Chapter 4

[23]

A. Mary F. Robinson, inBoston Literary World, December 12, 1885.

11. DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS.

[Published in 1845 as No. VII. ofBells and Pomegranates(Poetical Works, 1889, dispersedly, in Vols. IV., V., and VI.).]

Dramatic Romances, Browning's second volume of miscellaneous poems, is not markedly different in style or substance from theLyricspublished three years earlier. It is somewhat more mature, no doubt, as a whole, somewhat richer and fuller, somewhat wider in reach and firmer in grasp; but in tone and treatment it harmonises considerably more with its predecessor than with its successor, after so long an interval,Men and Women. The book opens with the ballad,How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, the most popular piece, except perhaps thePied Piper, that Browning has written. Few boys, I suppose, have not read with breathless emotion this most stirring of ballads: few men can read it without a thrill. The "good news" is intended for that of the Pacification of Ghent, but the incident itself is not historical. The poem was written at sea, off the African coast. Another poem of somewhat similar kind, appealing more directly than usual to the simpler feelings, isThe Lost Leader. It was written in reference to Wordsworth's abandonment of the Liberal cause, with perhaps a thought of Southey, but it is applicable to any popular apostasy. This is one of those songs that do the work of swords. It shows how easily Browning, had he so chosen, could have stirred the national feeling with his songs. TheHome-Thoughts from Abroadbelongs, in its simple directness, its personal and forthright fervour of song, to this section ofthe volume. With the two pieces now known asHome-Thoughts from AbroadandHome-Thoughts from the Sea, a third, very inferior, piece was originally published. It is now more appropriately included withClaretandTokay(two capital little snatches) under the head ofNationality in Drinks. The two "Home-Thoughts," from sea and from land, are equally remarkable for their poetry and for their patriotism. I hope there is no need to commend to all Englishmen so passionate and heartfelt a record of love for England. It is inHome-Thoughts from Abroad, that we find the well-known and magical lines on the thrush:—

"That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over,Lest you should think he never could recaptureThe first fine careless rapture!"

"That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!"

The whole poem is beautiful, butHome-Thoughts from the Seais of that order of song that moves the heart "more than with a trumpet."

"Nobly, nobly, Cape Saint Vincent to the North-West died away;Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;In the dimmest North-East distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?'—say,Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa."

"Nobly, nobly, Cape Saint Vincent to the North-West died away;

Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;

Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;

In the dimmest North-East distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;

'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?'—say,

Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,

While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa."

Next toThe Lost Leadercomes, in the original edition, a sort of companion poem, in

"THE LOST MISTRESS.I.All's over, then: does truth sound bitterAs one at first believes?Hark! 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitterAbout your cottage eaves!II.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.III.To-morrow we meet the same, then, dearest?May I take your hand in mine?Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merestKeep much that I resign:IV.For each glance of the eye so bright and blackThough I keep with heart's endeavour,—Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,Though it stay in my heart for ever!—V.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!"

"THE LOST MISTRESS.

All's over, then: does truth sound bitterAs one at first believes?Hark! 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitterAbout your cottage eaves!

All's over, then: does truth sound bitter

As one at first believes?

Hark! 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter

About your cottage eaves!

II.

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.

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.

III.

To-morrow we meet the same, then, dearest?May I take your hand in mine?Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merestKeep much that I resign:

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:

IV.

For each glance of the eye so bright and blackThough I keep with heart's endeavour,—Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,Though it stay in my heart for ever!—

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 heart for ever!—

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!"

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!"

This is one of those love-songs which we cannot but consider among the noblest of such songs in all Love's language. The subject of "unrequited love" has probably produced more effusions of sickly sentiment than any other single subject. But Browning, who hasemployed the motive so often (here, for instance, and yet more notably inThe Last Ride Together) deals with it in a way that is at once novel and fundamental. There is no talk, among his lovers, of "blighted hearts," no whining and puling, no contemptible professions of contempt for the woman who has had the ill-taste to refuse some wondrous-conceited lover, but a noble manly resignation, a profound and still grateful sorrow which has no touch in it of reproach, no tone of disloyalty, and no pretence of despair. In the first of theGarden Fancies(The Flower's Name) a delicate little love-story of a happier kind is hinted at. The secondGarden Fancy(Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis) is of very different tone. It is a whimsical tale of a no less whimsical revenge taken upon a piece of pedantic lumber, the name of which is given in the title. The varying ring and swing communicated to the dactyls of these two pieces by the jolly humour of the one and the refined sentiment of the other, is a point worth noticing. The easy flow, the careless charm of their versification, is by no means the artless matter it may seem to a careless reader. Nor is it the easiest of metrical tasks to poise perfectly the loose lilt of such verses as these:—

