Browning's England Part 50

What visions will his right hand's sway Still turn to forms, as still they burst Upon him? How will he quench thirst, t.i.tanically infantine, Laid at the breast of the Divine?

Does it confound thee,--this first page Emblazoning man's heritage?-- Can this alone absorb thy sight, As pages were not infinite,-- Like the omnipotence which tasks Itself to furnish all that asks The soul it means to satiate?

What was the world, the starry state Of the broad skies,--what, all displays Of power and beauty intermixed, Which now thy soul is chained betwixt,-- What else than needful furniture For life's first stage? G.o.d's work, be sure, No more spreads wasted, than falls scant!

He filled, did not exceed, man's want Of beauty in this life. But through Life pierce,--and what has earth to do, Its utmost beauty's appanage, With the requirement of next stage?

Did G.o.d p.r.o.nounce earth 'very good'?

Needs must it be, while understood For man's preparatory state; Nought here to heighten nor abate; Transfer the same completeness here, To serve a new state's use,--and drear Deficiency gapes every side!

The good, tried once, were bad, retried.

See the enwrapping rocky niche, Sufficient for the sleep in which The lizard breathes for ages safe: Split the mould--and as light would chafe The creature's new world-widened sense, Dazzled to death at evidence Of all the sounds and sights that broke Innumerous at the chisel's stroke,-- So, in G.o.d's eye, the earth's first stuff Was, neither more nor less, enough To house man's soul, man's need fulfil.

Man reckoned it immeasurable?

So thinks the lizard of his vault!

Could G.o.d be taken in default, Short of contrivances, by you,-- Or reached, ere ready to pursue His progress through eternity?

That chambered rock, the lizard's world, Your easy mallet's blow has hurled To nothingness for ever; so, Has G.o.d abolished at a blow This world, wherein his saints were pent,-- Who, though found grateful and content, With the provision there, as thou, Yet knew he would not disallow Their spirit's hunger, felt as well,-- Unsated,--not unsatable, As paradise gives proof. Deride Their choice now, thou who sit'st outside!"

XXVII

I cried in anguish, "Mind, the mind, So miserably cast behind, To gain what had been wisely lost!

Oh, let me strive to make the most Of the poor stinted soul, I nipped Of budding wings, else now equipped For voyage from summer isle to isle!

And though she needs must reconcile Ambition to the life on ground, Still, I can profit by late found But precious knowledge. Mind is best-- I will seize mind, forego the rest, And try how far my tethered strength May crawl in this poor breadth and length.

Let me, since I can fly no more, At least spin dervish-like about (Till giddy rapture almost doubt I fly) through circling sciences, Philosophies and histories Should the whirl slacken there, then verse, Fining to music, shall asperse Fresh and fresh fire-dew, till I strain Intoxicate, half-break my chain!

Not joyless, though more favored feet Stand calm, where I want wings to beat The floor. At least earth's bond is broke!"

XXVIII

Then, (sickening even while I spoke) "Let me alone! No answer, pray, To this! I know what Thou wilt say!

All still is earth's,--to know, as much As feel its truths, which if we touch With sense, or apprehend in soul, What matter? I have reached the goal-- 'Whereto does knowledge serve!' will burn My eyes, too sure, at every turn!

I cannot look back now, nor stake Bliss on the race, for running's sake.

The goal's a ruin like the rest!-- And so much worse thy latter quest,"

(Added the voice) "that even on earth-- Whenever, in man's soul, had birth Those intuitions, grasps of guess, Which pull the more into the less, Making the finite comprehend Infinity,--the bard would spend Such praise alone, upon his craft, As, when wind-lyres obey the waft, Goes to the craftsman who arranged The seven strings, changed them and rechanged-- Knowing it was the South that harped.

He felt his song, in singing, warped; Distinguished his and G.o.d's part: whence A world of spirit as of sense Was plain to him, yet not too plain, Which he could traverse, not remain A guest in:--else were permanent Heaven on the earth its gleams were meant To sting with hunger for full light,-- Made visible in verse, despite The veiling weakness,--truth by means Of fable, showing while it screens,-- Since highest truth, man e'er supplied, Was ever fable on outside.

Such gleams made bright the earth an age; Now the whole sun's his heritage!

Take up thy world, it is allowed, Thou who hast entered in the cloud!"

XXIX

Then I--"Behold, my spirit bleeds, Catches no more at broken reeds,-- But lilies flower those reeds above: I let the world go, and take love!

Love survives in me, albeit those I love be henceforth masks and shows, Not living men and women: still I mind how love repaired all ill, Cured wrong, soothed grief, made earth amends With parents, brothers, children, friends!

