Chapter 5

"How very hard it is to beA Christian!"

"How very hard it is to be

A Christian!"

Up to the thirteenth section it is an argument between the speaker, who is possessed of much faith but has a distinct tendency to pessimism, and another, who has a sceptical but also a hopeful turn of mind, respecting Christianity, its credibility, and how its doctrines fit human nature and affect the conduct of life. After keen discussion the argument returns to the lament, common to both disputants: how very hard it is to be, practically, a Christian. The speaker then relates, on account of its bearing on the discussion, an experience (or vision, as he leaves us free to imagine) which once came to him. Three years before, on an Easter-Eve, he was crossing the common where stood the chapel referred to by their friend (the poem thus, and thus only, links on toChristmas-Eve.) As he walked along, musingly, he asked himself what the Faith really was to him; what would be his fate, for instance, if he fell dead that moment? And he said to himself, jestingly enough, why should not the judgment-day dawn now, on Easter-morn?

"And as I saidThis nonsense, throwing back my headWith light complacent laugh, I foundSuddenly all the midnight roundOne fire. The dome of heaven had stoodAs made up of a multitudeOf handbreadth cloudlets, one vast rackOf ripples infinite and black,From sky to sky. Sudden there went,Like horror and astonishment,A fierce vindictive scribble of redQuick flame across, as if one said(The angry scribe of Judgment) 'There—Burn it!' And straight I was awareThat the whole ribwork round, minuteCloud touching cloud beyond compute,Was tinted, each with its own spotOf burning at the core, till clotJammed against clot, and spilt its fireOver all heaven, which 'gan suspireAs fanned to measure equable,—Just so great conflagrations killNight overhead, and rise and sink,Reflected. Now the fire would shrinkAnd wither off the blasted faceOf heaven, and I distinct might traceThe sharp black ridgy outlines leftUnburned like network—then, each cleftThe fire had been sucked back into,Regorged, and out its surging flewFuriously, and night writhed inflamed,Till, tolerating to be tamedNo longer, certain rays world-wideShot downwardly. On every side,Caught past escape, the earth was lit;As if a dragon's nostril splitAnd all his famished ire o'erflowed;Then as he winced at his lord's goad,Back he inhaled: whereat I foundThe clouds into vast pillars bound,Based on the corners of the earthPropping the skies at top: a dearthOf fire i' the violet intervals,Leaving exposed the utmost wallsOf time, about to tumble inAnd end the world."

"And as I said

This nonsense, throwing back my head

With light complacent laugh, I found

Suddenly all the midnight round

One fire. The dome of heaven had stood

As made up of a multitude

Of handbreadth cloudlets, one vast rack

Of ripples infinite and black,

From sky to sky. Sudden there went,

Like horror and astonishment,

A fierce vindictive scribble of red

Quick flame across, as if one said

(The angry scribe of Judgment) 'There—

Burn it!' And straight I was aware

That the whole ribwork round, minute

Cloud touching cloud beyond compute,

Was tinted, each with its own spot

Of burning at the core, till clot

Jammed against clot, and spilt its fire

Over all heaven, which 'gan suspire

As fanned to measure equable,—

Just so great conflagrations kill

Night overhead, and rise and sink,

Reflected. Now the fire would shrink

And wither off the blasted face

Of heaven, and I distinct might trace

The sharp black ridgy outlines left

Unburned like network—then, each cleft

The fire had been sucked back into,

Regorged, and out its surging flew

Furiously, and night writhed inflamed,

Till, tolerating to be tamed

No longer, certain rays world-wide

Shot downwardly. On every side,

Caught past escape, the earth was lit;

As if a dragon's nostril split

And all his famished ire o'erflowed;

Then as he winced at his lord's goad,

Back he inhaled: whereat I found

The clouds into vast pillars bound,

Based on the corners of the earth

Propping the skies at top: a dearth

Of fire i' the violet intervals,

Leaving exposed the utmost walls

Of time, about to tumble in

And end the world."

Judgment, according to the vision, is now over. He who has chosen earth rather than heaven, is allowed his choice: earth is his for ever. How the walls of the world shrink and narrow, how the glow fades off from the beauty of nature, of art, of science; how the judged soul prays for only a chance of love, only a hope of ultimate heaven; how the ban is taken off him, and he wakes from the vision on the grey plain as Easter-morn is breaking: this, with its profound and convincing moral lessons, is told, without a didactic note, in poetry of sustained splendour. In sheer height of imaginationEaster-Daycould scarcely exceed the greatest parts ofChristmas-Eve, but it preserves a level of more equable splendour, it is a work of art of more chastened workmanship. In its ethical aspect it is also of special importance, for, while the poet does not necessarily identify himself in all respects with the seer of the vision, the poem enshrines some of Browning's deepest convictions on life and religion.

15. MEN AND WOMEN.

[Published in 1855, in 2 vols.; now dispersed in Vols. IV., V. and VI. ofPoetical Works, 1889.]

