And they could let me take my state My queen's day; oh! I think the cause See Gismond's at the gate: in talk With his two boys: I can proceed!— Bring torches! wind the penance sheet Shall she, whose body I embraced I? what I answered? As I live I never thought there was such thing What says the body when they spring Till out strode Gismond! then I knew His face before, but at first view I felt quite sure that God had set The next stanza is one of the finest in the whole etical painting. "He strode to Gauthier: in his throat Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote In blood men's verdict there.-North, South, East, West, I looked, The lie was dead This glads me most-that I enjoyed The heart of the joy; nor my content Did I not watch him, while he let His armorer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret The while, his feet, my memory leaves No least stamp out, nor how anon He pulled his ringing gauntlets on." Mark, how graphically the whole scene is brought before the reader. The two last lines sound just like the gauntlets themselves. No puling fine words; bold, nervous Saxon!—every word a piece of the picture. "And e'en before the trumpet's sound Was finished; there lay prone the knight, Prone as his lie upon the ground: My knight flew at him! used no sleight Which done he dragged him to my feet From my first to God's second death! Then Gismond, kneeling to me asked Could I repeat now-tho' I tasked My powers for ever-to a third Dear even as you are: pass the rest, Until I sunk upon his breast. Over my head his arm he flung Against the world; and scarce I felt For he began to say the while How South our home lay many a mile. So 'mid the shouting multitude We two walked forth, to never more As a proof that Mr. Browning is deficient in that necessary constructive faculty which enables a dramatist to preserve the identity of his character, we may adduce as an instance the following part of Pippa's soliloquy. Pippa is a poor factory girl. "Day! Faster and more fast O'er night's brim day boils at last, Boils pure gold o'er the cloud capp'd brim For not a froth flake touched the rim Of eastern cloud an hour away, But forth one wavelet then another curled, Till the whole sunrise not to be supprest Rose, reddened, and its seething breast Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world." Certainly Pippa is no other than Robert Browning in petticoats. Her morning and evening hymn is also a singular piece of devotional metaphysics: "All service ranks the same with God, If now as formerly he trod Paradise, God's presence fills Our earth, and each but as God wills Can work-God's puppets best and worst, Are we there is no last nor first. Say not a small event!-why small? A great event shall come to pass Pippa is certainly a very singular young lady, and must be half sister to the lady described in Don Juan. "Her favorite science was the metaphysical." We will indulge in another snatch of Pippa's: "Overhead the tree tops meet Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet, Ay, and tests too, but words-our words That knowledge with my life begun!- Nay could all but understand How and wherefore the moon rages, And just when out of her soft fifty changes, We have heard Mr. Browning frequently reply in answer to some of the critics who have accused him of an impracticable style, that he is as clear as any poet can be, who uses a new set of symbols; he declares that he is weary of phoenixes, roses, lilies, and the old stock in trade, which with the aid of ten fingers, has enabled mere versifiers to inundate the reading world with a deluge of "verse and water." For instance, if Mr. Browning wishes to make a simile, and illustrate redness, he will not take the rose, but select some out of the way flower equally red, but of whose name not one in a thousand has ever heard this added to a style so condensed and clipt of all aids as to sometimes be unintelligible, has sealed Mr. Browning's works to the many. It is indeed the shorthand of poetry. It requires the author or some duly qualified admirer to interpret it to the world. We feel sure it is a great defect in an author when he requires "an explanator." He should be able to converse with his reader without intermediate aid. He should sit face to face, flashing bright thoughts into the gazer's mind. We must not conclude our notice of Robert Browning without alluding to the exquisite spiritual grace and purity he has thrown around his female characters. We confess that they all seem to belong to one family, although brought up at different colleges, (for all his women are great metaphysicians,) still there is a purity and unselfishness about them which makes one wish that the world were peopled only with such divine creatures as Shakspere and Browning's heroines are. old as Lamb once told a friend that he would any day marry, he was, if he could only "find one of Shakspere's women." The poet, logician, and metaphysician would, in like manner, look out for some Sordellian creature such as Mildred, Pippa, Anael, or one of her sister heroines. The purity of a poet's heart may frequently be tested by his ideal seraglio. We have only to refer to Byron, Shakspere and Browning, for strong cases in support of our opinion. It would be unjust to Mr. Browning to give any specimen from his larger works; they should be read by themselves; they do not abound in fine isolated passages, like most poets. All their beauties are so interwoven as to render extracts, to inform the reader, well nigh as absurd as to bring a brick as a specimen of the architecture of any particular building. In November, 1846, Mr. Browning married Miss Barrett, the celebrated poetess, and shortly after went to Florence, where he now remains. The conjugal union of the first poetess of the age with the author of Paracelsus is certainly an unparalleled event in the history of matrimony, and a singular illustration of Shakspere's sonnet. |