Introduction to Robert Browning [50]
as exhibited by the sweet, glad Duchess, linked with fossil conventionalism and mediaevalsim, and an inherited authority which brooks no submissiveness, as exhibited by the Duke, her husband, "out of whose veins ceremony and pride have driven the blood, leaving him but a fumigated and embalmed self". The scene of the poem is a "rough north land", subject to a Kaiser of Germany. The story is so plainly told that no prose summary of it could make it plainer. Its deeper meaning centres in the incantation of the old gypsy woman, in which is mystically shadowed forth the long and painful discipline through which the soul must pass before being fully admitted to the divine arcanum, "how love is the only good in the world".
The poem is one which readily lends itself to an allegorical interpretation. For such an interpretation, the reader is referred to Mrs. Owen's paper, read before the Browning Society of London, and contained in the Society's Papers, Part IV., pp. 49* et seq. It is too long to be given here.
The Last Ride Together.
"The speaker is a man who has to give up the woman he loves; but his love is probably reciprocated, however inadequately, for his appeal for `a last ride together' is granted. The poem reflects his changing moods and thoughts as `here we are riding, she and I'. `Fail I alone in words and deeds? Why, all men strive, and who succeeds?' Careers, even careers called `successful', pass in review -- statesmen, poets, sculptors, musicians -- each fails in his ideal, for ideals are not attainable in this life of incompletions. But faith gains something for a man. He has loved this woman. That is something gained. If this life gave all, what were there to look forward to? `Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.' Again, -- and this is his closing reflection, -- "`What if heaven be, that, fair and strong'", etc. -- Browning Soc. Papers, V., 144*.
By the Fireside.
Perhaps in no other of Mr. Browning's poems are the spiritual uses of "the love of wedded souls" more fully set forth than in the poem, `By the Fireside'.
The Monologue is addressed by a happy husband to his "perfect wife, my Leonor". He looks forward to what he will do when the long, dark autumn evenings come -- the evenings of declining age, when the pleasant hue of his soul shall have dimmed, and the music of all its spring and summer voices shall be dumb in life's November. In his "waking dreams" he will "live o'er again" the happy life he has spent with his loved and loving companion. Passing out where the backward vista ends, he will survey, with her, the pleasant wood through which they have journeyed together. To the hazel-trees of England, where their childhood passed, succeeds a rarer sort, till, by green degrees, they at last slope to Italy, and youth, -- Italy, the woman-country, loved by earth's male-lands. She being the trusted guide, they stand at last in the heart of things, the heaped and dim woods all around them, the single and slim thread of water slipping from slab to slab, the ruined chapel perched half-way up in the Alpine gorge, reached by the one-arched bridge where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond, where all day long a bird sings, and a stray sheep drinks at times. Here, where at afternoon, or almost eve, the silence grows conscious to that degree, one half feels it must get rid of what it knows, they walked side by side, arm in arm, and cheek to cheek; cross silent the crumbling bridge, pity and praise the sweet chapel, read the dead builder's date, 'five, six, nine, recross the bridge, take the path again -- but wait! Oh moment one and infinite! the west is tender, with its one star, the chrysolite! the sights and sounds, the lights and shades, make up a spell; a moment after, and unseen hands are hanging the night around them fast, but they know that a bar has been broken between life and life, that they are mixed at last in spite of the mortal screen.
"The forests had done it; there they stood; We caught for a moment the powers at play:
The poem is one which readily lends itself to an allegorical interpretation. For such an interpretation, the reader is referred to Mrs. Owen's paper, read before the Browning Society of London, and contained in the Society's Papers, Part IV., pp. 49* et seq. It is too long to be given here.
The Last Ride Together.
"The speaker is a man who has to give up the woman he loves; but his love is probably reciprocated, however inadequately, for his appeal for `a last ride together' is granted. The poem reflects his changing moods and thoughts as `here we are riding, she and I'. `Fail I alone in words and deeds? Why, all men strive, and who succeeds?' Careers, even careers called `successful', pass in review -- statesmen, poets, sculptors, musicians -- each fails in his ideal, for ideals are not attainable in this life of incompletions. But faith gains something for a man. He has loved this woman. That is something gained. If this life gave all, what were there to look forward to? `Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.' Again, -- and this is his closing reflection, -- "`What if heaven be, that, fair and strong'", etc. -- Browning Soc. Papers, V., 144*.
By the Fireside.
Perhaps in no other of Mr. Browning's poems are the spiritual uses of "the love of wedded souls" more fully set forth than in the poem, `By the Fireside'.
The Monologue is addressed by a happy husband to his "perfect wife, my Leonor". He looks forward to what he will do when the long, dark autumn evenings come -- the evenings of declining age, when the pleasant hue of his soul shall have dimmed, and the music of all its spring and summer voices shall be dumb in life's November. In his "waking dreams" he will "live o'er again" the happy life he has spent with his loved and loving companion. Passing out where the backward vista ends, he will survey, with her, the pleasant wood through which they have journeyed together. To the hazel-trees of England, where their childhood passed, succeeds a rarer sort, till, by green degrees, they at last slope to Italy, and youth, -- Italy, the woman-country, loved by earth's male-lands. She being the trusted guide, they stand at last in the heart of things, the heaped and dim woods all around them, the single and slim thread of water slipping from slab to slab, the ruined chapel perched half-way up in the Alpine gorge, reached by the one-arched bridge where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond, where all day long a bird sings, and a stray sheep drinks at times. Here, where at afternoon, or almost eve, the silence grows conscious to that degree, one half feels it must get rid of what it knows, they walked side by side, arm in arm, and cheek to cheek; cross silent the crumbling bridge, pity and praise the sweet chapel, read the dead builder's date, 'five, six, nine, recross the bridge, take the path again -- but wait! Oh moment one and infinite! the west is tender, with its one star, the chrysolite! the sights and sounds, the lights and shades, make up a spell; a moment after, and unseen hands are hanging the night around them fast, but they know that a bar has been broken between life and life, that they are mixed at last in spite of the mortal screen.
"The forests had done it; there they stood; We caught for a moment the powers at play: