Victorian Verse - Died - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I have searched and searched to try and find the subject of this poem - including looking in The Times archives.  There are a few discussions online about it - but no conclusions.  All we have is the date of death - "On Sunday, 3rd of August" - and, as it was published posthumously, (Last Poems, 1862), no date of composition.  However, the dates can be narrowed down, as the poem is clearly addressed to her husband, Robert, as they seem to be having an argument about the merits of the dead person.  This means there are only three possible dates - 1845 (before they were married, but during their courtship), 1851 and 1856, as these are the only years in which 3rd August fell on a Sunday, whilst they were together. (This comes courtesy of an - unresolved - online discussion).  The person in question need not have been particularly famous - notices of death were, and are, commonly put in The Times personal columns.  For many years, they were on the front page.  Obituaries, as opposed to death notices, were usually written about more notable personalities. 

The poem is written in five line stanzas of iambic tetramtre with a regular abbaa rhyme scheme.  On first reading, this can seem rather trite and the tone of the whole somewhat flippant.  However, the bantering tone of the first two stanzas soon gives way to a more serious reflection on the nature of fame, reputation and death and a scornful rejection of man’s presumption in thinking that what we say about one another on earth can possibly matter in the face of death and God’s judgement.  The whole feels like one side of a conversation between two people who know each other well, are used to debate, and have something serious to say about a shared experience.

The death seems to be unexpected - or, at least, the two seem to be in the middle of an on-going debate on the worthiness of the person's life, when they hear of his death through an obituary in the “The Times” newspaper. 

I

What shall we add now? He is dead.

And I who praise and you who blame,

With wash of words across his name,

Find suddenly declared instead—

"On Sunday, third of August, dead”.

The poem opens in the same direct, rhetorical style as the others in the selection and here she addresses her husband.  Her opinion of the dead person is more positive than her husband’s.  Their debate is described in a metaphor – “wash of words” – which suggests not only that there have been a lot of them, but also that they have not had much effect, as in to “wash over”.  The bold notice of his death, which sounds as if it is lifted directly from the newspaper, designed to pull them (and us) up short (“which stops”), as if to underline the futility of their debate in the face of death.

II

Which stops the whole we talked to-day.

I quickened to a plausive glance 
At his large general tolerance 
By common people's narrow way, 
Stopped short in praising. Dead, they say. 

EBB seems to be recapping the point of her discussion.  She recalls becoming animated (“quickened”) and praising the dead person for his liberality (tolerance), in contrast with the majority – the “common people’s narrow way”.  This could be political or social liberality, as EBB was an activist on many fronts.  She wrote extensively about the plight of the poor in London, children in particular, even while she was living in Italy.  Her two most famous poems on this are “A Plea for the Ragged Schools of London” (1854), published in a fund-raising pamphlet together with a poem by Robert Browning, “The Twins”, and “The Cry of the Children” (1842).  However, her praises are “stopped short” by the death announcement.

III

And you, who had just put in a sort 
Of cold deduction--"rather, large 
Through weakness of the continent marge, 
Than greatness of the thing contained”-- 
Broke off. Dead!--there, you stood restrained. 

EBB now recaps for Robert what he had been saying, which was less fulsome in its praise of the man – in fact, rather “cold”.  She quotes Robert’s words, where he used a metaphor of a large object appearing bigger in a confined space.  “continent marge” means the extent of the surrounding land and “thing contained” means what is inside the space.  The liberality of the subject was only notable because of this contrast with the general population – made bigger than it really was by comparison.  But Robert, too, breaks off from his argument when the news is received and is silenced.

IV

 As if we had talked in following one

Up some long gallery. "Would you choose

An air like that? The gait is loose—

Or noble.' Sudden in the sun

An oubliette winks. Where is he? Gone.

