ABSTRACT
First publ. B & P vii (DR & L), 6 Nov. 1845; repr. 1849, 1863 (when it was placed in Romances: see Appendix A, p. 464), 18652, 1868, 1872, 1888. Our text is 1845. EBB. first saw the poem in MS in Aug. 1845, and commented: ‘It seems to me while I appreciate the conception of this poem fully, & much admire some things in it, that it requires more finishing than the other poems,—I mean particularly the first part’ (Wellesley MS; all her comments recorded in the notes are from this source, unless otherwise stated). Lack of finish does not, however, necessarily mean that the composition was recent: the evidence rather suggests a date in Feb. 1845. The poem reflects B.’s continuing regard for Alfred Domett (see headnote to Waring; the two poems are juxtaposed in 1872). Several phrases reminiscent of the poem occur in a letter to Domett of 23 Feb. 1845 (RB & AD 109–15): ‘I cannot even write legibly’ (cp. 11. 29–30); ‘You will find no change … in this room, where I remember you so well. I turned my head, last line, to see if it was you came up with hat above the holly hedge’ (cp. 11. 10–12); ‘The papers will tell you of the shocking end of poor Laman Blanchard … Nearly the last time I saw him he talked … about his wife—how he was all but dead of a fever once, and she nursed him … “And since then,” he said, “she has saved my life a dozen times’” (cp. 11. 10–14). B. also mentions Domett in a letter to EBB. of 11 Feb. 1845, again with a phrase reminiscent of the poem: ‘I had rather hear from you than see anybody else—never you care, dear noble Carlyle, nor you, my own friend Alfred over the sea’ (LK 17; cp. 1. 1). In the same letter, B. goes on to talk about his indifference to the hostile critical reception of his work (LK 18–19; cp. 11. 39–42). The ‘Lady’ in the second section may represent an inverse portrait both of Blanchard’s wife and of EBB. herself, who repeatedly stressed the contrast between her own seclusion and B.’s ‘brilliant happy sphere’ (LK 71). In a letter of 17 Apr. 1845 she wrote: ‘As to the Polkas and Cellariuses,‥ I do not covet them of course‥ but what a strange world you seem to have, to me at a distance—what a strange husk of a world!’ (LK 48). The title is from Twelfth Night (‘And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges’, V i 384), whose patterns of unrequited love may also have influenced the poem. Unrequited love is a common theme in B.’s work: cp. Lost Mistress, Last Ride, Too Late. I’ve a Friend, over the sea; I like him, but he loves me; It all grew out of the books I write; They find such favour in his sight 5 That he slaughters you with savage looks Because you don’t admire my books: He does himself though,—and if some vein Were to snap to-night in this heavy brain, To-morrow month, if I lived to try, 10 Round should I just turn quietly, Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand Till I found him, come from his foreign land To be my nurse in this poor place, And make me broth, and wash my face, 15 And light my fire, and, all the while, Bear with his old good-humoured smile That I told him “Better have kept away “Than come and kill me, night and day, “With worse than fever’s throbs and shoots, 20 “At the creaking of his clumsy boots.” I am as sure that this he would do As that Saint Paul’s is striking Two: And I think I had rather‥ woe is me! —Yes, rather see him than not see, 25 If lifting a hand would seat him there Before me in the empty chair To-night, when my head aches indeed, And I can neither think, nor read, And these blue fingers will not hold 30 The pen; this garret’s freezing cold! And I’ve a Lady—There he wakes, The laughing fiend and prince of snakes Within me, at her name, to pray Fate send some creature in the way 35 Of my love for her, to be down–torn Upthrust and onward borne So I might prove myself that sea Of passion which I needs must be! Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint, 40 And my style infirm, and its figures faint, All the critics say, and more blame yet, And not one angry word you get! But, please you, wonder I would put My cheek beneath that Lady’s foot 45 Rather than trample under mine The laurels of the Florentine, And you shall see how the Devil spends The fire God gave for other ends! I tell you, I stride up and down 50 This garret, crowned with Love’s best crown, And feasted with Love’s perfect feast, To think I kill for her, at least, Body and soul and peace and fame, Alike youth’s end and manhood’s aim, 55 As all my genius, all my learning Leave me, where there’s no returning, —So is my spirit, as flesh with sin, Filled full, eaten out and in With the face of her, the eyes of her, 60 The lips and little chin, the stir Of shadow round her mouth; and she —I’ll tell you,—calmly would decree That I should roast at a slow fire If that would compass her desire 65 And make her one whom they invite To the famous ball to-morrow night. There may be a Heaven; there must be a Hell; Meantime, there is our Earth here—well!