The series ofMen and Women, fifty-one poems in number, represents Browning's genius at its ripe maturity, its highest uniform level. In this central work of his career, every element of his genius is equally developed, and the whole brought into a perfection of harmony never before or since attained. There is no lack, there is no excess. I do not say that the poet has not touched higher heights since, or perhaps before; but that he has never since nor before maintained himself so long on so high a height, never exhibited the rounded perfection, the imagination, thought, passion, melody, variety, all fused in one, never produced a single work or group at once so great and so various, admits, I think, of little doubt. Here are fifty poems, every one of which, in its way, is a masterpiece; and the range is such as no other English poet has perhaps ever covered in a single book of miscellaneous poems.

InMen and WomenBrowning's special instrument, the monologue, is brought to perfection. Such monologues asAndrea del Sartoor theEpistle of Karshishnever have been, and probably never will be surpassed, on their own ground, after their own order. To conceive a drama, to present every side and phase and feature of it from one point of view, to condense all its potentialities of action, all its significance and import, into some few hundred lines, this has been done by but one poet, and nowhere with such absolute perfection as here. Even when dealing with a single emotion, Browning usuallycrystallizes it into a choice situation; and almost every poem in the series, down to the smallest lyric, is essentially a dramatic monologue. But perhaps the most striking instances of the form and method, and, with the little drama ofIn a Balcony, the principal poems in the collection, are the five blank verse pieces,Andrea del Sarto,Fra Lippo Lippi,Cleon,Karshish, andBishop Blougram. Each is a masterpiece of poetry. Each is in itself a drama, and contains the essence of a life, condensed into a single episode, or indicated in a combination of discourse, conversation, argument, soliloquy, reminiscence. Each, besides being the presentation of a character, moves in a certain atmosphere of its own, philosophical, ethical, or artistic.Andrea del SartoandFra Lippo Lippideal with art.CleonandKarshish, in a sense companion poems, are concerned, each secondarily, with the arts and physical sciences, primarily with the attitude of the Western and Eastern worlds when confronted with the problem of the Gospel of Christ.Bishop Blougramis modern, ecclesiastical and argumentative. But however different in form and spirit, however diverse inmilieu, each is alike the record of a typical soul at a typical moment.

Andrea del Sartois a "translation into song" of the picture known as "Andrea del Sarto and his Wife," in the Pitti Palace at Florence. The story of Andrea del Sarto is told by Vasari, in one of the best known of hisLives: how the painter, who at one time seemed as if he might have competed with Raphael, was ruined, as artist and as man, by his beautiful, soulless wife, the fatal Lucrezia del Fede; and how, led and lured by her, he outraged his conscience, lowered his ideal, and, losing allheart and hope, sank into the cold correctness, the unerring fluency, the uniform, melancholy repetition of a single type, his wife's, which distinguish his later works. Browning has taken his facts from Vasari, and he has taken them quite literally. But what a change, what a transformation and transfiguration! Instead of a piece of prose biography and criticism, we have (in Mr. Swinburne's appropriate words) "the whole man raised up and reclothed with flesh." No more absolutely creative work has been done in our days; few more beautiful and pathetic poems written. The mood of sad, wistful, hopeless mournfulness of resignation which the poem expresses, is a somewhat rare one with Browning's vivid and vivacious genius. It is an autumn twilight piece.

"A common greyness silvers everything,—All in a twilight, you and I alike—You, at the point of your first pride in me(That's gone, you know),—but I, at every point;My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned downTo yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.There's the bell clinking from the chapel top;That length of convent-wall across the wayHolds the trees safer, huddled more inside;The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,And autumn grows, autumn in everything.Eh, the whole seems to fall into a shapeAs if I saw alike my work and selfAnd all that I was born to be and do,A twilight-piece."

"A common greyness silvers everything,—

All in a twilight, you and I alike

—You, at the point of your first pride in me

(That's gone, you know),—but I, at every point;

My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down

To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.

There's the bell clinking from the chapel top;

That length of convent-wall across the way

Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;

The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,

And autumn grows, autumn in everything.

Eh, the whole seems to fall into a shape

As if I saw alike my work and self

And all that I was born to be and do,

A twilight-piece."

The very movement of the lines, their tone and touch, contribute to the effect. A single clear impression is made to result from an infinity of minute, scarcely appreciable touches: how fine these touches are, howclear the impression, can only be hinted at in words, can be realised only by a loving and scrupulous study.

Whether the picture which suggested the poem is an authentic work of Andrea, or whether, as experts have now agreed, it is a work by an unknown artist representing an imaginary man and woman is, of course, of no possible consequence in connection with the poem. Nor is it of any more importance that the Andrea of Vasari is in all probability not the real Andrea. Historic fact has nothing to do with poetry: it is mere material, the quarry of ideas; and the real truth of Browning's portrait of Andrea would no more be impugned by the establishment of Vasari's inaccuracy, than the real truth of Shakespeare's portrait of Macbeth by the proof of the untrustworthiness of Holinshed.

