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

How sad and bad and mad it was--
But then, how it was sweet!

CONFESSIONS

1864

What is he buzzing in my ears?
"Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"
Ah, reverend sir, not I!

What I viewed there once, what I view again
Where the physic bottles stand
On the table's edge,--is a suburb lane,
With a wall to my bedside hand.

That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
From a house you could descry
O'er the garden-wall; is the curtain blue
Or green to a healthy eye?

To mine, it serves for the old June weather
Blue above lane and wall;
And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"
Is the house o'ertopping all.

At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,
There watched for me, one June,
A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
My poor mind's out of tune.

Only, there was a way ... you crept
Close by the side, to dodge
Eyes in the house, two eyes except:
They styled their house "The Lodge."

What right had a lounger up their lane?
But, by creeping very close,
With the good wall's help,--their eyes might strain
And stretch themselves to Oes,

Yet never catch her and me together,
As she left the attic, there,
By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"
And stole from stair to stair,

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
We loved, sir--used to meet:
How sad and bad and mad it was--
But then, how it was sweet!

We may close our considerations of the dramatic lyrics with three
love-poems. Whenever in his later years Browning was asked to write
a selection with his autograph, he used to say playfully that the
only one of his poems that he could remember was _My Star_; hence
more copies of this exist in manuscript than any other of his
productions. It was of course a tribute to his wife; she shone upon
his life like a star of various colors; but the moment the world
attempted to pry into the secret of her genius, she shut off the
light altogether. Let the world regard Saturn, the most wonderful
star in the heavens. My star shines for me alone.

The first and best of the series of _Bad Dreams_ gives us again in
Browning's last volume his doctrine of love. Love is its own reward:
it may be sad not to have love returned, but the one unspeakable
tragedy is to lose the capacity for loving. In a terrible dream, the
face of the woman changes from its familiar tenderness to a glance
of stony indifference, and in response to his agonised enquiry, she
declares that her love for him is absolutely dead. Then comes a
twofold bliss: one was in the mere waking from such desolation, but
the other consisted in the fact that even if the dream were true,
his love for her knew no diminution. Thank God, I loved on the same!

The most audacious poem of Browning's old age is _Summum Bonum_.
Since the dawn of human speculative thought, philosophers have asked
this question, What is the highest good? It has been answered in
various ways. Omar Khayyam said it was Wine: John Stuart Mill said
it was the greatest happiness of the greatest number: the Westminster
Catechism said it was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Browning
says it is the kiss of one girl. This kiss is the concentrated
essence of all the glory, beauty, and sweetness of life. In order to
understand such a paradox, we must remember that in Browning's
philosophy, Love is the engine of the whole universe. I have no
doubt that Love meant to him more than it has ever meant to any
other poet or thinker; just as I am sure that the word Beauty
revealed to Keats a vision entirely beyond the range of even the
greatest seers. Love is the supreme fact; and every manifestation of
it on earth, from the Divine Incarnation down to a chance meeting of
lovers, is more important than any other event or idea. Now we have
seen that it is Browning's way invariably to represent an abstract
thought by a concrete illustration. Therefore in this great and
daring lyric we find the imaginary lover calling the kiss of the
woman he loves the highest good in life.

MY STAR

1855

All that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue;
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

BAD DREAMS

1889

Last night I saw you in my sleep:
And how your charm of face was changed!
I asked "Some love, some faith you keep?"
You answered "Faith gone, love estranged."

Whereat I woke--a twofold bliss:
Waking was one, but next there came
This other: "Though I felt, for this,
My heart break, I loved on the same."

SUMMUM BONUM

1889

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:
Breath and bloom, shade and shine,--wonder, wealth, and--how far
above them--
Truth, that's brighter than gem,
Trust, that's purer than pearl,--
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe--all were for me
In the kiss of one girl.

V

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES

Although Browning was not a failure as a dramatist--_A Blot in the
'Scutcheon_ and _In a Balcony_ are the greatest verse tragedies in
the language since the Elizabethans--he found the true channel for
his genius in the Dramatic Monologue. He takes a certain critical
moment in one person's life, and by permitting the individual to
speak, his character, the whole course of his existence, and
sometimes the spirit of an entire period in the world's history are
revealed in a brilliant searchlight. With very few exceptions, one
of which will be given in our selections, a dramatic monologue is
not a meditation nor a soliloquy; it is a series of remarks, usually
confessional, addressed either orally or in an epistolary form to
another person or to a group of listeners. These other figures,
though they do not speak, are necessary to the understanding of the
monologue; we often see them plainly, and see their faces change in
expression as the monologue advances. At the dinner table of Bishop
Blougram, the little man Gigadibs is conspicuously there; and
Lucrezia is so vividly before us in _Andrea del Sarto_, that a
clever actress has actually assumed this silent role on the stage,
and exhibited simply by her countenance the effect of Andrea's
monologue. This species of verse is perhaps the highest form of
poetic art, as it is the most difficult; for with no stage setting,
no descriptions, no breaks in the conversation, the depths of the
human heart are exposed.

