Robert Browning: How To Know Him

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Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp.

In _Cristina_, the man's love is not rewarded here, he fails; but he
has aimed high, he has loved a queen. He will always love her--in
losing her he has found a guiding principle for his own life, which
will lead him ever up and on.

She has lost me, I have gained her;
Her soul's mine: and thus, grown perfect,
I shall pass my life's remainder.

Her body I have lost: some other man will possess that: but her soul
I gained in the moment when our eyes met, and my life has reached a
higher plane and now has a higher motive. In failure I reach real
success.

This doctrine, illustrated repeatedly in Browning's works, is stated
explicitly in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_:

For thence,--a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,--
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

The thought that life is not measured by length of days is brought
out clearly in _Cristina_. We constantly read in the paper
interviews with centenarians, who tell us how to prolong our lives
by having sufficient sleep, by eating moderately, by refraining from
worry. But, as a writer in a southern journal expressed it, Why do
these aged curiosities never tell us what use they have made of this
prolonged existence? Mark Twain said cheerfully, "Methuselah lived
nine hundred and sixty-nine years; but what of that? There was
nothing doing." No drama on the stage is a success unless it has
what we call a supreme moment; and the drama of our individual lives
can not be really interesting or important unless it has some
moments when we live intensely, when we live longer than some
persons live in years; moments that settle our purpose and destiny.

Oh, we're sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so sunk that moments,
Sure, tho' seldom, are denied us,
When the spirit's true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,
And apprise it if pursuing
Or the right way or the wrong way,
To its triumph or undoing.
There are flashes struck from midnights,
There are fire-flames noondays kindle,
Whereby piled-up honours perish,
Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle.

An American public man who one day fell in public esteem as far as
Lucifer, said that it had taken him fifty years to build up a great
reputation, and that he had lost it all in one forenoon. The dying
courtier in _Paracelsus_ had such a moment.

Finally, in _Cristina_, we find that ardent belief in a future life
that lifts its head so often and so resolutely in Browning's poetry,
and on which, as we shall see later, his optimism is founded. Science
tells us that the matter of which the universe is composed is
indestructible; Browning believes even more strongly in the
permanence of spirit. Aspiration, enthusiasm, love would not be
given to us to have their purposes broken off, not if this is a
rational and economic universe; the important thing is not to have
our hopes fulfilled here, the important thing is to keep hoping.
Such love as the man had for Cristina must eventually find its full
satisfaction so long as it remains the guiding principle of his life,
which will serve as a test of his tenacity.

Life will just hold out the proving
Both our powers, alone and blended:
And then, come next life quickly!
This world's use will have been ended.

Precisely the same situation and the same philosophical result of it
are illustrated in the exquisite lyric, _Evelyn Hope_. The lover is
frustrated not by social distinctions, but by death. The girl is
lost to him here, but the power of love is not quenched nor even
lessened by this disaster. The man's ardor will steadily increase
during the remaining years of his earthly existence; and then his
soul will start out confident on its quest.

God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:
Much is to learn, much to forget,
Ere the time be come for taking you.

This doctrine, that earthly existence is a mere test of the soul to
determine its fitness for entering upon an eternal and freer stage
of development, is frequently set forth in Browning. The apostle John
makes it quite clear in _A Death in the Desert_; and in _Abt Vogler_,
the inspired musician sings

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence
For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonised?
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue
thence?
Why rushed the discords in but that harmony might be prized?

From the above discussion it should be plain that the short poem
_Cristina_ deserves patient and intense study, for it contains in
the form of a dramatic lyric, some of Browning's fundamental ideas.

CRISTINA

1842

I

She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty ... men, you call such,
I suppose ... she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But I'm not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them.

II

What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I can't tell (there's my weakness)
What her look said!--no vile cant, sure,
About "need to strew the bleakness
Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed,
That the sea feels"--no "strange yearning
That such souls have, most to lavish
Where there's chance of least returning."

