(MUSICAL THEME)

Episode I:

For the next half hour, Penthus Productions brings alive one of the great love stories in all literature — with this difference — these famous lovers not only lived in poetry, they were themselves two of the most influential poets of the Nineteenth Century. Of course, in 1844, Elizabeth Barrett, nearly 40 and already with an established literary reputation, only knew of Robert Browning from a book of verse that his father had paid a printer to publish. But she saw the quality of nobility in his words, and the semi-invalid and the young thirty-two-year-old ambitious poet-to-be began a correspondence about the one thing that would rule the rest of their lives — poetry.

NARRATOR: There was a time — before Jung and Freud, before the invention of world war, before telephones and atom bombs and holocausts and primal scream — A time when love letters were often sent daily across town by horse drawn carriage, when suitors suffered unrequited love and thought it a privilege to die for a cause. It was a time when nothing could convey a soul to heights of ecstasy or despair so readily as poetry. This, the Romantic Age of Byron and Shelley, Keats and Wordsworth. A time when such poets were read by the common man who in turn honored these poets with fame. So it was in the year of our Lord 1844 that Elizabeth Barrett languished in delicate health on Wimpole Street; an invalid poet who had, nevertheless, been published in London and abroad. A woman nearly forty whose stern father forbad her ever to even think of marrying. Meanwhile, Robert Browning was writing epic verse to dubious acclaim, content that in this his thirty-second year, he would remain untouched by true love. For no woman had yet moved him to give his heart away.

ROBERT: I am above all else a poet and in being such will I fulfill my destiny upon the earth. And to answer my critics, I offer this: It has been said that the greater the soul of a poet, the more time must transpire for his work to come into its true greatness. (clears throat) This last issue of Bells and Pomegranates contained my best work, perhaps not the best I will ever write. Nevertheless, I am pleased with "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," although some could see it as unimportant and I am not unduly proud of many of the other verses.…Yet even an old friend, now turned professional critic, has in print declared, "Mr. Browning is a genuine poet, and only needs to have less misgiving on the subject himself."

It is not pleasant to have one's secret hurts exposed. And it was the worse for me upon the premiere of my play, "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon." A verse drama full of drubbing and stabbing; much action. These critics seem to delight so in nailing my head again and again to the stage floor. One such said, "If to pain and perplex were the end and aim of tragedy, Mr. Browning's poetic melodrama would be worthy of admiration, for it is a very puzzling and unpleasant piece of business.…"

ELIZABETH: Though I do not know Mr. Browning, even through correspondence – believe me, I have had no letter addressed to Miss Elizabeth Barrett come across this threshold from him, although there was the day Mr. Kenyon sought to introduce us. Sadly, I was far to weak to receive visitors that afternoon. For I should have liked very much to meet in person the man whose verses I so admire. Kenyon tells me his portrait here hanging near my desk, is in fact very like him. It would have proved a marvelous thing had I been strong enough to see fine actors speak his lines upon the stage, but since I am unwell and unable to attend the theatre, I have been content to simply read the poetic drama which has become the object of these verbal lashings.

ROBERT: I sometimes wonder if anyone, save Charles Dickens, believes in me. And his lavish praise of my drama, that was kept from me for over a year, kept from my sight and hearing by the producer of the play!

The others found print quite readily. They go on — "The plot is plain enough but the acts and feeling of the characters are inscrutable and abhorrent… It is impossible that such a drama should live even if it were artfully constructed, which this is not…" (He sighs)

ELIZABETH: These seem to be hard truth on Browning. Now whether it is through fellow-feeling for Eleusinian mysteries, or whether through the more generous motive of appreciation of his powers, I am very sensitive to the thousand and one stripes with which the assembly of critics doth expound its vocation over him. The truth is — and the world should know the truth — it is easier to find a more faultless writer than a poet of equal genius. A genius which can be clearly seen in his poem "My Last Duchess" —

(She begins reading and after two lines his voice overlaps hers for two lines and then he finishes.)