One of the greatest dramatic monologues in all literature is _My
Last Duchess_, and it is astounding that so profound a life-drama
should have been conceived and faultlessly expressed by so young a
poet. The whole poem contains only fifty-six lines, but it could
easily be expanded into a three-volume novel. Indeed it exhibits
Browning's genius for condensation as impressively as _The Ring and
the Book_ proves his genius for expansion. The metre is interesting.
It is the heroic couplet, the same form exactly in which Pope wrote
his major productions. Yet the rime, which is as evident as the
recurring strokes of a tack-hammer in Pope, is scarcely heard at all
in _My Last Duchess_. Its effect is so muffled, go concealed, that I
venture to say that many who are quite familiar with the poem, could
not declare offhand whether it were written in rime or in blank verse.
This technical trick is accomplished by what the French call overflow,
the running on of the sense from one line to another, a device so
dear to the heart of Milton. Some one has well said that Dryden's
couplets are links in a chain, whilst Pope's are pearls on a string.
Pope enclosed nearly every couplet, so that they are quite separate,
which is one reason why he has given us such a vast number of
aphorisms. To see how totally different in effect the heroic couplet
is when it is closed and when it is open, one may compare almost any
selection from Pope with the opening lines of Keats's _Endymion_,
and then silently marvel that both poems are written in exactly the
same measure.

POPE

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires;
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise.

KEATS

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth.

One has only to glance at the printed page of _My Last Duchess_, and
see how few of the lines end in punctuation points, to discover the
method employed when a poet wishes to write a very strict measure in
a very free manner.

I have sometimes thought that George Eliot took a hint from this
poem in the composition of _Daniel Deronda_, for the relations
between Grandcourt and Gwendolen are exactly the same as existed
between the Duke and his late wife; a more recent, though not so
great an example, may be found in Mrs. Burnett's novel, _The Shuttle_.
The poem is a study in cold, systematic torture of a warm human soul
by an icy-hearted tyrant.

Browning adopts one of his favorite methods of character-revelation
here. All that we know of the Duchess is the testimony given by her
worst enemy, her husband; and yet, in attempting to describe her, he
has succeeded in painting only his own narrow and hideous heart.
Slander is often greater in the recoil than in the discharge; when a
man attempts to give an unfavorable portrait of another, he usually
gives us an exact likeness of himself. Pope meant his picture of
Addison to be correct; but although he made the picture with
immortal art, it is no more like Addison than it resembles St.
Francis; it is, however, an absolutely faithful image of Pope himself.
This is one reason why slander is such an exceedingly dangerous
weapon to handle.

The Duke tells the envoy that his late Duchess was flirtatious,
plebeian in her enthusiasm, not sufficiently careful to please her
husband; but the evident truth is that he had a Satanic pride, that
he was yellow with jealousy, that he was methodically cruel. His
jealousy is shown by the fact that he would allow only a monk to
paint her: "I said 'Fra Pandolf' by design," and he required the
monk to do the whole task in one day. His pride is shown in the fact
that although her expansive nature displeased him, he would never
stoop to remonstrate with her. His cruelty is shown in the fact that
he coldly repressed her little enthusiasms, and finally murdered her.
I suppose she was really a frank, charming girl, who came from a
happy home, a bright and eager bride; she was one of those lovely
women whose kindness and responsiveness are as natural as the
sunlight. She loved to watch the sunset from the terrace; she loved
to pet the white mule; she was delighted when some one brought her a
gift of cherries. Then she was puzzled, bewildered, when she found
that all her expressions of delight in life received a cold,
disapproving glance of scorn from her husband; her lively talk at
dinner, her return from a ride, flushed and eager, met invariably
this icy stare of hatred. She smiled too much to please him.

Then all smiles stopped together.

