intellectual, should be so predominantly the poet of Love. This
passion is the motive power of his verse, as he believed it to be
the motive power of the universe. He exhibits the love of men and
women in all its manifestations, from baseness and folly to the
noblest heights of self-renunciation. It is natural that the most
masculine and the most vigorous and the most intellectual of all our
poets should devote his powers mainly to the representation of love.
For love is the essence of force, and does not spring from
effeminate weakness or febrile delicacy. Any painter can cover a huge
canvas, but, as has been observed, only the strong hand can do the
fine and tender work. To discuss at length the love-poems of
Browning would take us far beyond the limits of this volume; but
certain of the dramatic lyrics may be selected to illustrate salient
characteristics. As various poets in making portraits emphasise what
is to them the most expressive features, the eyes or the lips, so
Browning, the poet of the mind, loves best of all in his women and
men, the Brow.
In _Evelyn Hope_,
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
In _The Last Ride Together_,
My mistress bent that brow of hers.
In _By the Fireside_,
Reading by firelight, that great brow
And the spirit-small hand propping it.
In _The Statue and the Bust_,
Hair in heaps lay heavily
Over a pale brow spirit-pure.
In _Count Gismond_,
They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen
By virtue of her brow and breast.
And the wonderful description of Pompilia by Caponsacchi:
Her brow had not the right line, leaned too much,
Painters would say; they like the straight-up Greek:
This seemed bent somewhat with an invisible crown
Of martyr and saint, not such as art approves.
In _Eurydice_,
But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!
In _Count Gismond_,
Our elder boy has got the clear
Great brow.
In _The Statue and the Bust_,
On his steady brow and quiet mouth.
His ideally beautiful women generally have yellow hair. The lady
_In a Gondola_ had coiled hair, "a round smooth cord of gold." In
_Evelyn Hope_, the "hair's young gold:" in _Love Among the Ruins_,
"eager eyes and yellow hair:" in _A Toccata_,
Dear dead women, with such hair, too--what's become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms?
And we must not forget his poem, _Gold Hair_. His descriptions of
women's faces are never conventional, rosy cheeks and bright eyes,
but always definite and specific. In _Time's Revenges_, the
unfortunate lover is maddened by the vision of the girl's face:
So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,
Filled full, eaten out and in
With the face of her, the eyes of her,
The lips, the little chin, the stir
Of shadow round her mouth.
Browning's rejected lovers are such splendid fellows that one
wonders at their ill luck. Tennyson's typical lovers, as seen in
_Locksley Hall_, _Lady Clara Vere de Vere_, and the first part of
_Maud_, behave in a manner that quite justifies the woman. They
whine, they rave, and they seem most of all to be astonished at the
woman's lack of judgment in not recognising their merits. Instead of
a noble sorrow, they exhibit peevishness; they seem to say,
"You'll be sorry some day." Browning's rejected lovers never think
of themselves and their own defeat; they think only of the woman,
who is now more adorable than ever. It never occurs to them that the
woman is lacking in intelligence because of her refusal; nor that
the man she prefers is a lowbrowed scoundrel. They are chivalrous;
they do their best to win. When they lose, they would rather have
been rejected by this woman than accepted by any other; and they are
always ready to congratulate the man more fortunate than they. They
are in fact simply irresistible, and one can not help believing in
their ultimate success. In _The Lost Mistress_, which Swinburne said
was worth a thousand _Lost Leaders_, the lover has just been rejected,
and instead of thinking of his own misery, he endeavours to make the
awkward situation easier for the girl by small-talk about the
sparrows and the leaf-buds. She has urged that their friendship
continue; that this episode need not put an end to their meetings,
and that he can come to see her as often as he likes, only there
must be no nonsense; he must promise to be sensible, and treat her
only as a friend. Instead of rejecting this suggestion with scorn, he
accepts, and agrees to do his best.
Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we ...
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!
"I will do my best to please you, but remember I'm made of flesh and
blood."
In _One Way of Love_, the same kind of man appears. Pauline likes
flowers, music, and fine speeches. He is just a mere man, who has
never noticed a flower in his life, who is totally indifferent to
music, and never could talk with eloquence. But if Pauline likes
these things, he must endeavor to impress her, if not with his skill,
at all events with his devotion. He sends her a beautiful bouquet;
she does not even notice it. For months he tries to learn the
instrument, until finally he can play "his tune." She does not even
listen; he throws the lute away, for he cares nothing for music
except for her sake. At last comes the supreme moment when he makes
his declaration, on which the whole happiness of his life depends.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion-heaven or hell?
