R460100A. Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.
The New Monthly Belle Assemblée, January 1846, pp. 36–37.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 367–369.
[Also reviewed in the article containing this review were works by Thomas Cooper, Philip James Bailey, James Hedderwick, and Charles Swain. We include only those comments pertaining to RB.]
Next on our list (and were it made out in systematic order, he might have stood first) comes Robert Browning. It is easier to contrast him with Bailey and Cooper than compare him. His poems are the outpourings of a serener mind than either of those evince. Serenity, wonderfully allied to the keenest and most electric sympathy, with all that is great and good and beautiful. Under the fanciful title of “Bells and Pomegranates” he has published a series of dramatic poems and lyrics; not all of which, however, have come under our notice; and only with this seventh number will we at present deal. No author, either poet or prose writer, has more completely a style of his own than Browning; he thinks for himself, without let or hindrance from custom or prejudice; and he disdains to be a copyist even in manner. The consequence is that his fresh thoughts come out in their own fresh coinage, startling us for a moment, till we make room in our minds, till we let in the light of his new method, and then what a feast is before us!
As a descriptive poet his words seem cut in crystal, with such exquisite clearness does he image the scenes he would call up: especially is this the case in a romantic poem, too long for extract, called “The Flight of the Duchess,” which is full of graceful fancies, and most perfect picture painting. The Duke and the Duchess, and Jacynth and the Gipsy, and the story-teller himself—surely we should know them anywhere if we might but meet them face to face. Indeed his genius is highly dramatic as at least one most successful play has proved (not that we would lose sight of the difference between dramatic power and the lesser talent of theatrical adaptation). “How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix,” is another instance of vivid description; yet we better love those poems of a deeper meaning. Here is one to the eye and ear thrown off lightly enough; yet may it take some readers down “to the depth of the soul, where the passion fountains burn”— [p. 37→]
time’s revenges.
I’ve a Friend, over the sea;
I like him, but he loves me.
It all grew out of the books I write—
They find such favour in his sight,
That he slaughters you with savage looks
Because you don’t admire my books:
He does himself though; and if some vein
Were to snap to-night in this heavy brain,
To-morrow month, if I lived to try,
Round should I just turn quietly,
Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand
Till I found him, come from his foreign land
To be my nurse in this poor place,
And make me broth, and wash my face,
And light my fire, and, all the while,
Bear with his old good-humoured smile
That I told him, “Better have kept away
Than come and kill me, night and day,
With worse than fever’s throbs and shoots,
At the creaking of his clumsy boots.”
I am as sure that this he would do
As that Saint Paul’s is striking Two:
And I think I had rather .. woe is me!
—Yes, rather see him than not see,
If lifting a hand would seat him there
Before me in the empty chair
To-night, when my head aches indeed,
And I can neither think nor read,
And these blue fingers will not hold
The pen; this garret’s freezing cold!
And I’ve a Lady—There he wakes,
The laughing fiend and prince of snakes
Within me, at her name, to pray
Fate send some creature in the way
Of my love for her, to be down-torn,
Upthrust, and onward borne,
So I might prove myself that sea
Of passion which I needs must be!
Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint,
And my style infirm, and its figures faint,
All the critics say, and more blame yet,
And not one angry word you get!
But, please you, wonder I would put
My cheek beneath that Lady’s foot
Rather than trample under mine
The laurels of the Florentine;
And you shall see how the Devil spends
The fire God gave for other ends!
I tell you, I stride up and down
This garret, crowned with Love’s best crown,
And feasted with Love’s perfect feast,
To think I kill for her, at least,
Body and soul, and peace and fame,
Alike youth’s end and manhood’s aim,
As all my genius, all my learning
Leave me, where there’s no returning
—So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,
Filled full, eaten out and in
With the face of her, the eyes of her,
The lips and little chin, the stir
Of shadow round her mouth; and she
—I’ll tell you—calmly would decree
That I should roast at a slow fire,
If that would compass her desire,
And make her one whom they invite
To the famous ball to-morrow night.
There may be a Heaven; there must be a Hell;
Meantime, there is our Earth here—well!
Commend us to the verse which, like this, suggests emotions beyond those it conveys! “Garden Fancies” please us greatly. The quiet humour of some poems, half satire and half pathos, defies description; and for quoting, alas! our task is far from finished, although our allotted space is well nigh exhausted. But one more extract we must make from “Bells and Pomegranates.” Let our readers guess for themselves:—
the lost leader.
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a ribband to stick in his coat—
Got the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs, who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakspeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley were with us; they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!
We shall march prospering—not through his presence;
Songs may excite us—not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done—while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name then—record one lost soul more,
One task unaccepted, one footpath untrod,
One more devils’-triumph and sorrow to angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life’s night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,
Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him—come gallantly,
Strike our face hard ere we shatter his own;
Then let him get the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne!
If there be any of our readers to whom this poet is unknown, we rejoice to have done them the good service of an introduction. Talk of there being no poets! Why Robert Browning has as much poetry in himself as all the rhymers of the last century put together, excepting only Robert Burns, who was—a Poet.
Camilla Toulmin
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. VII. Dramatic Romances & Lyrics (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1845.
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