An Introduction to the Study of Browning Part 5

All the minor characters are good and life-like, particularly Guibert, the shrewd, hesitating, talkative, cynical, really good-hearted old courtier, whom not even a court had deprived of a heart, though the dangerous influence of the conscienceless Gaucelme, his fellow, has in its time played sad pranks with it. He is one of the best of Browning's minor characters.

The performance, in 1885, of _Colombe's Birthday_, under the direction of the Browning Society, has brought to light unsuspected acting qualities in what is certainly not the most "dramatic" of Browning's plays. "_Colombe's Birthday_," it was said on the occasion, "is charming on the boards, clearer, more direct in action, more full of delicate surprises than one imagines it in print. With a very little cutting it could be made an excellent acting play."[23]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: A. Mary F. Robinson, in _Boston Literary World_, December 12, 1885.]

11. DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS.

[Published in 1845 as No. VII. of _Bells and Pomegranates_ (_Poetical Works_, 1889, dispersedly, in Vols. IV., V., and VI.).]

_Dramatic Romances_, Browning's second volume of miscellaneous poems, is not markedly different in style or substance from the _Lyrics_ published three years earlier. It is somewhat more mature, no doubt, as a whole, somewhat richer and fuller, somewhat wider in reach and firmer in grasp; but in tone and treatment it harmonises considerably more with its predecessor than with its successor, after so long an interval, _Men and Women_. The book opens with the ballad, _How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix_, the most popular piece, except perhaps the _Pied Piper_, that Browning has written. Few boys, I suppose, have not read with breathless emotion this most stirring of ballads: few men can read it without a thrill. The "good news" is intended for that of the Pacification of Ghent, but the incident itself is not historical. The poem was written at sea, off the African coast. Another poem of somewhat similar kind, appealing more directly than usual to the simpler feelings, is _The Lost Leader_. It was written in reference to Wordsworth's abandonment of the Liberal cause, with perhaps a thought of Southey, but it is applicable to any popular apostasy. This is one of those songs that do the work of swords. It shows how easily Browning, had he so chosen, could have stirred the national feeling with his songs. The _Home-Thoughts from Abroad_ belongs, in its simple directness, its personal and forthright fervour of song, to this section of the volume. With the two pieces now known as _Home-Thoughts from Abroad_ and _Home-Thoughts from the Sea_, a third, very inferior, piece was originally published. It is now more appropriately included with _Claret_ and _Tokay_ (two capital little s.n.a.t.c.hes) under the head of _Nationality in Drinks_. The two "Home-Thoughts," from sea and from land, are equally remarkable for their poetry and for their patriotism.

I hope there is no need to commend to all Englishmen so pa.s.sionate and heartfelt a record of love for England. It is in _Home-Thoughts from Abroad_, that we find the well-known and magical lines on the thrush:--

"That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!"

The whole poem is beautiful, but _Home-Thoughts from the Sea_ is of that order of song that moves the heart "more than with a trumpet."

"n.o.bly, n.o.bly, 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 G.o.d to praise and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa."

Next to _The Lost Leader_ comes, in the original edition, a sort of companion poem, in

"THE LOST MISTRESS.

I.

All's over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes?

Hark! 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter About your cottage eaves!

II.

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 gray.

III.

To-morrow we meet the same, then, dearest?

May I take your hand in mine?

Mere friends are we,--well, friends the merest Keep much that I resign:

IV.

For each glance of the eye so bright and black Though I keep with heart's endeavour,-- Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, Though it stay in my heart for ever!--

V.

Yet I will but say what mere friends say, Or only a thought stronger; I will hold your hand but as long as all may.

Or so very little longer!"

This is one of those love-songs which we cannot but consider among the n.o.blest of such songs in all Love's language. The subject of "unrequited love" has probably produced more effusions of sickly sentiment than any other single subject. But Browning, who has employed the motive so often (here, for instance, and yet more notably in _The Last Ride Together_) deals with it in a way that is at once novel and fundamental.

There is no talk, among his lovers, of "blighted hearts," no whining and puling, no contemptible professions of contempt for the woman who has had the ill-taste to refuse some wondrous-conceited lover, but a n.o.ble manly resignation, a profound and still grateful sorrow which has no touch in it of reproach, no tone of disloyalty, and no pretence of despair. In the first of the _Garden Fancies_ (_The Flower's Name_) a delicate little love-story of a happier kind is hinted at. The second _Garden Fancy_ (_Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis_) is of very different tone.

It is a whimsical tale of a no less whimsical revenge taken upon a piece of pedantic lumber, the name of which is given in the t.i.tle. The varying ring and swing communicated to the dactyls of these two pieces by the jolly humour of the one and the refined sentiment of the other, is a point worth noticing. The easy flow, the careless charm of their versification, is by no means the artless matter it may seem to a careless reader. Nor is it the easiest of metrical tasks to poise perfectly the loose lilt of such verses as these:--

"What a name! Was it love or praise?

Speech half-asleep or song half-awake?

I must learn Spanish, one of these days, Only for that slow sweet name's sake."

The two perfect little pieces on "Fame" and "Love," _Earth's Immortalities_, are remarkable, even in Browning's work, for their concentrated felicity, and, the second especially, for swift suggestiveness of haunting music. Not less exquisite in its fresh melody and subtle simplicity is the following _Song_:--

I.

"Nay but you, who do not love her, Is she not pure gold, my mistress?

Holds earth aught--speak truth--above her?

Aught like this tress, see, and this tress, And this last fairest tress of all, So fair, see, ere I let it fall?

II.

Because, you spend your lives in praising; To praise, you search the wide world over: Then why not witness, calmly gazing, If earth holds aught--speak truth--above her?

Above this tress, and this, I touch But cannot praise, I love so much!"

In two tiny pictures, _Night and Morning_, one of four lines, the other of twelve, we have, besides the picture, two moments which sum up a lifetime, and "on how fine a needle's point that little world of pa.s.sion is balanced!"

I.

"MEETING AT NIGHT.

1.

The gray sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

2.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!

II.

PARTING AT MORNING.

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim: And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me."

But the largest, if not the greatest work in the volume must be sought for, not in the romances, properly speaking, nor in the lyrics, but in the dramatic monologues. _Pictor Ignotus_ (Florence, 15--) is the first of those poems about painting, into which Browning has put so much of his finest art. It is a sort of first faint hint or foreshadowing of _Andrea del Sarto_, perfectly individual and distinct though it is.

_Pictor Ignotus_ expresses the subdued sadness of a too timid or too sensitive nature, an "unknown painter" who has dreamed of painting great pictures and winning great fame, but who shrinks equally from the attempt and the reward: an attempt which he is too self-distrustful to make, a reward which he is too painfully discriminating to enjoy.

"So, die my pictures! surely, gently die!

O youth, men praise so,--holds their praise its worth?

Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry?

Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?"