Many lovers, on being rejected, would simply repeat the last word
just quoted. This fine sportsmanlike hero remarks,
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well
Lose who may--I still can say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they!
"I can not reproach myself, for I did my best, and lost: still less
can I reproach her; all I can say is, the man who gets her is lucky."
Finally, the same kind of character appears in one of the greatest
love-poems in all literature, _The Last Ride Together_. The
situation just before the opening lines is an exact parallel to that
of _The Lost Mistress_. Every day this young pair have been riding
together. The man has fallen in love, and has mistaken the girl's
camaraderie for a deeper feeling. He has just discovered his error,
and without minimising the force of the blow that has wrecked his
life's happiness, this is what he says:
Then, dearest, since 'tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be--
My whole heart rises up to
(curse, oh, no!)
rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave,--I claim
Only a memory of the same,
--And this beside, if you will not blame,
Your leave for one more last ride with me.
What does the rejected lover mean by such brave words as "pride" and
"thankfulness"? He means that it is a great honor to be rejected by
such a woman, as Mr. Birrell says it is better to be knocked down by
Doctor Johnson than to be picked up by Mr. Froude. He is thankful,
too, to have known such a wonderful woman; and to show that he can
control himself, and make the situation easier for her, he requests
that to-day for the last time they ride just as usual--indeed they
had met for that purpose, are properly accoutred, and were about to
start, when he astonished her with his sudden and no longer
controllable declaration. Right! We shall ride together. I am not
yet banished from the sight of her. Perhaps the world will end
to-night.
In the course of this poem, Browning develops one of his favorite
ideas, that Life is always greater than Art. A famous poet may sit
at his desk, and write of love in a way to thrill the hearts of his
readers; but we should place him lower than rustic sweethearts
meeting in the moonlight, because they are having in reality
something which exists for the poet only in dreams. The same is true
of sculpture and all pictorial art; men will turn from the greatest
masterpiece of the chisel or the brush to look at a living woman.
And you, great sculptor,--so, you gave
A score of years to Art, her slave,
And that's your Venus, whence we turn
To yonder girl that fords the burn!
I was once seated in the square room in the gallery at Dresden that
holds the most famous picture in the world, Rafael's Sistine Madonna.
A number of tourists were in the place, and we were all gazing
steadfastly at the immortal Virgin, when a pretty, fresh-colored
young American girl entered the room. Every man's head twisted away
from the masterpiece of art, and every man's eyes stared at the
commonplace stranger, because she was alive! I was much amused, and
could not help thinking of Browning's lines.
This doctrine, that Life is greater than Art, is repeated by
Browning in _Cleon_, and it forms the whole content of Ibsen's last
drama, _When We Dead Awaken_.
The lover's reasoning at the close of Browning's poem, that
rejection may be better for him because now he has an unrealised
ideal, and that the race itself is better than the victor's garland,
reminds us of Lessing's noble saying, that if God gave him the
choice between the knowledge of all truth and the search for it, he
would humbly take the latter.
One must lead some life beyond,
Have a bliss to die with, _dim_-descried.
BROWNING'S REJECTED LOVERS
THE LOST MISTRESS
1845
All's over, then; does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!
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.
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:
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 soul forever!--
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!
ONE WAY OF LOVE
1855
I
All June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves
And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside? Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?
The chance was they might take her eye,
II.
How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string; fold music's wing:
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!
III.
My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion--heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!
Lose who may--I still can say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they!
THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER
1855
I
I said--Then, dearest, since 'tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be--
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave,--I claim
Only a memory of the same,
--And this beside, if you will not blame,
Your leave for one more last ride with me.
II
My mistress bent that brow of hers;
Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs
When pity would be softening through,
Fixed me a breathing-while or two
With life or death in the balance: right!
The blood replenished me again;
My last thought was at least not vain:
I and my mistress, side by side
Shall be together, breathe and ride,
So, one day more am I deified.
Who knows but the world may end to-night?
III
Hush! if you saw some western cloud
All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed
By many benedictions--sun's
And moon's and evening-star's at once--
And so, you, looking and loving best,
Conscious grew, your passion drew
Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too,
Down on you, near and yet more near,
Till flesh must fade for heaven was here!--
Thus leant she and lingered--joy and fear!
