"Prospice" by Robert Browning

Image from Biography.Com.

From the book Light from Many Lamps by Lillian Eichler Watson (1951):

All through the long, long night he sat by the bedside, holding her hand. Sometimes she whispered his name, and he bent close to listen, Always it was some word of hope or cheer, or a gentle smile. Then she would doze again; and he would watch, and pray.

Robert Browning had brought his wife to Italy, hoping a change of scene and climate would improve her health. And she had improved, so much that he had established a home for her in Florence. Here they had spent their happiest years. Here they had lived as in a dream, thinking as one and feeling as one, planning and writing their poetry. Here they had lived a life of rich contentment.

Until now… Now he knew the idyl was over, the dream was spent. Elizabeth was dying. Though every fiber of him cried denial, he knew the end was near. The doctor had told him what his heart already knew.

He thought of the closing lines of one of her poems, lines he had always loved….

      I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death!

 ...The first wan light of the new day was just beginning to come through the window when she sighed and said, “It is beautiful!” Then, suddenly, she was gone.

Robert Browning was grief-stricken by his wife’s death. For some time he couldn’t write; but when at last he did, there flowed from his pen a passionate defiance of death, an exultant challenge.

Prospice

By Robert Browning

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,

      The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote

      I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,

      The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,

      Yet the strong man must go:

For the journey is done and the summit attained,

      And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere a guerdon be gained,

      The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more.

      The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore,

      And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

      The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears

      Of pain, darkness, and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,

      The black minute's at end.

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave

      Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,

      Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,

      And with God be the rest!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in June, 1861. It was in the autumn of the same years that Robert Browning, out of the depths of his grief and loneliness, wrote “Prospice” [Look Forward], one of his most famous and inspiring poems.

"How Do I Love Thee Let Me Count the Ways" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 A portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her youth. Image from Wikipedia.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian Era, was born on March 6, 1806 in Durham, England. From an early age she demonstrated aptitude for literature: reading novels at the age of six, reading Alexander Pope's translations of Homer at eight, and writing her own Homeric poem at ten. At the age of 15 she began to be ill with a disease that was unknown at the time, causing her to be frail and weak. She began to be addicted to drugs like opium to kill the pain. In 1845 she first met Robert Browning, who became a fan of her book of Poems (1844). She was six years his senior. They were secretly married in 1846 and honeymooned in Paris. Robert spirited his wife to Italy where she remained until her death. In 1849, she gave birth to their son, nicknamed Pen. News of the death of a friend, her father, and a sister made her weak and depressed. She passed away on June 29, 1861.

From the book Light from Many Lamps by Lillian Eichler Watson (1951):

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was supremely, unbelievably happy.

In the fog and chill of London she had been an invalid, almost a recluse. Here in the sunny warmth of Italy—here with her beloved husband, her new life, her new interests—she felt better than she had in years.

Robert Browning had persuaded Elizabeth Barrett to leave her invalid’s couch and elope with him, had brought her to this gentle climate for her health. And climate and love had worked their magic charm. She was still frail and delicate, but she was not an invalid now! She was able to move about, to see the world, to be a true wife and companion to the man she so admired, she so adored. 

…Robert Browning came courting her in Wimpole Street, in London. She was ill then, nervous and distraught—completely dominated by a tyrannical father who had forbidden all his children to marry. But with unfailing devotion, Robert Browning had continued to visit her, to keep her room filled with flowers, to tell her of his love and beg her to marry him.

During this period of emotional strain and indecision, torn between love for Robert Browning and fear of her father’s displeasure, Elizabeth Barrett wrote a sequence of love sonnets. She wrote them in secret, intending them for no eyes but her own.

Sonnet XLIII

“How Do I Love Thee?”

By Elizabeth Barret Browning

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 candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the 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. 

And so, one sunny day in Italy, one enchanted autumn afternoon, Robert Browning read his wife’s secret love sonnets for the first time. He was profoundly moved by their beauty and power, recognizing the unmistakable quality of their genius. They were, he declared, “the finest sonnets since Shakespeare!”

Robert Browning was so impressed with his wife’s love sonnets that he urged her to make them public, to give them to the world. [But first she refused, saying that these where only meant for him alone.]

At last she agreed, though she would have preferred to keep them secret. The poems were published under the title of Sonnets from the Portuguese to conceal their personal nature. [Footnote: Elizabeth Barrett was a pronounced brunette and her husband sometimes called her “my little Portuguese”. This nickname suggested the title for her love sonnets when she put them together in book form.]

Sonnets from the Portuguese has some of the most famous of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems; and “How Do I Love Thee?” is perhaps the best-loved of the series. It was her own favorite, and his, and has been an inspiration to countless lovers since.

Selected poems from William Blake

William Blake (1757-1827) was born in London and was educated at home until the age of ten. He then enrolled at a drawing school until he became an engraver. From an early age Blake exhibited talent both as an artist and a poem. He has had mystical vision that are said to be the inspirations for many of his poems. He invented illuminated printing which he used to print the illustrations to his poems in his books Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794).

“The Chimney Sweeper” is the title of two poems written by William Blake. The one below was published under Songs of Innocence (1789) while the other was published under Songs of Experience (1794). The poem portrays the miserable experience of children—some as young as four or five—who were forced to clean chimneys in English in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. 

Child chimney sweepers in New York, photo by Havens O. Pierce, late 19th century. (Image from Wikipedia)

The Chimney-Sweeper

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry 'Weep! weep! weep! weep!'

So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,

That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said,

'Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head's bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.'

And so he was quiet, and that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!--

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,

Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;

Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run

And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind;

And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,

He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,

And got with our bags and our brushes to work.

Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:

So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

“The Tyger” was also published under Songs of Experience. It has a sister poem entitled “The Lamb” which was published under Songs of Innocence.

 Detail from an original plate of Songs of Experience by William Blake. (Image from Wikipedia)

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

“The Garden of Love” was published under Songs of Experience. It is seen as an indictment against organized religion (specifically the Church of England) alleged repression on the naturalness of love.

 Detail from a plate in Songs of Experience by William Blake. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Garden of Love

I laid me down upon a bank,
Where Love lay sleeping;
I heard among the rushes dank
Weeping, weeping.
Then I went to the heath and the wild,
To the thistles and thorns of the waste;
And they told me how they were beguiled,
Driven out, and compelled to the chaste.

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And 'Thou shalt not,' writ over the door;

So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

"The Clod and the Pebble" was published under Songs of Experience. It contrasts the pessimistic attitude of a clod, a piece of mud, from the optimistic one of a smoothed pebble in a stream.

The Clod and the Pebble

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."

So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."

R E F E R E N C E S

Abcarian R. & M. Klotz. (2000). Literature: Reading and writing the human experience (7^th shorter ed.) Boston & New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

“The Chimney Sweeper”. Wikipedia. Retrieved: September 4, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chimney_Sweeper.

“Chimney Sweep”. Wikipedia. Retrieved: September 4, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimney_sweep.

“The Tyger”. Wikipedia. Retrieved: September 4, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyger.

“The Garden of Love”. Wikipedia. Retrieved: September 4, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Love.

“The Clod and the Pebble”. Wikipedia. Retrieved: September 4, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clod_and_the_Pebble.