An Introduction to the Study of Browning Part 16

_Pacchiarotto and other Poems_ is the first collection of miscellaneous pieces since the _Dramatis Personae_ of 1864. It is somewhat of an exception to the general rule of Browning's work. A large proportion of it is critical rather than creative, a criticism of critics; perhaps it would be at once more correct and concise to call it "Robert Browning's Apology." _Pacchiarotto_, _At the "Mermaid"_, _House_, _Shop_ and _Epilogue_, are all more or less personal utterances on art and the artist, sometimes in a concrete and impersonal way, more often in a somewhat combative and contemptuous spirit. The most important part of the volume, however, is that which contains the two or three monodramatic poems and the splendid ballad of the fleet, _Herve Riel_.

The first and longest poem, _Of Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in Distemper_, divides itself into two parts, the first being the humorous rendering of a true anecdote told in Vasari, of Giacomo Pacchiarotto, a Sienese painter of the sixteenth century; and the second, a still more mirthful onslaught of the poet upon his critics. The story--

"Begun with a chuckle, And throughout timed by raps of the knuckle,"--

is funny enough in itself, and it points an excellent moral; but it is chiefly interesting as a whimsical freak of verse, an extravaganza in staccato. The rhyming is of its kind almost incomparable as a sustained effort in double and triple grotesque rhymes. Not even in _Hudibras_, not even in _Don Juan_, is there anything like them. I think all other experiments of the kind, however successful as a whole, let you see now and then that the author has had a hard piece of work to keep up his appearance of ease. In _Pacchiarotto_ there is no evidence of the strain. The masque of critics, under the cunning disguise of May-day chimney-sweepers:--

"'We critics as sweeps out your chimbly!

Much soot to remove from your flue, sir!

Who spares coal in kitchen an't you, sir!

And neighbours complain it's no joke, sir!

You ought to consume your own smoke, sir!'"--

this after-part, overflowing with jolly humour and comic scorn, a besom wielded by a laughing giant, is calculated to put the victims in better humour with their executioner than with themselves. Browning has had to endure more than most men at the hands of the critics, and he takes in this volume, not in this poem only, a full and a characteristically good-humoured revenge. The _Epilogue_ follows up the pendant to _Pacchiarotto_. There is the same jolly humour, the same combative self-a.s.sertiveness, the same retort _Tu quoque_, with a yet more earnest and pungent enforcement.

"Wine, pulse in might from me!

It may never emerge in must from vat, Never fill cask nor furnish can, Never end sweet, which strong began-- G.o.d's gift to gladden the heart of man; But spirit's at proof, I promise that!

No sparing of juice spoils what should be Fit brewage--wine for me.

Man's thoughts and loves and hates!

Earth is my vineyard, these grow there: From grape of the ground, I made or marred My vintage; easy the task or hard, Who set it--his praise be my reward!

Earth's yield! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Sea's Let them 'lay, pray, bray'[51]--the addle-pates!

Mine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates!"

Despite its humorous expression, the view of poetic art contained in these verses is both serious and significant. It is a frank (if defiant) confession of faith.

_At the "Mermaid"_, a poem of characteristic energy and directness, is a protest against the supposition or a.s.sumption that the personality and personal views and opinions of a poet are necessarily reflected in his dramatic work. It protests, at the same time, against the sham melancholy and pseudo-despair which Byron made fashionable in poetry:--

"Have you found your life distasteful?

My life did and does smack sweet.

Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?

Mine I saved and hold complete.

Do your joys with age diminish?

When mine fail me, I'll complain.

Must in death your daylight finish?

My sun sets to rise again.

I find earth not gray but rosy, Heaven not grim but fair of hue.

Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.

Do I stand and stare? All's blue."

_House_ confirms or continues the primary contention in _At the "Mermaid"_: this time by the image of a House of Life, which some poets may choose to set on view: "for a ticket apply to the Publisher."

Browning not merely denounces but denies the so-called self-revelations of poets. He answers Wordsworth's

"With this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart,"

by the characteristic retort:--

"Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!"

In _Shop_ we have another keen piece of criticism: a protest against poets who make their shop their home, and their song mere ware for sale.

After the personal and critical section we pa.s.s to half-a-dozen lyrics: _Fears and Scruples_, a covert and startling poem, a doctrine embodied in a character; then two beautiful little _Pisgah-Sights_, a dainty experiment in metre, and in substance the expression of Browning's favourite lesson, the worth of earth and the need of the mystery of life; _Appearances_, a couple of stanzas whose telling simplicity recalls the lovely earlier lilt, _Misconceptions; Natural Magic_ and _Magical Nature_, two magical s.n.a.t.c.hes, as perfect as the "first fine careless rapture" of the earlier lyrics. I quote the latter:--

"MAGICAL NATURE.