What difference does it make whether he deliberately poisoned her,
or whether he simply broke her heart by the daily chill of silent
contempt? For her, at all events, death must have been a release.
She would have been happier with a drunken husband, with a brute who
kicked her, rather than with this supercilious cold-hearted patrician.
Toward the end of the poem, in his remarks about the dowry, we see
that the Duke is as avaricious as he is cruel; though he says with a
disagreeable smile, that the woman herself is his real object. The
touch to make this terrible man complete comes at the very end. The
Duke and the envoy prepare to descend the staircase; the latter bows,
to give precedence to the man with the nine hundred years' old name:
but the Duke, with a purr like a tiger, places his arm around the
shoulder of the visitor, and they take the first step. Just then the
master of the palace calls attention casually to a group of statuary.
It is Neptune taming a sea-horse. That's the way I break them in!

Throughout the whole monologue, the Duke speaks in a quiet, steady,
ironical tone; the line

The depth and passion of its earnest glance

is pronounced in intense irony, in ridicule of the conventional
remark made by previous visitors. Only once or twice do we see the
teeth of this monster flash, revealing his horrible heart. When he
speaks of the "officious fool" who brought the cherries, and when he
says "all smiles stopped together"; then the envoy looks at him with
a fearful question in his eyes, but the Duke's face immediately
resumes its mask of stone.

MY LAST DUCHESS

FERRARA

1842

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace--all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,--good! but thanked
Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark"--and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

To turn from _My Last Duchess_ to _Count Gismond_ is like coming out
of a damp cellar into God's own sunshine. Originally Browning called
these two poems _Italy_ and _France_; but he later fell madly in
love with Italy, and I suppose could not bear to have so
cold-blooded a tragedy represent the country graven on his heart.
The charm and brightness of _Count Gismond_ are properly connected
with one of the loveliest towns in the world, the old city of Aix in
Provence, a jewel on the hills rising from the Mediterranean Sea.

Gismond is Browning's hero. He is the resolute man who does not
hesitate, who makes himself instantly master of the situation, who
appears like Lohengrin in the moment of Elsa's sharp distress, a
messenger from Heaven.

Or, if virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.

When the lady was publicly accused by the scoundrel Gauthier, I
suppose many men said, "What a pity that so fair a woman should be
so foul!" Others said gravely, "This matter ought to be judicially
examined." Gismond was the only man who realised that a defenseless
orphan was insulted, and the words were hardly out of Gauthier's
mouth when he received "the fist's reply to the filth." The lovers
walked away from the "shouting multitude," the fickle, cowardly,
contemptible public, who did not dare to defend the lady in her need,
but had lungs enough for the victor, whoever he might be. It is
pleasant to notice the prayer of the lady for the dead Gauthier.
"I hope his soul is in heaven." This is no mere Christian forgiveness.
Gauthier had proved to be the means of her life-happiness. Had it
not been for his shameful accusation, she would never have met
Gismond. Out of her agony came her richest blessing.

All this happened years ago, but when her husband appears with the
children she tells him a white lie. "I have just been boasting to
Adela about the skill of my hunting hawk." She has been doing
nothing of the kind; but she can not talk about the great event of
her life before the children.

COUNT GISMOND

AIX IN PROVENCE

1842

I

Christ God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, 'twas with all his strength.

II

And doubtlessly ere he could draw
All points to one, he must have schemed!
That miserable morning saw
Few half so happy as I seemed,
While being dressed in queen's array
To give our tourney prize away.

III

I thought they loved me, did me grace
To please themselves; 'twas all their deed;
God makes, or fair or foul, our face;
If showing mine so caused to bleed
My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped
A word, and straight the play had stopped.

IV

They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen
By virtue of her brow and breast;
Not needing to be crowned, I mean,
As I do. E'en when I was dressed,
Had either of them spoke, instead
Of glancing sideways with still head!

V

But no: they let me laugh, and sing
My birthday song quite through, adjust
The last rose in my garland, fling
A last look on the mirror, trust
My arms to each an arm of theirs,
And so descend the castle-stairs--

VI

And come out on the morning-troop
Of merry friends who kissed my cheek,
And called me queen, and made me stoop
Under the canopy--(a streak
That pierced it, of the outside sun,
Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun)--

VII

And they could let me take my state
And foolish throne amid applause
Of all come there to celebrate
My queen's-day--Oh I think the cause
Of much was, they forgot no crowd
Makes up for parents in their shroud!

VIII

However that be, all eyes were bent
Upon me, when my cousins cast
Theirs down; 'twas time I should present
The victor's crown, but ... there, 'twill last
No long time ... the old mist again
Blinds me as then it did. How vain!

IX

See! Gismond's at the gate, in talk
With his two boys: I can proceed.
Well, at that moment, who should stalk
Forth boldly--to my face, indeed--
But Gauthier, and he thundered "Stay!"
And all stayed. "Bring no crowns, I say!"

