Chapter 5

Browning's dramatic lyrics differ from Tennyson's short poems as the lyrics of Donne differed from those of Campion; but Browning occasionally tried his hand at the composition of a pure lyric, as if to say, "You see I can write like this when I choose." Therein lies his real superiority to almost all other English poets: he could do their work, but they could not do his. It is significant that his first poem, _Pauline_, should have deeply impressed two men of precisely opposite types of mind. These two were John Stuart Mill and Dante Gabriel Rossetti--their very names illustrating beautifully the difference in their mental tastes and powers. Carlyle called Mill a "logic-chopping engine," because his intellectual processes were so methodical, systematic, hard-headed: Rossetti was a master of color and harmony. Yet Mill found in _Pauline_ the workings of a powerful mind: and Rossetti's sensitive temperament was charmed with the wonderful pictures and lovely melodies it contained.

I like to think that Mill read, paused, re-read and meditated on this passage:

I am made up of an intensest life, Of a most clear idea of consciousness Of self, distinct from all its qualities, From all affections, passions, feelings, powers; And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all: But linked, in me, to self-supremacy Existing as a centre to all things, Most potent to create and rule and call Upon all things to minister to it; And to a principle of restlessness Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all-- This is myself; and I should thus have been Though gifted lower than the meanest soul.

I like to think that Rossetti was thrilled with this picture of Andromeda:

Andromeda! And she is with me: years roll, I shall change, But change can touch her not--so beautiful With her fixed eyes, earnest and still, and hair Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze, And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven, Resting upon her eyes and hair, such hair, As she awaits the snake on the wet beach By the dark rock and the white wave just breaking At her feet; quite naked and alone; a thing I doubt not, nor fear for, secure some god To save will come in thunder from the stars.

It is rather singular, in view of the great vogue of the sonnet in the nineteenth century, that neither Tennyson nor Browning should have succeeded in this form. The two men wrote very few sonnets--Browning fewer than Tennyson--and neither ever wrote a great one. Longfellow, so inferior in most respects to his two great English contemporaries, was an incomparably superior sonnetteer. Tennyson's sonnets are all mediocre: Browning did not publish a single sonnet in the final complete edition of his works. He did however print a very few on special occasions, and when he was twenty-two years old, between the composition of _Pauline_ and _Paracelsus_, there appeared in the _Monthly Repository_ a sonnet beginning

Eyes calm beside thee (Lady, could'st thou know!)

which is the best example from his pen that has been preserved. Although he did not think much of it in later years, it has been frequently reprinted, and is worth keeping; both for the ardor of its passion, and because it is extraordinary that he should have begun so very early in his career a form of verse that he practically abandoned. This sonnet may have been addressed to a purely imaginary ideal; but it is possible that the young man had in mind Eliza Flower, for whom he certainly had a boyish love, and who was probably the original of Pauline. She and her sister, Sarah Flower, the author of _Nearer, My God, to Thee_, were both older than Browning, and both his intimate friends during the period of his adolescence.

SONNET

1834

Eyes calm beside thee (Lady, could'st thou know!) May turn away thick with fast-gathering tears: I glance not where all gaze: thrilling and low Their passionate praises reach thee--my cheek wears Alone no wonder when thou passest by; Thy tremulous lids bent and suffused reply To the irrepressible homage which doth glow On every lip but mine: if in thine ears Their accents linger--and thou dost recall Me as I stood, still, guarded, very pale, Beside each votarist whose lighted brow Wore worship like an aureole, "O'er them all My beauty," thou wilt murmur, "did prevail Save that one only:"--Lady, could'st thou know!

It is perhaps characteristic of Browning that this early sonnet should be so irregular in its rime-scheme.

The songs in _Paracelsus_ (1835) prove that Browning was a genuine lyrical poet: the best of them, _Over the Sea Our Galleys Went_, is more properly a dramatic monologue: but the song in the second act, by Aprile (who I think stands for Keats) is a pure lyric, and so are the two stanzas sung by Paracelsus in the fourth act. There are lines here which suggest something of the drowsy music of Tennyson's _Lotos-Eaters_, published in 1832:

.... such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main, To treasure half their island-gain.