Some semblance of a woman yet With eyes to help me to forget, Shall look on me; and I will match Departed love with love, attach Old memories to new dreams, nor scorn The poorest of the grains of corn I save from shipwreck on this isle, Trusting its barrenness may smile With happy foodful green one day, More precious for the pains. I pray,-- Leave to love, only!"

x.x.x

At the word, The form, I looked to have been stirred With pity and approval, rose O'er me, as when the headsman throws Axe over shoulder to make end-- I fell p.r.o.ne, letting Him expend His wrath, while thus the inflicting voice Smote me. "Is this thy final choice?

Love is the best? 'Tis somewhat late!

And all thou dost enumerate Of power and beauty in the world, The mightiness of love was curled Inextricably round about.

Love lay within it and without, To clasp thee,--but in vain! Thy soul Still shrunk from Him who made the whole, Still set deliberate aside His love!--Now take love! Well betide Thy tardy conscience! Haste to take The show of love for the name's sake, Remembering every moment Who, Beside creating thee unto These ends, and these for thee, was said To undergo death in thy stead In flesh like thine: so ran the tale.

What doubt in thee could countervail Belief in it? Upon the ground 'That in the story had been found Too much love! How could G.o.d love so?'

He who in all his works below Adapted to the needs of man, Made love the basis of the plan,-- Did love, as was demonstrated: While man, who was so fit instead To hate, as every day gave proof,-- Man thought man, for his kind's behoof, Both could and did invent that scheme Of perfect love: 'twould well beseem Cain's nature thou wast wont to praise, Not tally with G.o.d's usual ways!"

x.x.xI

And I cowered deprecatingly-- "Thou Love of G.o.d! Or let me die, Or grant what shall seem heaven almost!

Let me not know that all is lost, Though lost it be--leave me not tied To this despair, this corpse-like bride!

Let that old life seem mine--no more-- With limitation as before, With darkness, hunger, toil, distress: Be all the earth a wilderness!

Only let me go on, go on, Still hoping ever and anon To reach one eve the Better Land!"

x.x.xII

Then did the form expand, expand-- I knew Him through the dread disguise As the whole G.o.d within His eyes Embraced me.

x.x.xIII

When I lived again, The day was breaking,--the grey plain I rose from, silvered thick with dew.

Was this a vision? False or true?

Since then, three varied years are spent, And commonly my mind is bent To think it was a dream--be sure A mere dream and distemperature-- The last day's watching: then the night,-- The shock of that strange Northern Light Set my head swimming, bred in me A dream. And so I live, you see, Go through the world, try, prove, reject, Prefer, still struggling to effect My warfare; happy that I can Be crossed and thwarted as a man, Not left in G.o.d's contempt apart, With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, Tame in earth's paddock as her prize.

Thank G.o.d, she still each method tries To catch me, who may yet escape, She knows,--the fiend in angel's shape!

Thank G.o.d, no paradise stands barred To entry, and I find it hard To be a Christian, as I said!

Still every now and then my head Raised glad, sinks mournful--all grows drear Spite of the sunshine, while I fear And think, "How dreadful to be grudged No ease henceforth, as one that's judged.

Condemned to earth for ever, shut From heaven!"

But Easter-Day breaks! But Christ rises! Mercy every way Is infinite,--and who can say?

This poem has often been cited as a proof of Browning's own belief in historical Christianity. It can hardly be said to be more than a doubtful proof, for it depends upon a subjective vision of which the speaker, himself, doubts the truth. The speaker in this poem belongs in the same category with Bishop Blougram. A belief in infinite Love can come to him only through the dogma of the incarnation, he therefore holds to that, no matter how tossed about by doubts. The failure of all human effort to attain the Absolute and, as a consequence, the belief in an Absolute beyond this life is a dominant note in Browning's own philosophy. The nature of that Absolute he further evolves from the intellectual observation of power that transcends human comprehension, and the even more deep-rooted sense of love in the human heart.

Much of his thought resembles that of the English scientist, Herbert Spencer. The relativity of knowledge and the relativity of good and evil are cardinal doctrines with both of them. Herbert Spencer's mystery behind all phenomena and Browning's failure of human knowledge are identical--the negative proof of the absolute,--but where Spencer contents himself with the statement that though we cannot know the Absolute, yet it must transcend all that the human mind has conceived of perfection, Browning, as we have already seen, declares that we _can_ know something of the nature of that Absolute through the love which we know in the human heart as well as the power we see displayed in Nature.

In connection with this subject, which for lack of s.p.a.ce can merely be touched on in the present volume, it will be instructive to round out Browning's presentations of his own contributions to nineteenth-century thought with two quotations, one from "The Parleyings:" "With Bernard de Mandeville," and one from a poem in his last volume "Reverie." In the first, human love is symbolized as the image made by a lens of the sun, which latter symbolizes Divine Love.

BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE

IX

Boundingly up through Night's wall dense and dark, Embattled crags and clouds, outbroke the Sun Above the conscious earth, and one by one Her heights and depths absorbed to the last spark His fluid glory, from the far fine ridge Of mountain-granite which, transformed to gold, Laughed first the thanks back, to the vale's dusk fold On fold of vapor-swathing, like a bridge Shattered beneath some giant's stamp. Night wist Her work done and betook herself in mist To marsh and hollow there to bide her time Blindly in acquiescence. Everywhere Did earth acknowledge Sun's embrace sublime Thrilling her to the heart of things: since there No ore ran liquid, no spar branched anew, No arrowy crystal gleamed, but straightway grew Glad through the inrush--glad nor more nor less Than, 'neath his gaze, forest and wilderness, Hill, dale, land, sea, the whole vast stretch and spread, The universal world of creatures bred By Sun's munificence, alike gave praise-- All creatures but one only: gaze for gaze, Joyless and thankless, who--all scowling can-- Protests against the innumerous praises? Man, Sullen and silent.

Stand thou forth then, state Thy wrong, thou sole aggrieved--disconsolate-- While every beast, bird, reptile, insect, gay And glad acknowledges the bounteous day!

X

Man speaks now:--"What avails Sun's earth-felt thrill To me? Sun penetrates the ore, the plant-- They feel and grow: perchance with subtler skill He interfuses fly, worm, brute, until Each favored object pays life's ministrant By pressing, in obedience to his will, Up to completion of the task prescribed, So stands and stays a type. Myself imbibed Such influence also, stood and stand complete-- The perfect Man,--head, body, hands and feet, True to the pattern: but does that suffice?

How of my superadded mind which needs --Not to be, simply, but to do, and pleads For--more than knowledge that by some device Sun quickens matter: mind is n.o.bly fain To realize the marvel, make--for sense As mind--the unseen visible, condense --Myself--Sun's all-pervading influence So as to serve the needs of mind, explain What now perplexes. Let the oak increase His corrugated strength on strength, the palm Lift joint by joint her fan-fruit, ball and balm,-- Let the coiled serpent bask in bloated peace,-- The eagle, like some skyey derelict, Drift in the blue, suspended glorying,-- The lion lord it by the desert-spring,-- What know or care they of the power which p.r.i.c.ked Nothingness to perfection? I, instead, When all-developed still am found a thing All-incomplete: for what though flesh had force Transcending theirs--hands able to unring The tightened snake's coil, eyes that could outcourse The eagle's soaring, voice whereat the king Of carnage couched discrowned? Mind seeks to see, Touch, understand, by mind inside of me, The outside mind--whose quickening I attain To recognize--I only. All in vain Would mind address itself to render plain The nature of the essence. Drag what lurks Behind the operation--that which works Latently everywhere by outward proof-- Drag that mind forth to face mine? No! aloof I solely crave that one of all the beams Which do Sun's work in darkness, at my will Should operate--myself for once have skill To realize the energy which streams Flooding the universe. Above, around, Beneath--why mocks that mind my own thus found Simply of service, when the world grows dark, To half-surmise--were Sun's use understood, I might demonstrate him supplying food, Warmth, life, no less the while? To grant one spark Myself may deal with--make it thaw my blood And prompt my steps, were truer to the mark Of mind's requirement than a half-surmise That somehow secretly is operant A power all matter feels, mind only tries To comprehend! Once more--no idle vaunt 'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' Mysteries At source why probe into? Enough: display, Make demonstrable, how, by night as day, Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all's informed Equally by Sun's efflux!--source from whence If just one spark I drew, full evidence Were mine of fire ineffably enthroned-- Sun's self made palpable to Man!"

XI

Thus moaned Man till Prometheus helped him,--as we learn,-- Offered an artifice whereby he drew Sun's rays into a focus,--plain and true, The very Sun in little: made fire burn And henceforth do Man service--gla.s.s-conglobed Though to a pin-point circle--all the same Comprising the Sun's self, but Sun disrobed Of that else-unconceived essential flame Borne by no naked sight. Shall mind's eye strive Achingly to companion as it may The supersubtle effluence, and contrive To follow beam and beam upon their way Hand-breadth by hand-breadth, till sense faint--confessed Frustrate, eluded by unknown unguessed Infinitude of action? Idle quest!

Rather ask aid from optics. Sense, descry The spectrum--mind, infer immensity!

Little? In little, light, warmth, life are blessed-- Which, in the large, who sees to bless? Not I More than yourself: so, good my friend, keep still Trustful with--me? with thee, sage Mandeville!

The second "Reverie" has the effect of a triumphant swan song, especially the closing stanzas, the poem having been written very near the end of the poet's life.

"In a beginning G.o.d Made heaven and earth." Forth flashed Knowledge: from star to clod Man knew things: doubt abashed Closed its long period.