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat," such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad.
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sire, 't was all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace — all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good!
but thanked
Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked
My gift of a nine hundred years old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech (which I have not) — to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgust me; here you miss,
Or there exceed-the mark" — and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you to rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though
Taming a sea horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

(Musical interlude)

ELIZABETH: One could say that I have many admirers offering to lighten my solitude with their company. But it is the verse and not myself they wish for. I will not see anyone! They have the poems, that is enough. And Papa has done much to render my bedroom as little like an invalid's as books and attractive furnishings can make it. The bed is disguised as a sofa. A large table placed out in the room toward the wardrobe end of it has a convivial look. There are several armchairs conveniently arranged. The washing table, masked as a cabinet, further abets the deception by a row of shelves above it. The busts of Chaucer and Homer guard the departments of English and Greek poetry. The window has green curtains, much like those in my room at Hope End, in Jamaica where I began, and a flower box in the window planted with scarlet runners, nasturtiums and ivy. And there are now beginning to grow heartily some geranium cuttings which Mr. Kenyon brought to me from Wordsworth's garden. So I am not so much a prisoner as some might imagine. And the verses come quite readily. This of my sister, Helen…

The shadow of her face upon the wall
May take your memory to the perfect Greek,
But when you front her, you would call the cheek
Too full, sir, for your models, if withal
That bloom it wears could leave you critical,
And that smile reaching toward the rosy streak;
For one who smiles so has no need to speak
To lead your thoughts along, as steed to stall.
A smile that turns the sunny side o' the heart
On all the world, as if herself did win
By what she lavished on an open mart!
Let no man call the liberal sweetness, sin, —
For friends may whisper as they stand apart,
Methinks there's still some warmer place within.

ROBERT: Now that she is done with classical poetry, I wait each week for fresh verses from this heart of hearts. I should like to make Miss Barrett's acquaintance. And this nearly was the case, but Kenyon and I upon our scheduled arrival last year at her very door were told she was not well. At that time I felt as if I had been close, so close to some world's wonder in chapel or crypt, only a screen to push it and I might have entered, but there was some slight and just sufficient bar to admission, and the half-opened door shut.

ELIZABETH: I do correspond, however, with many who write. As for me, part of me is worn out, what with the death of Edward, dear brother; five years now and still I cannot but know the deepest pain, for it was I who begged Papa to let him stay with me at Tourquay. And although the weather was more seasonable there than London and the doctor's were all in fear that I would continue coughing blood, it was Edward who was my cure, for he loved me with such purity. And that despite his bitter disappointment when Papa forbade him to marry the girl he had fallen in love with. Every house we have lived in echoes with Papa's NO. But I should have not insisted, begged, wailed, cried until my impunity convinced Papa to let Edward stay on. If not for that he never would have gone off in the boating party and been lost at sea. (Sigh) I cannot think but that I killed him!

No bird am I to sing in June,
And dare not aske an equal boon.
Good nests and berries red are Nature's
To give away to better creatures,
And yet my days go on, go on.

I ask less kindness to be done,—
Only to loose these pilgrim-shoon,
(Too early worn and grimed) with sweet
Cool deathly touch to these tired feet,
Till days go out which no go on ...

but the poetical part — that is, the love of poetry — is growing in me freshly every day. And there is the opium. Such a miracle that is to me. Father bids me pay for it myself out of my allowance from Grandmother's legacy to me. So that even so, my heart does not flutter out of control as it has done. I am more calm for the laudanum. (Sigh) Yet…

I have lost — oh, many a pleasure,
Many a hope and many a power —
Studious health and merry leisure,
The first dew on the first flower!

I have lost the dream of Doing,
And the other dream of Done,
The first spring in the pursuing,
The first pride in the Begun, —
First recoil from incompletion, in the face
of what is won —

I have lost the sound child-sleeping
Which the thunder could not break;
Something too of the strong leaping
Of the staglike heart awake,
Which the pale is low for keeping

in the road it ought to take.

Some respect to social fictions
Has been also lost by me;
And some generous genuflexions,
Which my spirit offered free
To the pleasant old conventions of our

false humanity.

All my losses did I tell you,
Ye perchance would look away; —
Ye would answer me, "Farewell! you
Make sad company today,
And your tears are falling faster than the

bitter words you say."

