About Me
Ah, my friends, Welcome to Casa Guidi ....Let me tell you a bit about myself, a poetess .. I was born in March on the sixth day of 1806 at my parent's estate in Durham, England .. I believe they said I was a precocious, bright and accomplished child. I've read a number of Shakespearian plays, parts of Pope's Homeric translations, passages from Paradise Lost, and the histories of England, Greece, and Rome before the age of ten. I was self-taught in almost every respect. During my teen years I read the principal Greek and Latin authors and Dante's Inferno -- all texts in the original languages. By the age of twelve, I wrote an "epic" poem consisting of four books of rhyming couplets. All I wanted to do was read and write, but I also loved riding horses and visiting family friends at my father's Estate, "Hope End". When I was 14, I fell from a horse, resulting in a spinal injury or some sort of mysterious illness which they never could figure out what it was exactly. It also affected my lungs. Yes, I was a little .. oh, very well, perhaps a little more than that .. addicted .. to morphine and opium (which they had prescribed to me), but what great poet wasn't in my day? Oh, bother... Might I mention I lost my beloved mother at this time, and that didn't help any..
Let me continue ...My father's unfortunate financial losses forced him to sell the estate .. in which we then lived at 50 Wimpole Street in London. This is where I stayed, lost "my dear bro", Edward .. and ultimately became a recluse upstairs with only my faithful dog, Flush and Wilson, my maid who also was my friend. True, I have had one or two callers from time to time ...That is when the love of my life entered into the picture.. I received a letter which began, "Dear Miss Barrett, I love your verses with all my heart - and I love you, too.. " Could this happen? Bah, but I have to admit, it intrigued me - the sincerity ... I could've been considered a spinster by now. I had all but waved off love at this point. I thought death was the only means of escaping this wretched place. My father had defiantly proclaimed anyone marrying another would be disinherited. But it was not death for me, no, "not death, but love.."
I had loved his poetry already, and had written of him in one of my poems. That is one of the reasons he wrote to me. I wasn't sure what to make of those words from the first letter he had written, but it struck me to the core. His letter "threw me into ecstasies"! Not only was love here but we also shared intellectual conversations within these sealed letters - back and forth ... So many that ..when we finally eloped in September, to Florence, I wrote to him exclaiming, "Let the ounces cry out!" I had to bring them with me. Some of the only things I took with us. That is when we ..escaped to Italy, but I knew I would never speak to my father again. He never would.
Our son, whom we called "Pen" (Robert Wiedemann-Barrett Browning), was born in 1849. Ah, but he was our pride and our joy! Yes, I coddled him. Who would have thought that I, yes, I.. of all women .. would have had a child. I rather liked him in his long locks, much to the eventual protest of my husband.
And, still, my lungs, my health betrayed me .. though it is true that coming to Italy had benefited me tremendously .. It would always trevail. After the deaths of my sisters, and the eventual death of my father, I would become increasingly interested in.. the other side.. in spirituality... Perhaps because I also knew my own eventual outcome ... But I knew that it would not be the end ...
And, finally, at the end of 1861, with my husband there beside me, holding me .. "Our lives are held by God!" said I, with a continued, "God bless you!" as I kissed him and the air, He did ask if I was comfortable, "Beautiful." I said, and with that, I passed into the spirit-world, at 4:30 am quite peacefully...
... Our maid, Annunziata, cried out, "This blessed spirit has passed!"Yet, I, dear ones.. still haunt ...