"What a name! Was it love or praise?Speech half-asleep or song half-awake?I must learn divish, one of these days,Only for that slow sweet name's sake."

"What a name! Was it love or praise?

Speech half-asleep or song half-awake?

I must learn divish, one of these days,

Only for that slow sweet name's sake."

The two perfect little pieces on "Fame" and "Love,"Earth's Immortalities, are remarkable, even in Browning's work, for their concentrated felicity, and, the second especially, for swift suggestiveness of haunting music.Not less exquisite in its fresh melody and subtle simplicity is the followingSong:—

I."Nay but you, who do not love her,Is she not pure gold, my mistress?Holds earth aught—speak truth—above her?Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,And this last fairest tress of all,So fair, see, ere I let it fall?II.Because, you spend your lives in praising;To praise, you search the wide world over:Then why not witness, calmly gazing,If earth holds aught—speak truth—above her?Above this tress, and this, I touchBut cannot praise, I love so much!"

"Nay but you, who do not love her,Is she not pure gold, my mistress?Holds earth aught—speak truth—above her?Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,And this last fairest tress of all,So fair, see, ere I let it fall?

"Nay but you, who do not love her,

Is she not pure gold, my mistress?

Holds earth aught—speak truth—above her?

Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,

And this last fairest tress of all,

So fair, see, ere I let it fall?

II.

Because, you spend your lives in praising;To praise, you search the wide world over:Then why not witness, calmly gazing,If earth holds aught—speak truth—above her?Above this tress, and this, I touchBut cannot praise, I love so much!"

Because, you spend your lives in praising;

To praise, you search the wide world over:

Then why not witness, calmly gazing,

If earth holds aught—speak truth—above her?

Above this tress, and this, I touch

But cannot praise, I love so much!"

In two tiny pictures,Night and Morning, one of four lines, the other of twelve, we have, besides the picture, two moments which sum up a lifetime, and "on how fine a needle's point that little world of passion is balanced!"

I."MEETING AT NIGHT.1.The gray sea and the long black land;And the yellow half-moon large and low;And the startled little waves that leapIn fiery ringlets from their sleep,As I gain the cove with pushing prow,And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.2.Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;Three fields to cross till a farm appears;A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratchAnd blue spurt of a lighted match,And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,Than the two hearts beating each to each!II.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."

"MEETING AT NIGHT.

The gray sea and the long black land;And the yellow half-moon large and low;And the startled little waves that leapIn fiery ringlets from their sleep,As I gain the cove with pushing prow,And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

The gray 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 scratchAnd blue spurt of a lighted match,And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,Than the two hearts beating each to each!

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, thro' its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

II.

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."

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."

But the largest, if not the greatest work in the volume must be sought for, not in the romances, properly speaking, nor in the lyrics, but in the dramatic monologues.Pictor Ignotus(Florence, 15—) is the first of those poems about painting, into which Browning has put so much of his finest art. It is a sort of first faint hint or foreshadowing ofAndrea del Sarto, perfectly individual and distinct though it is.Pictor Ignotusexpresses the subdued sadness of a too timid or too sensitive nature, an "unknown painter" who has dreamed of painting great pictures and winning great fame, but who shrinks equally from the attempt and the reward: an attempt which he is too self-distrustful to make, a reward which he is too painfully discriminating to enjoy.

"So, die my pictures! surely, gently die!O youth, men praise so,—holds their praise its worth?Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry?Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?"

"So, die my pictures! surely, gently die!

O youth, men praise so,—holds their praise its worth?

Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry?

Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?"