So I remain, in the imagination of my readers, the caged nightingale, here in my room with its one thin strip of light coming through the ivy covered window.

ELIZABETH: And yet there is my dog, Flush. My titian haired sweet and loyal cocker spaniel.

You see this dog; it was but yesterday
I mused forgetful of his presence here,
Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear:
When from the pillow where wet-cheeked I lay,
A head as hairy as Faunus thrust its way
Right sudden against my face, two golden clear
Great eyes astonished mine, a drooping ear
Did flap me on either cheek to dry the spray!
I started first as some Arcadian
Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove:
But as the bearded vision closelier ran
My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above
Surprise and sadness, — thinking the true Pan
Who by low creatures leads to heights of love.

(Musical Interlude)

ROBERT: I must add that I have not been entirely without success. There was the advent and consequent honoring of my poem "Paracelsus." Four thousand lines of blank verse and three songs in this drama of the soul, wherein the hero comes to the sure truth that knowledge without humanity is selfish and sterile, as indeed it is. "I go to prove my soul!" cries Paracelsus as he sets forth. "

I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first
I ask not: but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive.

Mr. Fox found me a publisher and my father, God bless him, paid the printing costs. That time it was not for naught, for published in Coburn's New Monthly Magazine, John Forster declared regarding my epic: "Without the slightest hesitation we name Mr. Browning at once with Shelley, Coleridge and Wordsworth." With Shelley! For me that was indeed touching hands with immortality! And as if that were not enough, Forster went on: "He has entitled himself to a place among tne acknowledged poets of the age ... He has written a book that will live." But that was nearly ten years ago and I have not known the same success before or since. And ... there is the matter of my heart ... with Paracelsus I still say,

I loved — oh, no, I mean not one of ye,
Or an earthly love, though ye are dear
As human heart to human heart may be;—
I loved, I know not what — but this low sphere
And all that it contain, contains not thee,
Thou, whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere.

Love is as pervasive as the circumambient air, but no place specifically. Still, I go to prove my soul!

ELIZABETH: Here now, in this ivy-shaded room I am brought to great heights through Mr. Browning's nobility of words. So in my vocation I have written to order, and that with extaordinary rapidity "Lady Geraldine's Courtship." Last Saturday, on its being discovered that my first volume consisted of only 208 pages, and my second of 280 pages, Mr. Moxon uttered a cry of reprehension ... and wanted to tear away several poems from the end of the second volume, and tie them on to the end of the first! I could not and would not hear of this, so there was nothing for it but to finish a ballad poem which was lying by me and I did so by composing one hundred and forty lines last Saturday. I seemed to be in a dream all day. Long lines, too. It is simply put a highly colored rhymed romance of modern life which proved far more attractive to the general reader than some of my more elaborate and more truly artistic pieces. The suitor of Lady Geraldine speaks thusly,

Ay, for sometimes on the hill-side, while we
sate down in the gowans,
With the forest_green behind us and its
shadow cast before,
And the river running under, and across it
from the rowans
A brown partridge whirring near us till we
felt the air it bore,

There, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud
the poems
Made to Tuscan flutes, or instruments
more various of our own
Read the pastoral parts of Spenser, or the
subtle interflowings
Found in Petrarch's sonnets -- here's the
book, the leaf is folded down!
Or at times a modern volume, Wordsworth's
solemn-thoughted idyl,
Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's
enchanted reverie,—

Or from Browning some "Pomegranate…
which, if cut deep down the middle,
Shows a heart within blood tinctured, of a
veined humanity.

ROBERT: My heart has burned within me to see myself so depicted in Miss Barrett's poem. I know I will not be content until I have written to her of my honest affection and admiration of her verse. Oh, but I cannot know even how to begin such an epistle.

(Music up. Voice over)

You have been listening to "Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning," Written by Susan Stewart Potter. Mr. Browning was played by Gabriel Messner and Miss Barrett played by Susan Potter. I am your narrator and producer, Sasha Newborn.

Please join us again next week at this time for the continuation of the story of this lyric love affair of the Nineteenth Century.

This has been a Penthos Production, recorded in the studios of KCSB-FM, Santa Barbara.