represents facts as they are; it is not simply that the man wants to go out and live among other men, it is a natural law that he must, as truly a natural law as gravitation.
And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me.
Just as the sun must take his prescribed course through the sky, so must I run my circle of duties in the world of men. It is not a moral call of duty; it is the importunate pull of necessity.
There is still the possibility of another interpretation of the last line, though I think the one just given is correct, “I need the world of men; it is a natural law.” Now it is just possible that we could interpret “need” in another sense, with an inversion; “the world of men needs me, and I must go to do my share.” This would make the man perhaps nobler, but surely not so natural; indeed it would sound like a priggish excuse to leave his mistress. I have never quite surrendered to the cavalier’s words
I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not Honour more.
Are we sure it is honor, and not himself, he loves more?
It is impossible to improve on the Cowboy’s comment on these lines in Mr. Wister’s _Virginian_; after Molly has read them aloud to the convalescing male, he remarks softly, “That is very, very true.” Molly does not see why the Virginian admires these verses so much more than the others. “I could scarcely explain,” says he, “but that man does know something.” Molly wants to know if the lovers had quarrelled. “Oh, no! he will come back after he has played some more of the game.” “The game?” “Life, ma’am. Whatever he was adoin’ in the world of men. That’s a bed-rock piece, ma’am.”
The Virginian is much happier in his literary criticism of this lyric than he is of the _Good News_ or of the _Incident of the French Camp_; in the latter instance, he misses the point altogether. The boy was not a poseur. The boy was so happy to think he had actually given his life for his master that he smilingly corrected Napoleon’s cry “You’re wounded!” It is as though one should congratulate an athletic contestant, and say “My felicitations! you won the second prize!” “No, indeed: I won the First.”
_Night and Morning_ suggests so many thoughts that we could continue our comments indefinitely; but time suffices for only one more. The nature picture of the dawn is absolutely perfect.
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea.
He does not say that finally the cape became visible, but that the sea suddenly came round the cape. Any one who has stood on the ocean-shore before dawn, and gazed along the indented coast in the grey light, has observed the precise effect mentioned in these words. At first one sees only the blur of land where the cape is, and nothing beyond it; suddenly the light increases, and the sea actually appears to come around the point.
MEETING AT NIGHT
1845
The grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!
PARTING AT MORNING
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain’s rim: And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me.
It is interesting to remember that Browning, of all poets most intellectual, should be so predominantly the poet of Love. This passion is the motive power of his verse, as he believed it to be the motive power of the universe. He exhibits the love of men and women in all its manifestations, from baseness and folly to the noblest heights of self-renunciation. It is natural that the most masculine and the most vigorous and the most intellectual of all our poets should devote his powers mainly to the representation of love. For love is the essence of force, and does not spring from effeminate weakness or febrile delicacy. Any painter can cover a huge canvas, but, as has been observed, only the strong hand can do the fine and tender work. To discuss at length the love-poems of Browning would take us far beyond the limits of this volume; but certain of the dramatic lyrics may be selected to illustrate salient characteristics. As various poets in making portraits emphasise what is to them the most expressive features, the eyes or the lips, so Browning, the poet of the mind, loves best of all in his women and men, the Brow.
In _Evelyn Hope_,
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
In _The Last Ride Together_,
My mistress bent that brow of hers.
In _By the Fireside_,
Reading by firelight, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it.
In _The Statue and the Bust_,
Hair in heaps lay heavily
Over a pale brow spirit-pure.
In _Count Gismond_,
They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen By virtue of her brow and breast.
And the wonderful description of Pompilia by Caponsacchi:
Her brow had not the right line, leaned too much, Painters would say; they like the straight-up Greek: This seemed bent somewhat with an invisible crown Of martyr and saint, not such as art approves.
In _Eurydice_,
But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!
In _Count Gismond_,
Our elder boy has got the clear
Great brow.
In _The Statue and the Bust_,
On his steady brow and quiet mouth.
His ideally beautiful women generally have yellow hair. The lady _In a Gondola_ had coiled hair, “a round smooth cord of gold.” In _Evelyn Hope_, the “hair’s young gold:” in _Love Among the Ruins_, “eager eyes and yellow hair:” in _A Toccata_,
Dear dead women, with such hair, too–what’s become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms?
And we must not forget his poem, _Gold Hair_. His descriptions of women’s faces are never conventional, rosy cheeks and bright eyes, but always definite and specific. In _Time’s Revenges_, the unfortunate lover is maddened by the vision of the girl’s face:
So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,
Filled full, eaten out and in
With the face of her, the eyes of her, The lips, the little chin, the stir
Of shadow round her mouth.
Browning’s rejected lovers are such splendid fellows that one wonders at their ill luck. Tennyson’s typical lovers, as seen in _Locksley Hall_, _Lady Clara Vere de Vere_, and the first part of _Maud_, behave in a manner that quite justifies the woman. They whine, they rave, and they seem most of all to be astonished at the woman’s lack of judgment in not recognising their merits. Instead of a noble sorrow, they exhibit peevishness; they seem to say, “You’ll be sorry some day.” Browning’s rejected lovers never think of themselves and their own defeat; they think only of the woman, who is now more adorable than ever. It never occurs to them that the woman is lacking in intelligence because of her refusal; nor that the man she prefers is a lowbrowed scoundrel. They are chivalrous; they do their best to win. When they lose, they would rather have been rejected by this woman than accepted by any other; and they are always ready to congratulate the man more fortunate than they. They are in fact simply irresistible, and one can not help believing in their ultimate success. In _The Lost Mistress_, which Swinburne said was worth a thousand _Lost Leaders_, the lover has just been rejected, and instead of thinking of his own misery, he endeavours to make the awkward situation easier for the girl by small-talk about the sparrows and the leaf-buds. She has urged that their friendship continue; that this episode need not put an end to their meetings, and that he can come to see her as often as he likes, only there must be no nonsense; he must promise to be sensible, and treat her only as a friend. Instead of rejecting this suggestion with scorn, he accepts, and agrees to do his best.
Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we …
Yet I will but say what mere friends say, Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may, Or so very little longer!
“I will do my best to please you, but remember I’m made of flesh and blood.”