The monotonous "linked sweetness long drawn out" of the verses, the admirably arranged pause, recurrence and relapse of the lines, render the sense and substance ofthe subject with singular appropriateness.The Tomb at St. Praxed's(now known asThe Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's Church), has been finally praised by Ruskin, and the whole passage may be here quoted:—

"Robert Browning is unerring in every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages; always vital, right, and profound; so that in the matter of art, with which we have been specially concerned, there is hardly a principle connected with the mediæval temper that he has not struck upon in those seemingly careless and too rugged lines of his.

"'As here I lieIn 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 foughtWith tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:—Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner SouthHe graced his carrion with, God curse the same!Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thenceOne sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats.And up into the aery dome where liveThe 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 ripeAs 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 digThe 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, oflapis 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 handsYe 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 elseShall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchanceSome tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,Saint Praxed in a glory, and one PanReady to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,And Moses with the tables ... but I knowYe mark me not! What do they whisper thee,Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hopeTo revel down my villas while I gaspBricked 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 grieveMy 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 prayHorses 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.'

"'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, oflapis 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.'

"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,—its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly all that I have said of the central Renaissance in thirty pages of theStones of Venice, put into as many lines, Browning's also being the antecedent work."[24]

This poem is the third of the iambic monologues, and, but forArtemis Prologizes, the first in blank verse. I am not aware if it was written much later thanPictor Ignotus, but it belongs to a later manner. Scarcely at his very best, scarcely in the very greatest monologues of the central series ofMen and Women, or in these only, has Browning written a finer or a more characteristic poem. As a study in human nature it has all the concentrated truth, all the biting and imaginative realism, of a scene from Balzac'sComédie Humaine: it is as much a fact and a creation. It is, moreover, as Ruskin has told us, typical not only of a single individual but of a whole epoch; while, as a piece of metrical writing, it has all the originality of an innovation. If Browning can scarcely be said to have created this species of blank verse, half familiar, vivid with natural life, full of vigour and beauty, rising and falling, with the unerring motion of the sea, he has certainly adapted, perfected, and made it a new thing in his hands.

Akin toThe Tomb at St. Praxed'son its dramatic, though dissimilar on its lyric, side, is the picturesque andterrible little poem ofThe Laboratory[25]in which a Brinvilliers of theAncien Régimeis represented buying poison for her rival; one of the very finest examples of Browning's unique power of compressing and concentrating intense emotion into a few pregnant words, each of which has its own visible gesture and audible intonation.

It is in such poems that Browning is at his best, nor is he perhaps anywhere so inimitable. The second poem under the general heading of "France and Spain,"The Confessional, in which a girl, half-maddened by remorse and impotent rage, tells how a false priest induced her to betray the political secrets of her lover, is, though vivid and effective, not nearly so powerful and penetrating as its companion piece.Time's Revengesmay perhaps be classified with these utterances of individual passion, though in form it is more closely connected with the poems I shall touch on next. It is a bitter and affecting little poem, not unlike some of the poems written many years afterwards by a remarkable and unfortunate poet,[26]who knew, in his own experience, something of what Browning happily rendered by the instinct of the dramatist only. It is a powerful and literal rendering of a certain sordid and tragic aspect of life, and is infused with that peculiar grim humour, the laugh that chokes in a sob, which comes to men when mere lamentation is a thing foregone.

The octosyllabic couplets ofTime's Revenges, as well as its similarly realistic treatment and striking simplicityof verse and phrase, connect it with the admirable little poem now know asThe Italian in England.[27]This is a tale of an Italian patriot, who, after an unsuccessful rising, has taken refuge in England. It tells of his escape and of how he was saved from the Austrian pursuers by the tact and fidelity of a young peasant woman. Its chief charm lies in the simplicity and sincere directness of its telling.The Englishman in Italy, a poem of very different class, written in brisk and vigorous anapæsts, is a vivid and humorous picture of Italian country life. It is delightfully gay and charming and picturesque, and is the most entirely descriptive poem ever written by Browning. InThe Glovewe have a new version, from an original and characteristic standpoint, of the familiar old story known to all in its metrical version by Leigh Hunt, and more curtly rhymed (without any very great impressiveness) by Schiller. Browning has shown elsewhere that he can tell a simple anecdote simply, but he has here seized upon the tale of the glove, not for the purpose of telling over again what Leigh Hunt had so charmingly and sufficiently told, but in order to present the old story in a new light, to show how the lady might have been right and the knight wrong, in spite of King Francis's verdict and the look of things. The tale, which is very wittily told, and contains some fine serious lines on the lion, is supposed to be related by Peter Ronsard, in the position of on-looker and moraliser; and the character of the narrator, after the poet's manner, is brought out by many cunninglittle touches. The poem is written almost throughout in double rhymes, in the metre and much in the manner of thePacchiarottoof thirty years later. It is worth noticing that in the lines spoken by the lady to Ronsard, and in these alone, the double rhymes are replaced by single ones, thus making a distinct severance between the earnestness of this one passage and the cynical wit of the rest.

