Mr. Browning's poems abound in descriptive passages, and his power of
word-painting is very vivid, as well as frequently employed. But we have
here another instance of a quality diffused throughout his work, yet
scarcely ever asserting itself in a distinct form. The reason is, that
he deals with men and women first--with nature afterwards; and that the
details of a landscape have little meaning for him, except in reference
to the mental or dramatic situation of which they form a part. This is
very apparent in such lyrics or romances as: "By the Fire-side," "In a
Gondola," and "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." We find three
poems only which might have been written for the sake of the picturesque
impressions which they convey:
"De Gustibus--" ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Men and
Women." 1855.)
"Home-Thoughts, from Abroad." ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in
"Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
"The Englishman in Italy." ("Dramatic Romances." Published as
"England in Italy" in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)
And even here we receive the picture with a lyric and dramatic
colouring, which makes it much less one of facts than of
associations. It is also to be remarked that, in these poems,
the associations are of two opposite kinds, and Mr. Browning
is in equal sympathy with both. He feels English scenery as an
Englishman does: Italian, as an Italian might be supposed to,
feel it.
"DE GUSTIBUS--" illustrates the difference of tastes by the respective
attractions of these two kinds of scenery, and of the ideas and images
connected with them. Some one is apostrophizing a friend, whose ghost he
is convinced will be found haunting an English lane, with its adjoining
corn-field and hazel coppice: where in the early summer the blackbird
sings, and the bean-flower scents the air. And he declares at the same
time that Italy is the land of his own love, whether his home there be a
castle in the Apennine, or some house on its southern shore; among
"wind-grieved" heights, or on the edge of an opaque blue sea: amidst a
drought and stillness in which the very cicala dies, and the cypress
seems to rust; and scorpions drop and crawl from the peeling walls ...
and where "a bare-footed girl tumbles green melons on to the ground
before you, as she gives news of the last attack on the Bourbon king."
"HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD" is a longing reminiscence of an English
April and May, with their young leaves and their blossoms, their
sunshine and their dew, their song of the chaffinch and their rapturous
music of the thrush. Appreciation is heightened by contrast; and the
buttercup--England's gift to her little children--is pronounced far
brighter than the "gaudy melon-flower" which the exiled Englishman has
at this moment before him.
"THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY" is a vivid picture of Italian peasant-life on
the plain of Sorrento: the occasion being an outbreak of the well-known
hot wind--the "scirocco"--which, in this case, has brought with it a
storm of rain. A little frightened peasant girl has taken refuge by the
side of the Englishman, who is apparently lodging in her mother's
cottage. And he is diverting her attention by describing his impressions
of the last twenty-four hours: how everything looked before the rain;
how he knew while yet in bed that the rain had come, by the rattling
down of the quail-nets,[93] which were to be tugged into shelter, while
girls ran on to the housetops to fetch the drying figs; how the black
churning waters forbade the fishermen to go to sea (what strange
creatures they bring home when they do go, and how the brown naked
children, who look like so many shrimps, cling screaming about them at
the sight); how all hands are now employed at the wine-making, and her
brother is at this moment dancing bare-legged in a vat half as high as
the house; how the bigger girls bring baskets of grapes, with eyes
closed to keep out the rain; and how the smaller ones gather snails in
the wet grass, which will appear with fried pumpkin at the labourer's
supper; how, yesterday, he climbed Mount Calvano--that very brother of
hers for his guide--his mule carrying him with dainty steps through the
plain--past the woods--up a path ever wilder and stonier, where sorb
and myrtle fall away, but lentisk and rosemary still cling to the face
of the rock--the head and shoulders of some new mountain ever coming
into view; how he emerged, at last, where there were mountains all
around; below, the green sea; above, the crystal solitudes of heaven;
and, down in that green sea, the slumbering Siren islands: the three
which stand together, and the one which swam to meet them, but has
always remained half-way. These, and other reminiscences, beguile the
time till the storm has passed, and the sun breaks over the great
mountain which the Englishman has just described. He and little "Fortú"
can now go into the village, and see the preparations being made for
to-morrow's feast--that of the Virgin of the Rosary--which primitive
solemnity he also (by anticipation) describes. He concludes with a brief
allusion to the political scirocco which is blackening the English sky,
and will not vanish so quickly as this has done; and thus hints at a
reason, if the reader desires one, for his temporary rustication in a
foreign land.