Introduction to Robert Browning [14]
whate'er you may believe: There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fulness; and around Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception -- which is truth; A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Blinds it, and makes all error: and `TO KNOW' Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly The demonstration of a truth, its birth, And you trace back the effluence to its spring And source within us, where broods radiance vast, To be elicited ray by ray, as chance Shall favour: chance -- for hitherto, your sage Even as he knows not how those beams are born, As little knows he what unlocks their fount; And men have oft grown old among their books To die, case-hardened in their ignorance, Whose careless youth had promised what long years Of unremitted labour ne'er performed: While, contrary, it has chanced some idle day, That autumn-loiterers just as fancy-free As the midges in the sun, have oft given vent To truth -- produced mysteriously as cape Of cloud grown out of the invisible air. Hence, may not truth be lodged alike in all, The lowest as the highest? some slight film The interposing bar which binds it up, And makes the idiot, just as makes the sage Some film removed, the happy outlet whence Truth issues proudly? See this soul of ours! How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled By age and waste, set free at last by death: Why is it, flesh enthralls it or enthrones? What is this flesh we have to penetrate? Oh, not alone when life flows still do truth And power emerge, but also when strange chance Ruffles its current; in unused conjuncture, When sickness breaks the body -- hunger, watching, Excess, or languor -- oftenest death's approach -- Peril, deep joy, or woe. One man shall crawl Through life, surrounded with all stirring things, Unmoved -- and he goes mad; and from the wreck Of what he was, by his wild talk alone, You first collect how great a spirit he hid. Therefore set free the spirit alike in all, Discovering the true laws by which the flesh Bars in the spirit! . . . * * * * * I go to gather this The sacred knowledge, here and there dispersed About the world, long lost or never found. And why should I be sad, or lorn of hope? Why ever make man's good distinct from God's? Or, finding they are one, why dare mistrust? Who shall succeed if not one pledged like me? Mine is no mad attempt to build a world Apart from His, like those who set themselves To find the nature of the spirit they bore, And, taught betimes that all their gorgeous dreams Were only born to vanish in this life, Refused to fit them to this narrow sphere, But chose to figure forth another world And other frames meet for their vast desires, -- Still, all a dream! Thus was life scorned; but life Shall yet be crowned: twine amaranth! I am priest!" And again: -- "In man's self arise August anticipations, symbols, types Of a dim splendour ever on before, In that eternal circle run by life: For men begin to pass their nature's bound, And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant Their proper joys and griefs; and outgrow all * The narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade Before the unmeasured thirst for good; while peace Rises within them ever more and more. Such men are even now upon the earth, Serene amid the half-formed creatures round, Who should be saved by them and joined with them." In the last three verses is indicated the doctrine of the regenerating power of exalted personalities, so prominent in Browning's poetry, and which is treated in the next paper.
-- * proper: In the sense of the Latin PROPRIUS, peculiar, private, personal. --
There is no `tabula rasa' doctrine in these passages, nor in any others, in the
-- * proper: In the sense of the Latin PROPRIUS, peculiar, private, personal. --
There is no `tabula rasa' doctrine in these passages, nor in any others, in the