The easy mastery of difficult rhyming which we notice in this piece is still more marked in the strange and beautiful romance namedThe Flight of the Duchess.[28]Not even inPacchiarottohas Browning so revelled in the most outlandish and seemingly incredible combinations of sound, double and treble rhymes of equal audacity and success. There is much dramatic appropriateness in the unconventional diction, the story being put into the mouth of a rough old huntsman. The device of linking fantasy with familiarity is very curious, and the effect is original in the extreme. The poem is a fusion of many elements, and has all the varying colour of a romantic comedy. Contrast the intensely picturesque opening landscape, the cleverly minute description of the gipsiesand their trades, the humorous naturalness of the Duke's mediæval masquerading as related by his unsympathising forester, and, in a higher key the beautiful figure of the young Duchess, and the serene, mystical splendour of the old gipsy's chant.

Two poems yet remain to be named, and two of the most perfect in the book. The little parable poem ofThe Boy and the Angelis one of the most simply beautiful, yet deeply earnest, of Browning's lyrical poems. It is a parable in which "the allegorical intent seems to be shed by the story, like a natural perfume from a flower;" and it preaches a sermon on contentment and the doing of God's will such as no theologian could better.Saul(which I shall mention here, though only the first part, sections one to nine, appeared inDramatic Romances, sections ten to nineteen being first published inMen and Women) has been by some considered almost or quite Browning's finest poem. And indeed it seems to unite almost the whole of his qualities as a poet in perfect fusion. Music, song, the beauty of nature, the joy of life, the glory and greatness of man, the might of Love, human and divine: all these are set to an orchestral accompaniment of continuous harmony, now hushed as the wind among the woods at evening, now strong and sonorous as the storm-wind battling with the mountain-pine.Saulis a vision of life, of time and of eternity, told in song as sublime as the vision is steadfast. The choral symphony of earth and all her voices with which the poem concludes is at once the easiest passage to separate from its context, and (if we may dare, in such a matter, to choose) one, at least, of the very greatest of all.

"I know not too well how I found my way home in the night.There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right,Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware:I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there,As a runner beset by the populace famished for news—Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews;And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shotOut in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not,For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressedAll the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest,Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest.Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth—Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth;In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills;In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills;In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling stillThough averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chillThat rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe:E'en the serpent that slid away silent,—he felt the new law.The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers;The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine bowers:And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low,With their obstinate, all but hushed voices—' E'en so, it is so!'"

"I know not too well how I found my way home in the night.

There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right,

Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware:

I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there,

As a runner beset by the populace famished for news—

Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews;

And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot

Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not,

For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed

All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest,

Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest.

Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth—

Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth;

In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills;

In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills;

In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still

Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill

That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe:

E'en the serpent that slid away silent,—he felt the new law.

The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers;

The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine bowers:

And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low,

With their obstinate, all but hushed voices—' E'en so, it is so!'"

FOOTNOTES:

[24]

Modern Painters, Vol. IV., pp. 377-79.

[25]

It is interesting to remember that Rossetti's first water-colour was an illustration of this poem, and has for subject and title the line, "Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?"

[26]

James Thomson, the writer ofThe City of Dreadful Night.

[27]

"Mr Browning is proud to remember," we are told by Mrs Orr, "that Mazzini informed him he had read this poem to certain of his fellow exiles in England to show how an Englishman could sympathise with them."—Handbook2nd ed., p. 306.

