Browning's England: A Study in English Influences in Browning. Helen Archibald Clarke

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СКАЧАТЬ to the chalk and stone. He7 does not paint pictures and hang them on the walls, but rather carries them on the retina of his own eyes: we must look deep into his human eyes, to see those pictures on them. He is rather a seer, accordingly, than a fashioner, and what he produces will be less a work than an effluence. That effluence cannot be easily considered in abstraction from his personality—being indeed the very radiance and aroma of his personality, projected from it but not separated. Therefore, in our approach to the poetry, we necessarily approach the personality of the poet; in apprehending it, we apprehend him, and certainly we cannot love it without loving him. Both for love's and for understanding's sake we desire to know him, and, as readers of his poetry, must be readers of his biography too."

      Finally, the little "Memorabilia" lyric gives a mood of cherished memory of the Sun-Treader, who beaconed him upon the heights in his youth, and has now become a molted eagle-feather held close to his heart.

      Keats' lesser but assured place in the poet's affections comes out in the pugnacious lyric, "Popularity," one of the old-time bits of ammunition shot from the guns of those who found Browning "obscure." The poem is an "apology" for any unappreciated poet with8 the true stuff in him, but the allusion to Keats shows him to have been the fuse that fired this mild explosion against the dullards who pass by unknowing and uncaring of a genius, though he pluck with one hand thoughts from the stars, and with the other fight off want.

POPULARITY

       Table of Contents

      I

      Stand still, true poet that you are!

       I know you; let me try and draw you.

       Some night you'll fail us: when afar

       You rise, remember one man saw you,

       Knew you, and named a star!

      II

      My star, God's glow-worm! Why extend

       That loving hand of his which leads you,

       Yet locks you safe from end to end

       Of this dark world, unless he needs you,

       Just saves your light to spend?

      III

      His clenched hand shall unclose at last,

       I know, and let out all the beauty:

       My poet holds the future fast,

       Accepts the coming ages' duty,

       Their present for this past.

      IV

      That day, the earth's feast-master's brow

       Shall clear, to God the chalice raising;

      9 "Others give best at first, but thou

       Forever set'st our table praising,

       Keep'st the good wine till now!"

      V

      Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand,

       With few or none to watch and wonder:

       I'll say—a fisher, on the sand

       By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder,

       A netful, brought to land.

      VI

      Who has not heard how Tyrian shells

       Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes

       Whereof one drop worked miracles,

       And colored like Astarte's eyes

       Raw silk the merchant sells?

      VII

      And each bystander of them all

       Could criticise, and quote tradition

       How depths of blue sublimed some pall

       —To get which, pricked a king's ambition;

       Worth sceptre, crown and ball.

      VIII

      Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh,

       The sea has only just o'er-whispered!

       Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh

       As if they still the water's lisp heard

       Thro' foam the rock-weeds thresh.

      10

      IX

      Enough to furnish Solomon

       Such hangings for his cedar-house,

       That, when gold-robed he took the throne

       In that abyss of blue, the Spouse

       Might swear his presence shone

      X

      Most like the centre-spike of gold

       Which burns deep in the blue-bell's womb,

       What time, with ardors manifold,

       The bee goes singing to her groom,

       Drunken and overbold.

      XI

      Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof!

       Till cunning come to pound and squeeze

       And clarify—refine to proof

       The liquor filtered by degrees,

       While the world stands aloof.

      XII

      And there's the extract, flasked and fine,

       And priced and salable at last!

       And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combine

       To paint the future from the past,

       Put blue into their line.

      XIII

      Hobbs СКАЧАТЬ