A greater contrast, in every respect, than that betweenAndrea del SartoandFra Lippo Lippican scarcely be conceived. The story of Filippo Lippi[29]is taken, like that of Andrea, from Vasari'sLives: it is taken as literally, it is made as authentically living, and, in its own more difficult way, it is no less genuine a poem. The jolly, jovial tone of the poem, its hearty humour and high spirits, and the breathless rush and hurry of the verse, render the scapegrace painter to the life. Not less in keeping is the situation in which the unsaintly friar is introduced: caught by the civic guard, past midnight, in an equivocal neighbourhood, quite able and ready, however, to fraternise with his captors, and pour forth, rough and ready, his ideas and adventures. A passagefrom the poem placed side by side with an extract from Vasari will show how faithfully the record of Fra Lippo's life is followed, and it will also show, in some small measure, the essential newness, the vividness and revelation of the poet's version.

"By the death of his father," writes Vasari,[30]"he was left a friendless orphan at the age of two years, his mother also having died shortly after his birth. The child was for some time under the care of a certain Mona Lapaccia, his aunt, the sister of his father, who brought him up with great difficulty until he had attained his eighth year, when, being no longer able to support the burden of his maintenance, she placed him in the above-named convent of the Carmelites."

Here is Browning's version:—

"I was a baby when my mother diedAnd father died and left me in the street.I starved there, God knows how, a year or twoOn fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks,Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day,My stomach being empty as your hat,The wind doubled me up and down I went.Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand,(Its fellow was a stinger as I knew)And so along the wall, over the bridge,By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there,While I stood munching my first bread that month:'So, boy, you're minded,' quoth the good fat father,Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time,—'To quit this very miserable world?'"

"I was a baby when my mother died

And father died and left me in the street.

I starved there, God knows how, a year or two

On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks,

Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day,

My stomach being empty as your hat,

The wind doubled me up and down I went.

Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand,

(Its fellow was a stinger as I knew)

And so along the wall, over the bridge,

By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there,

While I stood munching my first bread that month:

'So, boy, you're minded,' quoth the good fat father,

Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time,—

'To quit this very miserable world?'"

But not only has Browning given a wonderfully realistic portrait of the man; a man to whom life in its fulness was the only joy, a true type of the Renaissance spirit, metamorphosed by ironic fate into a monk; hehas luminously indicated the true end and aim of art and the false asceticism of so-called "religious" art, in the characteristic comments and confessions of an innovator in the traditions of religious painting.

Cleonis prefaced by the text "As certain also of your own poets have said" (Acts, xvii. 28), and is supposed to be a letter from one of the poets to whom St. Paul refers, addressed to Protus, an imaginary "Tyrant," whose wondering admiration of Cleon's many-sided culture has drawn him to one who is at once poet, painter, sculptor, musician and philosopher. Compared with such poems asAndrea del Sarto, there is little realisable detail in the course of the calm argument or statement, but I scarcely see how the temper of the time, among its choicest spirits (the time of classic decadence, of barren culture, of fruitless philosophy) could well have been more finely shadowed forth. The quality of the versification, unique here as in every one of the five great poems, is perfectly adapted to the subject. The slow sweep of the verse, its stately melody, its large, clear, classic harmony, enable us to receive the right impression as admirably as the other qualities, already pointed out, enable us to feel the resigned sadness of Andrea and the jovial gusto of Lippo. InCleonwe have a historical picture, imaginary indeed, but typical. It reveals or records the religious feeling of the pagan world at the time of the coming of Christ; its sadness, dissatisfaction and expectancy, and the failure of its wisdom to fathom the truths of the new Gospel.

InAn Epistle containing the strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician, we have perhaps a yet more subtle delineation of a character similar by contrast. Cleon is a type of the Western and sceptical, Karshishof the Eastern and believing, attitude of mind; the one repellent, the other absorbent, of new things offered for belief. Karshish, "the picker up of learning's crumbs," writes from Syria to his master at home, "Abib, all sagacious in our art," concerning a man whose singular case has fascinated him, one Lazarus of Bethany. There are few more lifelike and subtly natural narratives in Browning's poetry; few more absolutely interpenetrated by the finest imaginative sympathy. The scientific caution and technicality of the Arab physician, his careful attempt at a statement of the case from a purely medical point of view, his self-reproachful uneasiness at the strange interest which the man's story has caused in him, the strange credulity which he cannot keep from encroaching on his mind: all this is rendered with a matchless delicacy and accuracy of touch and interpretation. Nor can anything be finer than the representation of Lazarus after his resurrection, a representation which has significance beyond its literal sense, and points a moral often enforced by the poet: that doubt and mystery, in life and in religion alike, are necessary, and indeed alone make either life or religion possible. The special point in the tale of Lazarus which has impressed Karshish with so intense an interest is that

"This man so cured regards the curer, then,As—God forgive me! who but God himself,Creator and sustainer of the world,That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile!—'Sayeth that such an one was born and lived,Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house,Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know,And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat,And must have so avouched himself, in fact,In hearing of this very LazarusWho saith—but why all this of what he saith?Why write of trivial matters, things of priceCalling at every moment for remark?I noticed on the margin of a poolBlue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort,Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!"