III

Oh, we're sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so sunk that moments,
Sure tho' seldom, are denied us,
When the spirit's true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,
And apprise it if pursuing
Or the right way or the wrong way,
To its triumph or undoing.

IV

There are flashes struck from midnights,
There are fire-flames noondays kindle,
Whereby piled-up honours perish,
Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle,
While just this or that poor impulse,
Which for once had play unstifled,
Seems the sole work of a life-time
That away the rest have trifled.

V

Doubt you if, in some such moment,
As she fixed me, she felt clearly,
Ages past the soul existed,
Here an age 'tis resting merely,
And hence fleets again for ages,
While the true end, sole and single,
It stops here for is, this love-way,
With some other soul to mingle?

VI

Else it loses what it lived for,
And eternally must lose it;
Better ends may be in prospect,
Deeper blisses (if you choose it),
But this life's end and this love-bliss
Have been lost here. Doubt you whether
This she felt as, looking at me,
Mine and her souls rushed together?

VII

Oh, observe! Of course, next moment,
The world's honours, in derision,
Trampled out the light for ever:
Never fear but there's provision
Of the devil's to quench knowledge
Lest we walk the earth in rapture!
--Making those who catch God's secret
Just so much more prize their capture!

VIII

Such am I: the secret's mine now!
She has lost me, I have gained her;
Her soul's mine: and thus, grown perfect,
I shall pass my life's remainder.
Life will just hold out the proving
Both our powers, alone and blended:
And then, come the next life quickly!
This world's use will have been ended.

SONG FROM _PARACELSUS_

1835

Over the sea our galleys went,
With cleaving prows in order brave
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave,
A gallant armament:
Each bark built out of a forest-tree
Left leafy and rough as first it grew,
And nailed all over the gaping sides,
Within and without, with black bull-hides,
Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,
To bear the playful billows' game:
So, each good ship was rude to see,
Rude and bare to the outward view,
But each upbore a stately tent
Where cedar pales in scented row
Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,
And an awning drooped the mast below,
In fold on fold of the purple fine,
That neither noontide nor starshine
Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,
Might pierce the regal tenement.
When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad
We set the sail and plied the oar;
But when the night-wind blew like breath,
For joy of one day's voyage more,
We sang together on the wide sea,
Like men at peace on a peaceful shore;
Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,
Each helm made sure by the twilight star,
And in a sleep as calm as death,
We, the voyagers from afar,
Lay stretched along, each weary crew
In a circle round its wondrous tent
Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent,
And with light and perfume, music too:
So the stars wheeled round, and the darkness past,
And at morn we started beside the mast,
And still each ship was sailing fast.

Now, one morn, land appeared--a speck
Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky:
"Avoid it," cried our pilot, "check
The shout, restrain the eager eye!"
But the heaving sea was black behind
For many a night and many a day,
And land, though but a rock, drew nigh;
So, we broke the cedar pales away,
Let the purple awning flap in the wind,
And a statue bright was on every deck!
We shouted, every man of us,
And steered right into the harbour thus,
With pomp and paean glorious.

A hundred shapes of lucid stone!
All day we built its shrine for each,
A shrine of rock for every one,
Nor paused till in the westering sun
We sat together on the beach
To sing because our task was done.
When lo! what shouts and merry songs!
What laughter all the distance stirs!
A loaded raft with happy throngs
Of gentle islanders!
"Our isles are just at hand," they cried,
"Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping:
Our temple-gates are opened wide,
Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping
For these majestic forms"--they cried.
Oh, then we awoke with sudden start
From our deep dream, and knew, too late,
How bare the rock, how desolate,
Which had received our precious freight:
Yet we called out--"Depart!
Our gifts, once given, must here abide.
Our work is done; we have no heart
To mar our work,"--we cried,

EVELYN HOPE

1855

I

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;
Little has yet been changed, I think:
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.

II

Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,--
And the sweet white brow is all of her.

III

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew--
And, just because I was thrice as old
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, nought beside?

IV

No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:
Much is to learn, much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.

V

But the time will come,--at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red--
And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead.

VI

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me:
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!

