Browning and the Dramatic Monologue Part 4

RABBI BEN EZRA

Grow old along with me! the best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust G.o.d: see all, nor be afraid!"

Not that, ama.s.sing flowers, youth sighed, "Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall!"

Not that, admiring stars, it yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars; Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"

Not for such hopes and fears, annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate; folly wide the mark!

Rather I prize the doubt low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed, were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: Such feasting ended, then as sure an end to men; Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied to That which doth provide And not partake, effect and not receive!

A spark disturbs our clod; nearer we hold of G.o.d Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff that turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!

Be our joys three parts pain! strive and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence--a paradox which comforts while it mocks-- Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, and was not, comforts me; A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

What is he but a brute whose flesh hath soul to suit, Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?

To man, propose this test--thy body at its best, How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use: I own the past profuse Of power each side, perfection every turn: Eyes, ears took in their dole, brain treasured up the whole; Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn"?

Not once beat "Praise be thine! I see the whole design, I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: Perfect I call Thy plan: thanks that I was a man!

Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shalt do!"

For pleasant is this flesh: our soul, in its rose-mesh Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest: Would we some prize might hold to match those manifold Possessions of the brute,--gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say, "Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!"

As the bird wings and sings, let us cry, "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"

Therefore I summon age to grant youth's heritage, Life's struggle having so far reached its term: Thence shall I pa.s.s, approved a man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a G.o.d though in the germ.

And I shall thereupon take rest, ere I be gone Once more on my adventure brave and new; Fearless and unperplexed, when I wage battle next, What weapons to select, what armor to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try my gain or loss thereby; Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: And I shall weigh the same, give life its praise or blame: Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For note, when evening shuts, a certain moment cuts The deed off, calls the glory from the gray: A whisper from the west shoots, "Add this to the rest, Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."

So, still within this life, though lifted o'er its strife, Let me discern, compare, p.r.o.nounce at last, "This rage was right i' the main, that acquiescence vain: The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."

For more is not reserved to man, with soul just nerved To act to-morrow what he learns to-day; Here, work enough to watch the Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

As it was better, youth should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made; So, better, age, exempt from strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age; wait death nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right and Good and Infinite Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, With knowledge absolute, subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.

Be there, for once and all, severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past!

Was I the world arraigned, were they my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes match me: we all surmise, They this thing, and I that; whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar ma.s.s called "work" must sentence pa.s.s, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, the low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coa.r.s.e thumb and finger failed to plumb, So pa.s.sed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, all purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount;

Thoughts hardly to be packed into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could never be, all men ignored in me, This I was worth to G.o.d, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that Potter's wheel, that metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why pa.s.sive lies our clay,-- Thou, to whom fools propound, when the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"

Fool! All that is at all lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and G.o.d stand sure: What entered into thee, _that_ was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops; potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee mid this dance of plastic circ.u.mstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest Machinery just meant to give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What though the earlier grooves which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press?

What though, about thy rim, skull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look thou not down but up! to uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, the Master's lips a-glow!

Thou, Heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?

But I need, now as then, Thee, G.o.d, who mouldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I--to the wheel of life, with shapes and colors rife, Bound dizzily--mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst;

So take and use Thy work, amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!

My times be in Thy hand! perfect the cup as planned!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Even when the words are the same, the delivery changes according to the peculiarities of the hearer. No one tells a story in the same way to different persons. When it is narrated to a little child, greater emphasis is placed on points; we make longer pauses and more salient, definite pictures; but if it is told to an educated man, the thought is sketched more in outline. To one who is ignorant of the circ.u.mstances many details are carefully suggested. Even the figures and ill.u.s.trations are consciously or unconsciously so chosen by one with the dramatic instinct as to adapt the truth to the listener.

In "The Englishman in Italy," the story is told to a child. After the quotation, "such trifles," the Englishman speaking would no doubt laugh.

The spirit of the poem is shown by the fact that it is spoken by an Englishman to a little child that is an Italian.

A monologue shows the effect of character upon character, and hence nearly always implies the direct speaking of one person to another. In this it differs from a speech. Still, the principle applies even to the speaker.

He cannot present a subject in the same way to an educated and to an uneducated audience, but instinctively chooses words common to him and to his hearers and finds such ill.u.s.trations as make his meaning obvious to them. All language is imperfect. Truth is not made clear by being made superficial, but by the careful choosing of words and ill.u.s.trations understood by the hearer. The speaker, accordingly, must feel his audience. The imperfection of ordinary teaching and speaking is thus explained by a form of dramatic art. Browning says at the close of "The Ring and the Book":

"Why take the artistic way to prove so much?

Because, it is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine, at least.

How look a brother in the face and say 'Thy right is wrong, eyes hast thou, yet art blind, Thine ears are stuffed and stopped, despite their length, And, oh, the foolishness thou countest faith!'

Say this as silvery as tongue can troll-- The anger of the man may be endured, The shrug, the disappointed eyes of him Are not so bad to bear--but here's the plague, That all this trouble comes of telling truth, Which truth, by when it reaches him, looks false, Seems to be just the thing it would supplant, Nor recognizable by whom it left; While falsehood would have done the work of truth.

But Art,--wherein man nowise speaks to men, Only to mankind,--Art may tell a truth Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word."

In "A Woman's Last Word," already explained (p. 6), the listening husband, his att.i.tude towards his wife, his jealousy and suspicion, all serve to call forth her love and n.o.bility of character. He is the cause of the monologue, and must be as definitely conceived as the speaker. Without a clear conception of his character, her words cannot receive the right interpretation.

In "Bishop Blougram's Apology," the listener, Mr. Gigadibs, is definitely, though indirectly, portrayed. He is a young man of thirty, impulsive, ideal, but has not yet struggled with the problems of life. His criticisms of Blougram are answered by that worldly-minded ecclesiastic, who can declare most truly the fact that an absolute faith is not possible, and then a.s.sume--and thus contradict himself--that to ignorant people he must preach an absolute faith. The character of the Bishop is strongly conceived, and his perception of the highest possibility of life, as well as his failure to carry it out, are portrayed with marvellous complexity and full recognition of the difficulties of reconciling idealism with realism. But the character of his young, enthusiastic, and earnest critic, who lacks his experience and who may be partially silenced, is as important as the apology of Blougram. The poem is a debate between an idealist and a realist, the speech of the realist alone being given. We catch the weakness and the strength of both points of view, and thus enter into the comprehension of a most subtle struggle for self-justification.

It is some distance from Bishop Blougram to Mr. Dooley, but the necessity for a listener in the monologue, a listener of definite character, is shown in both cases.

Dooley's talks are a departure from the regular form of the monologue, in the fact that Hennessey now and then speaks a word directly; but this partial introduction of dialogue does not change the fact that all of these talks are monologues. Such interruptions are not the only types of departure from the strict form of the monologue. Browning gives a narrative conclusion to "Pheidippides" and "Bishop Blougram's Apology,"