"This man so cured regards the curer, then,

As—God forgive me! who but God himself,

Creator and sustainer of the world,

That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile!

—'Sayeth that such an one was born and lived,

Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house,

Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know,

And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat,

And must have so avouched himself, in fact,

In hearing of this very Lazarus

Who saith—but why all this of what he saith?

Why write of trivial matters, things of price

Calling at every moment for remark?

I noticed on the margin of a pool

Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort,

Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!"

How perfectly the attitude of the Arab sage is here given, drawn, against himself, to a conviction which he feels ashamed to entertain. As inCleonthe very pith of the letter is contained in the postscript, so, after the apologies and farewell greetings of Karshish, the thought which all the time has been burning within him bursts into flame.

"The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too—So, through the thunder comes a human voiceSaying, 'O heart I made, a heart beats here!Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of mine,But love I gave thee, with myself to love,And thou must love me who have died for thee!'The madman saith He said so: it is strange."

"The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?

So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too—

So, through the thunder comes a human voice

Saying, 'O heart I made, a heart beats here!

Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!

Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of mine,

But love I gave thee, with myself to love,

And thou must love me who have died for thee!'

The madman saith He said so: it is strange."

So far, the monologues are single-minded, and represent the sincere and frank expression of the thoughts and opinions of their speakers.Bishop Blougram's Apologyintroduces a new element, the casuistical. The Bishop's Apology is, literally, anapologia, a speech in defence of himself, in which the aim is to confound an adversary, not to state the truth. This form, intellectual rather than emotional, argumentative more than dramatic, has had, from this time forward, a considerable attraction for Browning, and it is responsible for some of his hardest work, such asFifine at the FairandPrince Hohenstiel-Schwangau.

Bishop Blougram's Apologyrepresents the after-dinner talk of a great Roman Catholic dignitary. It is addressed to Mr. Gigadibs, a young and shallow literary man, who poses as free-thinker and as critic of the Bishop's position. Mr. Gigadibs' implied opinion is, that a man of Blougram's intellect and broad views cannot, with honesty, hold and teach Roman Catholic dogma; that his position is anomalous and unideal. Blougram retorts with his voluminous and astonishingly clever "apology." In this apology we trace three distinct elements. First, there is a substratum of truth, truth, that is, in the abstract; then there is an application of these true principles to his own case and conduct, an application which is thoroughly unjustifiable—

"He said true things, but called them by wrong names—"

but which serves for an ingenious, and apparently, as regards Gigadibs, a triumphant, defence; finally, there is the real personal element, the man as he is. We are quite at liberty to suppose, even if we were not bound to suppose, that after all Blougram's defence is merely or partly ironical, and that he is not the contemptible creature he would be if we took him quite seriously. It is no secret that Blougram himself is, in the main, modelled after and meant for Cardinal Wiseman, who, it is said, was the writer of a good-humoured review of the poem in the Catholic journal,The Rambler(January, 1856). The supple, nervous strength and swiftness of the blank verse is, in its way, as fine as the qualities we have observed in the other monologues: there is a splendid "go" in it, a vast capacity for business; the verse is literally alive with meaning, packed with thought,instinct with wit and irony; and not this only, but starred with passages of exquisite charm, such as that on "how some actor played Death on the stage," or that more famous one:—

"Just when we're safest, there's a sunset-touch,A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,A chorus-ending from Euripides,—And that's enough for fifty hopes and fearsAs old and new at once as nature's self,To rap and knock and enter in our soul,Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ringRound the ancient idol, on his base again,—The grand Perhaps!"

"Just when we're safest, there's a sunset-touch,

A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,

A chorus-ending from Euripides,—

And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears

As old and new at once as nature's self,

To rap and knock and enter in our soul,

Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring

Round the ancient idol, on his base again,—

The grand Perhaps!"

At least six of the poems contained inMen and Womendeal with painting and music. But while four of these seem to fall into one group, the remaining two,Andrea del SartoandFra Lippo Lippi, properly belong, though themselves the greatest of the art-poems as art-poems, to the group of monodramas already noticed. ButOld Pictures in Florence,The Guardian Angel,Master Hugues of Saxe-GothaandA Toccata of Galuppi's, are chiefly and distinctively notable in their relation to art, or to some special picture or piece of music.

