R490113A. Poems (1849).
The Atlas, 13 January 1849, pp. 33–34.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 392–393.
We have here what we have long wanted—a collection of the poems of Robert Browning. We had nearly written a “complete collection.” But Sordello is not here, nor is the acted drama of Strafford. The absence of the former is matter of congratulation; the absence of the latter of regret. We are curious to know whether any one ever read Sordello. It was such a prodigious mistake that it may be doubted whether Mr. Browning’s friend, of whom he writes that his poems—
Find such favour in his sight
That he slaughters you with savage looks,
Because you don’t admire my books,
He does himself though—
It may be doubted, we say, whether even that friend ever read the whole of Sordello. Mr. Browning has acted wisely in omitting it from the present edition. But there were too many fine things in Strafford for us willingly to see it die.
The two volumes are made up of Paracelsus and Bells and Pomegranates. It is probable that the reader and admirer—the words are well nigh synonymous—of Browning’s poetry, habituated to the thin double-columned pamphlets, in which form all his later works have been hitherto published, will be surprised to see how much the poet has written. For these two volumes contain nothing with which the reader is not familiar; though he will sometimes, perhaps, look doubtfully at his old friends, as though mistrusting his powers of identification. Mr. Browning in a very brief preface tells us that he has thoroughly revised these poems. The revision, it appears to us, in the case of Paracelsus has been carried on rather unsparingly. The improvement is not sufficient to justify the change. Some passages, it is true, are slightly amended—the rhythm is occasionally (not always) improved, and some colloquialisms are judiciously expunged—“But,” in the poet’s own words—
But ’tis a change—and we detest all change,
And most a change in aught we loved long since.
We do not like our old recollections to be interfered with—our memory, as it were, set at fault by these after-creations. These new readings puzzle us. They are well enough for young readers who now pore over the poems for the first time, but older ears have got accustomed to the run of the lines, as they ran a dozen years ago, and often read, often quoted, have become household words, which one does not wish to have changed even for the better. There is always this peril in revision. If the change be very manifest improvement—if new beauties be introduced and old deformities expunged—one might put up with the change for the sake of the improvement; but mere verbal changes of little importance have no compensatory power in them, and it is not always in matters poetical that second thoughts are best. We have recently looked over a revised edition of Tennyson’s Poems, and we cannot bring ourselves to think that the revisions are always improvements. There is, perhaps, nothing in the whole range of his poetry better known and more frequently committed to memory than the lines to “Lady Clara Vere de Vere.” Children learn them by rote as exercises of memory, and in many cases with a more far-reaching parental hope. We all remember the emphatic declaration—
The gardener Adam and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
In the last edition of Tennyson’s poems this passage is both emasculated and obscured. We read now-a-days—
The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Now, we put it to every intelligent reader in the country whether this is an improvement. The meaning of the passage is obscured, and to many rendered wholly unintelligible; whilst, at the same time, the homely emphasis, the heart-utterance of the “simple yeoman,” which is so eminently dramatic, is almost entirely destroyed.
Mr. Browning’s revisions are sometimes of this class. But they are of all classes—good, bad, and indifferent. Among the second are such examples as the following. It occurs in a passage of eminent beauty in Pippa Passes, where a group of poor cast-aways are talking together, and one, reverting fondly to days of bygone innocence and peace, is taunted by her companions, who declare that all traces of her home have been purposely obliterated—that the friends of her innocence are only too anxious to forget her existence:— [p. 34→]
Say at once
You’d be at home—she’d always be at home.
Now comes the story of the farm among
The cherry orchards, and how April snowed
White blossoms on her as she ran. Why, fool,
They’ve rubbed the chalk-mark out how tall you were,
Twisted your starling’s neck, broken his cage,
Made a dunghill of your garden.
In the revised edition the line printed in italics appears thus:—
They’ve rubbed out the chalk mark of how tall you were—
It would be difficult to conceive anything less of an improvement than this. The very ellipse in the original line, to avoid which the rhythm of the line is entirely sacrificed, and poetry turned into absolute prose, has a dramatic beauty in it, which none but dunces could fail to observe.
And we cannot bring ourselves very readily to believe that the noble conclusion of the first book of Paracelsus—
Are there not Festus—are there not dear Michal,
Two points in the adventure of the diver,
One when a beggar he prepares to plunge,
One when a prince he rises with the pearl,
Festus, I plunge!
is much improved by the response of Festus—
Fest.—I wait you when you rise.
We like the original better. The rejoinder is an anti-climax, and the words themselves scarcely convey a sense of the deep devotion of the true-hearted Festus.
The revising pen, as we have said, has been freely employed. We take at random a page of the original Paracelsus and print the revised edition of it in a parallel column. Some will think the changes worth noting, others may pass over the extracts altogether:—
First Edition.
—— Good; I do well—most well!
Why strive to make them know, and feel, and fret
Themselves with what ’tis past their power to know
Or feel, or comprehend? Still having nursed
The faint surmise that one yet walk’d the earth,
One, at least, not the utter fool of show,
Not absolutely form’d to be the dupe
Of shallow plausibilities alone;
One who, in youth found wise enough to choose
That happiness his riper years approve,
Was yet so anxious for another’s sake
That ere his friend could rush upon a mad
And ruinous course, the converse of his own,
His gentle spirit had already tried
The perilous path, foreseen its destiny,
And warn’d the weak one in such tender words—
Such accents—his whole heart in every one—
That they oft’ served to comfort him, in hours
When they, by right, should have increased despair.
Having believed, I say, each happy one
Could never lose the light thus from the first
His portion,—I cannot refuse to grieve
Even at my gain if it disturb our old
Relation; if it make me out the wiser.
Therefore, once more reminding him how well
He prophesied, I note the single flaw
That seems to cross his title: in plain words
You were deceived, and thus were you deceived:
I have not been successful, and yet am
Most miserable: ’tis said at last; nor you
Give credit, lest you force me to believe
That common sense yet lives upon the world.
New Edition.
—— Good; I do well—most well!
Why strive to make men hear, feel, fret themselves
With what ’tis past their power to comprehend?
I would not strive now; only, having nursed
The faint surmise that one yet walked the earth,
One, at least, not the utter fool of show,
Not absolutely formed to be the dupe
Of shallow plausibilities alone;
One who, in youth found wise enough to choose
The happiness his riper years approve,
Was yet so anxious for another’s sake,
That, ere his friend could rush upon a course
Mad, ruinous, the converse of his own,
His gentler spirit essayed, prejudged for him
The perilous path, foresaw its destiny,
And warned the weak one in such tender words,
Such accents, his whole heart in every tone—
That oft their memory comforted that friend,
When rather it should have increased despair:
Having believed, I say, that this one man
Could never lose the wisdom from the first
His portion;—how should I refuse to grieve
At even my gain, if it attest his loss,
At triumph which so signally disturbs
Our old relation, proving me more wise?
Therefore, once more reminding him how well
He prophesied, I note the single flaw
That spoils his prophet’s title: in plain words
You were deceived, and thus were you deceived—
I have not been successful, and yet am
Most wretched; there—’tis said at last; but give
No credit, lest you force me to concede
That common sense yet lives upon the earth.
Two editions of Othello or Paradise Lost, thus differing from each other, would be a puzzle to the present generation.
We do not like such revisions as these; but we cannot say how thankful we are for such a collection of the poetry of one whose claims the world will yet recognise more ungrudgingly than it has hitherto consented to do.
Reviewed:
Poems (RB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1849.
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