In _One Way of Love_, the same kind of man appears. Pauline likes flowers, music, and fine speeches. He is just a mere man, who has never noticed a flower in his life, who is totally indifferent to music, and never could talk with eloquence. But if Pauline likes these things, he must endeavor to impress her, if not with his skill, at all events with his devotion. He sends her a beautiful bouquet; she does not even notice it. For months he tries to learn the instrument, until finally he can play “his tune.” She does not even listen; he throws the lute away, for he cares nothing for music except for her sake. At last comes the supreme moment when he makes his declaration, on which the whole happiness of his life depends.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion-heaven or hell?
Many lovers, on being rejected, would simply repeat the last word just quoted. This fine sportsmanlike hero remarks,
She will not give me heaven? ‘Tis well Lose who may–I still can say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they!
“I can not reproach myself, for I did my best, and lost: still less can I reproach her; all I can say is, the man who gets her is lucky.”
Finally, the same kind of character appears in one of the greatest love-poems in all literature, _The Last Ride Together_. The situation just before the opening lines is an exact parallel to that of _The Lost Mistress_. Every day this young pair have been riding together. The man has fallen in love, and has mistaken the girl’s camaraderie for a deeper feeling. He has just discovered his error, and without minimising the force of the blow that has wrecked his life’s happiness, this is what he says:
Then, dearest, since ’tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know, Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails, Since this was written and needs must be– My whole heart rises up to
(curse, oh, no!)
rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness! Take back the hope you gave,–I claim
Only a memory of the same,
–And this beside, if you will not blame, Your leave for one more last ride with me.
What does the rejected lover mean by such brave words as “pride” and “thankfulness”? He means that it is a great honor to be rejected by such a woman, as Mr. Birrell says it is better to be knocked down by Doctor Johnson than to be picked up by Mr. Froude. He is thankful, too, to have known such a wonderful woman; and to show that he can control himself, and make the situation easier for her, he requests that to-day for the last time they ride just as usual–indeed they had met for that purpose, are properly accoutred, and were about to start, when he astonished her with his sudden and no longer controllable declaration. Right! We shall ride together. I am not yet banished from the sight of her. Perhaps the world will end to-night.
In the course of this poem, Browning develops one of his favorite ideas, that Life is always greater than Art. A famous poet may sit at his desk, and write of love in a way to thrill the hearts of his readers; but we should place him lower than rustic sweethearts meeting in the moonlight, because they are having in reality something which exists for the poet only in dreams. The same is true of sculpture and all pictorial art; men will turn from the greatest masterpiece of the chisel or the brush to look at a living woman.
And you, great sculptor,–so, you gave A score of years to Art, her slave,
And that’s your Venus, whence we turn To yonder girl that fords the burn!
I was once seated in the square room in the gallery at Dresden that holds the most famous picture in the world, Rafael’s Sistine Madonna. A number of tourists were in the place, and we were all gazing steadfastly at the immortal Virgin, when a pretty, fresh-colored young American girl entered the room. Every man’s head twisted away from the masterpiece of art, and every man’s eyes stared at the commonplace stranger, because she was alive! I was much amused, and could not help thinking of Browning’s lines.
This doctrine, that Life is greater than Art, is repeated by Browning in _Cleon_, and it forms the whole content of Ibsen’s last drama, _When We Dead Awaken_.
The lover’s reasoning at the close of Browning’s poem, that rejection may be better for him because now he has an unrealised ideal, and that the race itself is better than the victor’s garland, reminds us of Lessing’s noble saying, that if God gave him the choice between the knowledge of all truth and the search for it, he would humbly take the latter.
One must lead some life beyond,
Have a bliss to die with, _dim_-descried.
BROWNING’S REJECTED LOVERS
THE LOST MISTRESS
1845
All’s over, then; does truth sound bitter As one at first believes?
Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter About your cottage eaves!
And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that, to-day;
One day more bursts them open fully –You know the red turns gray.
To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest? May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we,–well, friends the merest Keep much that I resign:
For each glance of the eye so bright and black Though I keep with heart’s endeavour,– Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, Though it stay in my soul forever!–
Yet I will but say what mere friends say, Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may, Or so very little longer!
ONE WAY OF LOVE
1855
I
All June I bound the rose in sheaves. Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves
And strew them where Pauline may pass. She will not turn aside? Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?
The chance was they might take her eye,
II.
How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute! To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string; fold music’s wing: Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!
III.
My whole life long I learned to love. This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion–heaven or hell? She will not give me heaven? ‘Tis well! Lose who may–I still can say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they!
THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER
1855
I
I said–Then, dearest, since ’tis so, Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails, Since this was written and needs must be– My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness! Take back the hope you gave,–I claim
Only a memory of the same,
–And this beside, if you will not blame, Your leave for one more last ride with me.
II
My mistress bent that brow of hers;
Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs When pity would be softening through,
Fixed me a breathing-while or two
With life or death in the balance: right! The blood replenished me again;
My last thought was at least not vain: I and my mistress, side by side
Shall be together, breathe and ride, So, one day more am I deified.
Who knows but the world may end to-night?
III
Hush! if you saw some western cloud
All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed
By many benedictions–sun’s
And moon’s and evening-star’s at once– And so, you, looking and loving best,
Conscious grew, your passion drew
Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, Down on you, near and yet more near,
Till flesh must fade for heaven was here!– Thus leant she and lingered–joy and fear! Thus lay she a moment on my breast.
IV
Then we began to ride. My soul
Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll Freshening and fluttering in the wind.
Past hopes already lay behind.
What need to strive with a life awry? Had I said that, had I done this,
So might I gain, so might I miss.
Might she have loved me? just as well She might have hated, who can tell!
Where had I been now if the worst befell? And here we are riding, she and I.
V
Fail I alone, in words and deeds?
Why, all men strive and who succeeds? We rode; it seemed my spirit flew,
Saw other regions, cities new.
As the world rushed by on either side. I thought,–All labour, yet no less
Bear up beneath their unsuccess.
Look at the end of work, contrast
The petty done, the undone vast,
This present of theirs with the hopeful past! I hoped she would love me; here we ride.
VI
What hand and brain went ever paired? What heart alike conceived and dared?
What act proved all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshly screen?