The Guardian Angelis a "translation into song" of Guercino's picture of that name (L'Angelo Custode). It is addressed to "Waring," and was written by Browning at Ancona, after visiting with Mrs. Browning the church of San Agostino at Fano, which contains the picture. This touching and sympathetic little poem is Browning's only detailed description of a picture; but it is of more interest as an expression of personal feeling. Something in its sentiment has made it one of the mostpopular of his poems.Old Pictures in Florenceis a humorous and earnest moralising on the meaning and mission of art and the rights and wrongs of artists, suggested by some of the old pictures in Florence. It contains perhaps the most complete and particular statement of Browning's artistic principles that we have anywhere in his work, as well as a very noble and energetic outburst of indignant enthusiasm on behalf of the "early masters," the lesser older men whom the world slurs over or forgets. The principles which Browning imputes to the early painters may be applied to poetry as well as to art. Very characteristic and significant is the insistence on the deeper value of life, of soul, than of mere expression or technique, or even of mere unbreathing beauty.Master Hugues of Saxe-Gothais the humorous soliloquy of an imaginary organist over a fugue in F minor by an imaginary composer, named in the title. It is a mingling of music and moralising. The famous description of a fugue, and the personification of its five voices, is a brilliantly ingenioustour de force; and the rough humour is quite in keeping with thedramatis persona. In complete contrast toMaster HuguesisA Toccata of Galuppi's,[31]one of the daintiest, most musical, most witching and haunting of Browning's poems, certainly one of his masterpieces as a lyric poet. It is a vision of Venice evoked from the shadowy Toccata, a vision of that delicious, brilliant, evanescent, worldly life, when

"Balls and masks began at midnight, burning ever to midday,"

and the lover and his lady would break off their talk to listen while Galuppi

"Sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord."

But "the eternal note of sadness" soon creeps in.

"Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:'Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.Dust and ashes!' So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the goldUsed to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old."

"Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:'Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.

"Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:

'Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.

Dust and ashes!' So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the goldUsed to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old."

Dust and ashes!' So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.

Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the gold

Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old."

In this poem Browning has called up before us the whole aspect of Venetian life in the eighteenth century. In three other poems, among the most remarkable that he has ever written,A Grammarian's Funeral,The Heretic's TragedyandHoly-Cross Day, he has realised and represented the life and temper of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.A Grammarian's Funeral, "shortly after the Revival of Learning in Europe," gives the nobler spirit of the earlier pioneers of the Renaissance, men like Cyriac of Ancona and Filelfo, devoted pedants who broke ground in the restoration to the modern world of the civilisation and learning of ancient Greece and Rome. It gives this, the nobler and earlier spirit, as finely asThe Tomb at St. Praxed'sgives the later and grosser. In Browning's hands the figure of the old grammarian becomes heroic. "He settledHoti'sbusiness," true; but he did something more than that. It is the spirit inwhich the work is done, rather than the special work itself, here only relatively important, which is glorified. Is it too much to say that this is the noblest of all requiems ever chanted over the grave of the scholar?

"Here's the top peak; the multitude belowLive, for they can, there:This man decided not to Live but Know—Bury this man there.Here—here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,Lightnings are loosened,Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,Peace let the dew send!Lofty designs must close in like effects:Loftily lying,Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects,Living or dying."

"Here's the top peak; the multitude below

Live, for they can, there:

This man decided not to Live but Know—

Bury this man there.

Here—here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,

Lightnings are loosened,

Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,

Peace let the dew send!

Lofty designs must close in like effects:

Loftily lying,

Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects,

Living or dying."

The union of humour with intense seriousness, of the grotesque with the stately, is one that only Browning could have compassed, and the effect is singularly appropriate. As the disciples of the old humanist bear their dead master up to his grave on the mountain-top, chanting their dirge and eulogy, the lines of the poem seem actually to move to the steady climbing rhythm of their feet.

The Heretic's Tragedy: a Middle-Age Interlude, is described by the author as "a glimpse from the burning of Jacques du Bourg-Molay [last Grand-Master of the Templars], A.D. 1314, as distorted by the refraction from Flemish brain to brain during the course of a couple of centuries." Of all Browning's mediæval poems this is perhaps the greatest, as it is certainly the most original, the most astonishing. Its special "note" is indescribable, for there is nothing with which we can compare it.If I say that it is perhaps the finest example in English poetry of the pure grotesque, I shall fail to interpret it aright to those who think of the grotesque as a synonym for the ugly and debased. If I call it fantastic, I shall do it less than justice in suggesting a certain lightness and flimsiness which are quite alien to its profound seriousness, a seriousness which touches on sublimity. Browning's power of sculpturing single situations is seldom shown in finer relief than in those poems in which he has seized upon some "occult eccentricity of history" or of legend, like this ofThe Heretic's Tragedy, or that inHoly-Cross Day, fashioning it into some quaint, curt, tragi-comic form.Holy-Cross Dayexpresses the feelings of the Jews, who were forced on this day (the 14th September) to attend an annual Christian sermon in Rome. A deliciously naïve extract from an imaginaryDiary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600, first sets forth the orthodox view of the case; then the poem tells us "what the Jews really said." Nothing more audaciously or more sardonically mirthful was ever written than the first part of this poem, with its

"Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak!Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week;"

"Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak!

Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week;"

while the sudden transition to the sublime and steadfast Song of Death of Rabbi ben Ezra is an effect worthy of Heine: more than worthy. Heine would inevitably have put his tongue in his cheek again at the end.