X

"Bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet
About her! Let her shun the chaste,
Or lay herself before their feet!
Shall she whose body I embraced
A night long, queen it in the day?
For honour's sake no crowns, I say!"

XI

I? What I answered? As I live,
I never fancied such a thing
As answer possible to give.
What says the body when they spring
Some monstrous torture-engine's whole
Strength on it? No more says the soul.

XII

Till out strode Gismond; then I knew
That I was saved. I never met
His face before, but, at first view,
I felt quite sure that God had set
Himself to Satan; who would spend
A minute's mistrust on the end?

XIII

He strode to Gauthier, in his throat
Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth
With one back-handed blow that wrote
In blood men's verdict there. North, South,
East, West, I looked. The lie was dead,
And damned, and truth stood up instead.

XIV

This glads me most, that I enjoyed
The heart of the joy, with my content
In watching Gismond unalloyed
By any doubt of the event:
God took that on him--I was bid
Watch Gismond for my part: I did.

XV

Did I not watch him while he let
His armourer just brace his greaves,
Rivet his hauberk, on the fret
The while! His foot ... my memory leaves
No least stamp out, nor how anon
He pulled his ringing gauntlets on.

XVI

And e'en before the trumpet's sound
Was finished, prone lay the false knight,
Prone as his lie, upon the ground:
Gismond flew at him, used no sleight
O' the sword, but open-breasted drove,
Cleaving till out the truth he clove.

XVII

Which done, he dragged him to my feet
And said "Here die, but end thy breath
In full confession, lest thou fleet
From my first, to God's second death!
Say, hast thou lied?" And, "I have lied
To God and her," he said, and died.

XVIII

Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked
--What safe my heart holds, though no word
Could I repeat now, if I tasked
My powers for ever, to a third
Dear even as you are. Pass the rest
Until I sank upon his breast.

XIX

Over my head his arm he flung
Against the world; and scarce I felt
His sword (that dripped by me and swung)
A little shifted in its belt:
For he began to say the while
How South our home lay many a mile.

XX

So 'mid the shouting multitude
We two walked forth to never more
Return. My cousins have pursued
Their life, untroubled as before
I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place
God lighten! May his soul find grace I

XXI

Our elder boy has got the clear
Great brow; tho' when his brother's black
Full eye shows scorn, it ... Gismond here?
And have you brought my tercel back?
I just was telling Adela
How many birds it struck since May.

The _Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister_ differs from most of the
Dramatic Monologues in not being addressed to a listener; but the
difference is more apparent than real; for the other person is in
plain view all the time, and the Soliloquy would have no point were
it not for the peaceful activities of Friar Lawrence. This poem,
while it deals ostensibly with the lives of only two monks, gives us
a glimpse into the whole monastic system. When a number of men
retired into a monastery and shut out the world forever, certain
sins and ambitions were annihilated, while others were enormously
magnified. All outside interests vanished; but sin remained, for it
circulates in the human heart as naturally as blood in the body. The
cloister was simply a little world, with the nobleness and meanness
of human nature exceedingly conspicuous. When the men were once
enclosed in the cloister walls, they knew that they must live in
that circumscribed spot till the separation of death. Naturally
therefore political ambitions, affections, envies, jealousies, would
be writ large; human nature would display itself in a manner most
interesting to a student, if only he could live there in a detached
way. This is just what Browning tries to do; he tries to live
imaginatively with the monks, and to practise his profession as the
Chronicler of Life.

The only way to realise what the monastic life really meant would be
to imagine a small modern college situated in the country, and the
passage of a decree that not a single student should leave the
college grounds until his body was committed to the tomb. The
outside interests of the world would quickly grow dim and eventually
vanish; and everything would be concentrated within the community. I
suppose that the passions of friendship, hatred, and jealousy would
be prodigiously magnified. There must have been friendships among
the monks of the middle ages compared to which our boasted college
friendships are thin and pale; and there must have been frightful
hatreds and jealousies. In all communities there are certain persons
that get on the nerves of certain others; the only way to avoid this
acute suffering is to avoid meeting the person who causes it. But
imagine a cloister where dwells a. man you simply can not endure:
every word he says, every motion he makes, every single mannerism of
walk and speech is intolerable. Now you must live with this man
until one of you dies: you must sit opposite to him at meals, you
can not escape constant contact. Your only resource is profane
soliloquies: but if you have a sufficiently ugly disposition, you
can revenge yourself upon him in a thousand secret ways.

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