Thus lay she a moment on my breast.
IV
Then we began to ride. My soul
Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll
Freshening and fluttering in the wind.
Past hopes already lay behind.
What need to strive with a life awry?
Had I said that, had I done this,
So might I gain, so might I miss.
Might she have loved me? just as well
She might have hated, who can tell!
Where had I been now if the worst befell?
And here we are riding, she and I.
V
Fail I alone, in words and deeds?
Why, all men strive and who succeeds?
We rode; it seemed my spirit flew,
Saw other regions, cities new.
As the world rushed by on either side.
I thought,--All labour, yet no less
Bear up beneath their unsuccess.
Look at the end of work, contrast
The petty done, the undone vast,
This present of theirs with the hopeful past!
I hoped she would love me; here we ride.
VI
What hand and brain went ever paired?
What heart alike conceived and dared?
What act proved all its thought had been?
What will but felt the fleshly screen?
We ride and I see her bosom heave.
There's many a crown for who can reach.
Ten lines, a statesman's life in each!
The flag stuck on a heap of bones,
A soldier's doing! what atones?
They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.
My riding is better, by their leave.
VII
What does it all mean, poet? Well,
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell
What we felt only; you expressed
You hold things beautiful the best,
And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.
'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then,
Have you yourself what's best for men?
Are you--poor, sick, old ere your time--
Nearer one whit your own sublime
Than we who never have turned a rhyme?
Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.
VIII
And you, great sculptor--so, you gave
A score of years to Art, her slave,
And that's your Venus, whence we turn
To yonder girl that fords the burn!
You acquiesce, and shall I repine?
What, man of music, you grown grey
With notes and nothing else to say,
Is this your sole praise from a friend,
"Greatly his opera's strains intend,
Put in music we know how fashions end!"
I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine.
IX
Who knows what's fit for us? Had fate
Proposed bliss here should sublimate
My being--had I signed the bond--
Still one must lead some life beyond,
Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried.
This foot once planted on the goal,
This glory-garland round my soul,
Could I descry such? Try and test!
I sink back shuddering from the quest.
Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?
Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.
X
And yet--she has not spoke so long!
What if heaven be that, fair and strong
At life's best, with our eyes upturned
Whither life's flower is first discerned,
We, fixed so, ever should so abide?
What if we still ride on, we two
With life for ever old yet new,
Changed not in kind but in degree,
The instant made eternity,--
And heaven just prove that I and she
Ride, ride together, for ever ride?
Browning's lovers, as has been illustrated, are usually chivalrous,
whether their passions have or have not the sanction of law. The
poem _In a Gondola_, which has been more often translated into
foreign languages than perhaps any other of Browning's works, gives
us a picture of a night in Venice. The fluent rhythms of the verse
indicate the lazy glide of the gondola through the dark waters of the
canal. The lovers speak, sing, and muse; and their conversation is
full of the little language characteristic of those who are in
complete possession of each other, soul and body. They delight in
passionate reminiscences: they love to recall their first chance
meeting:
Ah, the autumn day
I, passing, saw you overhead!
The wind blew out the curtains of her apartment, and her pet parrot
escaped, giving the man his opportunity. They rehearse over again
the advancing stages of their drama. She asks him to kiss her like a
moth, then like a bee--in the attempt to recapture the first shy
sweetness of their dawning passion. They play little love-games. He
pretends he is a Jew, carrying her away from her family to a tribal
feast; then that they twain are spirits of stars, meeting in the
thin air aloft. The intensity of their bliss is sharpened by the
black cloud of danger in which they move: for if the Three, husband,
father, and brother of the lady become aware of this secret liaison,
there can be only one end to it--a tragedy of blood. The lighted
taper held in the window by the trusted maid shows that they are
"safe," and for the last time they play again their little comedy of
formality. She pretends to be the formal _grande dame_, the lady
with the colder breast than snow: he is the bashful gallant, who
hardly dares touch the tips of her fingers. In this laughing moment,
the dagger of the husband is driven deep into his back. Like all of
Browning's lovers, he gives, even on the edge of the eternal darkness,
no thought to himself, but only to her. Gathering his dying energies,
he speaks in a loud tone, so that the conspirators, invisible in the
Venetian night, may hear him:
Care not for the cowards! Care
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair
My blood will hurt!