EBB then uses a (rather odd) simile to elaborate on the effect of the sudden news.  She imagines herself and Robert walking behind a person in a long, narrow room and commenting on the way they walk.  But the discussion is made shockingly irrelevant because, suddenly, there is a “wink” in the light and some hole in space appears into which the man disappears – “Gone”.  An “oubliette”, literally meaning “forgotten”, is a kind of dungeon which can only be accessed through a hole in the ceiling – effectively condemning the poor prisoner to indefinite incarceration.

V

 Dead. Man's "I was' by God's "I am'—

All hero-worship comes to that.

EBB now moves on, still addressing Robert, to a more general reflection on the irrelevance of man’s account of himself and others in their lives (“I was”) compared to the absolute judgement of God, the final arbiter (“I am”).  The “I am” is a reference to “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the last” from the Book of Revelations in the New Testament.  Alpha (Α) is the first and Omega (Ω) the last letter in the Greek alphabet, from which the English versions of the Book were translated.

High heart, high thought, high fame, as flat

As a gravestone. Bring your Jacet jam—

The epitaph's an epigram. 

EBB shows the futility of their previous argument in the face of death with the scornful use of the repeated “high”, which is brought, literally, down to earth, by the use of the enjambment across the line from “flat” to the simile “As a gravestone”.  She then plays on the words “He is dead” or “He lies here” (“iacet iam” in Latin) declaring that these words are not just words written on his grave as a matter of fact (epitaph), but also a summary of all that can be said about him (epigram).  An epigram is a short, usually witty, saying to sum someone up, so she is being ironic here.  Oscar Wilde famously wrote epigrams, as in “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

VI 
Dead. There's an answer to arrest 
All carping. Dust's his natural place? 
He'll let the flies buzz round his face 
And, though you slander, not protest? 
--From such an one, exact the Best? 

This stanza continues in the same mocking tone, with its rhetorical questions.  She reiterates that the fact of Death is sufficient to stop anybody bad-mouthing the dead man (carping).  The rhetorical questions that follow emphasise how little judgements made on him will matter to the dead man.  If you slander him, by saying that he is so low or base as to be in the metaphorical “Dust”, what does he care, and why should he protest as, being dead, he is not even bothered by having flies buzz around him?  What can you expect to get from someone in his situation?

VII
Opinions gold or brass are null. 
We chuck our flattery or abuse, 
Called Caesar's due, as Charon's dues, 
I' the teeth of some dead sage or fool, 
To mend the grinning of a skull. 

It doesn’t matter what we think about people. We throw around (chuck, although sounding modern, was used to mean throw from the 16^th century) our good or bad opinions about both wise (sage) or stupid (fool) people, as if they deserve it.  “Caesar’s dues” is a reference again to the Bible, where Jesus replies to a question about Jews paying taxes to the Romans – “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; render unto God the things that are God’s.”  We are, in fact, merely throwing them at the dead as if we could stave off inevitable death ourselves.  Charon’s dues are the coins paid to Charon, the ferryman who rowed the souls of the dead across the River Styx to Hades in Greek mythology.  The “grinning skull” is a “memento mori,” or reminder of death, which originated in Roman times.  You can read about it and see representations of them in paintings, which were very common throughout the medieval and early modern eras, here

The poem ends with a piece of advice to Robert, and more generally, the reader:

VIII

 Be abstinent in praise and blame. 

The man's still mortal, who stands first, 
And mortal only, if last and worst. 
Then slowly lift so frail a fame, 
Or softly drop so poor a shame.

Resist the temptation to judge people – everyone is mortal, whether they are the very best or absolute worst.  Instead, help people to become the best they can be (slowly lift) and don’t be over-harsh (softly drop) on those who fail to live up to your high standards, as both good and bad qualities will not last beyond death.

This is a difficult poem to comprehend.  There is considerable economy with words, with ideas compressed into small spaces, forced by the confines of the rhythm and rhyming schemes.  The tone is both scornful and mocking, although there is a softening of the tone in the final two lines, through the use of the alliterative “lift so frail a fame” , the antithesis in “slowly lift” and “softly drop” and the merging of the conceptual  -“fame”/”shame” – into the physical, as if it is a body that we should be handling carefully.