The Marriage of the Poets

The marriage of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, the two gifted poets, remains one of the most splendid love stories in history.
The Woman's Voice has adapted the following account from the English magazine "Good Housekeeping."

On the twelfth of September, a hundred years ago, they stood before the altar, and Elizabeth Barrett became the wife of Robert Browning. This was in a quiet church in one of the suburbs of London. After the wedding they set out for Italy, that enchanting land of which Elizabeth had dreamed and which she had longed to visit.

In the history of English literature people have known no two gifted poets like Elizabeth and Robert Browning, who trod upon convention and astonished the world with a life that was never, on any day, anything other than the ideal, happy married life. Rarely do a poet's verses match his private life as they do with Browning, and the proof of it lies in the letters the two lovers exchanged shortly before their marriage: they are an eloquent witness to true love triumphant. And though these letters ceased after the marriage, there being no longer any pressing need for them, the echo of the couple's happiness and concord kept appearing in their poems — above all in the "muwashshahat" for which Elizabeth became famous.

Now that a hundred years have passed since these two poets married, the world looks upon the success of this marriage as a natural matter of course; but the truth is that many causes might well have made this marriage a failure, and to a great degree. Elizabeth was about forty, and for the previous five years had been half paralyzed, suffering from weak lungs and shattered nerves following the drowning and death of the brother she loved best; while Robert was about thirty-four, his youth brimming with health and vigor.

As for his fame as a poet, he began to win it only from the time he married Elizabeth; before that his poetry had no wide currency. And no one ranked him above her in poetry — except Elizabeth herself.

Elizabeth's father was a coarse man, hardened of mind and savage of temper. The oddity of his nature led him to forbid his nine children to marry; hence no one suspected Robert's visits to Elizabeth, who was the eldest of her sisters and the furthest of them from any thought of marriage. In the first of his letters to her, on a cold winter's day, Robert wrote:

"I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett — so much that they have become a part of me. Your great, living poetry has flowered and taken root within me. I love these books of yours... and I love you too."

The ardor of youth drove him one day to visit her and broach the matter of marriage; but the nurse received him and made excuses — Miss Elizabeth's health was poorly and it was impossible for her to receive him. So he retraced his steps and wrote her a letter pressing his feeling and his intention, and awakening in Elizabeth's heart a hope whose lamp had gone out years before! She wrote a reply by post, saying:

"Is it true that you were sorry to have missed the chance, and not to have seen me at that time?"

And she put off his visit for four months... Perhaps she meant thereby to make sure of her feeling toward him and of his position toward her, and to give herself time enough to reflect. She was appalled at what she saw in the lines of her cheeks and the fading of her eyes: the settled traces of many cares and long sleepless nights. And it was hard for her to encourage this young man to draw near her, when all the beauty and charm she possessed lay in her poetry and nowhere else!

He visited her one May morning, and his weekly visits went on. He would come armed with a fresh bouquet of red roses, to revive a heart that had given up all hope of enjoying a beloved's warm glances and of finding rest in him.

The strangest thing of all was that Elizabeth's health began to improve: Browning's meetings with her accomplished what the doctors had been powerless to accomplish... A year after his first visit, Elizabeth ventured to take a few steps, and her own physician advised her to spend the winter outside England; but her father shut that door with a single word, and his daughter's anxiety over her health won from him not the slightest attention — which led Elizabeth to reflect, and to venture upon a grave step, if she wished to live and put distance between herself and the grave in which she lay — namely, dwelling with her father under one roof.

The one cause of her hesitation was her fear of wronging Robert by marrying him, and on this point she wrote to him, saying:

"If you give me your life, and I

put my whole heart into making it happy, what shall I win for it but pain and misery? However lavish I may be in giving to you, I shall never reach the measure I aspire to."

Browning's view of the matter differed from Elizabeth's. He was alarmed lest marriage should set Elizabeth's health back instead of forward, and he wrote to her, saying:

"I am yours to the end, and God knows I will not consent that you bear the least harm for my sake... If anything should come from me that pains you, it will be from ignorance, not from intent!"

The day they had fixed for the wedding came. On a Saturday in early September, Elizabeth left her house as usual. She met Robert in a small bookshop at a modest turning, and a quarter of an hour later they stood hand in hand before the clergyman as he pronounced them man and wife! And Elizabeth went home as though nothing had happened — to wait another week while Robert made ready for the journey. She kept the matter secret even from her brothers and sisters, lest word should leak to her father and he cut off the road to the happiness that awaited her.

At last the seven days passed, and Elizabeth left the house: her dog upon her arm, her personal maid at her side. She met Robert at the same bookshop, and they traveled to Paris, and from there to Florence, then Venice, and other Italian cities which only a year before had been one of Elizabeth's dreams beyond hope of fulfillment!

In the third year of their marriage, when Elizabeth was in her forty-third year, she was blessed with a son, and this event crowned her happiness — how not, when the two lovers beheld the fruit of their love and their devotion?

The two poet-spouses lived in Italy for fifteen years, happiness sheltering them beneath its spreading wings. And they were wise enough to let not a single thing trouble the serenity of their life together. They would sit down to compose poetry each in a separate room, and not once did they compose together in one room — so much so that when Elizabeth finished composing her immortal love poems, she surprised Robert by slipping the collected sheets into his pocket, and that was the first he knew of them.

In 1861 — the year in which Queen Victoria's husband died — Elizabeth died, stricken by bronchitis. Browning grieved for his mate, forsook her beautiful nest in Italy, and returned to England, where he enjoyed the wide fame to which he had aspired.

Thirty years later, when it was Browning's lot to sleep his eternal sleep far from his beloved Elizabeth, they sang for him at the hour of burial a hymn of her composing, in homage to her greatness and to immortalize her sweet memory.

Not all the world loves poets, but all the world loves lovers. Thousands upon thousands of people have watched this love story, on the stage and on the screen. And no one denies that these two poets were poets in truth — and that thanks to their love, their devotion, and their life together. Their poetry will remain immortal so long as hearts still beat with noble, undying love.