Past the pane, the mountain spreading,
Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise,
While a girlish voice was reading,--
Somewhat low for [Greek: ais] and [Greek: ois]."
These "golden hours" were not without that earnest argument so welcome
to candid minds:--
"For we sometimes gently wrangled,
Very gently, be it said,--
Since our thoughts were disentangled
By no breaking of the thread!
And I charged you with extortions
On the nobler fames of old,--
Ay, and sometimes thought your Persons
Stained the purple they would fold."
What high honor the scholar did her friend and teacher, and how nobly
she could interpret the "rhythmic Greek," let those decide who have read
Mrs. Browning's translations of "Prometheus Bound" and Bion's "Lament
for Adonis."
Imprisoned within the four walls of her room, with books for her world
and large humanity for her thought, the lamp of life burning so low at
times that a feather would be placed on her lips to prove that there was
still breath, Elizabeth Barrett read and wrote, and "heard the nations
praising" her "far off." She loved
"Art for art,
And good for God himself, the essential Good,"
until destiny (a destiny with God in it) brought two poets face to face
and heart to heart.
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