Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. The patriotic aspirations here expressed are brought out more fully in some of Mr Tennyson's political lyrics, which are animated by true wisdom and generous sentiment. The next publication of our author was an Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington (1852)— a laureate offering, which he afterwards revised and improved, rendering it not unworthy of the hero or the poet. The Funeral of the Great Duke. Again their ravening eagle rose In anger, wheeled on Europe-shadowing wings, And barking for the thrones of kings; Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown Their surging charges foamed themselves away; Through the long tormented air Heaven flashed a sudden jubilant ray, And down we swept and charged and overthrew. What long-enduring hearts could do, In that world's earthquake, Waterloo! In 1855 appeared Maud, and other Poems— the first, an allegorical vision of love and war, treated in a semi-colloquial bizarre style, yet suggestive and passionate. Maud is the daughter of the squire, and 'in the light of her youth and her grace' she captivates a mysterious misanthropic personage who tells the story. But Maud has another suitor, a 'new-made lord,' whose addresses are favoured by Maud's father and brother-the latter described as That jewelled mass of millinery, That oiled and curled Assyrian bull. The squire gives a grand political dinner, 'a gathering of the Tory, to which the Timon-lover is not invited. He finds, however, in the rivulet crossing his ground, a garden-rose, brought down from the Hall, and he interprets it as a message from Maud to meet her in the garden among the roses at night. He proceeds thither, and invokes the fair one in a lyric which is unquestionably the It begins: charm of the volume. Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown. I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, Maud obeys the call; but her brother discovers them, insults the intruder, and a duel ensues, in which the brother is slain. The lover flees to France, but returns to England, for ever haunted by visions of Maud, and then, in another section, we are startled to find him declare himself 'dead, long dead,' and buried, but without finding peace in the grave! It is a vision, and the dreamer obtains a new excitement: he rejoices to think that a war is to arise in defence of the right: That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease, true 'It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye, And the Tyrtæan war-strain closes with a somewhat fantastic image: And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire. Maud was the least successful of Mr Tennyson's longer poems. But three years afterwards (1858) the poet redeemed himself by the publication of The Idylls of the King, consisting of four poemsEnid, Vivien, Elaine, and Guinevere. This Arthurian romance was completed in 1869, by another volume, entitled The Holy Grail, and including The Coming of Arthur, Pelleus and Etarre, and The Passing of Arthur-the whole of this Arthurian collection of idylls forming, according to Dean Alford, 'a great connected poem, dealing with the very highest interests of man,' King Arthur being typical of the higher soul of man,' as shewn in the king's coming, his foundation of the Round Table, his struggles, disappointments, and departure. Of the versification of the Idylls-pure, flowing, blank verse-we subjoin a brief specimen : From 'The Passing of Arthur. Then loudly cried the bold Sir Beḍivere: And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: For so the whole round earth is every way Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, them 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 Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away. Between the publication of the series of Arthurian idylls, Mr Tennyson issued Enoch Arden, and other Poems (1864). One of the latter was a piece in the North Lincolnshire dialect, written in the character of a farmer of the old school, and which displayed a vein of broad humour and a dramatic power that surprised as well as gratified the admirers of the poet. He afterwards gave a companion to this bucolic painting by depicting a farmer of the new school, as stolid and selfish, but not quite so amusing, as his elder brother. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. The highest place among our modern poetesses must be claimed for MRS BROWNING, formerly Miss Barrett. In purity and loftiness of sentiment and feeling, and in intellectual power, she is excelled only by Tennyson, whose best works, it is evident, she had carefully studied. Her earlier style reminds us more of Shelley, but this arises from similarity of genius and classical tastes, not imitation. The first publication of this accomplished lady was an Essay on Mind, and other Poems, said to have been written in her seventeenth year. In 1833 appeared her translation of the Prometheus Bound of Eschylus, of which she has since given an improved version. In 1838 she ventured on a second volume of original poetry, The Seraphim, and other Poems, which was followed by The Romaunt of the Page, 1839. About this time a personal calamity occurred to the poetess, which has been detailed by Miss Mitford in her Literary Recollections. She burst a bloodvessel in the lungs, and after a twelvemonth's confinement at home, was ordered to a milder climate. She went with some relatives to reside at Torquay, and there a fatal event took place which saddened her bloom of youth, and gave a deeper hue of thought and feeling, especially devotional feeling, to her poetry.' Her favourite brother, with two other young men, his friends, having embarked on board a small vessel for a sail of a few hours, the boat went down, and all on