SONGS FROM PARACELSUS

1835

(Aprile sings)

I hear a voice, perchance I heard Long ago, but all too low, So that scarce a care it stirred If the voice were real or no: I heard it in my youth when first The waters of my life outburst: But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear That voice, still low, but fatal-clear-- As if all poets, God ever meant Should save the world, and therefore lent Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused To do his work, or lightly used Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavour, So, mourn cast off by him for ever,-- As if these leaned in airy ring To take me; this the song they sing.

"Lost, lost! yet come, With our wan troop make thy home. Come, come! for we Will not breathe, so much as breathe Reproach to thee, Knowing what thou sink'st beneath. So sank we in those old years, We who bid thee, come! thou last Who, living yet, hast life o'erpast. And altogether we, thy peers, Will pardon crave for thee, the last Whose trial is done, whose lot is cast With those who watch but work no more, Who gaze on life but live no more. Yet we trusted thou shouldst speak The message which our lips, too weak, Refused to utter,--shouldst redeem Our fault: such trust, and all a dream! Yet we chose thee a birthplace Where the richness ran to flowers: Couldst not sing one song for grace? Not make one blossom man's and ours? Must one more recreant to his race Die with unexerted powers, And join us, leaving as he found The world, he was to loosen, bound? Anguish! ever and for ever; Still beginning, ending never. Yet, lost and last one, come! How couldst understand, alas, What our pale ghosts strove to say, As their shades did glance and pass Before thee night and day? Thou wast blind as we were dumb: Once more, therefore, come, O come! How should we clothe, how arm the spirit Shall next thy post of life inherit-- How guard him from thy speedy ruin? Tell us of thy sad undoing Here, where we sit, ever pursuing Our weary task, ever renewing Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave Our powers, and man they could not save!"

(Paracelsus sings) Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair: such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main, To treasure half their island-gain.

And strew faint sweetness from some old Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud Which breaks to dust when once unrolled; Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed, With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among, As when a queen, long dead, was young.

(Song by Festus)

Thus the Mayne glideth Where my Love abideth. Sleep's no softer: it proceeds On through lawns, on through meads, On and on, whate'er befall, Meandering and musical, Though the niggard pasturage Bears not on its shaven ledge Aught but weeds and waving grasses To view the river as it passes, Save here and there a scanty patch Of primroses too faint to catch A weary bee. And scarce it pushes Its gentle way through strangling rushes Where the glossy kingfisher Flutters when noon-heats are near, Glad the shelving banks to shun, Red and steaming in the sun, Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat Burrows, and the speckled stoat; Where the quick sandpipers flit In and out the marl and grit That seems to breed them, brown as they: Nought disturbs its quiet way, Save some lazy stork that springs, Trailing it with legs and wings, Whom the shy fox from the hill Rouses, creep he ne'er so still.

The songs in _Pippa Passes_ (1841) are ail exquisite works of art. The one on the King had been printed in the _Monthly Repository_ in 1835; the others appeared for the first time in the published drama. All of them are vitally connected with the action of the plot, differing in this respect from the Elizabethan custom of simple interpolation. The song sung in the early morning by the girl in her chamber

All service ranks the same with God

contains the philosophy of the play--human lives are inextricably intertwined, and all are dependent on the will of God. No individual can separate himself either from other men and women, or can sever the connection between himself and his Father in Heaven. The first stanza repeats the teaching of Milton in the sonnet on his blindness: the second is more definitely connected with Pippa's professional work.

Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life,

refers to her daily duty as a girl in the silk-mill, for she naturally thinks of the complexity of life as a tangled skein.

All service ranks the same with God: If now, as formerly he trod Paradise, his presence fills Our earth, each only as God wills Can work--God's puppets, best and worst, Are we; there is no last nor first.

Say not "a small event!" Why "small"? Costs it more pain that this, ye call A "great event," should come to pass, Than that? Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in or exceed!

OTHER SONGS FROM PIPPA PASSES

1841

You'll love me yet!--and I can tarry Your love's protracted growing: June reared that bunch of flowers you carry, From seeds of April's sowing.

I plant a heartful now: some seed At least is sure to strike, And yield--what you'll not pluck indeed, Not love, but, may be, like.