[28]

Some curious particulars are recorded in reference to the composition of this poem. "The Flight of the Duchesstook its rise from a line—'Following the Queen of the Gipsies, O!' the burden of a song which the poet, when a boy, heard a woman singing on a Guy Fawkes' day. The poem was written in two parts, of which the first was published inHood's Magazine, April, 1845, and contained only nine sections. As Mr Browning was writing it, he was interrupted by the arrival of a friend on some important business, which drove all thoughts of the Duchess and the scheme of her story out of the poet's head. But some months after the publication of the first part, when he was staying at Bettisfield Park, in Shropshire, a guest, speaking of early winter, said, 'The deer had already to break the ice in the pond.' On this a fancy struck the poet, and, on returning home, he worked it up into the conclusion ofThe Flight of the Duchessas it now stands."—Academy, May 5, 1883.

12. A SOUL'S TRAGEDY.

[Published in 1846 (withLuria) as No. VIII. ofBells and Pomegranates(Poetical Works, 1889, Vol. IV., pp. 257-302). Acted by the Stage Society at the Court Theatre, March 13, 1904.]

The development of Browning's genius, as shown in his plays, has been touched on in dealing withColombe's Birthday. That play, as I intimated, shows the first token of transition from the comparatively conventional dramatic style of the early plays to the completely unconventional style of the later ones, which in turn lead almost imperceptibly to the final pausing-place of the monologue. FromA Blot in the 'ScutcheontoColombe's Birthdayis a step; fromColombe's BirthdaytoA Soul's TragedyandLuriaanother step; and in these last we are not more than another step fromMen and Womenand its successors. InA Soul's Tragedythe action is all internalized. Outward action there is, and of a sufficiently picturesque nature; but here, considerably more than even inColombe's Birthday, the interest is withdrawn from the action, as action, and concentrated on a single character, whose "soul's tragedy," not his mere worldly fortunes, strange and significant as these are, we are called on to contemplate. Chiappino fills and possesses the scene. The other characters are carefully subordinated, and the impression we receive is not unlike that received from one of Browning's most vivid and complete monologues, with its carefully placed apparatus of sidelights.

The character of Chiappino is that of a Djabal degenerated; he is the second of Browning's delineationsof the half-deceived and half-deceiving nature, the moral hybrid. Chiappino comes before us as a much-professing yet apparently little-performing person, moody and complaining, envious of his friend Luitolfo's better fortune, a soured man and a discontented patriot. But he is quite sure of his own complete probity. He declaims bitterly against his fellow-townsmen, his friend, and the woman whom he loves; all of whom, he asseverates, treat him unjustly, and as he never could, by any possibility, treat them. While he is thus protesting to Eulalia, his friend's betrothed, to whom for the first time he avows his own love, a trial is at hand, and nearer than he or we expect. Luitolfo rushes in. He has gone to the Provost's palace to intercede on behalf of his banished friend, and in a moment of wrath has struck and, as he thinks, killed the Provost: the guards are after him, and he is lost. Is this the moment of test? Apparently; and apparently Chiappino proves his nobility. For, with truly heroic unselfishness, he exchanges dress with his friend, induces him, in a sort of stupefaction of terror, to escape, and remains in his place, "to die for him." But the harder test has yet to come. Instead of the Provost's guards, it is the enthusiastic populace that bursts in upon him, hailing him as saviour and liberator. The people have risen in revolt, the guards have fled, and the people call on the striker of the blow to be their leader. Chiappino says nothing. "Chiappino?" says Eulalia, questioning him with her eyes. "Yes, I understand," he rejoins,

"You think I should have promptlier disownedThis deed with its strange unforeseen success,In favour of Luitolfo. But the peril,So far from ended, hardly seems begun.To-morrow, rather, when a calm succeeds,We easily shall make him full amends:And meantime—if we save them as they pray,And justify the deed by its effects?Eu.You would, for worlds, you had denied at once.Ch.I know my own intention, be assured!All's well. Precede us, fellow-citizens!"

"You think I should have promptlier disowned

This deed with its strange unforeseen success,

In favour of Luitolfo. But the peril,

So far from ended, hardly seems begun.

