Grapes that wear a purple skin,
Men and maidens carry in,
Brimming baskets on their shoulders,
Which they topple one by one
Down the winepress. Men are holders
Of the place there, and alone
Tread the grapes out, crush them down,
Letting loose the soul of wine—
Praising Bacchus as divine,
With the loud songs called his own!
You are aware of the dresser of the vine in Homer’s ‘Hymn to Mercury’ translated so exquisitely by Shelley, and of a very beautiful single figure in Theocritus besides. Neither probably would suit your purpose. In the ‘Pax’ of Aristophanes there is an idle ‘Chorus’ who talks of looking at the vines and watching the grapes ripen, and eating them at last, but there is nothing of vineyard work in it, so I dismiss the whole.
For ‘Hector and Andromache,’ would you like me to try to do it for you? It would amuse me, and you should not be bound to do more with what I send you than to throw it into the fire if it did not meet your wishes precisely. The same observation applies, remember, to this little sheet, which I have kept—delayed sending—just because I wanted to let you have a trial of my strength on ‘Andromache’ in the same envelope; but the truth is that it is not begun yet, partly through other occupation, and partly through the lassitude which the cold wind of the last few days always brings down on me. Yesterday I made an effort, and felt like a broken stick—not even a bent one! So wait for a warm day (and what a season we have had! I have been walking up and down stairs and pretending to be quite well), and I will promise to do my best, and certainly an inferior hand may get nearer to touch the great Greek lion’s mane than Pope’s did.
Will you give my love to dear Miss Bayley? She shall hear from me—and you shall, in a day or two. And do not mind Mr. Kenyon. He ’roars as softly as a sucking dove;’ nevertheless he is an intolerant monster, as I half told him the other day.
Believe me, dear Miss Thomson,
Affectionately yours,
E.B.B.
To Mr. Westwood 50 Wimpole Street: May 22, 1845.
Did you persevere with ‘Sordello’? I hope so. Be sure that we may all learn (as poets) much and deeply from it, for the writer speaks true oracles. When you have read it through, then read for relaxation and recompense the last ‘Bell and Pomegranate’ by the same poet, his ‘Colombo’s Birthday,’ which is exquisite. Only ‘Pippa Passes’ I lean to, or kneel to, with the deepest reverence. Wordsworth has been in town, and is gone. Tennyson is still here. He likes London, I hear, and hates Cheltenham, where he resides with his family, and he smokes pipe after pipe, and does not mean to write any more poems. Are we to sing a requiem?
Believe me, faithfully yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT.
To H.S. Boyd Saturday, July 21, 1845 [postmark].