ROBERT BROWNING
(1812–1889)
Contents
The Poetry Collections
PAULINE: A FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION
SORDELLO
BELLS AND POMEGRANATES NO. III: DRAMATIC LYRICS
BELLS AND POMEGRANATES NO. VII: DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS
CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY
MEN AND WOMEN
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
THE RING AND THE BOOK
BALAUSTION’S ADVENTURE
PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY
FIFINE AT THE FAIR
RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY
ARISTOPHANES’ APOLOGY
THE INN ALBUM
PACCHIAROTTO, AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER
LA SAISIAZ AND THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC
DRAMATIC IDYLLS
DRAMATIC IDYLLS: SECOND SERIES
JOCOSERIA
FERISHTAH’S FANCIES
PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY
ASOLANDO
The Poems
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
The Plays
PARACELSUS
STRAFFORD
BELLS AND POMEGRANATES NO. I: PIPPA PASSES
BELLS AND POMEGRANATES NO. II: KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES
BELLS AND POMEGRANATES NO. IV: THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES
BELLS AND POMEGRANATES NO. V: A BLOT IN THE ‘SCUTCHEON
BELLS AND POMEGRANATES NO. VI: COLOMBE’S BIRTHDAY
BELLS AND POMEGRANATES NO. VIII: LURIA AND A SOUL’S TRAGEDY
HERAKLES
THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS
The Letters
LIST OF LETTERS FROM 1845 TO 1846
The Biographies
ROBERT BROWNING by G.K. Chesterton
LIFE OF ROBERT BROWNING by William Sharp
LIFE AND LETTERS OF ROBERT BROWNING by Mrs. Sutherland Orr
© Delphi Classics 2012
Version 1
ROBERT BROWNING
By Delphi Classics, 2012
NOTE
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The Poetry Collections
Southampton Way, Camberwell, London — Browning’s birthplace
A plaque marking the site of the cottage where the poet was born
Southampton Way in 1904
PAULINE: A FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION
Due to his mastery of dramatic verse, particularly excelling in the composition of dramatic monologues, Robert Browning (1812-1889) became one of the foremost poets of the Victorian Age. Born in Camberwell, South London, Browning enjoyed a secure upbringing, his father being a well-paid clerk for the Bank of England, as well as a literary collector, who amassed a library of over 6,000 books, many of them being rare works. Therefore, Robert was immersed in literature from a young age, his father, as well as his mother, a talented musician, encouraging his interest in literature and the arts.
By the age of twelve, Browning had written a book of poetry, which he later destroyed when no publisher could be found. After attending two private schools, revealing an overwhelming dislike for school life, he was educated at home by a tutor, aided also by his father’s extensive library. Aged fourteen, he was fluent in French, Greek, Italian and Latin. He became a great admirer of the Romantic poets, especially Shelley, mirroring his hero by also becoming an atheist and vegetarian, though he renounced these ideas later on. At the age of sixteen, Browning studied Greek at University College London, but left after his first year. From then on, he refused a formal career, ignoring his parents’ protests and dedicating his life to poetry.
In March of 1833, Browning found a publisher for Pauline, A Fragment of a Confession, which appeared anonymously at the expense of the hopeful poet. It is a long poem, composed in homage to Shelley, in part emulating the Romantic poet’s style. Originally Browning intended Pauline to be the first of a series of poems written from the viewpoint of different aspects of his personality, but he soon abandoned this idea.
At the time of its first publication, the poem received some positive attention, though in later years Browning claimed to be embarrassed by it, only including Pauline in his collected poems of 1868 after substantial revisions.
Browning, close to the time of publishing his first poetry collection
PAULINE
Plus ne suis ce que j’ai été,
Et ne le sçaurois jamais être. — MAROT.
Non dubito, quip titulus libri nostri raritate suâ quamplurimos alliciat ad legendum: inter quos nonnulli obliquæ opinionis, mente languidi, multi etiam maligni, et in ingenium nostrum ingrati accedent, qui temerariâ suâ ignorantiâ, vix conspecto titulo clamabunt: Nos vetita docere, hæresium semina jacere: piis auribus offendiculo, præclaris ingeniis scandalo esse: . . . adeò conscientiæ suæ consulentes, ut nec Apollo, nec Musæ omnes, neque Angelus de cælo me ab illorum execratione vindicare queant: quibus et ego nunc consulo, ne scripta nostra legant, nec intelligant, nec neminerint: nam noxia sunt, venenosa sunt: Acherontis ostium est in hoc libro, lapides loquitur, caveant, ne cerebrum illis excutiat. Vos autem, qui æquâ mente ad legendum venitis, si tantam prutentiæ discretionem adhibueritis, quantam in melle legendo apes, jam securi legite. Puto namque vos et utilitatis haud parùm et voluptatis plurimùm accepturos. Quod si qua repereritis, quæ vobis non placeant, mittite illa, nec utimini. NAM ET EGO VOBIS ILLA NON PROBO, SED NARRO. Cœtera tamen propterea non respute . . . Ideo, si quid liberius dictum sit, ignoscite adolescentiæ nostræ, qui minor quam adolescens hoc opus composui. — H. Cor. Agrippa, De Occult. Phil.