VII

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while.
My heart seemed full as it could hold?
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So, hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep:
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You will wake, and remember, and understand.

The dramatic lyric in two parts called _Meeting at Night_ and
_Parting at Morning_ contains only sixteen lines and is a flawless
masterpiece. Of the four dimensions of mathematics, one only has
nothing to do with poetry. The length of a poem is of no importance
in estimating its value. I do not fully understand what is meant by
saying that a poem is too long or too short. It depends entirely on
the art with which the particular subject is treated. A short poem
of no value is too long; a long poem of genius is not too long.
Richardson's _Clarissa_ in eight volumes is not too long, as is
proved by the fact that the numerous attempts to abridge it are all
failures; whereas many short stories in our magazines are far too
long. Browning's _Night and Morning_ is not too short, because it
contains in sixteen lines everything necessary; _The Ring and the
Book_ is not too long, because the twenty thousand and odd lines are
all needed to make the study of testimony absolutely complete. But
whilst the mathematical dimension of length is not a factor in poetry,
the dimensions of breadth and depth are of vital importance, and the
mysterious fourth dimension is the quality that determines whether
or not a poem is a work of genius. Poems of the highest imagination
can not be measured at all except in the fourth dimension. The first
part of Browning's lyric is notable for its shortness, its breadth
and its depth; the second part possesses these qualities even more
notably, and also takes the reader's thoughts into a world entirely
outside the limits of time and space.

Browning has often been called a careless writer and although he
maintained that the accusation was untrue, the condition of some of
the manuscripts he sent to the press--notably _Mr. Sludge, the Medium_
--is proof positive that he did not work at each one of his poems at
his highest level of patient industry. He was however in general a
fastidious artist; much more so than is commonly supposed. He was one
of our greatest impromptu poets, like Shakespeare, writing hot from
the brain; he was not a polisher and reviser, like Chaucer and
Tennyson. But he studied with care the sound of his words. Many
years ago, Mrs. Le Moyne, who has done so much to increase the
number of intelligent Browning lovers in America, met the poet in
Europe, and told him she would like to recite to him one of his own
poems. "Go ahead, my dear." So she began to repeat in her beautiful
voice _Meeting at Night_; she spoke the third line

And the little startled waves that leap

"Stop!" said Browning, "that isn't right." She then learned from him
the sharp difference between "little startled waves" as she read it,
and "startled little waves" as he wrote it. He was trying to produce
the effect of a warm night on the beach with no wind, where the tiny
wavelets simply crumble in a brittle fashion on the sand. "Startled
little waves" produces this effect; "little startled waves" does not.

The impressionistic colors in this poem add much to its effect; the
grey sea, the black land, the yellow moon, the fiery ringlets, the
blue spurt of the match, the golden light of morning. The sounds and
smells are realistic; one hears the boat cut harshly into the slushy
sand; the sharp scratch of the match; one inhales the thick, heavy
odor radiating from the sea-scented beach that has absorbed all day
the hot rays of the sun.

It is probable that the rendezvous is not at dusk, as is commonly
supposed, but at midnight. Owen Wister, in his fine novel, _The
Virginian_, speaks of the lover's journey as taking place at dusk.
Now the half-moon could not scientifically be low at that early hour,
and although most poets care nothing at all for the moon except as a
decorative object, Browning was generally precise in such matters. An
American poet submitted to the _Century Magazine_ a poem that was
accepted, the last line of each stanza reading

And in the west the waning moon hangs low.

One of the editorial staff remembered that the waning moon does not
hang low in the west; he therefore changed the word to "weary,"
which made the poet angry. He insisted that he was a poet, not a man
of science, and vowed that he would place his moon exactly where he
chose. The editors replied, "You can have a waning moon in the west
in some magazines, perhaps, but you can not have it there in the
_Century_." So it was published "weary," as any one may see who
has sufficient time and patience.

