Browning's England Part 3

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.

III

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.

IV

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,--

V

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.

The poet's one truly enthusiastic outburst in connection with English Nature he sings out in his longing for an English spring in the incomparable little lyric "Home-thoughts, from Abroad."

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD

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 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!

After this it seems hardly possible that Browning, himself speaks in "De Gustibus," yet long and happy living away from England doubtless dimmed his sense of the beauty of English landscape. "De Gustibus" was published ten years later than "Home-Thoughts from Abroad," when Italy and he had indeed become "lovers old." A deeper reason than mere delight in its scenery is also reflected in the poem; the sympathy shared with Mrs. Browning, for the cause of Italian independence.

"DE GUSTIBUS----"

I

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, (If our loves remain) In an English lane, By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.

Hark, those two in the hazel coppice-- A boy and a girl, if the good fates please, Making love, say,-- The happier they!

Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, And let them pa.s.s, as they will too soon, With the bean-flower's boon, And the blackbird's tune, And May, and June!

II

What I love best in all the world Is a castle, precipice-encurled, In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.

Or look for me, old fellow of mine, (If I get my head from out the mouth O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, And come again to the land of lands)-- In a sea-side house to the farther South, Where the baked cicala dies of drouth, And one sharp tree--'tis a cypress--stands, By the many hundred years red-rusted, Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted, My sentinel to guard the sands To the water's edge. For, what expands Before the house, but the great opaque Blue breadth of sea without a break?

While, in the house, for ever crumbles Some fragment of the frescoed walls, From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.

A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons, And says there's news to-day--the king Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing, Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling: --She hopes they have not caught the felons.

Italy, my Italy!

Queen Mary's saying serves for me-- (When fortune's malice Lost her--Calais)-- Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, "Italy."

Such lovers old are I and she: So it always was, so shall ever be!

Two or three English artists called forth appreciation in verse from Browning. There is the exquisite bit called "Deaf and Dumb," after a group of statuary by Woolner, of Constance and Arthur--the deaf and dumb children of Sir Thomas Fairbairn.

DEAF AND DUMB

A GROUP BY WOOLNER.

Only the prism's obstruction shows aright The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light Into the jewelled bow from blankest white; So may a glory from defect arise: Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreak Its insuppressive sense on brow and cheek, Only by Dumbness adequately speak As favored mouth could never, through the eyes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: An English Lane]

There is also the beautiful description in "Balaustion's Adventure" of the Alkestis by Sir Frederick Leighton.

The flagrant anachronism of making a Greek girl at the time of the Fall of Athens describe an English picture cannot but be forgiven, since the artistic effect gained is so fine. The poet quite convinces the reader that Sir Frederick Leighton ought to have been a Kaunian painter, if he was not, and that Balaustion or no one was qualified to appreciate his picture at its full worth.

"I know, too, a great Kaunian painter, strong As Herakles, though rosy with a robe Of grace that softens down the sinewy strength: And he has made a picture of it all.

There lies Alkestis dead, beneath the sun, She longed to look her last upon, beside The sea, which somehow tempts the life in us To come trip over its white waste of waves, And try escape from earth, and fleet as free.

Behind the body, I suppose there bends Old Pheres in his h.o.a.ry impotence; And women-wailers, in a corner crouch --Four, beautiful as you four--yes, indeed!-- Close, each to other, agonizing all, As fastened, in fear's rhythmic sympathy, To two contending opposite. There strains The might o' the hero 'gainst his more than match, --Death, dreadful not in thew and bone, but like The envenomed substance that exudes some dew Whereby the merely honest flesh and blood Will fester up and run to ruin straight, Ere they can close with, clasp and overcome The poisonous impalpability That simulates a form beneath the flow Of those grey garments; I p.r.o.nounce that piece Worthy to set up in our Poikile!

"And all came,--glory of the golden verse, And pa.s.sion of the picture, and that fine Frank outgush of the human grat.i.tude Which saved our ship and me, in Syracuse,-- Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhaps Away from you, friends, while I told my tale, --It all came of this play that gained no prize!

Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?"

Once before had Sir Frederick Leighton inspired the poet in the exquisite lines on Eurydice.

EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS

A PICTURE BY LEIGHTON

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!

Let them once more absorb me! One look now Will lap me round for ever, not to pa.s.s Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond: Hold me but safe again within the bond Of one immortal look! All woe that was, Forgotten, and all terror that may be, Defied,--no past is mine, no future: look at me!

Beautiful as these lines are, they do not impress me as fully interpreting Leighton's picture. The expression of Eurydice is rather one of unthinking confiding affection--as if she were really unconscious or ignorant of the danger; while that of Orpheus is one of pa.s.sionate agony as he tries to hold her off.

Though English art could not fascinate the poet as Italian art did, for the fully sufficient reason that it does not stand for a great epoch of intellectual awakening, yet with what fair alchemy he has touched those few artists he has chosen to honor. Notwithstanding his avowed devotion to Italy, expressed in "De Gustibus," one cannot help feeling that in the poems mentioned in this chapter, there is that ecstasy of sympathy which goes only to the most potent influences in the formation of character. Something of what I mean is expressed in one of his latest poems, "Development." In this we certainly get a real peep at young Robert Browning, led by his wise father into the delights of Homer, by slow degrees, where all is truth at first, to end up with the devastating criticism of Wolf. In spite of it all the dream stays and is the reality. Nothing can obliterate the magic of a strong early enthusiasm, as "fact still held" "Spite of new Knowledge," in his "heart of hearts."

DEVELOPMENT

My Father was a scholar and knew Greek.

When I was five years old, I asked him once "What do you read about?"

"The siege of Troy."

"What is a siege and what is Troy?"

Whereat He piled up chairs and tables for a town, Set me a-top for Priam, called our cat --Helen, enticed away from home (he said) By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close Under the footstool, being cowardly, But whom--since she was worth the pains, poor puss-- Towzer and Tray,--our dogs, the Atreidai,--sought By taking Troy to get possession of --Always when great Achilles ceased to sulk, (My pony in the stable)--forth would prance And put to flight Hector--our page-boy's self.

This taught me who was who and what was what: So far I rightly understood the case At five years old: a huge delight it proved And still proves--thanks to that instructor sage My Father, who knew better than turn straight Learning's full flare on weak-eyed ignorance, Or, worse yet, leave weak eyes to grow sand-blind, Content with darkness and vacuity.

It happened, two or three years afterward, That--I and playmates playing at Troy's Siege-- My Father came upon our make-believe.