You'll look at least on love's remains, A grave's one violet: Your look?--that pays a thousand pains. What's death? You'll love me yet!

Overhead the tree-tops meet, Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet; There was nought above me, nought below, My childhood had not learned to know: For, what are the voices of birds --Ay, and of beasts,--but words, our words, Only so much more sweet? The knowledge of that with my life begun. But I had so near made out the sun, And counted your stars, the seven and one, Like the fingers of my hand: Nay, I could all but understand Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges; And just when out of her soft fifty changes No unfamiliar face might overlook me-- Suddenly God took me.

The most famous song in the play, which simply sings itself, is:

The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven-- All's right with the world!

The last line is unfortunately very often misquoted

All's well with the world!

a remark never made either by Pippa or by Browning. In Browning's philosophy all may be right with the world, and yet far from well. Perhaps it is too prosaically minute to point out in so beautiful a poem, a scientific error, but at seven o'clock on the first of January in Asolo the sun is still below the horizon.

MERTOUN'S SONG FROM A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON

1843

There's a woman like a dew-drop, she's so purer than the purest; And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the surest: And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music ... call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless, If you loved me not!" And I who--(ah, for words of flame!) adore her, Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her-- I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me!

The two lyrics, _Home-Thoughts, from the Sea_ and _Home-Thoughts, from Abroad_, were written during Browning's first Italian journey in 1838; and it seems strange that he did not print them among the _Dramatic Lyrics_ of 1842 but reserved them for the _Dramatic Romances_ of 1845; especially as he subsequently transferred them to the _Lyrics_. They are both notable on account of the strong feeling for England which they express. No great English poet has said so little of England as Browning, though his own feelings were always keenly patriotic. Even in _Pauline_, a poem without a country, there occur the two lines

... and I cherish most My love of England--how her name, a word Of hers in a strange tongue makes my heart beat!

The allusion to the English thrush has given immortality to _Home-Thoughts, from Abroad_. Many had observed that the thrush sings a lilt, and immediately repeats it: but Browning was the first to give a pretty reason for it. The thrush seems to say, "You think that beautiful melody is an accident? Well, I will show you it is no fluke, I will sing it correctly right over again." Browning was not in Italy in April--perhaps he wrote the first stanza on the voyage, as he wrote _Home-Thoughts, from the Sea_, and added the second stanza about May and June after he had reached the country of his quest.

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA

1845

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.

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD

1845

I

Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England--now!

II

And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge-- That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew. All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower --Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

The collection of poems called _James Lee's Wife_, published in the _Dramatis Personae_ (1864), seems to me illustrative of Browning's worst faults; it is obscure, harsh, and dull. But it contains one fine lyric descriptive of an autumn morning, a morning, by the way, much commoner in America during autumn than anywhere in Europe. The second stanza is nobly ethical in its doctrine of love--that we should not love only those persons whom we can respect, for true love seeks no profit. It must be totally free from the prospect of gain. A beautiful face inspired another lyric in this volume, and Browning drew upon his memories of Correggio to give the perfect tone to the poem.

FROM JAMES LEE'S WIFE

1864

I

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet For the ripple to run over in its mirth; Listening the while, where on the heap of stones The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.

II

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true; Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows. If you loved only what were worth your love, Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you: Make the low nature better by your throes! Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!

A FACE

1864

If one could have that little head of hers Painted upon a background of pale gold, Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers! No shade encroaching on the matchless mould Of those two lips, which should be opening soft In the pure profile; not as when she laughs, For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's Burthen of honey-coloured buds to kiss And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, How it should waver on the pale gold ground Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts! I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb: But these are only massed there, I should think, Waiting to see some wonder momently Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky (That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by), All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

One of the most original and powerful of Browning's lyrical pieces comes just where we should least expect it, at the end of that dark, dreary, and all but impenetrable wilderness of verse, _Fifine at the Fair_. It serves as an _Epilogue_, but it would be difficult and unprofitable to attempt to discover its connection with the poem to which is appended. Its metre is unique in Browning, and stirs the heart with inexpressible force. In music it most closely resembles the swift thrilling roll of a snare drum, and can be read aloud in exact accord with that instrument. Browning calls it _The Householder_, and of course it represents in his own life the anticipated moment when the soul leaves its house to unite with its mate. Out of the catastrophe of death appears a radiant vision which really seems too good to be true.

"What, and is it really you again?" quoth I: "I again, what else did you expect?" quoth She.

The man is weary of his old patched up body, now no longer needed: weary of the noisy nuisances of life, and the tiresome and futile gabble of humanity: resentful, now that his spirit has actually survived death, when he remembers the scientific books he had read which almost struck despair in him. He petulantly says,

"If you knew but how I dwelt down here!" quoth I: "And was I so better off up there?" quoth She.

He is for immediate departure, leaving his empty carcass where it lies; but she reminds him of the necessity for decent burial. Much is to be done before they can begin to enjoy together their new and freer existence. There is the body to be buried; the obituary notices to be written for the papers: the parson and undertaker to be summoned: the formalities of the funeral: the selection of a proper tombstone, with care for the name and accurate carving of the date of death thereupon: and finally a bit of verse in the way of final flourish. So these two spirits look on with impatience at the funeral exercises, at the weeping friends left behind, and not until the coffin is under ground, are they at liberty to depart from terrestial scenes. If we do survive the death of the body, with what curious sensations must we regard the solemn ceremonies of its interment!

EPILOGUE TO FIFINE

1872

THE HOUSEHOLDER

I

Savage I was sitting in my house, late, lone: Dreary, weary with the long day's work: Head of me, heart of me, stupid as a stone: Tongue-tied now, now blaspheming like a Turk; When, in a moment, just a knock, call, cry, Half a pang and all a rapture, there again were we!-- "What, and is it really you again?" quoth I: "I again, what else did you expect?" quoth She.

II

"Never mind, hie away from this old house-- Every crumbling brick embrowned with sin and shame! Quick, in its corners ere certain shapes arouse! Let them--every devil of the night--lay claim, Make and mend, or rap and rend, for me! Good-bye! God be their guard from disturbance at their glee, Till, crash, comes down the carcass in a heap!" quoth I: "Nay, but there's a decency required!" quoth She.

III

"Ah, but if you knew how time has dragged, days, nights! All the neighbour-talk with man and maid--such men! All the fuss and trouble of street-sounds, window-sights; All the worry of flapping door and echoing roof; and then, All the fancies ... Who were they had leave, dared try Darker arts that almost struck despair in me? If you knew but how I dwelt down here!" quoth I: "And was I so better off up there?" quoth She,

IV

"Help and get it over! _Re-united to his wife_ (How draw up the paper lets the parish-people know?) _Lies M., or N., departed from this life, Day the this or that, month and year the so and so_. What i' the way of final flourish? Prose, verse? Try! _Affliction sore long time he bore_, or, what is it to be? _Till God did please to grant him ease_. Do end!" quoth I: "I end with--Love is all and Death is nought!" quoth She.

The same thought--the dramatic contrast between the free spirit and its prison-house--is the basis of the two lyrics that serve as prologues to _Pacchiarotto_ and to _La Saisiaz_. As Dryden's prefaces are far better than his plays, so Browning's _Prologues_ to _Pacchiarotto_, to _La Saisiaz_, to _The Two Poets of Croisic_, to _Jocoseria_ are decidedly superior in poetic art and beauty to the volumes they introduce. Indeed the prologue to _The Two Poets of Croisic_ is one of the most beautiful and perfect lyrics in the English language.

PROLOGUE

1878

I

Such a starved bank of moss Till that May-morn, Blue ran the flash across: Violets were born!

II

Sky--what a scowl of cloud Till, near and far, Ray on ray split the shroud. Splendid, a star!

III

World--how it walled about Life with disgrace Till God's own smile came out: That was thy face!

PROLOGUE TO _PACCHIAROTTO_

1876

I

O the old wall here! How I could pass Life in a long Midsummer day, My feet confined to a plot of grass, My eyes from a wall not once away!

II

And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green: Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loth, In lappets of tangle they laugh between.

III

Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe? Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims The body,--the house, no eye can probe,-- Divined as, beneath a robe, the limbs?

IV

And there again! But my heart may guess Who tripped behind; and she sang perhaps: So, the old wall throbbed, and its life's excess Died out and away in the leafy wraps.

V