To-morrow, rather, when a calm succeeds,

We easily shall make him full amends:

And meantime—if we save them as they pray,

And justify the deed by its effects?

Eu.You would, for worlds, you had denied at once.

Ch.I know my own intention, be assured!

All's well. Precede us, fellow-citizens!"

Thus ends act first, "being what was called the poetry of Chiappino's life;" and act second, "its prose," opens after a supposed interval of a month.

The second act exhibits, in very humorous prose, the gradual and inevitable deterioration which the silence and the deception have brought about. Drawn on and on, upon his own lines of thought and conduct, by Ogniben, the Pope's legate, who has come to put down the revolt by diplomatic measures, Chiappino denies his political principles, finding a democratic rule not at all so necessary when the provostship may perhaps fall to himself; denies his love, for his views of love are, he finds, widened; and finally, denies his friend, to the extent of arguing that the very blow which, as struck by Luitolfo, has been the factor of his fortune, was practically, because logically, his own. Ogniben now agrees to invest him with the Provost's office, making at the same time the stipulation that the actual assailant of the Provost shall suffer the proper penalty. Hereupon Luitolfo comes forward and avows the deed. Ogniben orders him to his house; Chiappino "goes aside for a time;" "and now," concludes the legate, addressing the people, "give thanks to God, the keys of the Provost's palace to me, and yourselves to profitable meditation at home."

Besides Chiappino, there are three other characters,who serve to set off the main figure. Eulalia is an observer, Luitolfo a foil, Ogniben a touchstone. Eulalia and Luitolfo, though sufficiently worked out for their several purposes, are only sketches, the latter perhaps more distinctly outlined than the former, and serving admirably as a contrast to Chiappino. But Ogniben, who does so much of the talking in the second act, is a really memorable figure. His portrait is painted with more prominent effect, for his part in the play is to draw Chiappino out, and to confound him with his own weapons: "I help men," as he says, "to carry out their own principles; if they please to say two and two make five, I assent, so they will but go on and say, four and four make ten." His shrewd Socratic prose is delightfully wise and witty. This prose, the only dramatic prose written by Browning, with the exception of that inPippa Passes, is, in its way, almost as good as the poetry: keen, vivacious, full-thoughted, picturesque, and singularly original. For instance, Chiappino is expressing his longing for a woman who could understand, as he says, the whole of him, to whom he could reveal alike his strength and weakness.

"Ah, my friend," rejoins Ogniben, "wish for nothing so foolish! Worship your love, give her the best of you to see; be to her like the western lands (they bring us such strange news of) to the divish Court; send her only your lumps of gold, fans of feathers, your spirit-like birds, and fruits and gems. So shall you, what is unseen of you, be supposed altogether a paradise by her,—as these western lands by Spain: though I warrant there is filth, red baboons, ugly reptiles and squalor enough, which they bring Spain as few samples of as possible."

There is in all this prose, lengthy as it is, the truedramatic note, a recognisable tone of talk. ButA Soul's Tragedyis for the study, not the stage.

13. LURIA: A Tragedy in Five Acts.

[Published in 1846 (withA Soul's Tragedy) as No. VIII ofBells and Pomegranates(Poetical Works, 1889, Vol. VI. pp. 205-289). The action takes place from morning to night of one day].

The action and interest inLuriaare somewhat less internalised than inA Soul's Tragedy, but the drama is in form a still nearer approach to monologue. Many of the speeches are so long as to be almost monologues in themselves; and the whole play is manifestly written (unlike the other plays, except its immediate predecessor, or rather its contemporary) with no thought of the stage. The poet is retreating farther and farther from the glare of the footlights; he is writing after his own fancy, and not as his audience or his manager would wish him to write. None of Browning's plays is so full of large heroic speech, of deep philosophy, of choice illustration; seldom has he written nobler poetry. There is not the intense and throbbing humanity ofA Blot in the 'Scutcheon; the characters are not so simply and so surely living men and women; but in the grave and lofty speech and idealised characters ofLuriawe have something new, and something great as well.

