Life of Robert Browning [26]
In these lines, particularly in their close, is manifest
the influence of the noble Hebraic poetry. It must have been at this period
that Browning conned over and over with an exultant delight
the simple but lordly diction of Isaiah and the other prophets,
preferring this Biblical poetry to that even of his beloved Greeks.
There is an anecdote of his walking across a public park
(I am told Richmond, but more probably it was Wimbledon Common)
with his hat in his left hand and his right waving to and fro declamatorily,
while the wind blew his hair around his head like a nimbus:
so rapt in his ecstasy over the solemn sweep of the Biblical music that
he did not observe a small following consisting of several eager children,
expectant of thrilling stump-oratory. He was just the man, however,
to accept an anti-climax genially, and to dismiss his disappointed auditory
with something more tangible than an address.
The poet-precursor of scientific knowledge is again and again manifest:
as, for example, in
"Hints and previsions of which faculties
Are strewn confusedly everywhere about
The inferior natures, and all lead up higher,
All shape out dimly the superior race,
The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false,
And man appears at last."*
--
* Readers interested in Browning's inspiration from,
and treatment of, Science, should consult the excellent essay on him
as "A Scientific Poet" by Mr. Edward Berdoe, F.R.C.S., and, in particular,
compare with the originals the references given by Mr. Berdoe
to the numerous passages bearing upon Evolution and the several sciences,
from Astronomy to Physiology.
--
There are lines, again, which have a magic that cannot be defined.
If it be not felt, no sense of it can be conveyed through another's words.
"Whose memories were a solace to me oft,
As mountain-baths to wild fowls in their flight."
"Ask the gier-eagle why she stoops at once
Into the vast and unexplored abyss,
What full-grown power informs her from the first,
Why she not marvels, strenuously beating
The silent boundless regions of the sky."
There is one passage, beautiful in itself, which has
a pathetic significance henceforth. Gordon, our most revered hero,
was wont to declare that nothing in all nonscriptural literature
was so dear to him, nothing had so often inspired him in moments of gloom: --
"I go to prove my soul!
I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send His hail
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, His good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird. In his good time."
As for the much misused `Shakespearian' comparison, so often
mistakenly applied to Browning, there is nothing in "Paracelsus"
in the least way derivative. Because Shakespeare is the greatest genius
evolved from our race, it does not follow that every lofty intellect,
every great objective poet, should be labelled "Shakespearian".
But there is a certain quality in poetic expression which we so specify,
because the intense humanity throbbing in it finds highest utterance
in the greatest of our poets: and there is at least one instance
of such poignant speech in "Paracelsus", worthy almost to be ranked
with the last despairing cry of Guido calling upon murdered Pompilia: --
"Festus, strange secrets are let out by death
Who blabs so oft the follies of this world:
And I am death's familiar, as you know.
I helped a man to die, some few weeks since,
Warped even from his go-cart to one end --
The living on princes' smiles, reflected from
A mighty herd of favourites. No mean trick
He left untried, and truly well-nigh wormed
All traces of God's finger out of him:
Then died, grown old. And just an hour before,
Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes,
He sat up suddenly, and with natural voice