Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Astro-Rayological Interpretation & Charts
Quotes
Biography
Images and Physiognomic Interpretation

to Volume 3 Table of Contents

Elizabeth Barrett Browning—Poet

March 6, 1806, Durham, England, 7:00 PM, LMT (Source; Sabian Symbols and LMR cites Ruth Hale Oliver who quotes Dorothy Hambate, “A Life”; given as approximately 6:35 PM, LMT by Marc Penfield in An Astrological Who’s Who) Died, June 29, 1861, in Florence, Italy.

(Ascendant, Virgo; Sun, Pluto, Mars and Mercury all conjunct in Pisces; Venus also retrograde in Pisces; Moon in Libra with Saturn and Uranus also in Libra, conjunct; Jupiter in Capricorn)

Pisces is, perhaps, the most poetic of all the signs. The size of her stellium in Pisces is an excellent indication for a person whose calling is poet. Her tremendous sensitivity and physical weakness are also indicated by the concentration of planets in Pisces. Most of the Pisces planets are in the sixth house of sickness and health, rising planet.

Her life expression was powerfully conditioned by her invalidism. Pisces is one of the most susceptible of signs. This susceptibility was not aided by what may well have been an addiction to opium; addictive tendencies are commonly found in Pisces. There was a passionate idealism indicated by R6, which comes through both Virgo and Pisces. She lived with Robert Browning in Italy, a R6 country, and idealistically espoused the cause of political freedom in Italy.

An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all.

And each man stands with his face in the light. Of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.

Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true!

God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

If thou must love me, let it be for naught except for love's sake only.

Since when was genius found respectable?

There, that is our secret: go to sleep! You will wake, and remember, and understand.

You were made perfectly to be loved - and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.

Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossessed. But blessed are those among nations who dare to be strong for the rest!

It is not at all monstrous in me to say ... that I would rather have such a memorial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest artist’s work ever produced.

“It is not merely the likeness which is precious,” Barrett wrote, “... but the association and the sense of nearness involved in the thing ... the fact of the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever! It is the very sanctification of portraits.”

What is genius—but the power of expressing a new individuality?

At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.

The foolish fears of what might happen.
I cast them all away
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the new-mown hay,
Among the husking of the corn,
Where drowsy poppies nod
Where ill thoughts die and good are born—
Out in the fields with God.

Nay, if there’s room for poets in this world
A little overgrown (I think there is),
Their sole work is to represent the age,
Their age, not Charlemagne’s,—this live, throbbing age.
That brawls, cheats, maddens, calculates, aspires,
And spends more passion, more heroic heat,
Betwixt the mirrors of its drawing-rooms,
Than Roland with his knights.

A good neighbour, even in this,
Is fatal sometimes, cuts your morning up
To mince-meat of the very smallest talk,
Then helps to sugar her bohea at night
With your reputation.

How many desolate creatures on the earth
Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship
And social comfort, in a hospital.

An explanation follows: ... because she is disallowed Maturing by the outdoor sun and air, And kept in long-clothes past the age to walk.

Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.
The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow;
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats,
And flare up bodily, wings and all. What then?
Who’s sorry for a gnat ... or girl?

First time he kissed me, he but only kiss’d
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;

Experience, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand.

The works of women are symbolical.
We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight,
Producing what? A pair of slippers, sir,
To put on when you’re weary or a stool
To stumble over and vex you ... “curse that stool!”
Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean
And sleep, and dream of something we are not,
But would be for your sake. Alas, alas!
This hurts most, this ... that, after all, we are paid
The worth of our work, perhaps.

Books, books, books!
I had found the secret of a garret-room
Piled high with cases in my father’s name;
Piled high, packed large,—where, creeping in and out
Among the giant fossils of my past,
Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs
Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there
At this or that box, pulling through the gap,
In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,
The first book first. And how I felt it beat
Under my pillow, in the morning’s dark,
An hour before the sun would let me read!
My books!

Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By reiteration chiefly.

The world’s male chivalry has perished out,
But women are knights-errant to the last;
And, if Cervantes had been greater still,
He had made his Don a Donna.

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
“I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways./ I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight / For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.”

“It is beautiful.” ~last words spoken by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  She was born at Cohnadatia Hall (now demolished) near Durham, England in 1806, the daughter of Creole plantation owner Edward Barrett, who assumed the last name on succeeding to the estates of his grandfather in Jamaica. She was christened in Kelloe church, where a plaque describes her as 'a great poetess, a noble woman, a devoted wife'. Her mother was Mary Graham-Clarke of a wealthy family of Newcastle upon Tyne. She is one of the descendents of King Edward III of England. [1]

Elizabeth spent her youth at Hope End, near Great Malvern. While still a child she showed her gift, and her father published 50 copies of a juvenile epic, on the Battle of Marathon. She was educated at home, but owed her profound knowledge of the Greek language and much mental stimulus to her early friendship with the blind scholar, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who was a neighbour.

In her early teens, Elizabeth contracted a lung complaint, possibly tuberculosis, although the exact nature has been the subject of much speculation, and was treated as an invalid by her parents. For a girl of that time, she was well-educated, having been allowed to attend lessons with her brother's tutor. She published her first poem, anonymously, at the age of fourteen. In 1826 she published anonymously An Essay on Mind and Other Poems.

Shortly afterwards, the abolition of slavery, of which she was a supporter (see her work The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point (1849)), considerably reduced Mr. Barrett's means. He accordingly disposed of his estate and moved with his family first to Sidmouth and afterwards to London. At the former location Miss Barrett wrote Prometheus Bound (1835). After her move to London she fell into delicate health, her lungs being threatened. This did not, however, interfere with her literary labours, and she contributed to various periodicals "The Romaunt of Margaret", "The Romaunt of the Page", "The Poet's Vow", and other pieces. In 1838 appeared The Seraphim and Other Poems (including "Cowper's Grave").

Shortly thereafter, the death of her favorite brother gave a serious shock to her already fragile health; and for a time she hovered between life and death. Eventually, however, she regained strength, and meanwhile her fame was growing. The publishing about 1841 of "The Cry of the Children" gave it a great impulse, and about the same time she contributed some critical papers in prose to Richard Henry Horne's New Spirit of the Age. In 1844 she published two volumes of Poems, which comprised "The Drama of Exile", "Vision of Poets", and "Lady Geraldine's Courtship".

In 1845 she met for the first time her future husband, Robert Browning. Their courtship and marriage, owing to her delicate health and the extraordinary objections entertained by Mr. Barrett to the marriage of any of his children, were carried out under somewhat peculiar and romantic circumstances. After a private marriage and a secret departure from her home, she accompanied her husband to the Italian Peninsula, which became her home almost continuously until her death, and with the political aspirations of which she and her husband both thoroughly identified themselves.

The union proved one of unalloyed happiness to both, though it was never forgiven by Mr. Barrett. In her new circumstances her strength greatly increased. The Brownings settled in Florence, and there she wrote Casa Guidi Windows (1851)—by many considered her strongest work—under the inspiration of the Tuscan struggle for liberty. In Florence she became close friend of British-born poets Isabella Blagden and Theodosia Trollope Garrow.

Aurora Leigh, her largest, and perhaps the most popular of her longer poems, appeared in 1856. In 1850 The Sonnets from the Portuguese—the history of her own love-story, thinly disguised by its title—had appeared. In 1860 she issued a collected edition of her poems under the title, Poems before Congress. Soon thereafter her health underwent a change for the worse; she gradually lost strength, and died on June 29, 1861. She is buried in Florence in the English Cemetery, Florence.