We ride and I see her bosom heave. There’s many a crown for who can reach. Ten lines, a statesman’s life in each!
The flag stuck on a heap of bones, A soldier’s doing! what atones?
They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. My riding is better, by their leave.
VII
What does it all mean, poet? Well,
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell What we felt only; you expressed
You hold things beautiful the best, And pace them in rhyme so, side by side. ‘Tis something, nay ’tis much: but then, Have you yourself what’s best for men?
Are you–poor, sick, old ere your time– Nearer one whit your own sublime
Than we who never have turned a rhyme? Sing, riding’s a joy! For me, I ride.
VIII
And you, great sculptor–so, you gave A score of years to Art, her slave,
And that’s your Venus, whence we turn To yonder girl that fords the burn!
You acquiesce, and shall I repine? What, man of music, you grown grey
With notes and nothing else to say, Is this your sole praise from a friend, “Greatly his opera’s strains intend,
Put in music we know how fashions end!” I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine.
IX
Who knows what’s fit for us? Had fate Proposed bliss here should sublimate
My being–had I signed the bond–
Still one must lead some life beyond, Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. This foot once planted on the goal,
This glory-garland round my soul,
Could I descry such? Try and test! I sink back shuddering from the quest.
Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.
X
And yet–she has not spoke so long!
What if heaven be that, fair and strong At life’s best, with our eyes upturned
Whither life’s flower is first discerned, We, fixed so, ever should so abide?
What if we still ride on, we two
With life for ever old yet new,
Changed not in kind but in degree, The instant made eternity,–
And heaven just prove that I and she Ride, ride together, for ever ride?
Browning’s lovers, as has been illustrated, are usually chivalrous, whether their passions have or have not the sanction of law. The poem _In a Gondola_, which has been more often translated into foreign languages than perhaps any other of Browning’s works, gives us a picture of a night in Venice. The fluent rhythms of the verse indicate the lazy glide of the gondola through the dark waters of the canal. The lovers speak, sing, and muse; and their conversation is full of the little language characteristic of those who are in complete possession of each other, soul and body. They delight in passionate reminiscences: they love to recall their first chance meeting:
Ah, the autumn day
I, passing, saw you overhead!
The wind blew out the curtains of her apartment, and her pet parrot escaped, giving the man his opportunity. They rehearse over again the advancing stages of their drama. She asks him to kiss her like a moth, then like a bee–in the attempt to recapture the first shy sweetness of their dawning passion. They play little love-games. He pretends he is a Jew, carrying her away from her family to a tribal feast; then that they twain are spirits of stars, meeting in the thin air aloft. The intensity of their bliss is sharpened by the black cloud of danger in which they move: for if the Three, husband, father, and brother of the lady become aware of this secret liaison, there can be only one end to it–a tragedy of blood. The lighted taper held in the window by the trusted maid shows that they are “safe,” and for the last time they play again their little comedy of formality. She pretends to be the formal _grande dame_, the lady with the colder breast than snow: he is the bashful gallant, who hardly dares touch the tips of her fingers. In this laughing moment, the dagger of the husband is driven deep into his back. Like all of Browning’s lovers, he gives, even on the edge of the eternal darkness, no thought to himself, but only to her. Gathering his dying energies, he speaks in a loud tone, so that the conspirators, invisible in the Venetian night, may hear him:
Care not for the cowards! Care
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair My blood will hurt!
And in the last agony, he comforts her with the thought that all this, the joy of love and the separation by murder, have been ordained.
In _Love Among the Ruins_, with which _Men and Women_ originally opened, and which some believe to be Browning’s masterpiece, Love is given its place as the supreme fact in human history. This is a scene in the Roman Campagna at twilight, and the picture in the first stanza reminds us of Gray’s _Elegy_ in the perfection of its quiet silver tone. With a skill nothing short of genius, Browning has maintained in this poem a double parallel. Up to the fifth stanza, the contrast is between the present peace of the vast solitary plain, and its condition years ago when it was the centre of a city’s beating heart: from the fifth stanza to the close, the contrast is between this same vanished civilisation and the eternal quality of Love. I do not remember any other work in literature where a double parallel is given with such perfect continuity and beauty; the first half of each stanza is in exact antithesis to the last. The parenthesis–_so they say_–is a delicate touch of dramatic irony. No one would dream that this quiet plain was once the site of a great city, for no proofs remain: we have to take the word of the archaeologists for it. Some day a Japanese shepherd may pasture his sheep on Manhattan Island.
After a poetic discourse on the text _Sic transit gloria mundi_–the love motive is suddenly introduced in the fifth stanza; and now the contrast changes, and becomes a comparison between the ephemeral nature of civilisation and the permanent fact of Love. At the exact spot where the grandstand formerly stood at the finish of the horse-race, where the King, surrounded by courtiers, watched the whirling chariots, now remains motionless, breathless, a yellow-haired girl. The proud King’s eyes looked over the stadium and beheld the domes and pinnacles of his city, the last word of civilisation; the girl’s eager eyes look over the silent plain searching for the coming of her lover. And Browning would have us believe that this latter fact is far more important historically than the former.
Suppose an American professor of archaeology is working on the grassy expanse, collecting material for his new book; he looks up for a moment and sees a pair of rustic lovers kissing in the twilight; he smiles, and resumes what seems to him his important labor. Little does he imagine that this love-scene is more significant than all the broken bits of pottery he digs out of the ground; yet such is the fact. For all he can do at his very best is to reconstruct a vanished past, while the lovers are acting a scene that belongs to eternity. Love is best.
LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
1855
I
Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro’ the twilight, stray or stop As they crop–
Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say)
Of our country’s very capital, its prince Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war.
II
Now,–the country does not even boast a tree As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run Into one)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires
O’er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, Twelve abreast.
III
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o’erspreads And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, Stock or stone–
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold Bought and sold.
IV
Now,–the single little turret that remains On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd Overscored,
While the patching houseleek’s head of blossom winks Through the chinks–
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames Viewed the games.
V
And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve Smiles to leave
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey Melt away–
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb Till I come.
VI
But he looked upon the city, every side, Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades’ Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,–and then, All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech Each on each.
VII
In one year they sent a million fighters forth South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force– Gold, of course.
Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth’s returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best.
