Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle

Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle Poems

Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle Biography

Jane Welsh Carlyle (January 14, 1801 - April 21, 1866, née Jane Baillie Welsh in Haddington Scotland) was the wife of essayist Thomas Carlyle and has been cited as the reason for his fame and fortune. She was most notable as a letter-writer. In 1973, G.B. Tennyson described her as “ One of the rare Victorian wives who are of literary interest in their own right…..to be remembered as one of the great letter writers (in some respects her husband’s superior) of the nineteenth century is glory beyond the dreams of avarice.” She had been introduced to Carlyle by her tutor Edward Irving, with whom she came to have a mutual romantic (although not sexually intimate) attraction. The couple married in 1826, but the marriage was quite unhappy. The letters between them have been published, and they show that the couple had an affection for one another that was marred by frequent quarrels. Samuel Butler once wrote: It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four.)

The Best Poem Of Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle

To A Swallow Building Under Our Eaves

Thou too hast traveled, little fluttering thing, -
Hast seen the world, and now thy weary wing
Thou too must rest.
But much, my little bird, could'st thou but tell,
I'd give to know why here thou lik'st so well
To build thy nest.

For thou hast passed fair places in thy flight;
A world lay all beneath thee where to light;
And, strange thy taste,
Of all the varied scenes that met thine eye,
Of all the spots for building 'neath the sky,
To choose this waste!

Did fortune try thee? - was thy little purse
Perchance run low, and thou, afraid of worse,
Felt here secure?
Ah, no! thou need'st not gold, thou happy one!
Thou know'st it not. Of all God's creatures, man
Alone is poor.

What was it, then? - some mystic turn of thought,
Caught under German eaves, and hither brought,
Marring thine eye
For the world's loveliness, till thou art grown
A sober thing that dost but mope and moan,
Not knowing why?

Nay, if thy mind be sound, I need not ask,
Since here I see thee working at thy task
With wing and beak.
A well-laid scheme doth that small head contain,
At which thou work'st, brave bird, with might and main,
Nor more need'st seek.

In truth, I rather take it thou hast got
By instinct wise much sense about thy lot,
And hast small care
Whether an Eden or a desert be
Thy home, so thou remain'st alive, and free
To skim the air.

God speed thee, pretty bird! May thy small nest
With little ones all in good time be blest.
I love thee much;
For well thou managest that life of thine,
While I - oh, ask not what I do with mine!
Would I were such!

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