Robert Browning: How To Know Him

W >> William Lyon Phelps >> Robert Browning: How To Know Him

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

PROSPICE

1864

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

One can hardly repress a smile at Browning's thorough-going optimism,
when he reads the poem, _Apparent Failure_, and then glances back at
the title. _Apparent_ failure! Of all the defeated sons of earth,
the nameless suicides whose wretched bodies are taken to the public
morgue, ought surely, we should imagine, to be classed as absolute
failures. But Browning does not think so. It is possible, he says,
that the reason why these poor outcasts abandoned life, was because
their aspirations were so tremendously high that dull reality
overpowered their spirits. Goodness is better than badness: meekness
better than ferocity: calm sense than mad ravings. But, after all,
these poor fellows were God's creatures. His sun will eventually
pierce the darkest cloud earth can stretch. Somewhere, after many
ages in the next life, these men will develop into something better
under the sunshine of the smile of God.

APPARENT FAILURE

1864

"We shall soon lose a celebrated building."
_Paris Newspaper_.

I

No, for I'll save it! Seven years since,
I passed through Paris, stopped a day
To see the baptism of your Prince;
Saw, made my bow, and went my way:
Walking the heat and headache off,
I took the Seine-side, you surmise,
Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,
Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies,
So sauntered till--what met my eyes?

II

Only the Doric little Morgue!
The dead-house where you show your drowned:
Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,
Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.
One pays one's debt in such a case;
I plucked up heart and entered,--stalked,
Keeping a tolerable face
Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:
Let them! No Briton's to be baulked!

III

First came the silent gazers; next,
A screen of glass, we're thankful for;
Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text,
The three men who did most abhor
Their life in Paris yesterday,
So killed themselves: and now, enthroned
Each on his copper couch, they lay
Fronting me, waiting to be owned.
I thought, and think, their sin's atoned.

IV

Poor men, God made, and all for that!
The reverence struck me; o'er each head
Religiously was hung its hat,
Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,
Sacred from touch: each had his berth,
His bounds, his proper place of rest,
Who last night tenanted on earth
Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,--
Unless the plain asphalte seemed best.

V

How did it happen, my poor boy?
You wanted to be Buonaparte
And have the Tuileries for toy,
And could not, so it broke your heart?
You, old one by his side, I judge,
Were, red as blood, a socialist,
A leveller! Does the Empire grudge
You've gained what no Republic missed?
Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

VI

And this--why, he was red in vain,
Or black,--poor fellow that is blue!
What fancy was it turned your brain?
Oh, women were the prize for you!
Money gets women, cards and dice
Get money, and ill-luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
Cool squirt of water o'er your bust,
The right thing to extinguish lust!

VII

It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce:
It's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

The poem _Rephan_, the title of which was taken from the Book of Acts,
has the same pleasant teaching we find in the play by Ludwig Fulda,
called _Schlaraffenland_, published in 1899. In this drama, a boy,
ragged, cold, and chronically hungry, falls asleep in a miserable
room, and dreams that he is in a country of unalloyed delight.
Broiled chickens fly slowly by, easy to clutch and devour: expensive
wardrobes await his immediate pleasure, and every conceivable wish
is instantly and completely fulfilled. For a short time the boy is
in ecstasies of joy: then the absence of effort, of counterbalancing
privation, begins to make his heart dull: finally the paradise
becomes so intolerable that he wakes with a scream--wakes in a dark,
cold room, wakes in rags with his belly empty: and wakes in rapture
at finding the good old earth of struggle and toil around him.

Contentment is stagnation: development is happiness. The mystery of
life, its uncertainty, its joys paid for by effort, these make human
existence worth while.

Browning delights to prove that the popular longing for static
happiness would result in misery: that the sharp sides of life sting
us into the real joy of living. He loves to take popular proverbs,
which sum up the unconscious pessimism of humanity, and then show
how false they are to fact. For example, we hear every day the
expression, "No rose without a thorn," and we know very well what is
meant. In _The Ring and the Book_, Browning says:

So a thorn comes to the aid of and completes the rose.

REPHAN

1889

How I lived, ere my human life began
In this world of yours,--like you, made man,--
When my home was the Star of my God Rephan?

