Chapter 16

"Pisgah Sights"; "Natural Magic"; "Magical Nature"; "Bifurcation"; "Numpholeptos"; "Appearances"; "St. Martin's Summer"; "A Forgiveness"; Epilogue to Pacchiarotto volume; Prologue to "La Saisiaz"; Prologue to "Two Poets of Croisic"; "Epilogue"; "Pheidippides"; "Halbert and Hob"; "Ivan Ivanovitch"; "Echetlos"; "Muleykeh"; "Pan and Luna"; "Touch him ne'er so lightly"; Prologue to "Jocoseria"; "Cristina and Monaldeschi"; "Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli"; "Ixion"; "Never the Time and the Place"; Song, "Round us the wild creatures"; Song, "Wish no word unspoken"; Song, "You groped your way"; Song, "Man I am"; Song, "Once I saw"; "Verse-making"; "Not with my Soul Love"; "Ask not one least word of praise"; "Why from the world"; "The Round of Day" (Pts. 9, 10, 11, 12 of Gerard de Lairesse); Prologue to "Asolando"; "Rosny"; "Now"; "Poetics"; "Summum Bonum"; "A Pearl"; "Speculative"; "Inapprehensiveness"; "The Lady and the Painter"; "Beatrice Signorini"; "Imperante Augusto"; "Rephan"; "Reverie"; Epilogue to "Asolando" (in all, 122).

But having drawn up this imaginary anthology, possibly with faults of commission and probably with worse errors of omission, I should like to take the reader into my confidence concerning a certain volume, originally compiled for my own pleasure, though not without thought of one or two dear kinsmen of a scattered Brotherhood -- a volume half the size of the projected Transcripts, and rare as that star in the tip of the moon's horn of which Coleridge speaks.

`Flower o' the Vine', so it is called, has for double-motto these two lines from the Epilogue to the Pacchiarotto volume --

"Man's thoughts and loves and hates! Earth is my vineyard, these grew there ----"

and these words, already quoted, from the Shelley Essay, "I prefer to look for the highest attainment, not simply the high."

I. From "Pauline"*1* -- 1. "Sun-treader, life and light be thine for ever!" 2. The Dawn of Beauty; 3. Andromeda; 4. Morning. II. "Heap Cassia, Sandal-buds," etc. (song from "Paracelsus"). III. "Over the Sea our Galleys went" (song from "Paracelsus"). IV. The Joy of the World ("Paracelsus").*2* V. From "Sordello" -- 1. Sunset;*3* 2. The Fugitive Ethiop;*4* 3. Dante.*5* VI. Ottima and Sebald (Pt. 1, "Pippa Passes"). VII. Jules and Phene (Pt. 2, "Pippa Passes"). VIII. My Last Duchess. IX. In a Gondola. X. Home Thoughts from Abroad (1 and 2). XI. Meeting at Night: Parting at Morning. XII. A Grammarian's Funeral. XIII. Saul. XIV. Rabbi Ben Ezra. XV. Love among the Ruins. XVI. Evelyn Hope. XVII. My Star. XVIII. A Toccata of Galuppi's. XIX. Abt Vogler. XX. Memorabilia. XXI. Andrea del Sarto. XXII. Two in the Campagna. XXIII. James Lee's Wife. XXIV. Prospice. XXV. From "The Ring and the Book" -- 1. O Lyric Love (The Invocation: 26 lines); 2. Caponsacchi (ll. 2069 to 2103); 3. Pompilia (ll. 181 to 205); 4. Pompilia (ll. 1771 to 1845); 5. The Pope (ll. 2017 to 2228); 6. Count Guido (Book 11, ll. 2407 to 2427). XXVI. Prologue to "La Saisiaz". XXVII. Prologue to "Two Poets of Croisic". XXVIII. Epilogue to "Two Poets of Croisic". XXIX. Never the Time and Place. XXX. "Round us the Wild Creatures," etc. (song from "Ferishtah's Fancies"). XXXI. "The Walk" (Pts. 9, 10, 11, 12, of "Gerard de Lairesse"). XXXII. "One word more" (To E. B. B.).*6*

-- *1* The first, from the line quoted, extends through 55 lines -- "To see thee for a moment as thou art." No. 2 consists of the 18 lines beginning, "They came to me in my first dawn of life." No. 3, the 11 lines of the Andromeda picture. No. 4, the 59 lines beginning, "Night, and one single ridge of narrow path" (to "delight"). *2* No. IV. comprises the 29 lines beginning, "The centre fire heaves underneath the earth," down to "ancient rapture." *3* No. V. The 6 lines beginning, "That autumn ere has stilled." *4* The 22 lines beginning, "As, shall I say, some Ethiop." *5* The 29 lines beginning, "For he, -- for he." *6* To these 32 selections there must now be added "Now", "Summum Bonum", "Reverie", and the "Epilogue", from "Asolando". --

It is here -- I will not say in `Flower o' the Vine', nor even venture to restrictively affirm it of that larger and fuller compilation we have agreed, for the moment, to call "Transcripts from Life" -- it is here, in the worthiest poems of Browning's most poetic period, that, it seems to me, his highest greatness is to be sought. In these "Men and Women" he is, in modern times, an unparalleled dramatic poet. The influence he exercises through these, and the incalculably cumulative influence which will leaven many generations to come, is not to be looked for in individuals only, but in the whole thought of the age, which he has moulded to new form, animated anew, and to which he has imparted a fresh stimulus. For this a deep debt is due to Robert Browning. But over and above this shaping force, this manipulative power upon character and thought, he has enriched our language, our literature, with a new wealth of poetic diction, has added to it new symbols, has enabled us to inhale a more liberal if an unfamiliar air, has, above all, raised us to a fresh standpoint, a standpoint involving our construction of a new definition.

Here, at least, we are on assured ground: here, at any rate, we realise the scope and quality of his genius. But, let me hasten to add, he, at his highest, not being of those who would make Imagination the handmaid of the Understanding, has given us also a Dorado of pure poetry, of priceless worth. Tried by the severest tests, not merely of substance, but of form, not merely of the melody of high thinking, but of rare and potent verbal music, the larger number of his "Men and Women" poems are as treasurable acquisitions, in kind, to our literature, as the shorter poems of Milton, of Shelley, of Keats, and of Tennyson. But once again, and finally, let me repeat that his primary importance -- not greatness, but importance -- is in having forced us to take up a novel standpoint, involving our construction of a new definition.