In the poem _Respectability_ Browning gives us a more vulgar, but none the less vital aspect of love. This is no peaceful twilit harmony; this scene is set on a windy, rainy night in noisy Paris, on the left bank of the Seine, directly in front of the Institute of France. Two reckless lovers–either old comrades or picked-up acquaintances of this very night, it matters not which–come tripping along gaily, arm in arm. The man chaffs at worldly conventions, at the dullness of society, at the hypocrisy of so-called respectable people, and congratulates himself and his fair companion on the fun they are having. What fools they would have been had they waited through a long, formal courtship for the sanction of an expensive marriage! The world, he says, does not forbid kisses, only it says, you must see the magistrate first. My finger must not touch your soft lips until it is covered with the glove of marriage. Bah! what do we care for the world’s good word? At this moment they reach the lighted windows of the Institute, and like a pair of sparrows, they glance within at the highly proper but terribly tedious company. What do they see? They see Guizot compelled by political exigency to shake hands hypocritically with his enemy Montalembert. But before them down a dim court shine three lamps, an all-night dance resort. Come on! run for it! that’s the place for us! no dull formalities, no hypocrisies there! Something doing!
RESPECTABILITY
1855
I
Dear, had the world in its caprice
Deigned to proclaim “I know you both, Have recognized your plighted troth,
Am sponsor for you: live in peace!”– How many precious months and years
Of youth had passed, that speed so fast, Before we found it out at last,
The world, and what it fears?
II
How much of priceless life were spent With men that every virtue decks,
And women models of their sex,
Society’s true ornament,–
Ere we dared wander, nights like this, Thro’ wind and rain, and watch the Seine, And feel the Boulevart break again
To warmth and light and bliss?
III
I know! the world proscribes not love; Allows my finger to caress
Your lips’ contour and downiness, Provided it supply a glove.
The world’s good word!–the Institute! Guizot receives Montalembert!
Eh? Down the court three lampions flare: Put forward your best foot!
In the list of _Dramatis Personae_, Browning placed _Confessions_ shortly after _A Death in the Desert_, as if to show the enormous contrast in two death-bed scenes. After a presentation of the last noble, spiritual, inspired moments of the apostle John, we have portrayed for us the dying delirium of an old sinner, whose thought travels back to the sweetest moments of his life, his clandestine meetings with the girl he loved. The solemn voice of the priest is like the troublesome buzzing of a fly.
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?
Not much!
Like Matthew Arnold’s _Wish_, the brother-doctor of the soul who is called in
To canvass with official breath
is simply a nuisance in these last minutes of life. The row of medicine bottles, all useless now for practical purposes, represents to his fevered eyes the topography of the scene where the girl used to come running to meet him. “I know, sir, it’s improper,”–I ought not to talk this way to a clergyman, my mind isn’t right, I’m dying, and this is all I can think of.
How sad and bad and mad it was–
But then, how it was sweet!
CONFESSIONS
1864
What is he buzzing in my ears?
“Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?” Ah, reverend sir, not I!
What I viewed there once, what I view again Where the physic bottles stand
On the table’s edge,–is a suburb lane, With a wall to my bedside hand.
That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, From a house you could descry
O’er the garden-wall; is the curtain blue Or green to a healthy eye?
To mine, it serves for the old June weather Blue above lane and wall;
And that farthest bottle labelled “Ether” Is the house o’ertopping all.
At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper, There watched for me, one June,
A girl: I know, sir, it’s improper, My poor mind’s out of tune.
Only, there was a way … you crept
Close by the side, to dodge
Eyes in the house, two eyes except: They styled their house “The Lodge.”
What right had a lounger up their lane? But, by creeping very close,
With the good wall’s help,–their eyes might strain And stretch themselves to Oes,
Yet never catch her and me together, As she left the attic, there,
By the rim of the bottle labelled “Ether,” And stole from stair to stair,
And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, We loved, sir–used to meet:
How sad and bad and mad it was–
But then, how it was sweet!
We may close our considerations of the dramatic lyrics with three love-poems. Whenever in his later years Browning was asked to write a selection with his autograph, he used to say playfully that the only one of his poems that he could remember was _My Star_; hence more copies of this exist in manuscript than any other of his productions. It was of course a tribute to his wife; she shone upon his life like a star of various colors; but the moment the world attempted to pry into the secret of her genius, she shut off the light altogether. Let the world regard Saturn, the most wonderful star in the heavens. My star shines for me alone.
The first and best of the series of _Bad Dreams_ gives us again in Browning’s last volume his doctrine of love. Love is its own reward: it may be sad not to have love returned, but the one unspeakable tragedy is to lose the capacity for loving. In a terrible dream, the face of the woman changes from its familiar tenderness to a glance of stony indifference, and in response to his agonised enquiry, she declares that her love for him is absolutely dead. Then comes a twofold bliss: one was in the mere waking from such desolation, but the other consisted in the fact that even if the dream were true, his love for her knew no diminution. Thank God, I loved on the same!
The most audacious poem of Browning’s old age is _Summum Bonum_. Since the dawn of human speculative thought, philosophers have asked this question, What is the highest good? It has been answered in various ways. Omar Khayyam said it was Wine: John Stuart Mill said it was the greatest happiness of the greatest number: the Westminster Catechism said it was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Browning says it is the kiss of one girl. This kiss is the concentrated essence of all the glory, beauty, and sweetness of life. In order to understand such a paradox, we must remember that in Browning’s philosophy, Love is the engine of the whole universe. I have no doubt that Love meant to him more than it has ever meant to any other poet or thinker; just as I am sure that the word Beauty revealed to Keats a vision entirely beyond the range of even the greatest seers. Love is the supreme fact; and every manifestation of it on earth, from the Divine Incarnation down to a chance meeting of lovers, is more important than any other event or idea. Now we have seen that it is Browning’s way invariably to represent an abstract thought by a concrete illustration. Therefore in this great and daring lyric we find the imaginary lover calling the kiss of the woman he loves the highest good in life.
MY STAR
1855
All that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue;
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue! Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
BAD DREAMS
1889
Last night I saw you in my sleep:
And how your charm of face was changed! I asked “Some love, some faith you keep?” You answered “Faith gone, love estranged.”
