R551200A. Men and Women (Boston, 1856).
Putnam’s Monthly Magazine, December 1855, pp. 655–656.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 308–309.
Men and Women is the title of Robert Browning’s new volume of poems, published by Ticknor & Co., simultaneously with the English edition. We can do little more than announce it now, meaning to consider Browning’s poetry at length in a future number of the Magazine. He is one of the men whose works are little read, except by a circle of enthusiastic admirers; yet whose fame and literary position are assured. Of every thousand read- [p. 656→] ers in this country who have heard of the great Martin Farquhar Tupper, and have delighted in that bombastic rigmarole called Proverbial Philosophy, there is not more than one, probably, who has even heard the name of Robert Browning; yet he is a poet and a master, and the greatest dramatic genius in English literature since the great dramatic days. We advise our readers, in time, that his poems are not to be tossed off with a glance. They are gold, not gilt. They have an essential value—a profound thought—a startling intensity of passion—and not an easy, exterior grace. His poems are the life of a man of most catholic mind and subtle sympathy, put into verse. They seem entirely obscure and rugged when you first try them, but they finally yield a wonderful music and a profound coherency. The sense is packed close, as in Dante. The poet’s observation of nature is as rigidly accurate as that of a naturalist. The atmosphere and tone of his verse are rich and scholarly. The present volume is a collection of poems, purely dramatic in conception and treatment. There is nothing trivial, nor common, nor tiresome, in them. It is dangerous to quarrel with them, for they come out of the heartiest sympathy with the deepest human feeling and the highest human aspiration, and will give you harder knocks than you give them. A line or two from one of the poems, Fra Lippo Lippi, is the motto of the book, and of Browning:
This world’s no blot for us,
Nor blank—it means intensely and means good:
To find its meaning is my meat and drink.
You see there is no tinkling of flutes and touching of guitars to be expected; and yet how easily a master can draw tearful tenderness from the grandest organ. Every lover of poetry must read this book; every man who likes to see that the world and human power do not grow old, and that, as long as there is a sun, there will always be a Memnon to be struck into music. We extract one poem from the volume. It is clearer to the first glance than most of the poems, but it is also very characteristic of the poet.
evelyn hope.
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die, too, in the glass.
Little has yet been changed, I think—
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays thro’ the hinges’ chink.
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name—
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God’s hand beckoned unawares,
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope?
What! your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew—
And just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow-mortals, nought beside?
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love,—
I claim you still, for my own love’s sake!
Delayed, it may be, for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few—
Much is to learn and much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
But the time will come—at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say,
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine.
And your mouth of your own geranium’s red—
And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one’s stead.
I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes:
Yet one thing, one, in my soul’s full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me—
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;
My heart seemed full as it could hold—
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile
And the red young mouth and the hair’s young gold.
So, hush—I will give you this leaf to keep—
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.
There, that is our secret! go to sleep;
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
Reviewed:
Men and Women (RB), Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1856.
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