London, January, 1833.
V. A. XX.
PAULINE, mine own, bend o’er me — thy soft breast
Shall pant to mine — bend o’er me — thy sweet eyes,
And loosened hair, and breathing lips, arms
To shut me in with thee, and from all fear,
So that I might unlock the sleepless brood
Of fancies from my soul, their lurking place,
Nor doubt that each would pass, ne’er to return
To one so watched, so loved, and so secured.
But what can guard thee but thy naked love?
Ah, dearest; whoso sucks a poisoned wound
Envenoms his own veins, — thou art so good,
So calm — if thou should’st wear a brow less light
For some wild thought which, but for me, were kept
From out thy soul, as from a sacred star.
Yet till I have unlocked them it were vain
To hope to sing; some woe would light on me;
Nature would point at one, whose quivering lip
Was bathed in her enchantments — whose brow burned
Beneath the crown, to which her secrets knelt;
Who learned the spell which can call up the dead,
And then departed, smiling like a fiend
Who has deceived God. If such one should seek
Again her altars, and stand robed and crowned
Amid the faithful: sad confession first,
Remorse and pardon, and old claims renewed,
Ere I can be — as I shall be no more.
I had been spared this shame, if I had sate
By thee for ever, from the first, in place
Of my wild dreams of beauty and of good,
Or with them, as an earnest of their truth.
No thought nor hope, having been shut from thee,
No vag
ue wish unexplained — no wandering aim
Sent back to bind on Fancy’s wings, and seek
Some strange fair world, where it might be a law;
But doubting nothing, had been led by thee,
Thro’ youth, and saved, as one at length awaked,
Who has slept thro’ a peril. Ah! vain, vain!
Thou lovest me — the past is in its grave,
Tho’ its ghost haunts us — till this much is ours,
To cast away restraint, lest a worse thing
Wait for us in the darkness. Thou lovest me,
And thou art to receive not love, but faith,
For which thou wilt be mine, and smile, and take
All shapes, and shames, and veil without a fear
That form which music follows like a slave;
And I look to thee, and I trust in thee,
As in a Northern night one looks alway
Unto the East for morn, and spring a joy.
Thou seest then my aimless, hopeless state,
And resting on some few old feelings, won
Back by thy beauty, would’st that I essay
The task, which was to me what now thou art:
And why should I conceal one weakness more?
Thou wilt remember one warm morn, when Winter
Crept aged from the earth, and Spring’s first breath
Blew soft from the moist hills — the black-thorn boughs,
So dark in the bare wood; when glistening
In the sunshine were white with coming buds,
Like the bright side of a sorrow — and the banks
Had violets opening from sleep like eyes —
I walked with thee, who knew not a deep shame
Lurked beneath smiles and careless words, which sought
To hide it — till they wandered and were mute;
As we stood listening on a sunny mound
To the wind murmuring in the damp copse,
Like heavy breathings of some hidden thing
Betrayed by sleep — until the feeling rushed
That I was low indeed, yet not so low
As to endure the calmness of thine eyes;
And so I told thee all, while the cool breast
I leaned on altered not its quiet beating;
And long ere words, like a hurt bird’s complaint,
Bade me look up and be what I had been,
Thou wilt remember: — thou art not more dear
Than song was once to me; and I ne’er sung
But as one entering bright halls, where all
Will rise and shout for him Sure I must own
That I am fallen — having chosen gifts
Distinct from theirs — that I am sad — and fain
Would give up all to be but where I was;
Not high as I had been, if faithful found —
But low and weak, yet full of hope, and sure
Of goodness as of life — that I would lust
All this gay mastery of mind, to sit
Once more with them, trusting in truth and love.
And with an aim — not being what I am.
Oh, Pauline! I am ruined! who believed
That tho’ my soul had floated from its sphere
Of wide dominion into the dim orb
Of self — that it was strong and free as ever: —
It has conformed itself to that dim orb,
Reflecting all its shades and shapes, and now
Must stay where it alone can be adored.