With the three great mediæval poems should be named the slighter sketch ofProtus. The first and last lines, describing two imaginary busts, are a fine instance of Browning's power of translating sense into sound.Compare the smooth and sweet melody of the opening lines—

"Among these latter busts we count by scoresHalf-emperors and quarter-emperors,One loves a baby-face, with violets there—Violets instead of laurels in the hair,—As they were all the little locks could bear"—

"Among these latter busts we count by scoresHalf-emperors and quarter-emperors,

"Among these latter busts we count by scores

Half-emperors and quarter-emperors,

One loves a baby-face, with violets there—Violets instead of laurels in the hair,—As they were all the little locks could bear"—

One loves a baby-face, with violets there—

Violets instead of laurels in the hair,—

As they were all the little locks could bear"—

with the rasping vigour and strength of sound which point the contrast of the conclusion:—

"Here's John the Smith's rough-hammered head. Great eye,Gross jaw and griped lips do what granite canTo give you the crown-grasper. What a man!"

"Here's John the Smith's rough-hammered head. Great eye,

Gross jaw and griped lips do what granite can

To give you the crown-grasper. What a man!"

One poem of absolutely unique order is the romance of "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came." If it were not for certain lines, certain metaphors and images, here and there in his earlier works, we should find in this poem an exception to the rule of Browning's work so singular and startling as to be almost phenomenal. But in passages ofPauline, ofParacelsus, of the lyric written in 1836, and incorporated, more than twenty years later, withJames Lee's Wife, we have distinct evidence of a certain reserve, as it were, of romantic sensibility, a certain tendency, which we may consider to have been consciously checked rather than early exhausted, towards the weird and fanciful. InChilde Rolandall this latent sensibility receives full and final expression. The poem is very generally supposed to be an allegory, and a number of ingenious interpretations have been suggested, and the "Dark Tower" has been defined as Love, Life, Death and Truth. But, as a matter of fact, Browning, in writing it, had no allegorical intention whatever. Itwas meant to be, and is, a pure romance. It was suggested by the line from Shakespeare which heads it, and was "built up," in Mrs. Orr's words "of picturesque impressions, which have separately or collectively produced themselves in the author's mind, ... including a tower which Mr. Browning once saw in the Carrara Mountains, a painting which caught his eye years later in Paris; and the figure of a horse in the tapestry in his own drawing-room."[32]The poem depicts the last adventure of a knight vowed to the quest of a certain "Dark Tower." The description of his journey across a strange and dreadful country is one of the ghastliest and most vivid in all poetry; ghastly without hope, without alleviation, without a momentary touch of contrast; vivid and ghastly as the lines following:—

"A sudden little river crossed my pathAs unexpected as a serpent comes.No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;This, as it frothed by, might have been a bathFor the fiend's glowing hoof—to see the wrathOf its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.So petty yet so spiteful! All along,Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fitOf mute despair, a suicidal throng:The river which had done them all the wrong,Whate'er that was rolled by, deterred no whit.Which while I forded,—good saints, how I fearedTo set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seekFor hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!—It may have been a water-rat I spearedBut, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek."

"A sudden little river crossed my path

As unexpected as a serpent comes.

No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;

This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath

For the fiend's glowing hoof—to see the wrath

Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.

So petty yet so spiteful! All along,Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fitOf mute despair, a suicidal throng:The river which had done them all the wrong,Whate'er that was rolled by, deterred no whit.

So petty yet so spiteful! All along,

Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;

Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit

Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:

The river which had done them all the wrong,

Whate'er that was rolled by, deterred no whit.

Which while I forded,—good saints, how I fearedTo set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seekFor hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!—It may have been a water-rat I spearedBut, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek."

Which while I forded,—good saints, how I feared

To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,

Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek

For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!

—It may have been a water-rat I speared

But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek."

The manner of the poem, wholly unlike that of any other poem, may be described by varying Flaubert's phrase of "epic realism": it is romantic realism. The weird, fantastic and profoundly imaginative picture brought before us with such startling and almost oppressive vividness, is not painted in a style of vague suggestiveness, but in a hard, distinct, definite, realistic way, the realism which results from a faithful record of distorted impressions. The poet's imagination is like a flash of lightning which strikes through the darkness, flickering above the earth, and lighting up, point by point, with a momentary and fearful distinctness, the horrors of the landscape.

A large and important group ofMen and Womenconsists of love-poems, or poems dealing, generally in some concrete and dramatic way, sometimes in a purely lyrical manner, with the emotion of love.Love among the Ruins, a masterpiece of an absolutely original kind, is the idyl of a lover's meeting, in which the emotion is emphasised and developed by the contrast of its surroundings. The lovers meet in a turret among the ruins of an ancient city, and the moment chosen is immediately before their meeting, when the lover gazes around him, struck into sudden meditation by the vision of the mighty city fallen and of the living might of Love.

"And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eveSmiles to leaveTo their folding, all our many-tinkling fleeceIn such peace,And the slopes and rills and undistinguished greyMelt away—That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hairWaits me thereIn the turret whence the charioteers caught soulFor the goal,When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumbTill I come.For 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 handOn my shoulder, give her eyes the first embraceOf my face,Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speechEach on each.In one year they sent a million fighters forthSouth and North,And they built their gods a brazen pillar highAs the sky,Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force—Gold, of course.Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!Earth's returnsFor whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!Shut them in,With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!Love is best."

