RonPrice
RADIANCE AND THE TRAGIC
Elizabeth Barrett Browning(1806-1861) was the most successful woman poet of the Victorian period. In 1840, when her brother Edward died, she became a recluse and spent nearly all her time in her room on the third floor of her father’s house. Here she wrote her famous book of poetry entitled Poems published in 1844. She was seriously considered as a successor to Wordsworth as England’s poet laureate when Wordsworth died in 1850. Another poet, Robert Browning, became attracted to her poetry, especially the poetry in Poems and in 1945 he became attracted to her. They were married in 1846.
That same year Emily Bronte put her Gondal poems, which she had been working on for some years, into a separate collection. The following prose-poem is an expression of my appreciation both Bronte’s and Browning’s poetry and of what I see as a remarkable coincidence between the origins of their poetry and the origins of the Babi-Baha’i Faiths in that year 1844, mirabile dictu. I also include some personal autobiographical comments. -Ron Price, “Elizabeth Browning Internet Sites,” Pioneering Over Four Epochs, April 2nd 2006.
12 months after He said
I am, I am, I am and your
secret epistolary romance,
turned into a meeting--at last
and you found a husband to be,1
your poems made you famous,
the greatest female poet ever,
most inspired in history: some said.
That same year Emily put her
Gondalsaga poems into a book,
her imaginary world that came,
invaded, dominated & destroyed
her real one--became her real one
and she called it Wuthering Heights
and it told of a radiant, a mystical
oneness in the world of existence
with its misery, its insanity, its agony.
And so it was---tragic and mystical.
That same year signaled the start,
the opening of the most glorious
epoch in the greatest cycle which
the spiritual history of humankind
had yet witnessed: the most tragic,
the most spectacular, eventful in
the first century of the Baha’i Era.
1 Elizabeth met Robert Browning in May 1845.
Ron Price
April 2nd 2006
Elizabeth Barrett Browning(1806-1861) was the most successful woman poet of the Victorian period. In 1840, when her brother Edward died, she became a recluse and spent nearly all her time in her room on the third floor of her father’s house. Here she wrote her famous book of poetry entitled Poems published in 1844. She was seriously considered as a successor to Wordsworth as England’s poet laureate when Wordsworth died in 1850. Another poet, Robert Browning, became attracted to her poetry, especially the poetry in Poems and in 1945 he became attracted to her. They were married in 1846.
That same year Emily Bronte put her Gondal poems, which she had been working on for some years, into a separate collection. The following prose-poem is an expression of my appreciation both Bronte’s and Browning’s poetry and of what I see as a remarkable coincidence between the origins of their poetry and the origins of the Babi-Baha’i Faiths in that year 1844, mirabile dictu. I also include some personal autobiographical comments. -Ron Price, “Elizabeth Browning Internet Sites,” Pioneering Over Four Epochs, April 2nd 2006.
12 months after He said
I am, I am, I am and your
secret epistolary romance,
turned into a meeting--at last
and you found a husband to be,1
your poems made you famous,
the greatest female poet ever,
most inspired in history: some said.
That same year Emily put her
Gondalsaga poems into a book,
her imaginary world that came,
invaded, dominated & destroyed
her real one--became her real one
and she called it Wuthering Heights
and it told of a radiant, a mystical
oneness in the world of existence
with its misery, its insanity, its agony.
And so it was---tragic and mystical.
That same year signaled the start,
the opening of the most glorious
epoch in the greatest cycle which
the spiritual history of humankind
had yet witnessed: the most tragic,
the most spectacular, eventful in
the first century of the Baha’i Era.
1 Elizabeth met Robert Browning in May 1845.
Ron Price
April 2nd 2006