Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Beautiful Death
Engraving from original Painting by Chappel, 1872. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning began writing poetry at age 4 and was first published shortly after her tenth birthday. A child prodigy, her work was an escape from her undiagnosable suffering of a mysterious illness that intensified at age 15 and was a steadfast presence throughout her life. Barrett Browning was prescribed laudanum for her chronic pain and developed a lifelong habit. She was also inundated with grief as she faced the loses of her mother and brother.
Her husband, Robert Browning, was a fellow poet who fell in love with the early published works of Elizabeth Barrett. Robert Browning rescued Elizabeth from her sick room after secretly courting and marrying her against her father’s wishes. Together the Browning’s moved to the warmer climate of Italy, where Barrett Browning flourished in her creation of poetry, which is still cited every Valentine’s Day today. Her most famous poem is “How do I love thee?”.
“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.”
As Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in her husband’s arms (at age 55), she told him tenderly how much she loved him. Drawing her last breaths, she whispered, “My Robert, my heaven, my beloved.” Browning asked how she felt and she replied with her final word, “Beautiful”.
Robert Browning visits Elizabeth Barrett at 50 Wimpole Street is a painting by Celestial Images which was uploaded on June 22nd, 2016; sourced here.
This Victorian literary love story was not only sunny days and love sonnets. Though Barrett Browning’s most acclaimed works in her life were often renderings of her love, she also wrote profoundly on death and grief, as a woman whose life had been chronically pockmarked by both. From the death of her beloved brother, to her chronic illness, to the loss of many close friends, Barrett Browning knew death well.
“I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to death—
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go. ”
Following the death of his beloved wife, Downing never fully recovered but did go on to become one of England’s most beloved poets. Listen below for a reading of my favorite love poems Browning penned to his wife.
