From Chaucer to Tennyson
rewarded with an intellectual pleasure so peculiar and so stimulating.
The odd, grotesque impression made by his poetry arises, in part, from
his desire to use the artistic values of ugliness, as well as of
obscurity; to avoid the shallow prettiness that comes from blinking the
disagreeable truth: not to leave the saltness out of the sea. Whenever
he emerges into clearness, as he does in hundreds of places, he is a
poet of great qualities. There are a fire and a swing in his _Cavalier
Tunes_, and in pieces like the _Glove_ and the _Lost_ _Leader_; and
humor in such ballads as the _Pied Piper of Hamelin_ and the _Soliloquy
of the Spanish Cloister_, which appeal to the most conservative reader.
He seldom deals directly in the pathetic, but now and then, as in
_Evelyn Hope_, the _Last Ride Together_, or the _Incident of the French
Camp_, a tenderness comes over the strong verse
as sheathes
A film the mother eagle's eye
When her bruised eaglet breathes.
Perhaps the most astonishing example of Browning's mental vigor is the
huge composition, entitled _The Ring and the Book,_ 1868; a narrative
poem in twenty-one thousand lines in which the same story is repeated
eleven times in eleven different ways. It is the story of a criminal
trial which occurred at Rome about 1700, the trial of one Count Guido
for the murder of his young wife. First the poet tells the tale himself;
then he tells what one half the world said and what the other; then he
gives the deposition of the dying girl, the testimony of witnesses, the
speech made by the count in his own defense, the arguments of counsel,
etc., and, finally, the judgment of the pope. So wonderful are
Browning's resources in casuistry, and so cunningly does he ravel the
intricate motives at play in this tragedy and lay bare the secrets of
the heart, that the interest increases at each repetition of the tale.
He studied the Middle Age carefully, not for its picturesque externals,
its feudalisms, chivalries, and the like; but because he found it a rich
quarry of spiritual monstrosities, strange outcroppings of fanaticism,
superstition, and moral and mental distortion of all shapes. It
furnished him especially with a great variety of ecclesiastical types,
such as are painted in _Fra Lippo Lippi, The Heretic's Tragedy,_ and
_The Bishop Orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church._
Browning's dramatic instinct always attracted him to the stage. His
tragedy, _Strafford_ (1837), was written for Macready, and put on at
Covent Garden Theater, but without pronounced success. He wrote many
fine dramatic poems, like _Pippa Passes, Colombe's Birthday_, and _In a
Balcony_; and at least two good acting plays, _Luria_ and _A Blot in the
Scutcheon._ The last named has recently been given to the American
public, with Lawrence Barrett's careful and intelligent presentation of
the leading role. The motive of the tragedy is somewhat strained and
fantastic, but it is, notwithstanding, very effective on the stage. It
gives one an unwonted thrill to listen to a play, by a contemporary
English writer, which is really literature. One gets a faint idea of
what it must have been to assist at the first night of _Hamlet_.
1. English Literature in the Reign of Victoria. Henry
Morley. (Tauchnitz Series.)
2. Victorian Poets. E.C. Stedman. Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., 1886.
3. Dickens. Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, David
Copperfield, Bleak House, Tale of Two Cities.
4. Thackeray. Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Henry Esmond,
The Newcomes.
5. George Eliot. Scenes of Clerical Life, Mill on the
Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Adam Bede, Middlemarch.
6. Macaulay. Essays, Lays of Ancient Rome.
7. Carlyle. Sartor Resartus, French Revolution, Essays
on History, Signs of the Times, Characteristics, Burns, Scott,
Voltaire, and Goethe.
8 The Works of Alfred Tennyson. London: Stranham
& Co., 1872. 6 vols.
9. Selections from the Poetical Works of Robert Browning.
London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1880. 2 vols.
APPENDIX.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
THE PRIORESS.
[From the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales.]
There was also a nonne, a prioresse,
That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy;
Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy;
And she was cleped[23] madame Eglentine.
Ful wel she sange the service devine,
Entuned in hire nose ful swetely;
And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly[24]
After the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe,[25]
For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.
At mete was she wel ytaught withalle;
She lette no morsel from hire lippe falle,
Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,
Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest.
In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.[26]
Hire over lippe wiped she so clene
That in hire cuppe was no ferthing[27] sene
Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught.
Ful semely after hire mete she raught.[28]
And sikerly[29] she was of grete disport
And ful plesant and amiable of port,
And peined hire to contrefeten chere
Of court,[30] and ben estatelich of manere
And to ben holden digne[31] of reverence.