Whereat I woke–a twofold bliss:
Waking was one, but next there came This other: “Though I felt, for this,
My heart break, I loved on the same.”
SUMMUM BONUM
1889
All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee: All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem: In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea: Breath and bloom, shade and shine,–wonder, wealth, and–how far above them–
Truth, that’s brighter than gem, Trust, that’s purer than pearl,– Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe–all were for me In the kiss of one girl.
V
DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES
Although Browning was not a failure as a dramatist–_A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon_ and _In a Balcony_ are the greatest verse tragedies in the language since the Elizabethans–he found the true channel for his genius in the Dramatic Monologue. He takes a certain critical moment in one person’s life, and by permitting the individual to speak, his character, the whole course of his existence, and sometimes the spirit of an entire period in the world’s history are revealed in a brilliant searchlight. With very few exceptions, one of which will be given in our selections, a dramatic monologue is not a meditation nor a soliloquy; it is a series of remarks, usually confessional, addressed either orally or in an epistolary form to another person or to a group of listeners. These other figures, though they do not speak, are necessary to the understanding of the monologue; we often see them plainly, and see their faces change in expression as the monologue advances. At the dinner table of Bishop Blougram, the little man Gigadibs is conspicuously there; and Lucrezia is so vividly before us in _Andrea del Sarto_, that a clever actress has actually assumed this silent role on the stage, and exhibited simply by her countenance the effect of Andrea’s monologue. This species of verse is perhaps the highest form of poetic art, as it is the most difficult; for with no stage setting, no descriptions, no breaks in the conversation, the depths of the human heart are exposed.
One of the greatest dramatic monologues in all literature is _My Last Duchess_, and it is astounding that so profound a life-drama should have been conceived and faultlessly expressed by so young a poet. The whole poem contains only fifty-six lines, but it could easily be expanded into a three-volume novel. Indeed it exhibits Browning’s genius for condensation as impressively as _The Ring and the Book_ proves his genius for expansion. The metre is interesting. It is the heroic couplet, the same form exactly in which Pope wrote his major productions. Yet the rime, which is as evident as the recurring strokes of a tack-hammer in Pope, is scarcely heard at all in _My Last Duchess_. Its effect is so muffled, go concealed, that I venture to say that many who are quite familiar with the poem, could not declare offhand whether it were written in rime or in blank verse. This technical trick is accomplished by what the French call overflow, the running on of the sense from one line to another, a device so dear to the heart of Milton. Some one has well said that Dryden’s couplets are links in a chain, whilst Pope’s are pearls on a string. Pope enclosed nearly every couplet, so that they are quite separate, which is one reason why he has given us such a vast number of aphorisms. To see how totally different in effect the heroic couplet is when it is closed and when it is open, one may compare almost any selection from Pope with the opening lines of Keats’s _Endymion_, and then silently marvel that both poems are written in exactly the same measure.
POPE
Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise.
KEATS
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth.
One has only to glance at the printed page of _My Last Duchess_, and see how few of the lines end in punctuation points, to discover the method employed when a poet wishes to write a very strict measure in a very free manner.
I have sometimes thought that George Eliot took a hint from this poem in the composition of _Daniel Deronda_, for the relations between Grandcourt and Gwendolen are exactly the same as existed between the Duke and his late wife; a more recent, though not so great an example, may be found in Mrs. Burnett’s novel, _The Shuttle_. The poem is a study in cold, systematic torture of a warm human soul by an icy-hearted tyrant.
Browning adopts one of his favorite methods of character-revelation here. All that we know of the Duchess is the testimony given by her worst enemy, her husband; and yet, in attempting to describe her, he has succeeded in painting only his own narrow and hideous heart. Slander is often greater in the recoil than in the discharge; when a man attempts to give an unfavorable portrait of another, he usually gives us an exact likeness of himself. Pope meant his picture of Addison to be correct; but although he made the picture with immortal art, it is no more like Addison than it resembles St. Francis; it is, however, an absolutely faithful image of Pope himself. This is one reason why slander is such an exceedingly dangerous weapon to handle.
The Duke tells the envoy that his late Duchess was flirtatious, plebeian in her enthusiasm, not sufficiently careful to please her husband; but the evident truth is that he had a Satanic pride, that he was yellow with jealousy, that he was methodically cruel. His jealousy is shown by the fact that he would allow only a monk to paint her: “I said ‘Fra Pandolf’ by design,” and he required the monk to do the whole task in one day. His pride is shown in the fact that although her expansive nature displeased him, he would never stoop to remonstrate with her. His cruelty is shown in the fact that he coldly repressed her little enthusiasms, and finally murdered her. I suppose she was really a frank, charming girl, who came from a happy home, a bright and eager bride; she was one of those lovely women whose kindness and responsiveness are as natural as the sunlight. She loved to watch the sunset from the terrace; she loved to pet the white mule; she was delighted when some one brought her a gift of cherries. Then she was puzzled, bewildered, when she found that all her expressions of delight in life received a cold, disapproving glance of scorn from her husband; her lively talk at dinner, her return from a ride, flushed and eager, met invariably this icy stare of hatred. She smiled too much to please him.
Then all smiles stopped together.
What difference does it make whether he deliberately poisoned her, or whether he simply broke her heart by the daily chill of silent contempt? For her, at all events, death must have been a release. She would have been happier with a drunken husband, with a brute who kicked her, rather than with this supercilious cold-hearted patrician. Toward the end of the poem, in his remarks about the dowry, we see that the Duke is as avaricious as he is cruel; though he says with a disagreeable smile, that the woman herself is his real object. The touch to make this terrible man complete comes at the very end. The Duke and the envoy prepare to descend the staircase; the latter bows, to give precedence to the man with the nine hundred years’ old name: but the Duke, with a purr like a tiger, places his arm around the shoulder of the visitor, and they take the first step. Just then the master of the palace calls attention casually to a group of statuary. It is Neptune taming a sea-horse. That’s the way I break them in!
Throughout the whole monologue, the Duke speaks in a quiet, steady, ironical tone; the line
The depth and passion of its earnest glance
is pronounced in intense irony, in ridicule of the conventional remark made by previous visitors. Only once or twice do we see the teeth of this monster flash, revealing his horrible heart. When he speaks of the “officious fool” who brought the cherries, and when he says “all smiles stopped together”; then the envoy looks at him with a fearful question in his eyes, but the Duke’s face immediately resumes its mask of stone.