"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 and 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.

For 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 handOn my shoulder, give her eyes the first embraceOf my face,Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speechEach on each.

For 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.

In one year they sent a million fighters forthSouth and North,And they built their gods a brazen pillar highAs the sky,Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force—Gold, of course.Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!Earth's returnsFor whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!Shut them in,With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!Love is best."

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."

The quaint chime or tinkle of a metre made out of the cadence of sheep-bells renders with curious felicity the quietness and fervent meditation of the subject.A Lovers' Quarrelis in every respect a contrast. It is a whimsical and delicious lyric, with a flowing and leaping melody, a light and piquant music deepened into pathos by a mournful undertone of retrospect and regret, not without a hope for the future. All Browning is seen in thispathetic gaiety, this eagerness and unrest and passionate make-believe of a lover's mood.Evelyn Hopestrikes a tenderer note; it is one of Browning's sweetest, simplest and most pathetic pieces, and embodies, in a concrete form, one of his deepest convictions. It is the lament of a man, no longer young, by the death-bed of a young girl whom he has loved, unknown to her. She has died scarcely knowing him, not even suspecting his love. But what matter? God creates love to reward love, and there is another life to come.

"So hush,—I will give you this leaf to keepSee, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!There, that is our secret: go to sleep!You will wake, and remember, and understand."

"So hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!

There, that is our secret: go to sleep!

You will wake, and remember, and understand."

A Woman's Last Wordis an exquisite little lyric which sings itself to its own music of delicate gravity and gentle pathos; but it too holds, in its few small lines, a complete situation, that most pathetic one in which a woman resolves to merge her individuality in the wish and will of her husband, to bind, for his sake, her intellect in the chains of her heart.

"A WOMAN'S LAST WORD.I.Let's contend no more, Love,Strive nor weep:All be as before, Love,—Only sleep!II.What so wild as words are?I and thouIn debate, as birds are,Hawk on bough!III.See the creature stalkingWhile we speak!Hush and hide the talking,Cheek on cheek!IV.What so false as truth is,False to thee?Where the serpent's tooth is,Shun the tree—V.Where the apple reddensNever pry—Lest we lose our Edens,Eve and I.VI.Be a god and hold meWith a charm!Be a man and fold meWith thine arm!VII.Teach me, only teach, Love!As I oughtI will speak thy speech, Love,Think thy thought—VIII.Meet, if thou require it,Both demands,Laying flesh and spiritIn thy hands.IX.That shall be to-morrowNot to-night:I must bury sorrowOut of sight:X.—Must a little weep, Love,(Foolish me!)And so fall asleep, Love,Loved by thee."

"A WOMAN'S LAST WORD.

Let's contend no more, Love,Strive nor weep:All be as before, Love,—Only sleep!

Let's contend no more, Love,

Strive nor weep:

All be as before, Love,

—Only sleep!

II.

What so wild as words are?I and thouIn debate, as birds are,Hawk on bough!

What so wild as words are?

I and thou

In debate, as birds are,

Hawk on bough!

III.

See the creature stalkingWhile we speak!Hush and hide the talking,Cheek on cheek!

See the creature stalking

While we speak!

Hush and hide the talking,

Cheek on cheek!

IV.

What so false as truth is,False to thee?Where the serpent's tooth is,Shun the tree—

What so false as truth is,

False to thee?

Where the serpent's tooth is,

Shun the tree—

Where the apple reddensNever pry—Lest we lose our Edens,Eve and I.

Where the apple reddens

Never pry—

Lest we lose our Edens,

Eve and I.

VI.

Be a god and hold meWith a charm!Be a man and fold meWith thine arm!

Be a god and hold me

With a charm!

Be a man and fold me

With thine arm!

VII.

Teach me, only teach, Love!As I oughtI will speak thy speech, Love,Think thy thought—

Teach me, only teach, Love!

As I ought

I will speak thy speech, Love,

Think thy thought—

VIII.

Meet, if thou require it,Both demands,Laying flesh and spiritIn thy hands.

Meet, if thou require it,

Both demands,

Laying flesh and spirit

In thy hands.

IX.

That shall be to-morrowNot to-night:I must bury sorrowOut of sight:

That shall be to-morrow

Not to-night:

I must bury sorrow

Out of sight:

—Must a little weep, Love,(Foolish me!)And so fall asleep, Love,Loved by thee."

—Must a little weep, Love,

(Foolish me!)

And so fall asleep, Love,

Loved by thee."

