National Poetry Month – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

No one quite encapsulates the ideal of romantic poetry like Elizabeth Barrett Browning. When she was young she was an eager student of literature and language, which probably helped her grow as a writer. She published her first collection of poetry, An Essay on Mind and Other Poems, when she was twenty years old. 

She was a prolific writer despite her health issues. She had a lung ailment as a young teen that was treated with morphine, which she continued to take for the rest of her life. At fifteen, she damaged her spine in a riding incident and dealt with pain from that, as well.

However, none of these setbacks could calm her romantic heart. 

One of her published poetry collections caught the attention of fellow poet Robert Browning. The two began a secret correspondence that led to their elopement and resettlement to Italy. There, she continued to write and publish until her untimely death at age 55.

Many of her later poems took on a political stance, shining a light on topics such as child labor and the subjugation of women. However, some of my favorite poems of hers are the unexpected ones, the rays of light that show positivity and hope.

Patience Taught by Nature

“O Dreary life!” we cry, “O dreary life!”
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land: savannah-swards
Unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees,
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory. O thou God of old!
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these;—
But so much patience, as a blade of grass
Grows by contented through the heat and cold.

An interesting fact about Elizabeth is that she was the first in her family to be born in England in over 200 years. Her lineage is part Creole and her family had lived in Jamaica for many decades. 

Do you have a favorite poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning? Or a favorite romantic poem?

RB