ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Tuesday Morning.
[Post-mark, March 12, 1845.]

Your letter made me so happy, dear Miss Barrett, that I have kept quiet this while; is it too great a shame if I begin to want more good news of you, and to say so?  Because there has been a bitter wind ever since.  Will you grant me a great favour?  Always when you write, though about your own works, not Greek plays merely, put me in, always, a little official bulletin-line that shall say ‘I am better’ or ‘still better,’ will you?  That is done, then—­and now, what do I wish to tell you first?  The poem you propose to make, for the times; the fearless fresh living work you describe, is the only Poem to be undertaken now by you or anyone that is a Poet at all; the only reality, only effective piece of service to be rendered God and man; it is what I have been all my life intending to do, and now shall be much, much nearer doing, since you will along with me.  And you can do it, I know and am sure—­so sure, that I could find in my heart to be jealous of your stopping in the way even to translate the Prometheus; though the accompanying monologue will make amends too.  Or shall I set you a task I meant for myself once upon a time?—­which, oh, how you would fulfil!  Restore the Prometheus [Greek:  purphoros] as Shelley did the [Greek:  Lyomenos]; when I say ‘restore,’ I know, or very much fear, that the [Greek:  purphoros] was the same with the [Greek:  purkaeus] which, by a fragment, we sorrowfully ascertain to have been a Satyric Drama; but surely the capabilities of the subject are much greater than in this, we now wonder at; nay, they include all those of this last—­for just see how magnificently the story unrolls itself.  The beginning of Jupiter’s dynasty, the calm in Heaven after the storm, the ascending—­(stop, I will get the book and give the words), [Greek:  opos tachista ton patroon eis thronon kathezet’, euthus daimosin nemei gera alloisin alla—­k.t.l.],[1] all the while Prometheus being the first among the first in honour, as [Greek:  kaitoi theoisi tois neois toutois gera tis allos, e ’go, pantelos diorise]?[2] then the one black hand-cloudlet storming the joyous blue and gold everywhere, [Greek:  broton de ton talaiporon logon ouk eschen oudena],[3] and the design of Zeus to blot out the whole race, and plant a new one.  And Prometheus with his grand solitary [Greek:  ego d’ etolmesa],[4] and his saving them, as the first good, from annihilation.  Then comes the darkening brow of Zeus, and estrangement from the benign circle of grateful gods, and the dissuasion of old confederates, and all the Right that one may fancy in Might, the strongest reasons [Greek:  pauesthai tropou philanthropou][5] coming from the own mind of the Titan, if you will, and all the while he shall be proceeding steadily in the alleviation of the sufferings of mortals whom, [Greek:  nepious ontas to prin, ennous kai phrenon epebolous etheke],[6]