The central figure is Luria himself; but the other characters are not so carefully and completely subordinated to him as are those inA Soul's Tragedyto Chiappino. Luria is one of the noblest and most heroic figures in Browning's works. A Moor, with the instincts of the East and the culture of the West, he presents a racialproblem which is very subtly handled; while his natural nobility and confidence are no less subtly set off against the Italian craft of his surroundings. The spectacle he presents is impressive and pathetic. An alien, with no bond to Florence save that of his inalienable love, he has led her forces against the Pisans, and saved her. Looking for no reward but the grateful love of the people he has saved, he meets instead with the basest ingratitude. While he is fighting and conquering for her, Florence, at home, is trying him for his life on a charge of treachery: a charge which has no foundation but in the base natures of his accusers, who know that he might, and therefore suspect that he will, turn to evil purpose his military successes and the power which they have gained him over the army. Generals of their own blood have betrayed them: how much more will this barbarian? Luria learns of the treachery of his allies in time to take revenge, he is urged to take revenge, and the means are placed in his hands, but his nobler nature conquers, and the punishment he deals on Florence is the punishment of his own voluntary death. The strength of love which restrains him from punishing the ungrateful city forbids him to live when his only love has proved false, his only link to life has gone. But before he dies he has the satisfaction of seeing the late repentance and regret of every enemy, whether secret schemer or open foe.

"Luria goes not poorly forth.If we could wait! The only fault's with time;All men become good creatures: but so slow!"

"Luria goes not poorly forth.

If we could wait! The only fault's with time;

All men become good creatures: but so slow!"

In the pathos of his life and death Luria may remind us of another unrequited lover, Strafford, whose devotion tohis king gains the same reward as Luria's devotion to his adopted country.

In Luria's faithful friend and comrade Husain we have a contrasted picture of the Moor untouched by alien culture. The instincts of the one are dulled or disturbed by his Western wisdom and experience; Husain still keeps the old instincts and the unmixed nature, and still speaks the fervid and highly-coloured Eastern speech. But while Husain is to some extent a contrast with Luria, Luria and Husain together form an infinitely stronger contrast with the group of Italians. Braccio, the Florentine Commissary, is an admirable study of Italian subtlety and craft. Only a writer with Browning's special knowledge and sympathies could have conceived and executed so acute and true a picture of the Italian temper of the time, a temper manifested with singular appropriateness by the city of Machiavelli. Braccio is the chief schemer against Luria, and he schemes, not from any real ill-will, but from the diplomatic distrust of a too cautious and too suspicious patriot. Domizia, the vengeful Florentine lady, plotting against Florence with the tireless patience of an unforgetting wrong, is also a representative sketch, though not so clearly and firmly outlined as a character. Puccio, Luria's chief officer, once his commander, the simple fighting soldier, discontented but honest, unswervingly loyal to Florence, but little by little aware of and aggrieved at the wrong done to Luria, is a really touching conception. Tiburzio, the Pisan leader, is yet finer in his perfect chivalry of service to his foe. Nothing could be more nobly planned than the first meeting, and indeed the whole relations, of these magnanimous andworthy opponents, Luria and Tiburzio. There is a certain intellectual fascination for Browning in the analysis of mean natures and dubious motives, but of no contemporary can it be more justly said that he rises always and easily to the height and at the touch of an heroic action or of a noble nature.

14. CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY: A Poem.

[Published in 1850 (Poetical Works, 1889, Vol. V., pp. 207-307). Written in Florence.]

Christmas-Eve and Easter-Dayis the chief work in which Browning deals directly and primarily with the subject of Christianity and the religious beliefs of the age. Both the poems which appear under this title are studies of religious life and thought, the first more in the narrative and critical way, the second rather in relation to individual experience. Browning's position towards Christianity is perhaps unique. He has been described as "the latest extant Defender of the Faith," but the manner of his belief and the modes of his defence are as little conventional as any other of his qualities. Beyond all question the most deeply religious poet of our day, perhaps the greatest religious poet we have ever had, Browning has never written anything in the ordinary style of religious verse, the style of Herbert, of Keble, of the hymn-writers. The spirit which runs through all his work is more often felt as an influence than manifested in any concrete and separate form.Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day,La SaisiazandFerishtah's Fanciesare the only prominent exceptions to this rule.