Literary significance
Browning is generally considered the greatest of English poetesses. Her works are full of tender and delicate, but also of strong and deep, thought. Her own sufferings, combined with her moral and intellectual strength, made her the champion of the suffering and oppressed wherever she found them. Her gift was essentially lyrical, though much of her work was not so in form. Her weak points are the lack of compression, an occasional somewhat obtrusive mannerism, and frequent failure both in metre and rhyme. Though not nearly the equal of her husband in force of intellect and the higher qualities of the poet, her works had, as might be expected on a comparison of their respective subjects and styles, a much earlier and wider acceptance with the general public. Mrs. Browning was a woman of singular nobility and charm, and though not beautiful, was remarkably attractive. Mary Russell Mitford thus describes her as a young woman: "A slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on each side of a most expressive face; large, tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes, and a smile like a sunbeam." Anne Thackeray Ritchie described her as: "Very small and brown" with big, exotic eyes and an overgenerous mouth.

Her most famous work is Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection of love sonnets written by Browning but disguised as a translation. By far the most famous poem from this collection, with one of the most famous opening lines in the English language, is number 43:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

But while her Petrarchan Sonnets from the Portughese are exquisite, she was also a prophetic, indeed epic, poet, writing Casa Guidi Windows in support of Italy's Risorgimento, as had Byron supported Greece's liberation from Turkey, and writing Aurora Leigh, in nine books, the woman's number, following the death of Margaret Fuller by drowning in the ship 'Elizabeth', in which Aurora mirrors Margaret and Marian Erle, herself. She sets Aurora Leigh in Florence, England and Paris, using in it her knowledge from childhood of the Bible in Hebrew, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Apuleius, Dante, Langland, Madame de Stael, and George Sand.

The government of Italy and the Comune of Florence celebrated her poetry with commemorative plaques on Casa Guidi, where the Brownings had lived during their 15 year marriage. Lord Leighton designed her tomb in the English Cemetery, its sculpting in Carrara marble being carried out, not faithfully, by Francesco Giovannozzo. In 2006 the Comune of Florence lays a laurel wreath on this tomb to commemorate the 200 years since her birth.

Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett was born March 6, 1806 in Durham, England. Her father, Edward Moulton-Barrett, made most of his considerable fortune from Jamaican sugar plantations, and in 1809 he bought Hope End, a 500-acre estate near the Malvern Hills. Elizabeth lived a privileged childhood, riding her pony around the grounds, visiting other families in the neighborhood, and arranging family theatrical productions with her eleven brothers and sisters. Although frail, she apparently had no health problems until 1821, when Dr. Coker prescribed opium for a nervous disorder. Her mother died when she was 22, and critics mark signs of this loss in Aurora Leigh.

Elizabeth, an accomplished child, had 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. She was self-taught in almost every respect. During her teen years she read the principal Greek and Latin authors and Dante's Inferno--all texts in the original languages. Her voracious appetite for knowledge compelled her to learn enough Hebrew to read the Old Testament from beginning to end. Her enjoyment of the works and subject matter of Paine, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft was later expressed by her concern for human rights in her own letters and poems. By the age of twelve she had written an "epic" poem consisting of four books of rhyming couplets. Barrett later referred to her first literary attempt as, "Pope's Homer done over again, or rather undone."

In her early twenties Barrett befriended Hugh Stuart Boyd, a blind, middle-aged scholar, who rekindled Barrett's interest in Greek studies. During their friendship Barrett absorbed an astonishing amount of Greek literature -- Homer, Pindar, Aristophanes, etc.--but after a few years Barrett's fondness for Boyd diminished.

Her intellectual fascination with the classics and metaphysics was balanced by a religious obsession which she later described as "not the deep persuasion of the mild Christian but the wild visions of an enthusiast." (See Methodism for the connotations of "enthusiasm.") Her family attended services at the nearest Dissenting chapel, and Mr. Barrett was active in Bible and Missionary societies.