Come then around me, close about,
World-weary earth-born ones! Darkest doubt
Or deepest despondency keeps you out?

Nowise! Before a word I speak,
Let my circle embrace your worn, your weak,
Brow-furrowed old age, youth's hollow cheek--

Diseased in the body, sick in soul,
Pinched poverty, satiate wealth,--your whole
Array of despairs! Have I read the roll?

All here? Attend, perpend! O Star
Of my God Rephan, what wonders are
In thy brilliance fugitive, faint and far!

Far from me, native to thy realm,
Who shared its perfections which o'erwhelm
Mind to conceive. Let drift the helm,

Let drive the sail, dare unconfined
Embark for the vastitude, O Mind,
Of an absolute bliss! Leave earth behind!

Here, by extremes, at a mean you guess:
There, all's at most--not more, not less:
Nowhere deficiency nor excess.

No want--whatever should be, is now:
No growth--that's change, and change comes--how
To royalty born with crown on brow?

Nothing begins--so needs to end:
Where fell it short at first? Extend
Only the same, no change can mend!

I use your language: mine--no word
Of its wealth would help who spoke, who heard,
To a gleam of intelligence. None preferred,

None felt distaste when better and worse
Were uncontrastable: bless or curse
What--in that uniform universe?

Can your world's phrase, your sense of things
Forth-figure the Star of my God? No springs,
No winters throughout its space. Time brings

No hope, no fear: as to-day, shall be
To-morrow: advance or retreat need we
At our stand-still through eternity?

All happy: needs must we so have been,
Since who could be otherwise? All serene:
What dark was to banish, what light to screen?

Earth's rose is a bud that's checked or grows
As beams may encourage or blasts oppose:
Our lives leapt forth, each a full-orbed rose--

Each rose sole rose in a sphere that spread
Above and below and around--rose-red:
No fellowship, each for itself instead.

One better than I--would prove I lacked
Somewhat: one worse were a jarring fact
Disturbing my faultlessly exact.

How did it come to pass there lurked
Somehow a seed of change that worked
Obscure in my heart till perfection irked?--

Till out of its peace at length grew strife--
Hopes, fears, loves, hates,--obscurely rife,--
My life grown a-tremble to turn your life?

Was it Thou, above all lights that are,
Prime Potency, did Thy hand unbar
The prison-gate of Rephan my Star?

In me did such potency wake a pulse
Could trouble tranquillity that lulls
Not lashes inertion till throes convulse

Soul's quietude into discontent?
As when the completed rose bursts, rent
By ardors till forth from its orb are sent

New petals that mar--unmake the disc--
Spoil rondure: what in it ran brave risk,
Changed apathy's calm to strife, bright, brisk,

Pushed simple to compound, sprang and spread
Till, fresh-formed, facetted, floretted,
The flower that slept woke a star instead?

No mimic of Star Rephan! How long
I stagnated there where weak and strong,
The wise and the foolish, right and wrong,

Are merged alike in a neutral Best,
Can I tell? No more than at whose behest
The passion arose in my passive breast,

And I yearned for no sameness but difference
In thing and thing, that should shock my sense
With a want of worth in them all, and thence,

Startle me up, by an Infinite
Discovered above and below me-height
And depth alike to attract my flight,

Repel my descent: by hate taught love.
Oh, gain were indeed to see above
Supremacy ever--to move, remove,

Not reach--aspire yet never attain
To the object aimed at! Scarce in vain--
As each stage I left nor touched again.

To suffer, did pangs bring the loved one bliss,
Wring knowledge from ignorance,--just for this--
To add one drop to a love-abyss!

Enough: for you doubt, you hope, O men,
You fear, you agonize, die: what then?
Is an end to your life's work out of ken?

Have you no assurance that, earth at end,
Wrong will prove right? Who made shall mend
In the higher sphere to which yearnings tend?

Why should I speak? You divine the test.
When the trouble grew in my pregnant breast
A voice said "So wouldst thou strive, not rest?"

"Burn and not smoulder, win by worth,
Not rest content with a wealth that's dearth?
Thou art past Rephan, thy place be Earth!"