1.

Flower--I never fancied, jewel--I profess you!

Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower.

Save but glow inside and--jewel, I should guess you, Dim to sight and rough to touch: the glory is the dower.

2.

You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my love, a jewel-- Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime!

Time may fray the flower-face: kind be time or cruel, Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time!"

But the finest lyric in the volume is _St. Martin's Summer_, a poem fantastically tragic, hauntingly melodious, mysterious and chilling as the ghostly visitants at late love's pleasure-bower of whom it sings. I do not think Browning has written many lyrical poems of more brilliant and original quality. _Bifurcation_, as its name denotes, is a study of divided paths in life, the paths of Love and Duty chosen severally by two lovers whose epitaphs Browning gives. The moral problem, which is sinner, which is saint, is stated and left open. The poem is an etching, sharp, concise and suggestive. _Numpholeptos_ (nymph-entranced) has all the mystery, the vague charm, the lovely sadness, of a picture of Burne Jones. Its delicately fantastic colouring, its dreamy pa.s.sion, and the sad and quiet sweetness of its verse, have some affinity with _St.

Martin's Summer_, but are unlike anything else in Browning. It is the utterance of a hopeless-hoping and pathetically resigned love: the love of a merely human man for an angelically pure and unhumanly cold woman, who requires in him an unattainable union of immaculate purity and complete experience of life.

"Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile!

Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile, Softening, sweetening, till sweet and soft Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft I could believe your moonbeam smile has past The pallid limit and, transformed at last, Lies, sunlight and salvation--warms the soul It sweetens, softens!

What means the sad slow silver smile above My clay but pity, pardon?--at the best, But acquiescence that I take my rest, Contented to be clay, while in your heaven The sun reserves love for the Spirit-Seven Companioning G.o.d's throne they lamp before, --Leaves earth a mute waste only wandered o'er By that pale soft sweet disempa.s.sioned moon Which smiles me slow forgiveness! Such the boon I beg? Nay, dear ...

Love, the love whole and sole without alloy!"

The action of this soul's tragedy takes place under "the light that never was on sea or land": it is the tragedy of a soul, but of a disembodied soul.

_A Forgiveness_ is a drama of this world. It is the legitimate successor of the monologues of _Men and Women_; it may, indeed, be most precisely compared with an earlier monologue, _My Last d.u.c.h.ess_; and it is, like these, the concentrated essence of a complete tragedy. Like all the best of Browning's poems, it is thrown into a striking situation, and developed from this central point. It is the story of a love merged in contempt, quenched in hate, and rekindled in a fatal forgiveness, told in confession to a monk by the man whom the monk has wronged. The personage who speaks is one of the most sharply-outlined characters in Browning: a clear, cold, strong-willed man, implacable in love or hate.

He tells his story in a quiet, measured, utterly unemotional manner, with reflective interruptions and explanations, the acute a.n.a.lysis of a merciless intellect; leading gradually up to a crisis only to be matched by the very finest crises in Browning:--

"Immersed In thought so deeply, Father? Sad, perhaps?

For whose sake, hers or mine or his who wraps --Still plain I seem to see!--about his head The idle cloak,--about his heart (instead Of cuira.s.s) some fond hope he may elude My vengeance in the cloister's solitude?

Hardly, I think! As little helped his brow The cloak then, Father--as your grate helps now!"

The poem is by far the greatest thing in the volume; it is, indeed, one of the very finest examples of Browning's psychological subtlety and concentrated dramatic power.[52]

The ballad of _Herve Riel_ which has no rival but Tennyson's _Revenge_ among modern sea-ballads, was written at Croisic, 30th September 1867, and was published in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for March, 1871 in, order that the 100 which had been offered for it might be sent to the Paris Relief Fund. It may be named, with the "Ride from Ghent to Aix," as a proof of how simply and graphically Browning can write if he likes; how promptly he can stir the blood and thrill the heart. The facts of the story, telling how, after the battle of the Hogue, a simple Croisic sailor saved all that was left of the French fleet by guiding the vessels into the harbour, are given in the Croisic guide-books; and Browning has followed them in everything but the very effective end:--

"'Since 'tis ask and have, I may-- Since the others go ash.o.r.e-- Come! A good whole holiday!

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!'

That he asked and that he got,--nothing more."

"Ce brave homme," says the account, "ne demanda pour recompense d'un service aussi signale, qu'un _conge absolu_ pour rejoindre sa femme, qu'il nomma la Belle Aurore."