Part 19 (1/2)

While _Ixion_ is the n.o.blest and most heroically pa.s.sionate of these poems, _Adam, Lilith, and Eve_, is the most pregnant and suggestive.

Browning has rarely excelled it in certain qualities, hardly found in any other poet, of pungency, novelty, and penetrating bitter-sweetness.

”ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE.

One day it thundered and lightened.

Two women, fairly frightened, Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed, At the feet of the man who sat betwixt; And 'Mercy!' cried each, 'If I tell the truth Of a pa.s.sage in my youth!'

Said This: 'Do you mind the morning I met your love with scorning?

As the worst of the venom left my lips, I thought, ”If, despite this lie, he strips The mask from my soul with a kiss--I crawl, His slave,--soul, body and all!”'

Said That: 'We stood to be married; The priest, or someone, tarried; ”If Paradise-door prove locked?” smiled you.

I thought, as I nodded, smiling too, ”Did one, that's away, arrive--nor late Nor soon should unlock h.e.l.l's gate!”'

It ceased to lighten and thunder.

Up started both in wonder, Looked round, and saw that the sky was clear, Then laughed, 'Confess you believed us, Dear!'

'I saw through the joke!' the man replied They seated themselves beside.”

Much of the same power is shown in _Cristina and Monaldeschi_,[58] a dramatic monologue with all the old vigour of Browning's early work of that kind; not only keen and subtle, but charged with a sharp electrical quality, which from time to time darts out with a sudden and unexpected shock. The style and tone are infused with a peculiar fierce irony. The metre is rapid and stinging, like the words of the vindictive queen as she hurries her treacherous victim into the hands of the a.s.sa.s.sins.

There is dramatic invention in the very cadence:

”Ah, but how each loved each, Marquis!

Here's the gallery they trod Both together, he her G.o.d, She his idol,--lend your rod, Chamberlain!--ay, there they are--'_Quis Separabit_?'--plain those two Touching words come into view, Apposite for me and you!”

_Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli_, a dramatic lyric of three verses, the pathetic utterance of an unloved loving woman's heart, is not dissimilar in style to _Cristina and Monaldeschi_. It would be unjust to Fuseli to name him Bottom, but only fair to Mary Wollstonecraft to call her t.i.tania.

Of the remaining poems, _Donald_ (”a true story, repeated to Mr.

Browning by one who had heard it from its hero, the so-called Donald, himself,”[59]) is a ballad, not at all in Browning's best style, but certainly vigorous and striking, directed against the brutalising influences of sport, as _Tray_ was directed against the infinitely worse brutalities of ignorant and indiscriminate vivisection. Its n.o.ble human sympathies and popular style appeal to a ready audience. _Solomon and Balkis_, though by no means among the best of Browning's comic poems, is a witty enough little tale from that inexhaustible repository, the Talmud. It is a dialogue between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, not ”solely” nor at all ”of things sublime.” _Pambo_ is a bit of pointed fun, a mock-modest apology to critics. Finally, besides a musical little love-song named _Wanting is--What?_ we have in _Never the Time and the Place_ one of the great love-songs, not easily to be excelled, even in the work of Browning, for strength of spiritual pa.s.sion and intensity of exultant and certain hope.

”NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE.

Never the time and the place And the loved one all together!

This path--how soft to pace!

This May--what magic weather!

Where is the loved one's face?

In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, But the house is narrow, the place is bleak Where, outside, rain and wind combine With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak, With a hostile eye at my flus.h.i.+ng cheek, With a malice that marks each word, each sign!

O enemy sly and serpentine, Uncoil thee from the waking man!

Do I hold the Past Thus firm and fast Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?

This path so soft to pace shall lead Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed!

Or narrow if needs the house must be, Outside are the storms and strangers: we-- Oh, close, safe, warm, sleep I and she, --I and she!”

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 57: This note contains three burlesque sonnets whose chief interest is, that they are, with the exception of the unclaimed sonnet printed in the _Monthly Repository_ in 1834, the first sonnets ever published by Browning.]

[Footnote 58: One can scarcely read this poem without recalling the superb and not unsimilar episode in prose of another ”great dramatic poet,” Landor's Imaginary Conversation between the Empress Catherine and Princess Dashkof.]