Browning was an optimist with his last breath. In the _Prologue_ to
_Asolando_, a conventional person is supposed to be addressing the
poet: he says, "Of course your old age must be sad, because you have
now lost all your youthful illusions. Once you looked on the earth
with rose-colored spectacles, but now you see the naked and
commonplace reality of the things you used to think so radiant."

Browning's answer is significant, and the figure he uses wonderfully
apt. Suppose you are going to travel in Europe: you go to the
optician, and you ask for a first-rate magnifying-glass, that you
may scan the ocean, and view the remote corners of cathedrals. Now
imagine him saying that he has for you something far better than that:
he has a lovely kaleidoscope: apply your eye to the orifice, turn a
little wheel, and you will behold all sorts of pretty colored
rosettes. You would be naturally indignant. "Do you take me for a
child to be amused with a rattle? I don't want pretty colors: I want
something that will bring the object, _exactly as it is_, as near to
my eyes as it can possibly be brought."

Indeed, when one buys a glass for a telescope, if one has sufficient
cash, one buys a glass made of crown and flint glass placed together,
which destroys color, which produces what is called an _achromatic_
lens. Now just as we judge of the value of a glass by its ability to
bring things as they are within the range of our vision, so, says
Browning, old age is much better than youth. In age our old eyes
become achromatic. The rosy illusions of youth vanish, thank God for
it! The colors which we imagined belonged to the object were in
reality in our imperfect eyes--as we grow older these pretty colors
disappear and we see what? We see life itself. Life is a greater and
grander thing than any fool's illusion about it. The world of nature
and man is infinitely more interesting and wonderful as it is than
in any mistaken view of it. Therefore old age is better than youth.

PROLOGUE

1889

The Poet's age is sad: for why?
In youth, the natural world could show
No common object but his eye
At once involved with alien glow--
His own soul's iris-bow.

"And now a flower is just a flower:
Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, man--
Simply themselves, uncinct by dower
Of dyes which, when life's day began,
Round each in glory ran."

Friend, did you need an optic glass,
Which were your choice? A lens to drape
In ruby, emerald, chrysopras,
Each object--or reveal its shape
Clear outlined, past escape,

The naked very thing?--so clear
That, when you had the chance to gaze,
You found its inmost self appear
Through outer seeming-truth ablaze,
Not falsehood's fancy-haze?

How many a year, my Asolo,
Since--one step just from sea to land--
I found you, loved yet feared you so--
For natural objects seemed to stand
Palpably fire-clothed! No--

No mastery of mine o'er these!
Terror with beauty, like the Bush
Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees,
Drop eyes to earthward! Language? Tush!
Silence 'tis awe decrees.

And now? The lambent flame is--where?
Lost from the naked world: earth, sky,
Hill, vale, tree, flower,--Italia's rare
O'er-running beauty crowds the eye--
But flame? The Bush is bare.

Hill, vale, tree, flower--they stand distinct,
Nature to know and name. What then?
A Voice spoke thence which straight unlinked
Fancy from fact: see, all's in ken:
Has once my eyelid winked?

No, for the purged ear apprehends
Earth's import, not the eye late dazed:
The Voice said "Call my works thy friends!
At Nature dost thou shrink amazed?
God is it who transcends."

It is an interesting and dramatic parallel in literary history that
Tennyson and Browning should each have published the last poem that
appeared in his life-time in the same month of the same year, and
that each farewell to the world should be so exactly characteristic
of the poetic genius and spiritual temperament of the writer. In
December, 1889, came from the press _Demeter and Other Poems_,
closing with _Crossing the Bar_--came also _Asolando_, closing with
the _Epilogue_. Tennyson's lyric is exquisite in its tints of sunset,
a serene close to a long and calmly beautiful day. It is the perfect
tone of dignified departure, with the admonition to refrain from
weeping, with the quiet assurance that all is well. Browning's
_Epilogue_ is full of excitement and strenuous rage: there is no
hint of acquiescence; it is a wild charge with drum and trumpet on
the hidden foe. Firm in the faith, full of plans for the future, he
looks not on the darkening night, but on to-morrow's sunrise.

