R640613A. Dramatis Personæ.
The Birmingham Daily Gazette, 13 June 1864, p. 3.
Listed in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 340.
Mr. Browning’s poetry is a mine of pure gold for those who know how to work it. His muse is of the highest order, and his poems are full of rich thought and priceless treasures, but they must be sought for by minds who can follow his variously-endowed power with congenial feelings and similar aspirations. Those who run and read are not the people who will find their fitting nurtiment in his books. His jewels are not scattered loosely on a tawdry robe, so that every hand can pluck them off and boast of the spoil. They are set in fitting surroundings, and form part and parcel of the texture in which they are placed. They must be taken all together, or not at all. A poem is with him a whole, and not an aggregation of scintillating gems, which would shine as brightly in any other place, and under any other circumstances. His mind is a mine of wealth, and he is probably the most original of living poets. His books are not be read over and then dismissed, but ask for, and receive from all capable of appreciating their worth, long and frequent study. To those who so treat them the reward is a rich one indeed. He combines the powers of the dramatic and the lyric poet in a manner rarely equalled, and of which there are very few examples in the history of literature. His present work will add to his well-earned fame, and will increase the number of his admirers.
“Dramatis Personæ” is a fitting sequel to his “Men and Women.” Like in character and in form, and like in the abundance of thought, the power of individuality, of dramatic realisation, and lyrical expression. We cannot read the shortest poem without feeling that the hand which strikes this lyre is the hand of a master; while the longer poems afford themes for continual study, and at each new reading their power and beauty become more and more manifest. The world is in every way richer by the publication of such a volume as this.
In our notice we can do little more than string together a few examples of Mr. Browning’s poetry, and recommend—but we need scarcely do this—all lovers of genuine song to the volume itself. We have no sympathy whatever with the talk about obscurity, haziness, and other objections in which unthinking readers indulge. The subjects on which our poet writes are not the mere idle fancies of a day, to be read, and forgotten as soon as read. They are for the most part those great and eternal themes which will ever have an undying interest for man, and cannot be treated otherwise than the greatness of the subject demands. A poet cannot write on themes like the Death of St. John in the Desert, or Caliban upon Setebos, or Mr. Sludge, the Medium, in the same manner and in the same style as a love song, or a ballad story. And Mr. Browning is justified of all his children. That he can also write love lyrics, take this one, selected from the first poem in the book, “James Lee,” in proof:—
At the Window.
Ah, love but a day,
And the world has changed!
The sun’s away,
And the bird’s estranged;
The wind has dropped,
And the sky’s deranged:
Summer has stopped.
Look in my eyes!
Wilt thou change, too?
Should I fear surprise?
Shall I find aught new
In the old and dear,
In the good and true,
With the changing year?
Thou art a man,
But I am thy love!
For the lake, its swan;
For the dell, its dove;
And for thee—(oh, haste!)
Me, to bend above,
Me, to hold embraced!
A grander and a loftier key is struck in the following short but noble poem:—
Prospice.
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, then a joy,
Then a light: then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!
From a fine poem entitled “Rabbi Ben Ezra” we extract the following stanzas:—
Not on the vulgar mass
Called “work” must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O’er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:
But all, the world’s coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount:
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
Ay, note that Potter’s wheel,
That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
“Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!”
Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:
Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
* * * * * * *
Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal,
The new wine’s foaming flow,
The Master’s lips a-glow!
Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what need’st thou with earth’s wheel?
We wish we could print the whole of two poems, “The Worst of It,” and “Abt Vogler,” but space forbids, and extracts would only tantalise the reader.
From “Death in the Desert” we must quote a few lines. The death is that of St. John the Evangeslit, who wrote the Gospel and the Revelations, and the lines extracted contain the gloss of one of his disciples.
This is the doctrine he was wont to teach,
How divers persons witness in each man,
Three souls which make up one soul: first, to wit,
A soul of each and all the bodily parts,
Seated therein, which works, and is what Does,
And has the use of earth, and ends the man
Downward: but, tending upward for advice,
Grows into, and again is grown into
By the next soul, which, seated in the brain,
Useth the first with its collected use,
And feeleth, thinketh, willeth,—is what Knows:
Which, duly tending upward in its turn,
Grows into, and again is grown into
By the last soul, that uses both the first,
Subsisting whether they assist or no,
And, constituting man’s self, is what Is—
And leans upon the former, makes it play,
As that played off the first: and, tending up,
Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man
Upward in that dread point of intercourse,
Nor needs a place, for it returns to Him
What Does, what Knows, what Is; three souls, one man.
I give the glossa of Theotypas.
We must, however, draw this notice to a close; but cannot do so without referring to that wonderful poem, “Mr. Sludge, the Medium.” It will remind every reader of Mr. Browning of a similar work, “Bishop Blougram’s Apology,” which appeared in “Men and Women.” It is in fact the most powerful satire, not only on the professed Medium himself, but on those whose credulity render his tricks possible. Did we not know how hard it is to kill a self-imposed delusion of any kind, we should think that Mr. Home’s trade could not survive this blow. Here is one passage, containing a sad truth told in the plainest words, which do not conceal their bitter irony. Sludge is the speaker:
I’m spared all further trouble; all’s arranged;
Your circle does my business; I may rave,
Like an epileptic dervish in the books,
Foam, fling myself flat, rend my clothes to shreds;
No matter: lovers, friends and countrymen
Will lay down spiritual laws, read wrong things right
By the rule of reverse. If Francis Verulam
Styles himself Bacon, spells the name beside
With a y and a k, says he drew breath in York,
Gave up the ghost in Wales when Cromwell reigned
(As, sir, we somewhat fear he was apt to say,
Before I found the useful book that knows),
Why, what harm’s done? The circle smiles apace,
“It was not Bacon, after all, you see!
We understand; the trick’s but natural:
Such spirits’ individuality
Is hard to put in evidence: they incline
To gibe and jeer, these undeveloped sorts.
You see, their world’s much like a jail broke loose,
While this of ours remains shut, bolted, barred,
With a single window to it. Sludge, our friend,
Serves as this window, whether thin or thick,
Or stained or stainless; he’s the medium-pane
Through which, to see us and be seen, they peep:
They crowd each other, hustle for a chance,
Tread on their neighbour’s kibes, play tricks enough!
Does Bacon, tired of waiting, swerve aside?
Up in his place jumps Barnum—‘I’m your man:
I’ll answer you for Bacon!’ Try once more!”
With this extract we conclude; and conclude, in the words of an able and appreciative critic, “Mr. Browning is one of our very few living poets, and this book is a richer gift than we shall often receive at the hands of poetry in our time.”
Reviewed:
Dramatis Personæ (RB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1864.
___________________