And in the last agony, he comforts her with the thought that all this,
the joy of love and the separation by murder, have been ordained.
In _Love Among the Ruins_, with which _Men and Women_ originally
opened, and which some believe to be Browning's masterpiece, Love is
given its place as the supreme fact in human history. This is a
scene in the Roman Campagna at twilight, and the picture in the
first stanza reminds us of Gray's _Elegy_ in the perfection of its
quiet silver tone. With a skill nothing short of genius, Browning
has maintained in this poem a double parallel. Up to the fifth stanza,
the contrast is between the present peace of the vast solitary plain,
and its condition years ago when it was the centre of a city's
beating heart: from the fifth stanza to the close, the contrast is
between this same vanished civilisation and the eternal quality of
Love. I do not remember any other work in literature where a double
parallel is given with such perfect continuity and beauty; the first
half of each stanza is in exact antithesis to the last. The
parenthesis--_so they say_--is a delicate touch of dramatic irony.
No one would dream that this quiet plain was once the site of a
great city, for no proofs remain: we have to take the word of the
archæologists for it. Some day a Japanese shepherd may pasture his
sheep on Manhattan Island.
After a poetic discourse on the text _Sic transit gloria mundi_--the
love motive is suddenly introduced in the fifth stanza; and now the
contrast changes, and becomes a comparison between the ephemeral
nature of civilisation and the permanent fact of Love. At the exact
spot where the grandstand formerly stood at the finish of the
horse-race, where the King, surrounded by courtiers, watched the
whirling chariots, now remains motionless, breathless, a
yellow-haired girl. The proud King's eyes looked over the stadium
and beheld the domes and pinnacles of his city, the last word of
civilisation; the girl's eager eyes look over the silent plain
searching for the coming of her lover. And Browning would have us
believe that this latter fact is far more important historically
than the former.
Suppose an American professor of archæology is working on the grassy
expanse, collecting material for his new book; he looks up for a
moment and sees a pair of rustic lovers kissing in the twilight; he
smiles, and resumes what seems to him his important labor. Little
does he imagine that this love-scene is more significant than all
the broken bits of pottery he digs out of the ground; yet such is the
fact. For all he can do at his very best is to reconstruct a
vanished past, while the lovers are acting a scene that belongs to
eternity. Love is best.
LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
1855
I
Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop--
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
II
Now,--the country does not even boast a tree
As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,
Twelve abreast.
III
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone--
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
IV
Now,--the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Through the chinks--
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
V
And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away--
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come.
VI
But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then,
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
VII
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--
Gold, of course.
Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
In the poem _Respectability_ Browning gives us a more vulgar, but
none the less vital aspect of love. This is no peaceful twilit
harmony; this scene is set on a windy, rainy night in noisy Paris,
on the left bank of the Seine, directly in front of the Institute of
France. Two reckless lovers--either old comrades or picked-up
acquaintances of this very night, it matters not which--come
tripping along gaily, arm in arm. The man chaffs at worldly
conventions, at the dullness of society, at the hypocrisy of
so-called respectable people, and congratulates himself and his fair
companion on the fun they are having. What fools they would have
been had they waited through a long, formal courtship for the
sanction of an expensive marriage! The world, he says, does not
forbid kisses, only it says, you must see the magistrate first. My
finger must not touch your soft lips until it is covered with the
glove of marriage. Bah! what do we care for the world's good word?
At this moment they reach the lighted windows of the Institute, and
like a pair of sparrows, they glance within at the highly proper but
terribly tedious company. What do they see? They see Guizot
compelled by political exigency to shake hands hypocritically with
his enemy Montalembert. But before them down a dim court shine three
lamps, an all-night dance resort. Come on! run for it! that's the
place for us! no dull formalities, no hypocrisies there! Something
doing!
RESPECTABILITY
1855
I
Dear, had the world in its caprice
Deigned to proclaim "I know you both,
Have recognized your plighted troth,
Am sponsor for you: live in peace!"--
How many precious months and years
Of youth had passed, that speed so fast,
Before we found it out at last,
The world, and what it fears?
II
How much of priceless life were spent
With men that every virtue decks,
And women models of their sex,
Society's true ornament,--
Ere we dared wander, nights like this,
Thro' wind and rain, and watch the Seine,
And feel the Boulevart break again
To warmth and light and bliss?
III