MY LAST DUCHESS
FERRARA
1842
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said “Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not Her husband’s presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:” such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart–how shall I say?–too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace–all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men,–good! but thanked Somehow–I know not how–as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech–(which I have not)–to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark”–and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, –E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
To turn from _My Last Duchess_ to _Count Gismond_ is like coming out of a damp cellar into God’s own sunshine. Originally Browning called these two poems _Italy_ and _France_; but he later fell madly in love with Italy, and I suppose could not bear to have so cold-blooded a tragedy represent the country graven on his heart. The charm and brightness of _Count Gismond_ are properly connected with one of the loveliest towns in the world, the old city of Aix in Provence, a jewel on the hills rising from the Mediterranean Sea.
Gismond is Browning’s hero. He is the resolute man who does not hesitate, who makes himself instantly master of the situation, who appears like Lohengrin in the moment of Elsa’s sharp distress, a messenger from Heaven.
Or, if virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.
When the lady was publicly accused by the scoundrel Gauthier, I suppose many men said, “What a pity that so fair a woman should be so foul!” Others said gravely, “This matter ought to be judicially examined.” Gismond was the only man who realised that a defenseless orphan was insulted, and the words were hardly out of Gauthier’s mouth when he received “the fist’s reply to the filth.” The lovers walked away from the “shouting multitude,” the fickle, cowardly, contemptible public, who did not dare to defend the lady in her need, but had lungs enough for the victor, whoever he might be. It is pleasant to notice the prayer of the lady for the dead Gauthier. “I hope his soul is in heaven.” This is no mere Christian forgiveness. Gauthier had proved to be the means of her life-happiness. Had it not been for his shameful accusation, she would never have met Gismond. Out of her agony came her richest blessing.
All this happened years ago, but when her husband appears with the children she tells him a white lie. “I have just been boasting to Adela about the skill of my hunting hawk.” She has been doing nothing of the kind; but she can not talk about the great event of her life before the children.
COUNT GISMOND
AIX IN PROVENCE
1842
I
Christ God who savest man, save most Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post, Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length My honour, ’twas with all his strength.
II
And doubtlessly ere he could draw
All points to one, he must have schemed! That miserable morning saw
Few half so happy as I seemed,
While being dressed in queen’s array To give our tourney prize away.
III
I thought they loved me, did me grace To please themselves; ’twas all their deed; God makes, or fair or foul, our face;
If showing mine so caused to bleed My cousins’ hearts, they should have dropped A word, and straight the play had stopped.
IV
They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen By virtue of her brow and breast;
Not needing to be crowned, I mean, As I do. E’en when I was dressed,
Had either of them spoke, instead
Of glancing sideways with still head!
V
But no: they let me laugh, and sing
My birthday song quite through, adjust The last rose in my garland, fling
A last look on the mirror, trust
My arms to each an arm of theirs,
And so descend the castle-stairs–
VI
And come out on the morning-troop
Of merry friends who kissed my cheek, And called me queen, and made me stoop
Under the canopy–(a streak
That pierced it, of the outside sun, Powdered with gold its gloom’s soft dun)–
VII
And they could let me take my state
And foolish throne amid applause
Of all come there to celebrate
My queen’s-day–Oh I think the cause Of much was, they forgot no crowd
Makes up for parents in their shroud!
VIII
However that be, all eyes were bent
Upon me, when my cousins cast
Theirs down; ’twas time I should present The victor’s crown, but … there, ’twill last No long time … the old mist again
Blinds me as then it did. How vain!
IX
See! Gismond’s at the gate, in talk
With his two boys: I can proceed. Well, at that moment, who should stalk
Forth boldly–to my face, indeed– But Gauthier, and he thundered “Stay!”
And all stayed. “Bring no crowns, I say!”
X
“Bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet About her! Let her shun the chaste,
Or lay herself before their feet!
Shall she whose body I embraced
A night long, queen it in the day? For honour’s sake no crowns, I say!”
XI
I? What I answered? As I live,
I never fancied such a thing
As answer possible to give.
What says the body when they spring Some monstrous torture-engine’s whole
Strength on it? No more says the soul.
XII
Till out strode Gismond; then I knew That I was saved. I never met
His face before, but, at first view, I felt quite sure that God had set
Himself to Satan; who would spend
A minute’s mistrust on the end?
XIII
He strode to Gauthier, in his throat Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote
In blood men’s verdict there. North, South, East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, And damned, and truth stood up instead.
XIV
This glads me most, that I enjoyed
The heart of the joy, with my content In watching Gismond unalloyed
By any doubt of the event:
God took that on him–I was bid
Watch Gismond for my part: I did.
XV
Did I not watch him while he let
His armourer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret
The while! His foot … my memory leaves No least stamp out, nor how anon
He pulled his ringing gauntlets on.
XVI
And e’en before the trumpet’s sound
Was finished, prone lay the false knight, Prone as his lie, upon the ground:
Gismond flew at him, used no sleight O’ the sword, but open-breasted drove,
Cleaving till out the truth he clove.
XVII
Which done, he dragged him to my feet And said “Here die, but end thy breath In full confession, lest thou fleet
From my first, to God’s second death! Say, hast thou lied?” And, “I have lied To God and her,” he said, and died.
XVIII
Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked
–What safe my heart holds, though no word Could I repeat now, if I tasked
My powers for ever, to a third
Dear even as you are. Pass the rest Until I sank upon his breast.
XIX
Over my head his arm he flung
Against the world; and scarce I felt His sword (that dripped by me and swung) A little shifted in its belt:
For he began to say the while
How South our home lay many a mile.
XX
So ‘mid the shouting multitude
We two walked forth to never more Return. My cousins have pursued
Their life, untroubled as before
I vexed them. Gauthier’s dwelling-place God lighten! May his soul find grace I
XXI
Our elder boy has got the clear
Great brow; tho’ when his brother’s black Full eye shows scorn, it … Gismond here? And have you brought my tercel back?
I just was telling Adela
How many birds it struck since May.