I have felt this in dreams — in dreams in which
I seemed the fate from which I fled; I felt
A strange delight in causing my decay;
I was a fiend, in darkness chained for ever
Within some ocean-cave; and ages rolled,
Till thro’ the cleft rock, like a moonbeam, came
A white swan to remain with me; and ages
Rolled, yet I tired not of my first joy
In gazing on the peace of its pure wings.
And then I said, “It is most fair to me,
“Yet its soft wings must sure have suffered change
“From the thick darkness — sure its eyes are dim —
“Its silver pinions must be cramped and numbed
“With sleeping ages here; it cannot leave me,
“For it would seem, in light, beside its kind,
“Withered — tho’ here to me most beautiful.”
And then I was a young witch, whose blue eyes,
As she stood naked by the river springs,
Drew down a god — I watched his radiant form
Growing less radiant — and it gladdened me;
Till one morn, as he sat in the sunshine
Upon my knees, singing to me of heaven,
He turned to look at me, ere I could lose
The grin with which I viewed his perishing.
And he shrieked and departed, and sat long
By his deserted throne — but sunk at last,
Murmuring, as I kissed his lips and curled
Around him, “I am still a god — to thee.”
Still I can lay my soul bare in its fall,
For all the wandering and all the weakness
Will he a saddest comment on the song.
And if, that done, I can be young again,
I will give up all gained as willingly
As one gives up a charm which shuts him out
From hope, or part, or care, in human kind.
As life wanes, all its cares, and strife, and toil,
Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees
Which grew by our youth’s home — the waving mass
Of climbing plants, heavy with bloom and dew —
The morning swallows with their songs like words, —
All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts.
So aught connected with my early life —
My rude songs or my wild imaginings,
How I look on them — most distinct amid
The fever and the stir of after years!
I ne’er had ventured e’en to hope for this,
Had not the glow I felt at His award,
Assured me all was not extinct within.
Him whom all honor — whose renown springs up
Like sunlight which will visit all the world;
So that e’en they who sneered at him at first,
Come out to it, as some dark spider crawls
From his foul nest, which some lit torch invades,
Yet spinning still new films for his retreat. —
Thou didst smile, poet, — but can we forgive?
Sun-treader — life and light be thine for ever;
Thou art gone from us — years go by — and spring
Gladdens, and the young earth is beautiful,
Yet thy songs come not — other bards arise,
But none like thee — they stand — thy majesties,
Like mighty works which tell some Spirit there
Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn,
Till, its long task completed, it hath risen
And left us, never to return: and all
Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain.
The air seems bright with thy past presence yet,
But thou art still for me, as thou hast been
When I have stood with thee, as on a throne
With all thy dim creations gathered round
Like mountains, — and I felt of mould like them,
And creatures of my own were mixed with them,
Like things half-lived, catching and giving life.
But thou art still for me, who have adored,
Tho’ single, panting but to hear thy name,
Which I believed a spell to me alone,
Scarce deeming thou wert as a star to men —
As one should worship long a sacred spring
Scarce worth
a moth’s flitting, which long grasses cross,
And one small tree embowers droopingly,
Joying to see some wandering insect won.
To live in its few rushes — or some locust
To pasture on its boughs — or some wild bird
Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air,
And then should find it but the fountain-head,
Long lost, of some great river — washing towns
And towers, and seeing old woods which will live
But by its banks, untrod of human foot,
Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering
In light as some thing lieth half of life
Before God’s foot — waiting a wondrous change
— Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay
Its course in vain, for it does ever spread
Like a sea’s arm as it goes rolling on,
Being the pulse of some great country — so
Wert thou to me — and art thou to the world.
And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret,
That I am not what I have been to thee:
Like a girl one has loved long silently,
In her first loveliness, in some retreat,
When first emerged, all gaze and glow to view
Her fresh eyes, and soft hair, and lips which bleed
Like a mountain berry. Doubtless it is sweet
To see her thus adored — but there have been
Moments, when all the world was in his praise,
Sweeter than all the pride of after hours.
Yet, Sun-treader, all hail! — from my heart’s heart
I bid thee hail! — e’en in my wildest dreams,
I am proud to feel I would have thrown up all
The wreaths of fame which seemed o’er-hanging me,
To have seen thee, for a moment, as thou art.
And if thou livest — if thou lovest, spirit!
Remember me, who set this final seal
To wandering thought — that one so pure as thou
Could never die. Remember me, who flung
All honor from my soul — yet paused and said,
“There is one spark of love remaining yet,
“For I have nought in common with him — shapes
“Which followed him avoid me, and foul forms
“Seek me, which ne’er could fasten on his mind;
“And tho’ I feel how low I am to him,