Elizabeth Barrett [Browning] (1806–1861)

[See also 1850]

The Soul's Expression

WITH stammering lips and insufficient sound,

I strive and struggle to deliver right

That music of my nature, day and night

With dream and thought and feeling, interwound;

And inly answering all the senses round

With octaves of a mystic depth and height,

Which step out grandly to the infinite

From the dark edges of the sensual ground!

This song of soul I struggle to outbear

Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,

And utter all myself into the air:

But if I did it,—as the thunder-roll

Breaks its own cloud,—my flesh would perish there,

Before that dread apocalypse of soul.

On a Portrait of Wordsworth, by R. B. Haydon

WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud

Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,

Then break against the rock, and show behind

The lowland valleys floating up to crowd

The sense with beauty. He, with forehead

bowed And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined

Before the sovran thought of his own mind,

And very meek with inspirations proud,—

Takes here his rightful place as poet-priest

By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer

To the higher Heavens! A noble vision free,

Our Haydon's hand hath flung out from the mist!

No portrait this, with Academic air—

This is the poet and his poetry.