ave the cream of it in your
friendship, and a little more, and I do not envy much the milkers of
the cows.

How kind you are!--how kindly and gently you speak to me! Some things
you say are very touching, and some, surprising; and although I am
aware that you unconsciously exaggerate what I can be to you, yet it
is delightful to be broad awake and think of you as my friend.

May God bless you!

Faithfully yours,

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Tuesday Morning.
[Post-mark, March 12, 1845.]

Your letter made me so happy, dear Miss Barrett, that I have kept
quiet this while; is it too great a shame if I begin to want more
good news of you, and to say so? Because there has been a bitter wind
ever since. Will you grant me a great favour? Always when you write,
though about your own works, not Greek plays merely, put me in,
_always_, a little official bulletin-line that shall say 'I am better'
or 'still better,' will you? That is done, then--and now, what do I
wish to tell you first? The poem you propose to make, for the times;
the fearless fresh living work you describe, is the _only_ Poem to be
undertaken now by you or anyone that _is_ a Poet at all; the only
reality, only effective piece of service to be rendered God and man;
it is what I have been all my life intending to do, and now shall be
much, much nearer doing, since you will along with me. And you _can_
do it, I know and am sure--so sure, that I could find in my heart to
be jealous of your stopping in the way even to translate the
Prometheus; though the accompanying monologue will make amends too. Or
shall I set you a task I meant for myself once upon a time?--which,
oh, how you would fulfil! Restore the Prometheus [Greek: purphoros] as
Shelley did the [Greek: Lyomenos]; when I say 'restore,' I know, or
very much fear, that the [Greek: purphoros] was the same with the
[Greek: purkaeus] which, by a fragment, we sorrowfully ascertain to
have been a Satyric Drama; but surely the capabilities of the subject
are much greater than in this, we now wonder at; nay, they include all
those of this last--for just see how magnificently the story unrolls
itself. The beginning of Jupiter's dynasty, the calm in Heaven after
the storm, the ascending--(stop, I will get the book and give the
words), [Greek: op