The emotions which, after that of love, are most strongly represented in
Mr. Browning's works are the RELIGIOUS and the ARTISTIC: emotions
closely allied in every nature in which they happen to co-exist, and
which are so in their proper degree in Mr. Browning's; the proof of this
being that two poems which I have placed in the Artistic group almost
equally fit into the Religious. But the religious poems impress us more
by their beauty than by their number, if we limit it to those which are
directly inspired by this particular emotion. Religious questions have
occupied, as we have seen, some of Mr. Browning's most important
reflective poems. Religious belief forms the undercurrent of many of the
emotional poems. And it was natural therefore, that religious feeling
should not often lay hold of him in a more exclusive form. It does so
only in three cases; those of
"Saul." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in part in "Dramatic
Romances and Lyrics," 1845; wholly, in "Men and Women,"
1855.)
"Epilogue." ("Dramatis Personæ." 1864.)
"Fears and Scruples." ("Pacchiarotto and other Poems." 1876.)
The religious sentiment in "SAUL" anticipates Christianity. It begins
with the expression of an exalted human tenderness, and ends in a
prophetic vision of Divine Love, as manifested in Christ. The speaker is
David. He has been sent into the presence of Saul to sing and play to
him; for Saul is in the agony of that recurring spiritual conflict from
which only David's song can deliver him; and when the boy-shepherd has
crept his way into the darkness of the tent, he sees the monarch with
arms outstretched against its poles, dumb, sightless, and stark, like
the serpent in the solitude of the forest awaiting its transformation.
David tells his story, re-enacting the scene which it describes, in
strong, simple, picturesque words which rise naturally into the language
of prophecy. He tells how first he tried the influence of pastoral
tunes: those which call the sheep back to the pen, and stir the sense of
insect and bird; how he passed to the song of the reapers--their
challenge to mutual help and fellowship; to the warrior's march; the
burial and marriage chants; the chorus of the Levites advancing towards
the altar; and how at this moment Saul sent forth a groan, though the
lights which leapt from the jewels of his turban were his only sign of
motion. Then--the tale continues--David changes his theme. He sings of
the goodness of human life, as attested by the joyousness of youth, the
gratitude of old age. He sings of labour and success, of hope and
fulfilment, of high ambitions and of great deeds; of the great king in
whom are centred all the gifts and the powers of human nature--of Saul
himself. And at these words the tense body relaxes, the arms cross
themselves on the breast. But the eyes of Saul still gaze vacantly
before him, without consciousness of life, without desire for it.
David's song has poured forth the full cup of material existence; he has
yet to infuse into it that draught of "Soul Wine" which shall make it
desirable. In a fresh burst of inspiration, he challenges his hearer to
follow him beyond the grave. "The tree is known by its fruits; life by
its results. Life, like the palm fruit, must be crushed before its wine
can flow. Saul will die. But his passion and his power will thrill the
generations to come. His achievements will live in the hearts of his
people; for whom their record, though covering the whole face of a rock,
will still seem incomplete." And as the "Soul Wine" works, as the vision
of this earthly immortality unfolds itself before the sufferer's sight,
he becomes a king again. The old attitude and expression assert
themselves. The hand is gently laid on the young singer's forehead; the
eyes fix themselves in grave scrutiny upon him.
Then the heart of David goes out to the suffering monarch in filial,
pitying tenderness; and he yearns to give him more than this present
life--a new life equal to it in goodness, and which shall be
everlasting.
And the yearning converts itself into prophecy. What he, as man, can
desire for his fellow-man, God will surely give. What he would suffer
for those he loves, surely God would suffer. Human nature in its power
of love would otherwise outstrip the Divine. He cries for the weakness
to be engrafted upon strength, the human to be manifested in the Divine.
And exulting in the consciousness that his cry is answered, he hails the
advent of Christ. He bids Saul "see" that a Face like his who now speaks
to him awaits him at the threshold of an eternal life; that a Hand like
his hand opens to him its gates.
David's prophecy has rung through the universe; and as he seeks his home
in the darkness, unseen "cohorts" press everywhere upon him. A
tumultuous expectation is filling earth and hell and heaven. The Hand
guides him through the tumult. He sees it die out in the birth of the
young day. But the hushed voices of nature attest the new dispensation.
The seal of the new promise is on the face of the earth.
The EPILOGUE is spoken by three different persons, and embodies as many
phases of the religious life. The "FIRST SPEAKER, _as David_,"
represents the old Testament Theism, with its solemn celebrations, its
pompous worship, and the strong material faith which bowed down the
thousands as one man, before the visible glory of the Lord.
The "SECOND SPEAKER, _as Renan_" represents nineteenth-century
scepticism, and the longing of the heart for the old belief which
scientific reason has dispelled. This belief is symbolized by a "Face"
which once looked down from heights of glory upon men; by a star which
shone down upon them in responsive life and love. The face has vanished
into darkness. The star, gradually receding, has lost itself in the
multitude of the lesser lights of heaven. And centuries roll past while
the forsaken watchers vainly question the heavenly vault for the sign of
love no longer visible there.
This lament assumes that Theism, having grown into Christianity, must
disappear with it; and the pathetic sense of bereavement gives way to
shuddering awe, as the farther significance of the sceptical position
reveals itself. _Man_ becomes the summit of creation; the sole successor
to the vacant throne of God.
The "THIRD SPEAKER," Mr. Browning himself, corrects both the material
faith of the Old Testament, and the scientific doubt of the nineteenth
century, by the idea of a more mystical and individual intercourse
between God and man. Observers have noted in the Arctic Seas that the
whole field of waters seem constantly hastening towards some central
point of rock, to envelope it in their playfulness and their force; in
the blackness they have borrowed from the nether world, or the radiance
they have caught from heaven; then tearing it up by the roots, to sweep
onwards towards another peak, and make _it_ their centre for the time
being. So do the forces of life and nature circle round the individual
man, doing in each the work of experience, reproducing for each the
Divine Face which is inspired by the spirit of creation. And, as the
speaker declares, he needs no "Temple," because the world is that. Nor,
as he implies, needs he look beyond the range of his own being for the
lost Divinity.
"That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,
Or decomposes but to recompose,
Become my universe that feels and knows!" (vol. vii. p. 255.)
"FEARS AND SCRUPLES" illustrates this personal religion in an opposite
manner. It is the expression of a tender and very simple religious
feeling, saddened by the obscurity which surrounds its object, and still
more by the impossibility of proving to other minds that this object is
a real one. It is described as the devotion to an unseen friend, known
only by his letters and reported deeds, but whom one loves as by
instinct, believes in without testimony, and trusts to as accepting the
allegiance of the smaller being, and sure sooner or later to acknowledge
it In the present case the days are going by. No sign of acknowledgment
has been given. Sceptics assure the believer that his faith rests on
letters which were forged, on actions which others equally have
performed; he can only yearn for some word or token which would enable
him to shut their mouth. But when some one hints that the friend is only
concealing himself to test his power of vision, and will punish him if
he does not see; and another objects that this would prove the friend a
monster; he crushes the objector with a word: "and what if the friend be
GOD?"
The next group is fuller and still more characteristic: for it displays
the love of Art in its special conditions, and, at the same time, in its
union with all the general human instincts in which artistic emotion can
be merged. We find it in its relation to the general love of life in
"Fra Lippo Lippi." ("Men and Women." 1855.)