R430422A. Dramatic Lyrics and The Return of the Druses.
The Athenæum, 22 April 1843, p. 385.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 397–399.
That it is Mr. Browning’s pleasure to be enigmatical, may now, we suppose, be considered as an accepted condition of his literary dealings with the public; and any further attempt on the critic’s part to obtain better terms, would seem to be a waste of time and argument. The subject of his mannerisms we shall, therefore, abandon, as one on which we have no motive to dwell further—taking leave of it, however, with this final hint:—that what Mr. Browning may, perhaps, consider as an evidence of strength is a sign of weakness—what he may regard as a portion of his wealth, is a witness of its limitation. The inaptitude for giving intelligible expression to his meanings, whether unconscious or artificial, whether its cause be affectation or incapacity, is a defect, lessening the value, in any available sense, of the meanings themselves; and the riches which can be turned to no account lose their character of riches. Golden thoughts affect simple forms; and where the precious metal is most abundant, men have least time and temptation to work it into strange and fantastic characters. Mr. Browning’s style is, therefore, primâ facie evidence against his muse; and, for his own sake—and something for the public’s—we wish it were not so; because they who will take the trouble to question further, will find that its implied testimony does not report quite truly.
The titles that head this article are those of small volumes forming Nos. III. and IV. of the series whose general designation, “Bells and Pomegranates,” as yet remains a mystery. Which of these poems are Bells, and which Pomegranates—or why any one of them is either—is one of those secrets which we may suppose “shall be unriddled by and bye.” In the meantime, it is equally difficult to understand how the disjecta membra which compose No. III, should have found their way into a professed collection of “Dramatical Pieces.” Mr. Browning, who has a regal way of disposing of all such trifling difficulties, and considers his author’s “stet pro ratione voluntas!” binding on the reader, summarily observes that he “supposes they come properly enough under that head,—being, though for the most part lyric in expression, always dramatic in principle, and so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not his.” For ourselves, in considerably more than one half of them, we have not been able to discover any dramatic quality whatever. In any case, however, they are mere fragments, varying in length from half a dozen lines upwards—apparently thoughts jotted down for after use—or rejected from their places in longer pieces, and denoting foregone conclusions—but scarcely important enough to have formed the materials of an independent publication. Out of the collection, such as it is, we would gladly have selected the ballad of Count Gismond; but its length compels us to a shorter and less interesting specimen of the author’s ballad-style—spirited and characteristic, notwithstanding:—
CAMP AND CLOISTER.
I.—Camp. (French.)
You know we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away
On a little mound Napoléon
Stood on our storming day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.
Just as perhaps he mused “My plans
That soar, to earth may fall
Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,”
Out ’twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound.
Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect
By just his horse’s mane, a boy:
You hardly could suspect—
(So tight he kept his lips compressed
Scarce any blood came thro’)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.
“Well,” cried he, “Emperor, by God’s grace
We’ve got you Ratisbon!
The Marshal’s in the market-place,
And you’ll be there anon
To see your flag-bird flap his vans
Where I, to heart’s desire,
Perched him!” The Chief’s eye flashed; his plans
Soared up again like fire.
The Chief’s eye flashed; but presently
Softened itself, as sheathes
A film the mother eagle’s eye
When her bruised eaglet breathes:
“You’re wounded!” “Nay,” his soldier’s pride
Touched to the quick, he said:
“I’m killed, sire!” And, his Chief beside,
Smiling the boy fell dead.
The Cloister-poem which follows, under the above double-heading, may deserve the title of dramatic, claimed by the author for them all;—being a quaint, amusing, and graphic expression of that concentrated spite which is both fed and fettered by the pressure of conventional arrangements.
II.—Cloister. (Spanish.)
Gr-r-r—there go, my heart’s abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God’s blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims—
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!
At the meal we sit together:
Salve tibi! I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
Dare we hope oak-gall, I doubt:
What’s the Latin name for “parsley”?
What’s the Greek name for Swine’s Snout?
Phew! We’ll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished,
And a goblet of ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps—
Marked with L. for our initial!
(He, he! There his lily snaps!)
Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank,
With Sanchicha, telling stories
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
—Can’t I see his dead eye grow
Bright, as ’twere a Barbary corsair’s!
That is, if he’d let it show.
When he finishes refection
Knife and fork across he lays
Never to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu’s praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange pulp;
In three sips the Arian frustrate;
While he drains his at one gulp!
Oh, those melons! If he’s able
We’re to have a feast; so nice!
One goes to the Abbot’s table,
All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double?
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange!—And I, too, at such trouble,
Keep ’em close-nipped on the sly!
There’s a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails.
If I trip him just a-dying,
Sure of Heaven as sure can be,
Spin him round and send him flying
Off to Hell a Manichee!
Or, my scrofulous French novel,
On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe.
If I double down its pages
At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in’t!
Or, the Devil!—one might venture
Pledge one’s soul, yet slily leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
As he’d miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
We’re so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine....
St, there’s Vespers! Plena gratiá
Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r—you swine!
The volume includes, too, some Cavalier Songs—of which our readers may take the following specimen:—
Marching Along.
Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing
And pressing a troop unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest-folk droop,
Marched them along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.
Good for King Charles! Pym and such carles
To the Devil that prompts ’em their treasonous parles!
Cavaliers up! Lips from the cup,
Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup
Till you’re (Chorus) marching along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.
Hampden to Hell, and his obsequies’ knell,
Serve Rudyard, and Fiennes, and young Harry as well!
England, good cheer! Rupert is near!
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here
(Cho.) Marching along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song?
Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls
To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles!
Hold by the right, you double your might;
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight,
(Cho.) Marching along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!
The above extracts compel us, from want of space, to defer, for the present, our notice of the second work whose title heads this article.
[Thomas Kibble Hervey]
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. III. Dramatic Lyrics (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1842.
Bells & Pomegranates. No. IV. The Return of the Druses (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1843.
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