Part 5 (2/2)
”She coht, But sees too deep for laughter; Her touch is a vibration and a light From worlds before and after--”
there is e the Mediu does not involve profundity, any more than neurotic excitation involves spiritual ecstasy _De profundis,_ indeed, must the poet come: there must the deep rhyth rhythmic joy
In this deep sense, and this only, the poet is born, not made He may learn to fashi+on anew that which he hath seen: the depth of his insight depends upon the depth of his spiritual heritage If wonder dwell not in his eyes and soul there can be no ”far ken” for hi was the first writer of our day to indicate this trans wonder-spirit, which is the deepest motor in the evolution of our modern poetry
Characteristically, he puts his utterance into the mouth of a dreamy German student, the shadowy Schra apt expression in tobacco-s, whether with the body's eye or theto look on! Has aat women?--there followat men?--there's God to wonder at: and the faculty of wonder h with respect to its first object, and yet young and fresh sufficiently, so far as concerns its novel one”
This wonder is akin to that 'insanity' of the poet which is but impassioned sanity Plato su no touch of the Muse's et into the temple by the help of Art--he, I say, and his poetry, are not admitted”
In that same wood beyond Dulwich to which allusion has already been erminal motive of ”Pippa Passes” flashed upon the poet No wonder this resort was for long one of his sacred places, and that he lamented its disappearance as fervently as Ruskin bewailed the encroachment of the ocean of bricks and mortar upon the wooded privacies of Denmark Hill
Save for a couple of brief visits abroad, Browning spent the years, between his first appearance as a drahbourhood Occasionally he took long walks into the country One particular pleasure was to lie beside a hedge, or deep in rasses, or under a tree, as circuive himself up so absolutely to the life of the ht close by, and sos for a brief space upon his recumbent body I have heard him say that his faculty of observation at that time would not have appeared despicable to a Se, the bird on the wing, the snail dragging its shell up the pendulous woodbine, the bee adding to his golden treasure as he swung in the bells of the ca hither and thither like an ani to twig, the woodpecker heedfully scrutinising the lichen on the gnarled oak-hole, the passage of the wind through leaves or across grass, the motions and shadows of the clouds, and so forth These were his golden holidays Much of the rest of his time, when not passed in his room in his father's house, where he wrote his dramas and early poems, and studied for hours daily, was spent in the Library of the British Museum, in an endless curiosity into the more or less unbeaten tracks of literature These London experiences were varied by whole days spent at the National Gallery, and in communion with kindred spirits At one tihbourhood of the Strand, whither he could go when he wished to be in town continuously for a tieht by e were it otherwise He had in no ordinary degree a rich and sensuous nature, and his responsiveness was so quick that the barriers of prudence were apt to be as shadowy to him as to the author of ”The Witch of Atlas” But he was the earnest student for the most part, and, above all, the poet His other pleasure, in his happy vagrant days, was to join coood fellowshi+p gain e of life that was useful at a later time Rustic entertainular fascination for him, as for that matter had rustic oratory, whether of the alehouse or the pulpit
At one period he took the keenest interest in sectaries of all kinds: and often he incurred a gentle reproof from his mother because of his nomad propensities in search of ”_pastors_ new” There was even a time when he seriously deliberated whether he should not coious elical fervour with scientific enthusiasht”
that saved him from himself, and defrauded the Church Independent of a stalwart orator
It was, as already stated, while he strolled through Dulwich Wood one day that the thought occurred to him which was to find develope flashed upon him,” writes his inti thus alone through life; one apparently too obscure to leave a trace of his or her passage, yet exercising a lasting though unconscious influence at every step of it; and the ie shaped itself into the little silk-winder of Asolo, Felippa or Pippa”
It has always seemed toBrowning's dramas Not only is it absolutely unactable, but essentially undra concerns itself fundamentally with the apt conjunction of events, and the more nearly it approximates to the verity of life the more likely is it to be of immediate appeal There is a _vraie verite_ which only the poet, evolving fro to concentrate these in a quick,hither and thither of Pippa, like a beneficent Fate, a wandering chorus froing the circumstances and even the natures of certain more or less heedless listeners by the wild free lilt of her happy song of innocence, is of this _vraie verite_ It is so obviously true, spiritually, that it is unreal in the commonplace of ordinary life Its very effectiveness is too apt for the dramatist, who can ill afford to tamper further with the indifferent banalities of actual existence The poet, unhaencies of dramatic realism, can safely, and artistically, achieve an equally exact, even a higher verisimilitude, by means which are, or should be, beyond adoption by the dramatist proper
But over and above any 'nice discrimination,' ”Pippa Passes” is simply a poem, a lyrical masque with interspersed draestion recently made that it should be acted is a wholly errant one The finest part of it is unrepresentable The rest would consist merely of a series of tableaux, with conversational accoe mean airy chamber,” where Pippa, the little silk-winder fros from bed, on her New Year's Day _festa_, and soliloquises as she dresses, is as true as it is lovely when viewed through the rainbo of the poetic ate? It is not : it is too inapt, in its poetic richness, for its purpose It is the poet, not Pippa, who evokes this sweet sunrise- blue sole” The draht, and the wider expression of it, which is properly altogether beyond the scope of the playwright In a word, he ht that never was on sea or land, nor will he thereby sacrifice aught of essential truth: but his comrade must see to it that he is content with the wide liberal air of the coold: the playwright will concern hie of the weapon as we know it, and attribute to it no transcendent value, noAda roses and lilies, while the sun, moon, and stars simultaneously shi+ne, is impermissible to the portrait-painter or the landscapist, who has to idealise actuality to the point only of artistic realism, and not to transmute it at the outset frolorified abstract concept
In this opening , ”All service ranks the sa at all, properly, but simply a beautiful short poe be more shaped for disaster than the second of the two stanzas?--
”Say not 'a small event!' Why 'sreat event,' should come to pass, Than that? Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in or exceed!”
The whole of this lovely prologue is the production of a dra a draree hat I read so of the e of Victorian literature, is, in the circumstances, wholly inappropriate It seems to me entirely consistent with the character of Ottiallant in one of Duered atop of the wall of the prison whence he was escaping in order to whistle the concluding bar of a blithe chanson of freedom What is, dra ”There's a wo Mildred's presence in profound stealth and silence, is, dra in the eraniuht with Otti room
Itdramatic effect is fully experienced only in retrospection, or when there is knowledge of what is to follow
A conclusive objection to the drama as an actable play is that three of the fourof the fate of Luigi: we can but surmise the future of Jules and Phene: we know not hohen Monsignor will see Pippa righted Ottiher level in voluntary death than they ever could have done in life
It is quite unnecessary, here, to dwell upon this exquisite flower of genius in detail Every one who knows Browning at all knows ”Pippa Passes” Its lyrics have been unsurpassed, for birdlike spontaneity and a rare high ht is such as no other poet than the author of ”The Ring and the Book” and ”The Inn Album” can equal Its technique, moreover, is superb From the outset of the treic pohich is al Who has not knohat Jakob Boehme calls ”the shudder of a divine excitement” when Luca's ?
It seeain, is touched when Sebald exclaiht upon,” though here, it may be, there is an unconscious reminiscence of the tenser and ht, perplext in the extre her lover to the ”one thing that : Cohtsolass,” and sily frorey hairs!” then with an almost subli with a voice striving vainly to be blithe--
”Is it so you said A plait of hair should wave across my neck?
No--this way”
Who has not been randeur of the verse, as well as by the draht”?