board perished. This tragedy completely prostrated Miss Barrett. She was not able to be removed to her father's house in London till the following year, and on her return home she 'began that life,' says Miss Mitford, 'which she continued for many years confined to a darkened chamber, to which only her own family and a few devoted friends were admitted; reading meanwhile almost every book worth reading in almost every language, studying with ever-fresh delight the great classic authors in the original, and giving herself, heart and soul, to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess.' Miss Mitford had presented her friend with a young spaniel, Flush, my dog,' and the companionship of this humble but faithful object of sympathy has been commemorated in some beautiful verses, graphic as the pencil of Landseer: But of thee it shall be said, This dog watched beside a bed Roses, gathered for a vase, Beam and breeze resigning. Other dogs in thymy dew Tracked the hares, and followed through Other dogs of loyal cheer Up the woodside hieing. This dog only, watched in reach And if one or two quick tears And this dog was satisfied On the palm left open. Adam. The essence of all beauty, I call love. Of beauty apprehended from without, I still call love. As form, when colourless, Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful. Lucifer. Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love! I darken to the image. Beauty-love! [He fades away, while a low music sounds. Adam. Thou art pale, Eve. Eve. The precipice of ill Down this colossal nature, dizzies me— And, hark! the starry harmony remote Seems measuring the heights from whence he fell. Adam. Think that we have not fallen so. By the hope And aspiration, by the love and faith, We do exceed the stature of this angel. Eve. Happier we are than he is, by the death. Notwithstanding a few fine passages, A Drama of Exile cannot be considered a successful effort. The scheme of the poetess was imperfectly developed, and many of the colloquies of Adam and Eve, and of Lucifer and Gabriel, are forced and unnatural. The lyrics interspersed throughout the poem are often harsh and unmusical, and the whole drama is deficient in action and interest. In A Vision of Poets, Miss Barrett endeavoured to vindicate the necessary relations of genius to suffering and self-sacrifice. 'I have attempted,' The result of those years of seclusion and study she says, 'to express in this poem my view of the was partly seen by the publication in 1844 of two mission of the poet, of the duty and glory of what volumes of Poems, by Elizabeth Barrett, many of Balzac has beautifully and truly called "la patience which bore the impress of deep and melancholy angélique du génie," and of the obvious truth, thought, and of high and fervid imagination. above all, that if knowledge is power, suffering 'Poetry,' said the authoress in her preface, has should be acceptable as a part of knowledge.' The been as serious a thing to me as life itself; and discipline of suffering and sorrow which the poetlife has been a very serious thing. I never mis- ess had herself undergone, suggested or coloured took pleasure for the final cause of poetry; nor these and similar speculations. The affliction leisure for the hour of the poet. I have done my which saddened had also purified the heart, and work, so far, as work: not as mere hand and brought with it the precious fruits of resignation head work, apart from the personal being; but as and faith. This is an old and familiar philosophy, the completest expression of that being to which I and Miss Barrett's prose exposition of it must could attain and as work I offer it to the public; afterwards have appeared to her superfluous, for feeling its shortcomings more deeply than any she omitted the preface in the later editions of of my readers, because measured from the height her works. The truth is, all such personal reveof my aspiration; but feeling also that the rever-lations, though sanctioned by the examples of ence and sincerity with which the work was done, Dryden and Wordsworth, have inevitably an air should give it some protection with the reverent of egotism and pedantry. Poetry is better able and sincere.' To each of the principal poems than painting or sculpture to disclose the object in the collection explanatory notices were given. and feeling of the artist, and no one ever dreamt Thus, of A Drama of Exile, she says, the subject of confining those arts-the exponents of every was 'the new and strange experience of the fallen range of feeling, conception, and emotion-to humanity, as it went forth from Paradise into the the mere office of administering pleasure. A wilderness, with a peculiar reference to Eve's Vision of Poets opens thus beautifully : 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 pervading principle of the drama is love-love which conquers even Lucifer : A poet could not sleep aright, And thus he rose disquieted With sweet rhymes ringing through his head, Here, Homer, with the broad suspense There, Shakspeare, on whose forehead climb Euripides, with close and mild Theocritus, with glittering locks The moderns, from Milton down to 'poor proud Byron,' are less happily portrayed; but in spite of many blemishes, and especially the want of careful artistic finishing, this poem is one of great excellence. There are other imaginative pieces of the authoress of a more popular character-as the Rhyme of the Duchess May, a romantic ballad full of passion, incident, and melody; and Bertha in the Lane, a story of the transfer of affection from one sister to another, related by the elder and dying sister in a strain of great beauty and pathos. One stanza will shew the style and versification of this poem: And, dear Bertha, let me keep On my hand this little ring, Which at nights, when others sleep, Let me wear it out of sight, There are parts of this fine poem resembling Tennyson's May Queen, but the laureate would never have admitted such an incongruous and spasmodic stanza as that with which Miss Barrett unhappily closes her piece: Jesus, Victim, comprehending Love's divine self-abnegation, The most finished of Miss Barrett's smaller poems-apart from the sonnets-are the verses on Cowper's Grave, which contain not one jarring line or expression, and The Cry of the Children, a pathetic and impassioned pleading for the poor children who toil in mines and factories. individuality and intensity of feeling, this piece. resembles Hood's Song of the Shirt, but it infinitely surpasses it in poetry and imagination. In The Cry of the Children. Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The They are weeping in the playtime of the others, .... 'For oh,' say the children, 'we are weary, If we cared for any meadows, it were merely Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping- Through the coal-dark, underground- 'For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning- Till our hearts turn-our heads, with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places. Turns the sky in the high window blank and reelingTurns the long light that drops adown the wall— Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceilingAll are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day, the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, "O ye wheels"-breaking out in a mad moaningStop! be silent for to-day! I thought once how Theocritus had sung Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair, And a voice said in mastery, while I strove : 'Guess now who holds thee?'-'Death!' I said. But, there, The silver answer rang: 'Not Death, but Love.' An interval of some years elapsed ere Miss Barrett came forward with another volume, though she was occasionally seen as a contributor to literary journals. She became in 1846 the wife of a kindred spirit, Robert Browning, the poet, and removed with him to Italy. In Florence she witnessed the revolutionary outbreak of 1848, and this furnished the theme of her next important work, Casa Guidi Windows, a poem containing 'the impressions of the writer upon events in Tuscany of which she was a witness' from the windows of her house, the Casa Guidi in Florence. The poem is a spirited semi-political narrative of actual events and genuine feelings. Part might pass for the work of Byron-so free is its versification, and so warm the affection of Mrs Browning for Italy and the Italians-but there are also passages that would have served better for a prose pamphlet. The genius of the poetess had become practical and energetic-inspirited by what she saw around her, and by the new tie which, as we learn from this pleasing poem, now brightened her visions of the future: The sun strikes, through the windows, up the floor; In 1856 appeared Aurora Leigh, an elaborate poem or novel in blank verse, which Mrs Browning characterises as the most mature' of her works, and one into which her 'highest convictions upon life and art are entered.' It presents us, like Wordsworth's Prelude, with the history of a poetical mind-an autobiography of the heart and intellect; but Wordsworth, with all his contempt for literary conventionalities,' would never have ventured on such a sweeping departure from established critical rules and poetical diction as Mrs Browning has here carried out. There is a prodigality of genius in the work, many just and fine remarks, ethical and critical, and passages evincing a keen insight into the human heart as well as into the working of our social institutions and artificial restraints. A noble hatred of falsehood, hypocrisy, and oppression breathes through the whole. But the materials of the poem are so strangely mingled and so discordant-prose and poetry so mixed up together-scenes of splendid passion and tears followed by dry metaphysical and polemical disquisitions, or rambling commonplace conversation, that the effect of the poem as a whole, though splendid in parts, is unsatisfactory. An English Landscape.-From 'Aurora Leigh. The thrushes still sang in it. At which word While breaking into voluble ecstasy, I flattered all the beauteous country round, In 1860, Poems before Congress evinced Mrs Browning's unabated interest in Italy and its people. This was her last publication. She died on the 29th of June 1861, at the Casa Guidi, Florence; and in front of the house, a marble tablet records that in it wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who, by her song, created a golden link between Italy and England, and that in gratitude Florence had erected that memorial. In 1862 the literary remains of Mrs Browning were published under the title of Last Poems. We subjoin a piece written in the early, and we think the purest style of the poetess: poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing! Christians, at your cross of hope, a hopeless hand was clinging! O men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling, Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling! And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story, How discord on the music fell, and darkness on the And how when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering glory, lights departed,. He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted. He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation, And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker adoration. Nor ever shall he be, in praise, by wise or good forsaken, Named softly as the household name of one whom God hath taken. With quiet sadness and no gloom I learn to think upon him With meekness that is gratefulness to God whose heaven hath won him, |