The _Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister_ differs from most of the Dramatic Monologues in not being addressed to a listener; but the difference is more apparent than real; for the other person is in plain view all the time, and the Soliloquy would have no point were it not for the peaceful activities of Friar Lawrence. This poem, while it deals ostensibly with the lives of only two monks, gives us a glimpse into the whole monastic system. When a number of men retired into a monastery and shut out the world forever, certain sins and ambitions were annihilated, while others were enormously magnified. All outside interests vanished; but sin remained, for it circulates in the human heart as naturally as blood in the body. The cloister was simply a little world, with the nobleness and meanness of human nature exceedingly conspicuous. When the men were once enclosed in the cloister walls, they knew that they must live in that circumscribed spot till the separation of death. Naturally therefore political ambitions, affections, envies, jealousies, would be writ large; human nature would display itself in a manner most interesting to a student, if only he could live there in a detached way. This is just what Browning tries to do; he tries to live imaginatively with the monks, and to practise his profession as the Chronicler of Life.
The only way to realise what the monastic life really meant would be to imagine a small modern college situated in the country, and the passage of a decree that not a single student should leave the college grounds until his body was committed to the tomb. The outside interests of the world would quickly grow dim and eventually vanish; and everything would be concentrated within the community. I suppose that the passions of friendship, hatred, and jealousy would be prodigiously magnified. There must have been friendships among the monks of the middle ages compared to which our boasted college friendships are thin and pale; and there must have been frightful hatreds and jealousies. In all communities there are certain persons that get on the nerves of certain others; the only way to avoid this acute suffering is to avoid meeting the person who causes it. But imagine a cloister where dwells a. man you simply can not endure: every word he says, every motion he makes, every single mannerism of walk and speech is intolerable. Now you must live with this man until one of you dies: you must sit opposite to him at meals, you can not escape constant contact. Your only resource is profane soliloquies: but if you have a sufficiently ugly disposition, you can revenge yourself upon him in a thousand secret ways.
Friar Lawrence unconsciously and innocently fans the flames of hatred in our speaker’s heart, simply because he does not dream of the effect he produces. Every time he talks at table about the weather, the cork-crop, Latin names, and other trivialities, the man sitting opposite to him would like to dash his plate in his face: every time Friar Lawrence potters around among his roses, the other looking down from his window, with a face distorted with hate, would like to kill him with a glance. Poor Lawrence drives our soliloquist mad with his deliberate table manners, with his deliberate method of speech, with his care about his own goblet and spoon. And all the time Lawrence believes that his enemy loves him!
From another point of view, this poem resembles _My Last Duchess_ in that it is a revelation of the speaker’s heart. We know nothing about Friar Lawrence except what his deadly enemy tells us; but it is quite clear that Lawrence is a dear old man, innocent as a child; while the speaker, simply in giving his testimony against him, reveals a heart jealous, malicious, lustful; he is like a thoroughly bad boy at school, with a pornographic book carefully concealed. Just at the moment when his rage and hatred reach a climax, the vesper bell sounds; and the speaker, who is an intensely strict formalist and ritualist, presents to us an amusing spectacle; for out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing.
SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER
1842
I
Gr-r-r–there go, my heart’s abhorrence! Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God’s blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming? Oh, that rose has prior claims–
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? Hell dry you up with its flames!
II
At the meal we sit together:
_Salve tibi_! I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year:
_Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely Dare me hope oak-galls, I doubt:
What’s the Latin name for “parsley_?” What’s the Greek name for Swine’s Snout?
III
Whew! We’ll have our platter burnished, Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished, And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps– Marked with L. for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)
IV
_Saint_, forsooth! While brown Dolores Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, –Can’t I see his dead eye glow,
Bright as ’twere a Barbary corsair’s? (That is, if he’d let it show!)
V
When he finishes refection,
Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu’s praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange-pulp–
In three sips the Arian frustrate; While he drains his at one gulp.
VI
Oh, those melons? If he’s able
We’re to have a feast! so nice!
One goes to the Abbot’s table,
All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange!–And I, too, at such trouble, Keep them close-nipped on the sly!
VII
There’s a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails:
If I trip him just a-dying,
Sure of heaven as sure can be,
Spin him round and send him flying Off to hell, a Manichee?
VIII
Or, my scrofulous French novel
On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe:
If I double down its pages
At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in’t?
IX
Or, there’s Satan!–one might venture Pledge one’s soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
As he’d miss till, past retrieve, Blasted lay that rose-acacia
We’re so proud of! _Hy, Zy, Him_ … ‘St, there’s Vespers! _Plena gratia
Ave, Virgo_! Gr-r-r–you swine!
Everybody loves Browning’s _Ghent to Aix_ poem. Even those who can not abide the poet make an exception here; and your thorough-going Browningite never outgrows this piece. It is the greatest horseback poem in the literature of the world: compared to this, _Paul Revere’s Ride_ is the amble of a splayfooted nag. It sounds as though it had been written in the saddle: but it was really composed during a hot day on the deck of a vessel in the Mediterranean, and written off on the flyleaf of a printed book that the poet held in his hand. Poets are always most present with the distant, as Mrs. Browning said; and Browning, while at sea, thought with irresistible longing of his good horse eating his head off in the stable at home. Everything about this poem is imaginary; there never had been any such good news brought, and it is probable that no horse could cover the distance in that time.
But the magnificent gallop of the verse: the change from moonset to sunrise: the scenery rushing by: the splendid spirit of horse and man: and the almost insane joy of the rider as he enters Aix–these are more true than history itself. Browning is one of our greatest poets of motion–whether it be the glide of a gondola, the swift running of the Marathon professional Pheidippides, the steady advance of the galleys over the sea in _Paracelsus_, the sharp staccato strokes of the horse’s hoofs through the Metidja, or the swinging stride of the students as they carry the dead grammarian up the mountain. Not only do the words themselves express the sound of movement; but the thought, in all these great poems of motion, travels steadily and naturally with the advance. It is interesting to compare a madly-rushing poem like _Ghent to Aix_ with the absolute calm of _Andrea del Sarto_. It gives one an appreciation of Browning’s purely technical skill.