He tells us not to pity him. He is angry at the thought that people
on the streets of London, when they hear of his death will say,
"Poor Browning! He's gone! How he loved life!" Rather he wishes that
just as in this life when a friend met him in the city with a face
lighted up by the pleasure of the sudden encounter, with a shout of
hearty welcome--so now, when your thoughts perhaps turn to me, let
it not be with sorrow or pity, but with eager recognition. I shall
be striving there as I strove here: greet me with a cheer!

EPILOGUE

1889

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned--
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
--Pity me?

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel
--Being--who?

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
"Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,--fight on, fare ever
There as here!"

INDEX

_Abt Vogler_.
Addison, J., disgust for the Alps.
_Andrea del Sarto_.
_Another Way of Love_.
_Apparent Failure_.
_Artemis Prologises_.
_Asolando, Prologue and Epilogue_.
Asolo: Browning's visits to, its place in his work;
last summer passed there.
Austin, Alfred, compared with F. Thompson.

_Bad Dreams_.
_Bells and Pomegranates_, meaning of title.
_Bishop Blougram's Apology_.
_Bishop Orders His Tomb, The_.
_Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A_.
_Boy and the Angel, The_.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett: engagement;
her sonnets;
described by her son;
her ill health;
invented name "Dramatic Lyric;"
her assistance in R. Browning's poems.
Browning, Robert: parentage and early life;
education;
visit to Russia;
play-writing;
first visit to Italy;
marriage;
travels in Italy and lives at Paris;
domestic life in Florence described by Hawthorne;
death;
personal habits;
peculiarities;
piano-playing;
enthusiasm;
friendship with Tennyson;
normality in appearance;
excellence in character;
his theory of poetry;
his sonnets;
his favorite feature the brow;
fondness for yellow hair;
his "rejected lovers,".
Browning, Robert Barrett: death at Asolo;
my conversation with.
Bryant, W. C., visits Browning.
Byron, Lord, lyrical power.
_By the Fireside_.

_Caliban on Setebos_.
Campion, T., his lyrical power compared with Donne's.

Carlyle, T.: travels to Paris with the Brownings;
his smoking.
_Cavalier Tunes_.
_Charles Avison_.
"_Childe Roland_."
Choate, J. H., his remark on old age.
_Christmas-Eve_.
_Cleon_.
_Clive_.
_Confessions_.
_Count Gismond_.
_Cristina_.

_Death in the Desert, A_.
_De Gustibus_.
_Dis Aliter Visum_.
Donne, J.: compared with Browning;
compared with Campion.
Dramatic Lyric, origin of name.
_Dramatic Lyrics_.
_Dramatic Romances_.
_Dramatis Persons_.

Eliot, George, _Daniel Deronda and My Last Duchess_.
Emerson, R. W.: pie and optimism;
his opinion of Tennyson's _Ulysses_.
_Epistle, An, Containing Strange Medical Experience of
Karshish_.
_Eurydice_.
_Evelyn Hope_.
"_Eyes Calm Beside Thee_".

_Face, A_.
Fano: seldom visited;
scene of picture of _Guardian Angel_.
_Fifine at the Fair_;
_Epilogue to_.
Forster, J., his praise of _Paracelsus_.
_Fra Lippo Lippi_.
Fulda, L., his play _Schlaraffenland_ compared with _Rephan_.

_Garden Fancies, Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis_.
_Glove, The_
Goethe, doctrine of elective affinities.
_Gold Hair_.
_Grammarian's Funeral, A_.
Gray, T., early appreciation of mountain scenery.
_Guardian Angel, The_,

Hallam, A. H., home in Wimpole Street.
Hawthorne, N., visits Browning in Florence.
_Holy Cross Day_.
_Home-Thoughts, from, Abroad_.
_Home-Thoughts, from the Sea_.
_How It Strikes a Contemporary_.
"_How They Brought the Good News_."

Ibsen, H.: an original genius;
_When We Dead Awaken_,
_A Doll's House_.
_In a Balcony_.
_In a Gondola_.
_Incident of the French Camp_.
_Ivan Ivanovitch_.

_James Lee's Wife_.
_Jocoseria, Prologue to_.
_Johannes Agricola in Meditation_.
Jonson, B., his remarks on Donne.

