Part 6 (1/2)
How good some of that is; how bad it is elsewhere! How much it needs thought, concentration, and yet how vivid also and original! And the faults of it, of grammar, of want of clearness, of irritating parenthesis, of broken threads of thought, of inability to leave out the needless, are faults of which Browning never quite cleared his work. I do not think he ever cared to rid himself of them.
The next description is not an ill.u.s.tration of man by means of Nature.
It is almost the only set description of Nature, without reference to man, which occurs in the whole of Browning's work. It is introduced by his declaration (for in this I think he speaks from himself) of his power of living in the life of all living things. He does not think of himself as living in the whole Being of Nature, as Wordsworth or Sh.e.l.ley might have done. There was a certain matter of factness in him which prevented his belief in any theory of that kind. But he does transfer himself into the rejoicing life of the animals and plants, a life which he knows is akin to his own. And this distinction is true of all his poetry of Nature. ”I can mount with the bird,” he says,
Leaping airily his pyramid of leaves And twisted boughs of some tall mountain tree, Or like a fish breathe deep the morning air In the misty sun-warm water.
This introduces the description of a walk of twenty-four hours through various scenes of natural beauty. It is long and elaborate--the scenery he conceives round the home where he and Pauline are to live. And it is so close, and so much of it is repeated in other forms in his later poetry, that I think it is drawn direct from Nature; that it is here done of set purpose to show his hand in natural description. It begins with night, but soon leaves night for the morning and the noon. Here is a piece of it:
Morning, the rocks and valleys and old woods.
How the sun brightens in the mist, and here, Half in the air, like[5] creatures of the place, Trusting the elements, living on high boughs That sway in the wind--look at the silver spray Flung from the foam-sheet of the cataract Amid the broken rocks! Shall we stay here With the wild hawks? No, ere the hot noon come Dive we down--safe! See, this is our new retreat Walled in with a sloped mound of matted shrubs, Dark, tangled, old and green, still sloping down To a small pool whose waters lie asleep, Amid the trailing boughs turned water-plants: And tall trees overarch to keep us in, Breaking the sunbeams into emerald shafts, And in the dreamy water one small group Of two or three strange trees are got together Wondering at all around--
This is nerveless work, tentative, talkative, no clear expression of the whole; and as he tries to expand it further in lines we may study with interest, for the very failures of genius are interesting, he becomes even more feeble. Yet the feebleness is traversed by verses of power, like lightning flas.h.i.+ng through a mist upon the sea. The chief thing to say about this direct, detailed work is that he got out of its manner as fast as he could. He never tried it again, but pa.s.sed on to suggest the landscape by a few sharp, high-coloured words; choosing out one or two of its elements and flas.h.i.+ng them into prominence. The rest was left to the imagination of the reader.
He is better when he comes forth from the shadowy woodland-pool into the clear air and open landscape:
Up for the glowing day, leave the old woods!
See, they part like a ruined arch: the sky!
Blue sunny air, where a great cloud floats laden With light, like a dead whale that white birds pick, Floating away in the sun in some north sea.
Air, air, fresh life-blood, thin and searching air, The clear, dear breath of G.o.d that loveth us, Where small birds reel and winds take their delight!
The last three lines are excellent, but nothing could be worse than the sensational image of the dead whale. It does not fit the thing he desires to ill.u.s.trate, and it violates the sentiment of the scene he is describing, but its strangeness pleased his imagination, and he put it in without a question. Alas, in after times, he only too often, both in the poetry of nature and of the human soul, hurried into his verse ill.u.s.trations which had no natural relation to the matter in hand, just because it amused him to indulge his fancy. The finished artist could not do this; he would hear, as it were, the false note, and reject it.
But Browning, a natural artist, never became a perfect one.
Nevertheless, as his poetry went on, he reached, by natural power, splendid description, as indeed I have fully confessed; but, on the other hand, one is never sure of him. He is never quite ”inevitable.”
The attempt at deliberate natural description in _Pauline_, of which I have now spoken, is not renewed in _Paracelsus_. By the time he wrote that poem the movement and problem of the spirit of man had all but quenched his interest in natural scenery. Nature is only introduced as a background, almost a scenic background for the players, who are the pa.s.sions, thoughts, and aspirations of the intellectual life of Paracelsus. It is only at the beginning of Part II. that we touch a landscape:
Over the waters in the vaporous West The sun goes down as in a sphere of gold Behind the arm of the city, which between; With all the length of domes and minarets, Athwart the splendour, black and crooked runs Like a Turk verse along a scimitar.
That is all; nothing but an introduction. Paracelsus turns in a moment from the sight, and absorbs himself in himself, just as Browning was then doing in his own soul. Nearly two thousand lines are then written before Nature is again touched upon, and then Festus and Paracelsus are looking at the dawn; and it is worth saying how in this description Browning's work on Nature has so greatly improved that one can scarcely believe he is the same poet who wrote the wavering descriptions of _Pauline_. This is close and clear:
Morn must be near.
FESTUS. Best ope the cas.e.m.e.nt: see, The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars, Is blank and motionless: how peaceful sleep The tree-tops all together! Like an asp[6]
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.
PARACELSUS. See, morn at length. The heavy darkness seems Diluted, grey and clear without the stars; The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves as if Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let go His hold; and from the East, fuller and fuller, Day, like a mighty river, flowing in; But clouded, wintry, desolate and cold.
That is good, clear, and sufficient; and there the description should end. But Browning, driven by some small demon, adds to it three lines of mere observant fancy.
Yet see how that broad p.r.i.c.kly star-shaped plant, Half-down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves, All thick and glistening with diamond dew.
What is that for? To give local colour or reality? It does neither. It is mere childish artistry. Tennyson could not have done it. He knew when to stay his hand.[7]
The finest piece of natural description in _Paracelsus_ is of the coming of Spring. It is full of the joy of life; it is inspired by a pa.s.sionate thought, lying behind it, concerning man. It is still more inspired by his belief that G.o.d himself was eternal joy and filled the universe with rapture. Nowhere did Browning reach a greater height in his Nature poetry than in these lines, yet they are more a description, as usual, of animal life than of the beauty of the earth and sea:
Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod: But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, pa.s.ses Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost, Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face; The gra.s.s grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms Like chrysalids impatient for the air, The s.h.i.+ning dorrs are busy, beetles run Along the furrows, ants make their ado; Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark Soars up and up, s.h.i.+vering for very joy; Afar the ocean sleeps; white fis.h.i.+ng-gulls Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek Their loves in wood and plain--and G.o.d renews His ancient rapture.