From 1822 on, Elizabeth Barrett's interests tended more and more to the scholarly and literary. Mr. Barrett's financial losses in the early 30s forced him to sell Hope End, and although never poor, the family moved three times between 1832 and 1837, settling at 50 Wimpole Street in London. In 1838, The Seraphim and Other Poems appeared, the first volume of Elizabeth's mature poetry to appear under her own name. That same year her health forced her to move to Torquay, on the Devonshire coast. Her favorite brother Edward went along with her; his death by drowning later that year was a blow which prostrated her for months and from which she never fully recovered. When she returned to Wimpole Street, she became an invalid and a recluse, spending most of the next five years in her bedroom, seeing only one or two people other than her immediate family.

One of those people was John Kenyon, a wealthy and convivial friend of the arts. Her 1844 Poems made her one of the most popular writers in the land, and inspired Robert Browning to write her, telling her how much he loved her poems. Kenyon arranged for Browning to come see her in May 1845, and so began one of the most famous courtships in literature. Six years his elder and an invalid, she could not believe that the vigorous and worldly Browning really loved her as much as he professed to, and her doubts are expressed in the Sonnets from the Portuguese which she wrote over the next two years. Love conquered all, however, and Browning imitated his hero Shelley by spiriting his beloved off to Italy in August 1846. Since they were proper Victorians, however, they got married a week beforehand.

Mr. Barrett disinherited her (as he did each one of his children who got married without his permission, and he never gave his permission). Unlike her brothers and sisters, Elizabeth had inherited some money of her own, so the Brownings were reasonably comfortable in Italy. In 1849, they had a son, Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning.

At her husband's insistence, the second edition of her Poems included her love sonnets. They helped increase her popularity and the high critical regard in which the Victorians held their favorite poetess. (On Wordsworth's death in 1850, she was seriously considered for the Laureateship, which went to Tennyson.) Her growing interest in the Italian struggle for independence is evident in Casa Guidi Windows (1851) and Poems before Congress (1860). 1857 saw the publication of the verse-novel Aurora Leigh,

It is still unclear what sort of affliction Elizabeth Barrett Browning had, although medical and literary scholars have enjoyed speculating. Whatever it was, the opium which was repeatedly prescribed probably made it worse; and Browning almost certainly lengthened her life by taking her south and by his solicitous attention. She died in his arms on June 29, 1861.

No female poet was held in higher esteem among cultured readers in both the United States and England than Elizabeth Barrett Browning during the nineteenth century. Barrett's poetry had an immense impact on the works of Emily Dickinson who admired her as woman of achievement.

Barrett's treatment of social injustice (the slave trade in America, the oppression of the Italians by the Austrians, the labor of children in the mines and the mills of England, and the restrictions placed upon women) is manifested in many of her poems. Two of her poems, Casa Guidi Windows and Poems Before Congress, dealt directly with the Italian fight for independence. The first half of Casa Guidi Windows (1851) was filled with hope that the newly awakened liberal movements were moving toward unification and freedom in the Italian states. The second half of the poem, written after the movement of liberalism had been crushed in Italy, is dominated by her disillusionment. After a decade of truce, Italians once again began to struggle for their freedom, but were forced to agree to an armistice that would leave Venice under Austrian control. Barrett Browning's Poems Before Congress (1860) responded to these events by criticizing the English government for not providing aid. One of the poems in this collection, "A Curse For a Nation," which attacked slavery, had been previously published in an abolitionist journal in Boston.

Aurora Leigh also dealt with social injustice, but its subject was the subjugation of women to the dominating male. It also commented on the role of a woman as a woman and poet. Barrett's popularity waned after her death, and late-Victorian critics argued that although much of her writing would be forgotten, she would be remembered for "The Cry of the Children", "Isobel's Child", "Bertha in the Lane", and most of all the Sonnets from the Portuguese. Virginia Woolf argued that Aurora Leigh's heroine, "with her passionate interest in the social questions, her conflict as artist and woman, her longing for knowledge and freedom, is the true daughter of her age." Woolf's praise of that work predated the modern critical reevaluation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and today it attracts more attention than the rest of her poetry.