_Karshish (see Epistle, An_).
Keats, J.: prosody in _Endymion_;
_Bright Star_;
his conception of Beauty;
preface to _Endymion_;
his doctrine; of beauty.
Kipling, R., allusions to Browning in _Stalky and Co_.

_Laboratory, The_.
Landor, W. S., his poetic tribute to Browning.
Lanier, S., his criticism of _The Ring and the Book_.
_La Saisiag, Prologue_ to.
_Last Ride Together, The_.
LeMoyne, Sarah Gowell, her reading aloud _Meeting at Night_.
Lessing, G. E., his: remark about truth.
Longfellow, H. W.: a better sonneteer than either Tennyson
or Browning;
_Paul Revere's Ride_ compared with "_How They Brought," etc_.
_Lost Leader, The_.
_Lost Mistress, The_.
_Love Among the Ruins_.
_Lover's Quarrel, A_.
_Luria_.

_Macbeth_: German translation of;
pessimistic speech by.
Macready, W. C., relations with Browning.
Maeterlinck, M.: scene in _Monna Vanna_ taken from _Luria_;
his praise of Browning's poetry.

_Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha_
_Meeting at Night_
_Men and Women_
_Mesmerism_
Mill, J. S., his opinion of _Pauline_
_Muleykeh_
_My Last Duchess_
_My Star_

_Nationality in Drinks_

_Old Pictures in Florence_
Omar Khayyam, his figure of the Potter compared with Browning's,
_One Way of Love_
_One Word More_

_Pacchiarotto_:
_Epilogue_ to,
_Prologue_ to,
_Paracelsus_
_Parting at Morning (see Meeting at Night_)
_Pauline_
_Pippa Passes_
Pope: popularity of _Essay on Man_,
his prosody compared with that of Keats.
_Porphyria's Lover_
_Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_
_Prospice_

_Rabbi Ben Ezra_
_Rephan_
_Respectability_
_Reverie_
_Ring and the Book, The_
Rossetti, D. G.: draws picture of Tennyson;
his opinion of _Pauline_.
Rossetti, W. M., meets the Brownings and the Tennysons.
_Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli_
Ruskin, J., his remark on _The Bishop Orders His Tomb_.

_Saul_
Schiller, F.: his poem _Der Handschuh_;
his poem _Das Ideal und das Leben_.
Schopenhauer, A.: father's financial help similar to Browning's;
his late-coming fame similar to Browning's,
his remark on Rafael's _St. Cecilia_.
Schumann, R. and Mrs., presentation to the Scandinavian king.
Shakespeare, W., Browning declares him to be the supreme poet.
Sharp, W., characterization of _Sordello_.
Shelley, P. B.: his vegetarianism imitated by Browning;
his lyrical power.
_Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis_ (see _Garden Fancies_).
_Sludge (Mr. ) the Medium_.
_Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister_.
_Soul's Tragedy, A_.
_Sordello_.
_Statue and the Bust, The_.
Stedman (mother of the poet, E.C.), her remarks on the health of
Mrs. Browning in Florence.
_Summum Bonum_.

Tennyson, A.: reading aloud from _Maud_;
Browning's letter to him;
a genius for adaptation;
wrote to please critics;
compared with Browning;
his lyrical power;
his lyrics compared with Browning's;
wrote no good sonnets;
_Lotos-Eaters_;
_Ulysses_;
_Crossing the Bar_;
_St. Agnes' Eve_ compared with _Johannes Agricola_;
_Locksley Hall_;
his "rejected lovers" compared with Browning's;
his criticism of _The Laboratory_;
_Crossing the Bar_ compared with _Epilogue to Asolando_.
Thackeray, _Vanity Fair_.
Thompson, F., his poetry compared with Austin's.
_Time's Revenges_.
_Toccata of Galuppi's_.
_Transcendentalism_.
_Twins, The_.
_Two Poets of Croisic_, the _Epilogue_ to.
_Up at a Villa--Down in the City_.
Wagner, R.: his originality;
his slow-coming fame;
his operas.
_Which_.
Wister, O., criticism of Browning's poetry in his novel _The
Virginian_.
Wordsworth, W.: served as model for _The Lost Leader_;
his sincere love of the country.

_Youth and Art_.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19