Poetry Analysis: "Lord Walter's Wife"

I

'But where do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.

II

'Because I fear you,' he answered;--'because you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your gold-coloured hair.'

III

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,
And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.'

IV

'Yet farewell so,' he answered;--'the sunstroke's fatal at times.
I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the limes.

V

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. You smell a rose through a fence:
If two should smell it what matter? who grumbles, and where's the pretense?

VI

'But I,' he replied, 'have promised another, when love was free,
To love her alone, alone, who alone from afar loves me.'

VII

'Why, that,' she said, 'is no reason. Love's always free I am told.
Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it will hold?

VIII

'But you,' he replied, 'have a daughter, a young child, who was laid
In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me afraid."

IX

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. The angels keep out of the way;
And Dora, the child, observes nothing, although you should please me and stay.'

X

At which he rose up in his anger,--'Why now, you no longer are fair!
Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and hateful, I swear.'

XI

At which she laughed out in her scorn: 'These men! Oh these men overnice,
Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous is frankly put on by a vice.'

XII

Her eyes blazed upon him--'And you! You bring us your vices so near
That we smell them! You think in our presence a thought 'twould defame us to hear!

XIII

'What reason had you, and what right,--I appeal to your soul from my life,--
To find me so fair as a woman? Why, sir, I am pure, and a wife.

XIV

'Is the day-star too fair up above you? It burns you not. Dare you imply
I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me as high?

XV

'If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply adapted too much
To use unlawful and fatal. The praise!--shall I thank you for such?

XVI

'Too fair?--not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a while,
You attain to it, straightaway you call us no longer too fair, but too vile.

XVII

'A moment,--I pray your attention!--I have a poor word in my head
I must utter, though womanly custom would set it down better unsaid.

XVIII

'You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a ring.
You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter! I've broken the thing.

XIX

'You did me the honour, perhaps, to be moved at my side now and then
In the senses--a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and some men.

XX

'Love's a virtue for heroes!--as white as the snow on high hills,
And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and fulfils.

XXI
'I love my Walter profoundly,--you, Maude, though you faltered a week,
For the sake of . . . what is it--an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole on the cheek?

XXII
'And since, when all's said, you're too noble to stoop to the frivolous cant
About crimes irresistible, virtues that swindle, betray and supplant.

XXIII

'I determined to prove to yourself that, whate'er you might dream or avow
By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now.

XXIV

'There! Look me full in the face!--in the face. Understand, if you can,
That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man.

XXV
'Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for fear we should cost you a scar--
You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for the women we are.

XXVI

'You wronged me: but then I considered . . . there's Walter! And so at the end
I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a friend.

XXVII

'Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my Walter, be mine!
Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine.'

"Lord Walter's Wife" is about a pretty woman "far to fair" trying to encourage a man who knows better "strangle my soul in a mesh of your gold-coloured hair" to spend some time with her. She laughs off his hesitations as no big deal but he persists, reminding her that "the sunstroke's fatal at times." He explains to her that he has a wife to whom he has pledged his love and that she has a husband whom he admires and a daughter to think about. She presses on explaining to him that love is free and should be shared. This truly angers him. It seems as though he wishes her to remain true to his ideal of virtue and motherhood. This angers her and makes her lash out with "And you! You bring us your vices so near. That we smell them! You think in our presence a thought 'twould defame us to hear!"

This woman wants equality for the sexes. She can smell her husband's dalliances on him and wishes to engage this man in a little payback or at least a little bit of comfort, maybe an ego boost. She is tired of being put on a pedestal. "I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me as high?" She speaks for all women and the Madonna/whore syndrome that was so popular at that time. "Too fair?--not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a while, You attain to it, straightaway you call us no longer too fair, but too vile." She wants to know why it is okay for the men, but not okay for the women?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's, "Lord Walter's Wife" was very racy for its day and age, so racy that William Makepeace Thakeray refused to publish it in the Cornhill Magazine. He felt that the poem was an account of unlawful passion and that his readers would be outraged. Wonder what he would think of "Sex and the City"?

Sources:

http://www.cswnet.com/~erin/ebb3.htm