From Birth to Death: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Throughout the course of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s life, poetry played the hand of fate. All of the major events that took place in her life seem to coincide with her poetry. Poetry made her famous. It gave her solace, and comfort, somewhere to drown her sorrow. It introduced her to her husband, and (indirectly) divorced her from her father. Poetry was not only a part of her life, but an integral part of her soul.

Creative Beginnings

It all began in Gosforth Church, with the marriage of Mary Graham Clarke, and Robert Moulton. Soon after their marriage, Edward Moulton inherited his family’s sugar plantations in Jamaica, and took on the name Barrett. Their first daughter was born on March 6, 1806 in Coxhoe Hall, located in Durham, England. She was christened Elizabeth Barrett. She was to be the first of twelve siblings: Edward, Henrietta, Arabella, Samuel, Charles, George, Henry, Alfred, Septimus, Octavius, and Mary. (Mary died at the age of three.) Out of the twelve, Elizabeth Barrett was closest to her younger brother Edward, affectionately dubbing him “bro.” He in turn, responded by calling her “ba.” They all resided happily at “Hope End near Ledbury in Herefordshire, where Edward Barrett had built himself a country house with Moorish windows and turrets” (World Authors 77).

Elizabeth Barrett’s education began at the age of eight when she first started receiving lessons from her tutor. It soon became obvious that Barrett was a proficient learner. She could read Homer in the original before she turned nine years old, and when she no longer had a tutor, she taught herself by studying Edward’s lessons, and by reading incessantly. But, more importantly, she developed a passion not only for learning, but for poetry as well. There is speculation that she began writing poetry at a very early age, but one of the first documentations of her work is Battle of Marathon, an epic poem contained in four books, written when she was twelve. Her father published it privately in 1820. She also began keeping a diary around the age of twelve, entitled “Memorandum Book Containing Day and Night thoughts of Elizabeth Barrett”. It is composed of around one thousand words and “. . . it ranges in subjects discussed from the doctrine of innate ideas to the writer’s own character. To read the diary is to see that at the age of twelve she had already developed the intensity that distinguished her mature style” (Radley 15). Her childhood diary is presently kept in the rare books room in Wellesley College.

A Tragic Flaw

As stated by Elizabeth Barrett’s own hand, quoted from her diary, “. . .I am very passionate but impatience is my ruling passion. I can confess without shame and I am willing to repent and I can forgive without malice but impatience leads me into more faults that I can repent . . .”

Elizabeth was a relatively healthy girl until 1815. Her tragic flaw came into play when she grew impatient as she was waiting for someone to assist her in saddling her pony. While trying to saddle the pony, she fell backward, with the saddle landing on top of her. This event changed the rest of her life. For a long time, she was expected to stay bedridden after she was diagnosed with disease of the spine. This was the first of many illnesses that would plague her for the rest of her days.

In 1821, Barrett developed a respiratory infection that was suspiciously similar to tuberculosis. In letters to a friend, Miss Mitford, she described her illness as continuous coughing and spitting up blood. In the early stages of the disease, she was diagnosed with a nervous disorder by Doctor Coker. he prescribed opium for her; this was an addiction she could not escape; for the rest of her life she was a habitual user. In 1822, she began to work on An Essay on Mind and Other Poems, which was published in 1826. In 1825, “The Rose and Zephhyr” was published by the Literary Gazette. This was a turning point, because this was her first poem that was not published privately by her father. Barrett’s literary career was in its infancy.