Christmas-Eveis a study or vision of the religious lifeof the time. It professes to be the narrative of a strange experience lived through on a Christmas-Eve ("whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body,") in a little dissenting chapel on the outskirts of a country town, in St. Peter's at Rome, and at an agnostic lecture-hall in Göttingen. The vivid humorous sketch of the little chapel and its flock is like a bit of Dickens at his best. Equally good, in another kind, is the picture of the Professor and his audience at Göttingen, with its searching and scathing irony of merciless logic, and the tender and subtle discrimination of its judgment, sympathetic with the good faith of the honest thinker. Different again in style, and higher still in poetry, is the glowing description of the Basilica and its sensuous fervour of ceremonial; and higher and greater yet the picture of the double lunar rainbow merging into that of the vision: a piece of imaginative work never perhaps exceeded in spiritual exaltation and concordant splendour of song in the whole work of the poet, though equalled, if not exceeded, by the more terrible vision of judgment which will be cited later fromEaster-Day.

"For lo, what think you? suddenlyThe rain and the wind ceased, and the skyReceived at once the full fruitionOf the moon's consummate apparition.The black cloud-barricade was riven,Ruined beneath her feet, and drivenDeep in the West; while, bare and breathless,North and South and East lay readyFor a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,Sprang across them and stood steady.'Twas a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,From heaven to heaven extending, perfectAs the mother-moon's self, full in face.It rose, distinctly at the baseWith its seven proper colours chorded,Which still, in the rising, were compressed,Until at last they coalesced,And supreme the spectral creature lordedIn a triumph of purest white,—Above which intervened the night.But above night too, like only the next,The second of a wondrous sequence,Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed,Another rainbow rose, a mightier,Fainter, flushier, and flightier,—Rapture dying along its verge.Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,Whose, from the straining topmost dark,On to the keystone of that arc?"

"For lo, what think you? suddenly

The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky

Received at once the full fruition

Of the moon's consummate apparition.

The black cloud-barricade was riven,

Ruined beneath her feet, and driven

Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,

North and South and East lay ready

For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,

Sprang across them and stood steady.

'Twas a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,

From heaven to heaven extending, perfect

As the mother-moon's self, full in face.

It rose, distinctly at the base

With its seven proper colours chorded,

Which still, in the rising, were compressed,

Until at last they coalesced,

And supreme the spectral creature lorded

In a triumph of purest white,—

Above which intervened the night.

But above night too, like only the next,

The second of a wondrous sequence,

Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,

Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed,

Another rainbow rose, a mightier,

Fainter, flushier, and flightier,—

Rapture dying along its verge.

Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,

Whose, from the straining topmost dark,

On to the keystone of that arc?"

At moments of such energy and ecstasy as this, all that there is in the poet of mere worldly wisdom and intellectual ingenuity drops off, or rather is consumed to a white glow in the intense flame of triumphant and over-mastering inspiration.

The piercing light cast in the poem on the representative creeds of the age is well worthy of serious consideration, from an ethical as well as from a poetical point of view. No nobler lesson of religious tolerance, united with religious earnestness, has been preached in our day. Nothing could be more novel and audacious than the union here attempted and achieved of colloquial realism and grotesque humour with imaginative vision and solemn earnestness. The style and metre vary with the mood. Where the narrative is serious the lines are regular and careful, they shrink to their smallest structural limit, and the rhymes are chiefly single and simple. Where it becomes humorous, the rhythm lengthens out its elasticsyllables to the full extent, and swings and sways, jolts and rushes; the rhymes fall double and triple and break out into audible laughter.

Easter-Day, like its predecessor, is written in lines of four beats each, but the general effect is totally dissimilar. Here the verse is reduced to its barest constituents; every line is, syllabically as well as accentually, of equal length; and the lines run in pairs, without one double rhyme throughout. The tone and contents of the two poems (though also, in a sense, derived from the same elements) are in singular contrast.Easter-Day, despite a momentary touch or glimmer, here and there, of grave humour, is thoroughly serious in manner and continuously solemn in subject. The burden of the poem is stated in its first two lines:—

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