No one has ever, so far as I know, criticised _Ghent to Aix_ adversely except Owen Wister’s Virginian; and his strictures are hypercritical. As Roland threw his head back fiercely to scatter the spume-flakes, it would be easy enough for the rider to see the eye-sockets and the bloodfull nostrils. Every one has noticed how a horse will do the ear-shift, putting one ear forward and one back at the same moment. Browning has an imaginative reason for it. One ear is pushed forward to listen for danger ahead; the other bent back, to catch his master’s voice. Was there ever a greater study in passionate cooperation between man and beast than this splendid poem?
“HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX”
1845
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; “Good speed!” cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; “Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through; Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast. Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit
‘Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; At Duffeld, ’twas morning as plain as could be; And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime, So Joris broke silence with, “Yet there is time!”
At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:
And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track; And one eye’s black intelligence,–ever that glance O’er its white edge at me, his own master, askance! And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.
By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, “Stay spur! Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault’s not in her, We’ll remember at Aix”–for one heard the quick wheeze Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees, And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.
So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, ‘Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, And “Gallop,” gasped Joris, “for Aix is in sight!”
“How they’ll greet us!”–and all in a moment his roan Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone; And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, And with circles of red for his eye-sockets’ rim.
Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.
And all I remember is–friends flocking round As I sat with his head ‘twixt my knees on the ground; And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.
The monologue of the dying Bishop is as great a masterpiece as _My Last Duchess_; it has not a superfluous word, and in only a few lines gives us the spirit of the Italian Renaissance. Ruskin said that Browning is “unerring in every sentence he writes about the Middle Ages, always vital, right, and profound.” He added, “I know no other piece of modern English, prose or poetry, in which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit.” Yet Browning had never seen Rome until a few months before this poem was published. It is an example, not of careful study, but of the inexplicable divination of genius. Browning permits a delirious old Bishop to talk a few lines, and a whole period of history is written.
The church of Saint Prassede is in a dirty little alley in Rome, hard by the great church of Saint Maria Maggiore. You push through the group of filthy, importunate beggars, open a leather door, and you drop from the twentieth to the sixteenth century. It is one of the most ornate churches in Rome; the mosaic angels in the choir are precisely as the poet describes them. The tomb of the imaginary Gandolf may be identified with a Bishop’s tomb on the south side of the church, and the Latin inscription under it, while it does not contain the form “elucescebat,” is not pure Tully, but rather belongs to the Latin of Ulpian’s time. The recumbent figure is in exact accord with the description by Browning.
Skeptics are essential to the welfare of the Church; it is only in periods of sharp, skilful hostility that the Church becomes pure. In the Middle Ages, when it ran riot with power, there were plenty of churchmen as corrupt as our dying man. His love for a Greek manuscript is as sensual as his love for his mistress; and having lived a life of physical delight, it is natural that his last thoughts should concern themselves with the abode of his body rather than with the destination of his soul. Of course his mind is wandering, or he would not speak with quite such shameless cynicism. Browning has made him talk of Saint Praxed at _his_ sermon on the mount, in order to prove the delirium. S. Praxed was a female saint.
The constant confusion of Greek mythology with the ritual of the Christian church is a characteristic feature both of this poem and of the period of history it represents.
Kipling is particularly fond of this work, and it will be remembered what use he makes of it in _Stalky and Co_.
THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED’S CHURCH
ROME, 15–
1845
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews–sons mine … ah God, I know not! Well– She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! What’s done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream. Life, how and what is it? As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask “Do I live, am I dead?” Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: –Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence One sees the pulpit o’ the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam’s sure to lurk: And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And ‘neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. –Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Draw close: that conflagration of my church –What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find … Ah God, I know not, I! … Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of _lapis lazuli_, Big as a Jew’s head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o’er the Madonna’s breast … Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like God the Father’s globe on both his hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black– ‘Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off, And Moses with the tables … but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o’er with beggar’s mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ye love me–all of jasper, then! Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve. My bath must needs be left behind, alas! One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There’s plenty jasper somewhere in the world– And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? –That’s if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully’s every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf’s second line– Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need! And then how I shall lie through centuries, And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, And see God made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s-work: And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, About the life before I lived this life, And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, And marble’s language, Latin pure, discreet, –Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. All _lapis_, all, sons! Else I give the Pope My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
Ever your eyes were as a lizard’s quick, They glitter like your mother’s for my soul, Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask “Do I live, am I dead?” There, leave me, there! For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude To death–ye wish it–God, ye wish it! Stone– Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat As if the corpse they keep were oozing through– And no more _lapis_ to delight the world! Well go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row: and, going, turn your backs –Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, And leave me in my church, the church for peace, That I may watch at leisure if he leers– Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was!
Browning gives us a terrible study of jealousy in _The Laboratory_. The chemist says nothing, but the contrast between the placid face of the old scientist, intent only upon his work, and the wildly passionate countenance of the little woman with him, is sufficiently impressive. Those were the days when murder was a fine art. She plans the public death of the woman she hates so that the lover will never be able to forget the dying face. Radiant in queenly beauty, with the smile of satisfaction that accompanies the inner assurance of beauty and power–in a moment she will be convulsively rolling on the floor, her swollen face purplish-black with the poison, her mouth emitting foam like a mad dog. There is no doubt that the little murderess intends to follow her rival to the tomb. She has given the chemist her entire fortune as pay for the drop of poison; he may kiss her, if he likes! All shame, all womanly reserve are gone: what does anything matter now? It is a true study of jealousy, because the little creature does not dream of attacking the _man_ who deserted her; all her hellish energy is directed against the woman. Indeed the poison that she buys will not transform her rival more completely than the dreadful poison of jealousy has already transformed her from what she was to what she is.
The language and metre fit the thought. Tennyson passed a severe judgment on the first line
Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly
saying that it lacked smoothness, that it was a very difficult mouthful. But is this not intentional and absolutely right? The woman is speaking slowly with compressed lips, her voice convulsed with terrible hatred and the terrible resolution for revenge.
THE LABORATORY
ANCIEN REGIME
1844
I
Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely, As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy– Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?
II
He is with her, and they know that I know Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear Empty church, to pray God in, for them!–I am here.
III
Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste, Pound at thy powder,–I am not in haste! Better sit thus, and observe thy strange things, Than go where men wait me and dance at the King’s.
IV