The End of Hope

In 1827, things took a turn for the worst. The sugar plantations in Jamaica were beginning to fail, and then, in 1828, Mary Barrett died, leaving behind eleven children and a grief stricken husband who had ran their debts higher to keep his ailing wife comfortable. After she died, Mr. Barrett lost a substantial amount of money on his sugar plantations due to mismanagement and unrest amongst the slaves. The Barrett family never suffered major financial hardship, but Mr. Barrett sold hope End in 1832. From there, they moved to Sidmouth, and from Sidmouth they moved to 74 Gloucester Place, (It is now 95 Gloucester Place), and finally, they settled at 50 Wimpole Street. One bright point in Elizabeth Barrett’s life during 1827 to 1832 was the fact that she met Hugh Stuart Boyd, a blind scholar who encouraged her in classical studies. In 1833, Prometheus Bound and Miscellaneous Poems was published.

Weakening Health

In 1838, Elizabeth Barrett’s health took a turn for the worst. It is speculated that “she might have had spinal disease, Potts disease, or tuberculosis of the spine; her prolonged cough also might have been pulmonary tuberculosis” (Pickering 77). In August, Barrett went to Torqauy in hopes that her health would return. She also begged her father to allow Edward to stay with her. This was a decision that she bitterly regretted later. He drown two years later in Babbacombe Bay. Barrett never forgave herself for pleading with her father to allow him to stay with her. Barrett returned to 50 Wimpole Street in 1841, and her dependency on her father increased.

A Tyrannical Patriarch

After her mother’s death back in 1828, Mr. Barrett became even more domineering, and tyrant-like. None of his ten remaining children were permitted to marry, and even after the children were well into their twenties, they still had to ask for his approval and permission to have dinner guests.

When Elizabeth Barrett went back to Wimpole street, she lived as a recluse, lying alone in her room, only seeing her family and a select few friends. Barrett now took solace in reading and writing poems.

Browning "Lady Geraldine’s Courtship" was significant because it introduced her to her husband, Robert Browning. She addressed his work in Lady Geraldine’s Courtship with the following: “. . .Howitt’s ballad verse or Tennyson’s enchanted reverie or from Robert Browning some pomegranate, which if out deep down the middle shows a heart within blood tinctured, of a veined humanity.”

Browning in turn read "Lady Geraldine’s Courtship," and desperately wanted to meet the poetess whose verses struck a chord in his heart. She was an invalid, a recluse, and six years older than he, and yet he fell in love with her long before he laid eyes on her. A man by the name of John Kenyon arranged the meeting and Mr. Barrett allowed the meeting to take place because he thought of Robert Browning as an admirer of his daughter’s literary work.

Browning professed his love to Barrett soon after they met. “The letter that began the most famous courtship of the nineteenth century opened, ‘I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett’’’ (Markus 3). 574 letters were exchanged in their twenty month courtship. As their love grew, so did Mr. Barrett’s tyranny over his daughter. “He [simply] had one stipulation, as ironclad as it was spoken: None of them male or female were all allowed to marry. The three who did disobey in his lifetime were disinherited . . . to him they were dead” (Markus 5). Elizabeth Barrett was one of the three, and, true to his word, they never reconciled. On September 12, 1846 Elizabeth Barrett became Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the beloved wife of Robert Browning. After their marriage, Browning spirited his bride off to Italy where they traveled from Pisa to Rome to Florence. Finally, the Barretts settled in Florence. Their first and only child, Robert Wideman Barrett Browning was born in March of 1849. “Italy was a sense of release for Elizabeth. . . .life was rich and full, and Italy became a place of enlightenment, beauty and strength, whereas England represented sorrow and depression. . . . Elizabeth found interests that she never would have enjoyed had she stayed at the Wimpole address. By far, her most consuming interests were Italian politics and the area of spiritualism ” ( Radley 24 ). It was Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s most fervent desire to see Italy unified, and hence, Poems Before Congress came out in 1860.

Four years after the death of her father in 1857, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s health failed her for the last time. She died on June 29, 1861 in the arms of her husband. Her last words were “It is beautiful.” She took her last breath, and left the world, leaving behind not only a husband and a son, but a legacy of beloved poetry that will never be forgotten.