Here's a little poetry to celebrate the arrival of May; 2 poems by 2 poets
I go back to again & again, but it was not always thus.
I fell for Robert Browning as
a teenager in high school & Pippa's Song was most likely the poem that did
it. Moving on, I wrote my university thesis on his dramatic monologues, the
ones where the speakers are Italian renaissance artists - Fra Lippo Lippi &
Andrea del Sarto. Checked out their lives & paintings too, so the title was
something like Browning as Art Critic. He
was an astute critic as well as brilliant poet with an understanding of &
affection for humanity & its little ways. I appreciated his own love story,
the way he spirited his true love away from her domestic prison & off to
Italy where they lived, thrived, reproduced & wrote, but ...
Elizabeth Barret Browning's poetry did not
move me. Her poems seemed either self-consciously pathetic or plain sappy. The
sonnet below headed the second category. I would never slip it into my own true
love's valentine; it was too much, too sentimental, too quasi-religious, too -
sappy. I said that to my teenage sweetheart's darling mother, who was an older
lady & a teacher.
"Honey," she
protested, "That girl was in love!"
Well, that much was obvious
& did not change sappy.
Here they are, his & hers, wonderful. As for Pippa's Song, yes, I still
believe God's in his heaven but would hardly claim All's right with the world.
It isn't. It can look that way on a lovely breezy day in May in a country where
most people are quite all right, thank you, or at any rate can choose their own
direction to a very great degree. That is not the way most of the world is.
Sonnet XLIII (From the Portuguese)
expresses a love as passionate as childhood faith that yet might have been lost
with childhood's lost saints. Wow! That moves me now. I had to reach a certain
age & also, of course, a long running relationship - otherwise it was just
another love poem. Wouldn't it be nice to maintain our childhood faith
unquestioned? It would, but don't know anyone who has; I sure haven't. Some
saints got lost, though God's in his heaven (doing what, forcryingoutloud?). Some
saints stay to call on when all is not right with the world (but they can't
change it). Both things must be accepted, thought through, wrestled with even. Wouldn't
it be nice if love had only ups & no (crashing) downs? We think so, but
maybe that would just be boring. It can last - that's the thing - & now I can
love Elizabeth as much as I do her husband.
Enjoy the poetry. It
doesn't get better than this:
Song from Pippa Passes - Robert Browning
The year's at the
spring,
And day's at the
morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's
dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the
wing;
The snail's on the
thorn;
God's in his heaven;
All's right with the
world.
Sonnets from the Portuguese, XLIII - 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 everyday'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 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.
