever standing on her feet—-but was sure enough of his love to regard that as no obstacle."
The Bonds of Marriage
Their subsequent marriage was a secret matter, taking place on September 12, 1846, at Marylebone Church. Most of her family members eventually accepted the match, but her father disowned her, would not open her letters, and refused to see her. Elizabeth stood by her husband, and she credited him for saving her life. She wrote to Mrs. Martin: "I admire such qualities as he has—-fortitude, integrity. I loved him for his courage in adverse circumstances which were yet felt by him more literally than I could feel them. Always he has had the greatest power over my heart, because I am of those weak women who reverence strong men."
Out of their courtship and those early days of marriage came an outpouring of poetic expression. Elizabeth finally gave her little packet of sonnets to her husband, who could not keep them to himself. "I dared not," he said, "reserve to myself the finest sonnets written in any language since Shakespeare's." The collection finally appeared in 1850 as "Sonnets from the Portuguese." Kenyon writes, "With the single exception of Rossetti, no modern English poet has written of love with such genius, such beauty, and such sincerity, as the two who gave the most beautiful example of it in their own lives."
The Brownings lived in Italy for the next 15 years of their lives, until Elizabeth died in Robert's arms on June 29, 1861. It was while they were living there in Italy that they both wrote some of their most memorable poems.
A Letter
I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,--and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write,--whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius and there a graceful and natural end of the thing: since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their effect upon me--for in the first flush of delight I though I would this once get out of my habit of purely passive enjoyment, when I do really enjoy, and thoroughly justify my admiration--perhaps even, as a loyal fellow-craftsman should, try and find fault and do you some little good to be proud of herafter!--but nothing comes of it all--so into me has it gone, and part of me has it become, this great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew... oh, how different that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat and prized highly and put in a book with a proper account at bottom, and shut up and put away... and the book called a 'Flora', besides! After all, I need not give up the thought of doing that, too, in time; because even now, talking with whoever is worthy, I can give reason for my faith in one and another excellence, the fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought--but in this addressing myself to you, your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogher. I do, as I say, love these Books with all my heart-- and I love you too: do you know I was once seeing you? Mr. Kenyon said to me one morning "would you like to see Miss Barrett?"--then he went to announce me,--then he returned... you were too unwell -- and now it is years ago--and I feel as at some untorward passage in my travels--as if I had been close, so close, to some world's-wonder in chapel on crypt,... only a screen to push and I might have entered -- but there was some slight... so it now seems... slight and just-sufficient bar to admission, and the half-opened door shut, and I went home my thousands of miles, and the sight was never to be!
Well, these Poems were to be--and this true thankful joy and pride with which I feel myself. Yours ever faithfully Robert Browning
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Elizabeth's Sonnets From the Portuguese were birthed out of Robert and Elizabeth's letter exchanges, and even today, they are widely considered to be some of the greatest romantic poetry ever written. Here are a few:
Well, these Poems were to be--and this true thankful joy and pride with which I feel myself. Yours ever faithfully Robert Browning
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Elizabeth's Sonnets From the Portuguese were birthed out of Robert and Elizabeth's letter exchanges, and even today, they are widely considered to be some of the greatest romantic poetry ever written. Here are a few:
| III. "Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart..." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) | |||
| Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! Unlike our uses and our destinies. Our ministering two angels look surprise On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art A guest for queens to social pageantries, With gages from a hundred brighter eyes Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part Of chief musician. What hast thou to do With looking from the lattice-lights at me, A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree? The chrism is on thine head,---on mine, the dew,--- And Death must dig the level where these agree. |
| V. "I lift my heavy heart up solemnly..." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) | |||
| 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 greyness. 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 grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head, O my Belovèd, will not shield thee so, That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred The hair beneath. Stand farther off then! go. |
| XIII. "And wilt thou have me fashion into speech..." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) |
| And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each?--- I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirit so far off From myself---me---that I should bring thee proof In words, of love hid in me out of reach. Nay, let the silence of my womanhood Commend my woman-love to thy belief,--- Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, And rend the garment of my life, in brief, By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude, Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief. |
| XI. "And therefore if to love can be desert..." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) |
| And therefore if to love can be desert, I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale As these you see, and trembling knees that fail To bear the burden of a heavy heart,--- This weary minstrel-life that once was girt To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale A melancholy music,---why advert To these things? O Belovèd, it is plain I am not of thy worth nor for thy place! And yet, because I love thee, I obtain From that same love this vindicating grace, To live on still in love, and yet in vain,--- To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face. |
| XIV. "If thou must love me, let it be for nought..." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) | ||
| If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say 'I love her for her smile---her look---her 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, Belovèd, 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. |
| XII. "Indeed this very love which is my boast..." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) | ||
| Indeed this very love which is my boast, And which, when rising up from breast to brow, Doth crown me with a ruby large enow To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,--- This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost, I should not love withal, unless that thou Hadst set me an example, shown me how, When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed, And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak Of love even, as a good thing of my own: Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak, And placed it by thee on a golden throne,--- And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!) Is by thee only, whom I love alone. |
| VIII. "What can I give thee back, O liberal..." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) |
| What can I give thee back, O liberal And princely giver, who hast brought the gold And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold, And laid them on the outside of the wall For such as I to take or leave withal, In unexpected largesse? am I cold, Ungrateful, that for these most mainfold High gifts, I render nothing back at all? Not so; not cold, --- but very poor instead. Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run The colours from my life, and left so dead And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done To give the same as pillow to thy head. Go farther! let it serve to trample on. |
| X. "Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed..." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) | ||
| Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright, Let temple burn, or flax; and equal light Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed: And love is fire. And when I say at need I love thee ... mark! ... I love thee---in thy sight I stand transfigured, glorified aright, With conscience of the new rays that proceed Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures Who love God, God acceps while loving so. And what I feel, across the inferior features Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show How that great work of Love enhances Nature's. |
| XVII. "My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes..." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) | ||
| My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes God set between His After and Before, And strike up and strike off the general roar Of the rushing world a melody that floats In a serene air purely. Antidotes Of medicated music, answering for Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour From thence into their ears. God's will devotes Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine. How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use? A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse? A shade, in which to sing---of palm or pine? A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose. |
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