Furthermore the contrast in this poem is not between evening and
morning, but between night and morning. The English commonly draw a
distinction between evening and night that we do not observe in
America. _Pippa Passes_ is divided into four sections, Morning, Noon,
Evening, Night. Furthermore the meeting is a clandestine one; not the
first one, for the man's soliloquy of his line of march shows how
often he has travelled this way before, and now his eager mind,
leaping far ahead of his feet, repeats to him each stage of the
journey. The cottage is shrouded in absolute darkness until the
lover's tap is heard; then comes the sound and the sight of the match,
and the sudden thrill of the mad embrace, when the wild heart-beats
are louder than the love-whispers.

The dramatic contrast in this poem is between the man's feelings at
night, and his mood in the morning. Both parts of the lyric,
therefore, come from the man's heart. It is absurd to suppose, as
many critics seem to think, that the second part is uttered by the
woman. Such a mistake could never have arisen if it had not been for
the word "him" in the penultimate line, which does not of course,
refer to the man, but to the sun. To have the woman repeat in her
heart these lines not only destroys the true philosophy of life set
forth in the lyric, but the last reflection,

And the need of a world of men for me

would seem to make her taste rather catholic for an ideal sweetheart.

The real meaning of the poem is simply this: The passionate
intensity of love can not be exaggerated; in the night's meeting all
other thoughts, duties, and pleasures are as though they were not;
but with the day comes the imperious call of life and even if the
woman could be content to live forever with her lover in the lonely
cottage, he could not; he loves her honestly with fervor and
sincerity, but he simply must go out into the world where men are,
and take his share of the excitement and the struggle; he would soon
be absolutely miserable if marooned from life, even with the woman
he loves. Those novels that represent a man as having no interest in
life but love are false to human nature. In this poem Browning
represents facts as they are; it is not simply that the man wants to
go out and live among other men, it is a natural law that he must,
as truly a natural law as gravitation.

And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

Just as the sun must take his prescribed course through the sky, so
must I run my circle of duties in the world of men. It is not a
moral call of duty; it is the importunate pull of necessity.

There is still the possibility of another interpretation of the last
line, though I think the one just given is correct, "I need the
world of men; it is a natural law." Now it is just possible that we
could interpret "need" in another sense, with an inversion;
"the world of men needs me, and I must go to do my share." This
would make the man perhaps nobler, but surely not so natural; indeed
it would sound like a priggish excuse to leave his mistress. I have
never quite surrendered to the cavalier's words

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.

Are we sure it is honor, and not himself, he loves more?

It is impossible to improve on the Cowboy's comment on these lines
in Mr. Wister's _Virginian_; after Molly has read them aloud to the
convalescing male, he remarks softly, "That is very, very true."
Molly does not see why the Virginian admires these verses so much
more than the others. "I could scarcely explain," says he, "but that
man does know something." Molly wants to know if the lovers had
quarrelled. "Oh, no! he will come back after he has played some more
of the game." "The game?" "Life, ma'am. Whatever he was adoin' in
the world of men. That's a bed-rock piece, ma'am."

The Virginian is much happier in his literary criticism of this
lyric than he is of the _Good News_ or of the _Incident of the
French Camp_; in the latter instance, he misses the point altogether.
The boy was not a poseur. The boy was so happy to think he had
actually given his life for his master that he smilingly corrected
Napoleon's cry "You're wounded!" It is as though one should
congratulate an athletic contestant, and say "My felicitations! you
won the second prize!" "No, indeed: I won the First."

_Night and Morning_ suggests so many thoughts that we could
continue our comments indefinitely; but time suffices for only one
more. The nature picture of the dawn is absolutely perfect.

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea.

He does not say that finally the cape became visible, but that the
sea suddenly came round the cape. Any one who has stood on the
ocean-shore before dawn, and gazed along the indented coast in the
grey light, has observed the precise effect mentioned in these words.
At first one sees only the blur of land where the cape is, and
nothing beyond it; suddenly the light increases, and the sea
actually appears to come around the point.

MEETING AT NIGHT

1845

The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

PARTING AT MORNING

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

It is interesting to remember that Browning, of all poets most
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!

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