Any Wife to any Husbandis the grave and mournful lament of a dying woman, addressed to the husband whose love has never wavered throughout her life, but whose faithlessness to her memory she foresees. The situation is novel in poetry, and it is realised with an intense sympathy and depth of feeling. The tone of dignified sadness in the woman's words, never passionate or pleading, only confirmed and hopeless, is admirably rendered in the slow and solemn metre, whose firm smoothness and regularity translate into sound the sentiment of the speech.A Serenade at the Villa, which expresses a hopeless love from the man's side, has a special picturesqueness, and something more than picturesqueness: nature and life are seen in throbbing sympathy. The little touches of description give one the very sense of the hot thundrous summer night as it "sultrily suspires" in sympathy with the disconsolate lover at his fruitless serenading. I can scarcely doubt that this poem (some of which has been quoted on p. 25 above), was suggested by one of the songs in Sidney'sAstrophel and Stella, a poem on the same subject in the same rare metre:—

"Who is it that this dark nightUnderneath my window plaineth?It is one who from thy sightBeing, ah! exiled, disdainethEvery other vulgar light."

"Who is it that this dark night

Underneath my window plaineth?

It is one who from thy sight

Being, ah! exiled, disdaineth

Every other vulgar light."

If Browning's love-poems have any model or anticipation in English poetry, it is certainly in the love-songs of Sidney, in what Browning himself has called,

"The silver speech,Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin."

"The silver speech,

Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin."

No lover in English poetry has been so much a man as Sidney and Browning.

Two in the Campagnapresents a more intricate situation than most of the love-poems. It is the lament of a man, addressed to the woman at his side, whom he loves and by whom he is loved, over the imperfection and innocent inconstancy of his love. The two can never quite grow to one, and he, oppressed by the terrible burden of imperfect sympathies, is for ever seeking, realising, losing, then again seeking the spiritual union still for ever denied. The vague sense of the Roman Campagna is distilled into exquisite words, and through all there sounds the sad and weary undertone of baffled endeavour:—

"Infinite passion, and the painOf finite hearts that yearn."

"Infinite passion, and the pain

Of finite hearts that yearn."

The Last Ride Togetheris one of those love-poems which I have spoken of as specially noble and unique, and it is, I think, the noblest and most truly unique of them all. Thought, emotion and melody are mingled in perfect measure: it has the lyrical "cry," and the objectiveness of the drama. The situation, sufficiently indicated in the title, is selected with a choice and happy instinct: the very motion of riding is given in the rhythm. Every line throbs with passion, or with afervid meditation which is almost passion, and in the last verse, and, still more, in the single line—

"Who knows but the world may end to-night?"

the dramatic intensity strikes as with an electric shock.

By the Firesidethough in all its circumstances purely dramatic and imaginary, rises again and again to the fervour of personal feeling, and we can hardly be wrong in classing it, in soul though not in circumstance, withOne Word Moreand the other sacred poems which enshrine the memory of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But, apart from this suggestion, the poem is a masterpiece of subtle simplicity and picturesqueness. Nothing could be more admirable in themselves than the natural descriptions throughout; but these are never mere isolated descriptions, nor even a mere stationary background: they are fused with the emotion which they both help to form and assist in revealing.

One Word More(To E. B. B.) is one of those sacred poems in which, once and again, a great poet has embalmed in immortal words the holiest and deepest emotion of his existence. Here, and here only in the songs consecrated by the husband to the wife, the living love that too soon became a memory is still "a hope, to sing by gladly."One Word Moreis Browning's answer to theSonnets from the Portuguese. And, just as Mrs. Browning never wrote anything more perfect than theSonnets, so Browning has never written anything more perfect than the answering lyric.

Yet another section of this most richly varied volume consists of poems, narrative and lyrical, dealing in a brief and pregnant way with some special episode oremotion: love, in some instances, but in a less exclusive way than in the love-poems proper.The Statue and the Bust(one of Browning's best narratives) is a romantic and mainly true tale, written interza rima, but in short lines. The story on which it is founded is a Florentine tradition.

"In the piazza of the SS. Annunziata at Florence is an equestrian statue of the Grand Duke Ferdinand the First, representing him as riding away from the church, with his head turned in the direction of the Riccardi [now Antinori] Palace, which occupies one corner of the square. Tradition asserts that he loved a lady whom her husband's jealousy kept a prisoner there; and that he avenged his love by placing himself in effigy where his glance could always dwell upon her."[33]

In the poem the lovers agree to fly together, but the flight, postponed for ever, never comes to pass. Browning characteristically blames them for their sin of "the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin," for their vacillating purpose, their failure in attaining "their life's set end," whatever that end might be. Despite the difficulty of the metre, the verse is singularly fresh and musical. In this poem, the first in which Browning has used theterza rima, he observes, with only occasional licence, the proper pause at the end of each stanza of three lines. This law, though rarely neglected by Dante, has seldom been observed by the few English poets who have attempted the measure. Neither Byron in theProphecy of Dante, nor Shelley inThe Triumph of Life, nor Mrs. Browning inCasa Guidi Windows, has done so. In Browning's later poems in this metre, the pause, as if of set purpose, is wholly disregarded.

How it strikes a Contemporaryis at once a dramatic monologue and a piece of poetic criticism. Under the divish dress, and beneath the humorous treatment, it is easy to see a very distinct, suggestive and individual theory of poetry, and in the poet who "took such cognizance of men and things, ...

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