Introduction to Robert Browning [87]
The lights and the shades made up a spell Till the trouble grew and stirred.
-- St. 37, 38. "Mr. Browning's most characteristic feeling for nature appears in his rendering of those aspects of sky, or earth, or sea, of sunset, or noonday, or dawn, which seem to acquire some sudden and passionate significance; which seem to be charged with some spiritual secret eager for disclosure; in his rendering of those moments which betray the passion at the heart of things, which thrill and tingle with prophetic fire. When lightning searches for the guilty lovers, Ottima and Sebald [in `Pippa Passes'], like an angelic sword plunged into the gloom, when the tender twilight with its one chrysolite star, grows aware, and the light and shade make up a spell, and the forests by their mystery, and sound, and silence, mingle together two human lives forever [`By the Fireside'], when the apparition of the moon-rainbow appears gloriously after storm, and Christ is in his heaven [`Christmas Eve'], when to David the stars shoot out the pain of pent knowledge and in the grey of the hills at morning there dwells a gathered intensity [`Saul'], -- then nature rises from her sweet ways of use and wont, and shows herself the Priestess, the Pythoness, the Divinity which she is. Or rather, through nature, the Spirit of God addresses itself to the spirit of man." -- Edward Dowden.
39.
Oh, the little more, and how much it is! And the little less, and what worlds away! How a sound shall quicken content to bliss, Or a breath suspend the blood's best play, And life be a proof of this!
40.
Had she willed it, still had stood the screen So slight, so sure, 'twixt my love and her: I could fix her face with a guard between, And find her soul as when friends confer, Friends -- lovers that might have been.
41.
For my heart had a touch of the woodland time, Wanting to sleep now over its best. Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime, But bring to the last leaf no such test! "Hold the last fast!" runs the rhyme.
42.
For a chance to make your little much, To gain a lover and lose a friend, Venture the tree and a myriad such, When nothing you mar but the year can mend: But a last leaf -- fear to touch!
43.
Yet should it unfasten itself and fall Eddying down till it find your face At some slight wind -- best chance of all! Be your heart henceforth its dwelling-place You trembled to forestall!
44.
Worth how well, those dark gray eyes, That hair so dark and dear, how worth That a man should strive and agonize, And taste a veriest hell on earth For the hope of such a prize!
45.
You might have turned and tried a man, Set him a space to weary and wear, And prove which suited more your plan, His best of hope or his worst despair, Yet end as he began.
46.
But you spared me this, like the heart you are, And filled my empty heart at a word. If two lives join, there is oft a scar, They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far.
47.
A moment after, and hands unseen Were hanging the night around us fast; But we knew that a bar was broken between Life and life: we were mixed at last In spite of the mortal screen.
48.
The forests had done it; there they stood; We caught for a moment the powers at play: They had mingled us so, for once and good, Their work was done -- we might go or stay, They relapsed to their ancient mood.
49.
How the world is made for each of us! How all we perceive and know in it Tends to some moment's product thus, When a soul declares itself -- to wit, By its fruit, the thing it does!
-- St. 49. "Those periods of life which appear most full of moral purpose to Mr. Tennyson, are periods of protracted self-control, and those moments stand eminent in life in which the spirit has struggled victoriously in the cause of conscience against impulse and desire. With Mr. Browning the moments are most glorious in which the obscure tendency of many years has been revealed by the lightning
-- St. 37, 38. "Mr. Browning's most characteristic feeling for nature appears in his rendering of those aspects of sky, or earth, or sea, of sunset, or noonday, or dawn, which seem to acquire some sudden and passionate significance; which seem to be charged with some spiritual secret eager for disclosure; in his rendering of those moments which betray the passion at the heart of things, which thrill and tingle with prophetic fire. When lightning searches for the guilty lovers, Ottima and Sebald [in `Pippa Passes'], like an angelic sword plunged into the gloom, when the tender twilight with its one chrysolite star, grows aware, and the light and shade make up a spell, and the forests by their mystery, and sound, and silence, mingle together two human lives forever [`By the Fireside'], when the apparition of the moon-rainbow appears gloriously after storm, and Christ is in his heaven [`Christmas Eve'], when to David the stars shoot out the pain of pent knowledge and in the grey of the hills at morning there dwells a gathered intensity [`Saul'], -- then nature rises from her sweet ways of use and wont, and shows herself the Priestess, the Pythoness, the Divinity which she is. Or rather, through nature, the Spirit of God addresses itself to the spirit of man." -- Edward Dowden.
39.
Oh, the little more, and how much it is! And the little less, and what worlds away! How a sound shall quicken content to bliss, Or a breath suspend the blood's best play, And life be a proof of this!
40.
Had she willed it, still had stood the screen So slight, so sure, 'twixt my love and her: I could fix her face with a guard between, And find her soul as when friends confer, Friends -- lovers that might have been.
41.
For my heart had a touch of the woodland time, Wanting to sleep now over its best. Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime, But bring to the last leaf no such test! "Hold the last fast!" runs the rhyme.
42.
For a chance to make your little much, To gain a lover and lose a friend, Venture the tree and a myriad such, When nothing you mar but the year can mend: But a last leaf -- fear to touch!
43.
Yet should it unfasten itself and fall Eddying down till it find your face At some slight wind -- best chance of all! Be your heart henceforth its dwelling-place You trembled to forestall!
44.
Worth how well, those dark gray eyes, That hair so dark and dear, how worth That a man should strive and agonize, And taste a veriest hell on earth For the hope of such a prize!
45.
You might have turned and tried a man, Set him a space to weary and wear, And prove which suited more your plan, His best of hope or his worst despair, Yet end as he began.
46.
But you spared me this, like the heart you are, And filled my empty heart at a word. If two lives join, there is oft a scar, They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far.
47.
A moment after, and hands unseen Were hanging the night around us fast; But we knew that a bar was broken between Life and life: we were mixed at last In spite of the mortal screen.
48.
The forests had done it; there they stood; We caught for a moment the powers at play: They had mingled us so, for once and good, Their work was done -- we might go or stay, They relapsed to their ancient mood.
49.
How the world is made for each of us! How all we perceive and know in it Tends to some moment's product thus, When a soul declares itself -- to wit, By its fruit, the thing it does!
-- St. 49. "Those periods of life which appear most full of moral purpose to Mr. Tennyson, are periods of protracted self-control, and those moments stand eminent in life in which the spirit has struggled victoriously in the cause of conscience against impulse and desire. With Mr. Browning the moments are most glorious in which the obscure tendency of many years has been revealed by the lightning