A Day with Browning Part 1

A Day with Browning.

by Anonymous and Robert Browning.

A DAY WITH BROWNING.

From his bed-room window in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati, every morning in 1885, Robert Browning watched the sunrise. "My window commands a perfect view," he wrote, "the still, grey lagoon, the few seagulls flying, the islet of San Giorgio in deep shadow, and the clouds in a long purple rack, from behind which a sort of spirit of rose burns up, till presently all the rims are on fire with gold....

So my day begins."

The Palazzo, in which a suite of rooms had been placed by Mrs. Bronson at the disposal of the poet and his sister, was a place of historical a.s.sociation and fifteenth-century traditions. And no more appropriate abiding-place than Venice could have been selected for a man of Browning's temperament. The Venetian colouring was a perpetual feast to his eye: its mediaeval glories were a source of continual inspiration. And if much of his heart still remained with his native land, so that the London daily papers were a necessity of existence, and a certain sense of exile occasionally obtruded itself, we must needs be grateful to that fact for its result in certain immortal lines:

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 brush-wood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England--now!

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 h.o.a.ry dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The b.u.t.tercups, the little children's dower, --Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

But there had always been a frankly cosmopolitan spirit in Browning,--no touch of parochialism or insularity. In the magnificent gallery of portrait studies, no two alike, which his poems present to us, the nationalities are legion. Yet Italian scenes predominate; for Browning could gauge, with the unerring instinct of genius, all the subtleties of the Italian temperament. So we come, at every turn, across some ardent vision of the South,--here, Waring sailing out of Trieste under the furled lateen-sail; and there, Fra Lippo Lippi tracking "lutestrings, laughs, and whifts of song" down the darkling streets of Florence. The "Patriot," riding into Brescia, "roses, roses all the way," and the Duke of Ferrara,--that "typical representative of a whole phase of civilisation," discussing _My Last d.u.c.h.ess_ and her foolishness.

That's my last d.u.c.h.ess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive; I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and pa.s.sion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the d.u.c.h.ess' cheek: perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps Over my Lady's wrist too much," or "Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat;" such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart ... how shall I say? ... too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace--all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men,--good; but thanked Somehow ... I know not how ... as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift.

(_My Last d.u.c.h.ess._)

That's my last d.u.c.h.ess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive; I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and pa.s.sion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Painting by W. J. Neatby._ MY LAST d.u.c.h.eSS.]

After a light and early breakfast--the poet, when abroad, lived almost entirely on milk, fruit, etc., abjuring animal food--Browning would follow his invariable custom, a stroll along the Riva to the public gardens. He never failed to leave the house at the same hour of the day: he was a man of singularly methodical habits in many ways. "Good sense," it has been said, "was his foible, if not his habit": and an orderly method of life was one of the strongest proofs of this fact: another evidence lay in his care to avoid being _labelled_. The disorderly locks and careless appearance of the typical poet were quite alien to this well-groomed, cleanly-looking Englishman, with his "sweet, grave face," silvery hair, and smooth, healthy skin.

Singularly wholesome in body as well as in mind, until past seventy he could take the longest walks without fatigue; the splendid eyesight of his clear grey eyes remained untarnished to the last. These keen grey eyes of his never failed to notice anything worth seeing in his walks: an extraordinary minuteness of observation is perceptible in all his poems dealing with out-door life,--little touches of detail such as few men are masters of:

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 grey.

(_The Lost Mistress._)

And again, those lines of poignant, pa.s.sionate reserve, which sum up _May and Death_:

I wish that when you died last May, Charles, there had died along with you Three parts of spring's delightful things; Ay, and for me, the fourth part too.

A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps!

There must be many a pair of friends Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm Moon-births, and the long evening-ends.

So, for their sake, be May still May!

Let their new time, as mine of old, Do all it did for me: I bid Sweet sights and sounds throng manifold.

Only, one little sight, one plant, Woods have in May, that starts up green Save a sole streak which, so to speak, Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves between,--

That, they might spare; a certain wood Might miss the plant; their loss were small: But I,--whene'er the leaf grows there, Its drop comes from my heart, that's all.

Arrived at the public gardens, Browning was careful to visit his "friends" there and to feed them--the elephant, baboon, kangaroo, ostrich, pelican, and marmosets. He had that particular _camaraderie_ with wild animals which is almost akin to a hypnotic influence over them: and when in the country, he would "whistle softly to the lizards basking on the low walls which border the roads, to try his old power of attracting them." Flowers he enjoyed as a colour-feast for the eye; scenery he revelled in. In that perpetual contemplation of Nature, which with Wordsworth became an all-absorbent pa.s.sion, Browning had but little share: his chief interest was in man. But "now and again external nature was for him ... pierced and shot through with spiritual fire."

Three times punctually he would walk round the gardens, and then walk home. Upon these daily strolls he was accompanied by his sister Sarianna: in whose love and companionship he was singularly fortunate.

Sarianna Browning had always been the best of sisters to the poet and his wife,--a kindred spirit in every sense of the word; and she was now intent to supply, so far as in her lay, the place of that "soul of fire enclosed in a sh.e.l.l of pearl"--Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Of the dead wife, who had been all-in-all to him, Browning seldom spoke in words: but his burning need of her and hope of reunion with her gleamed continually through his writings:

"Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one song--and in my brain I sing it, Drew one angel--borne, see, on my bosom!"

And in all his poems which deal with the love of man and woman, "he regarded the union of soul with soul as the capital achievement of life." He thought of love "as a supreme possession in itself, and as a revelation of infinite things which lie beyond it: as a test of character, and even as a pledge of perpetual advance in the life of the spirit." Hence, even where the shadow of death broods over a poem, as we see it _In a Gondola_, that shadow "glows with colour like the shadows of a Venetian painter." Love, to the very last, is infinitely stronger than death.

I send my heart up to thee, all my heart, In this my singing.

For the stars help me, and the sea bears part; The very night is clinging Closer to Venice' streets to leave one s.p.a.ce Above me, whence thy face May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Painting by W. Russell Flint._ IN A GONDOLA.]

_He sings._

I send my heart up to thee, all my heart In this my singing.

For the stars help me, and the sea bears part; The very night is clinging Closer to Venice' streets to leave one s.p.a.ce Above me, whence thy face May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.

_She speaks._

Say after me, and try to say My very words, as if each word Came from you of your own accord, In your own voice, in your own way: "This woman's heart and soul and brain Are mine as much as this gold chain She bids me wear; which," (say again) "I choose to make by cherishing A precious thing, or choose to fling Over the boat-side, ring by ring."

And yet once more say ... no word more!

Since words are only words. Give o'er!

Unless you call me, all the same, Familiarly by my pet-name Which, if the Three should hear you call, And me reply to, would proclaim At once our secret to them all.

_She speaks._

There's Zanze's vigilant taper; safe are we!

Only one minute more to-night with me?

Resume your past self of a month ago!

Be you the bashful gallant, I will be The lady with the colder breast than snow: Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand More than I touch yours when I step to land, And say, "All thanks, Siora!"-- Heart to heart, And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part, Clasp me, and make me thine, as mine thou art!

(_He is surprised and stabbed._)

It was ordained to be so, Sweet,--and best Comes now, beneath thine eyes, and on thy breast.

Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care Only to put aside thy beauteous hair My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn To death, because they never lived: but I Have lived indeed, and so--(yet one more kiss)--can die!