But for to speken of hire conscience,
She was so charitable and so pitous,
She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous
Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde
With rested flesh and milk and wastel brede.[32]
But sore wept she if on of hem were dede,
Or if men smote it with a yerde[33] smert:[34]
And all was conscience and tendre herte.
[Footnote 23: Called.]
[Footnote 24: Neatly.]
[Footnote 25: Stratford on the Bow (river): a small village where such
French as was spoken would be provincial.]
[Footnote 26: Delight.]
[Footnote 27: Farthing, bit.]
[Footnote 28: Reached.]
[Footnote 29: Surely.]
[Footnote 30: Took pains to imitate court manners.]
[Footnote 31: Worthy.]
[Footnote 32: Fine bread.]
[Footnote 33: Stick.]
[Footnote 34: Smartly.]
PALAMON'S FAREWELL TO EMELIE.
[From the Knightes Tale.]
Naught may the woful spirit in myn herte
Declare o[35] point of all my sorwes smerte
To you, my lady, that I love most.
But I bequethe the service of my gost
To you aboven every creature,
Sin[36] that my lif ne may no lenger dure.
Alas the wo! alas the peines stronge
That I for you have suffered, and so longe!
Alas the deth! alas min Emelie!
Alas departing of our compagnie!
Alas min hertes quene! alas my wif!
Min hertes ladie, euder of my lif!
What is this world? what axen[37] men to have?
Now with his love, now in his colde grave
Alone withouten any compagnie.
Farewel my swete, farewel min Emelie,
And softe take me in your armes twey,[38]
For love of God, and herkeneth[39] what I sey.
[Footnote 35: One.]
[Footnote 36: Since.]
[Footnote 37: Ask.]
[Footnote 38: Two.]
[Footnote 39: Hearken.]
EMELIE IN THE GARDEN.
[From the Knightes Tale.]
Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day,
Till it felle ones in a morwe[40] of May
That Emelie, that fayrer was to sene[41]
Than is the lilie upon his stalke grene,
And fresher than the May with floures newe,
(For with the rose colour strof hire hewe;
I n'ot[42] which was the finer of hem two)
Er it was day, as she was wont to do,
She was arisen and all redy dight,[43]
For May wol have no slogardie a-night.
The seson priketh every gentil herte,
And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte,
And sayth, "Arise, and do thin observance."
This maketh Emelie han remembrance
To dou honour to May, and for to rise.
Yclothed was she fresh for to devise.[44]
Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse
Behind hire back, a yerde long I gesse.
And in the gardin at the sonne uprist[45]
She walketh up and doun wher as hire list.[46]
She gathereth floures, partie white and red,
To make a sotel[47] gerlond for hire bed,
And as an angel hevenlich she song.
[Footnote 40: Morning.]
[Footnote 41: See.]
[Footnote 42: Know not.]
[Footnote 43: Dressed.]
[Footnote 44: Describe.]
[Footnote 45: Sunrise.]
[Footnote 46: Wherever it pleases her.]
[Footnote 47: Subtle, cunningly enwoven.]
ALISON.
[From the Millere's Tale.]
Fayre was this yonge wif, and therwithal
As any wesel hire body gent and smal[48]
A seint[49] she wered, barred al of silk,
A barm-cloth[50] eke as white as morne milk[51]
Upon hire lendes[52] ful of many a gore,
White was hire smok, and brouded[53] al before
And eke behind on hire colere[54] aboute
Of cole-black silk within and eke withoute.
The tapes of hire white volupere[55]
Were of the same suit of hire colere;
Hire fillet brode of silk and set ful hye;
And sikerly[56] she had a likerous[57] eye,
Ful smal ypulled[58] were hire browes two,
And they were bent and black as any slo,
She was wel more blisful on to see
Than is the newe perjenete[59] tree,
And softer than the wolle is of a wether.
And by hire girdle heng a purse of lether,
Tasseled with silk and perled with latoun,[60]
In all this world to seken up and doun
Ther n'is no man so wise that coude thenche[61]
So gay a popelot[62] or swiche[63] a wenche.
Ful brighter was the shining of hire hewe
Than in the tour, the noble yforged newe.
But of hire song, it was as loud and yerne[64]
As any swalow sitting on a berne.
Thereto she coude skip and make a game
As any kid or calf folowing his dame.
Hire mouth was swete as braket[65] or the meth,[66]
Or horde of apples laid in hay or heth.
Winsing[67] she was, as is a jolly colt,
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.
A broche she bare upon hire low colere.
As brode as is the bosse of a bokelere.[68]
Hire shoon were laced on hire legges hie;
She was a primerole,[69] a piggesnie,[70]
For any lord, to liggen[71] in his bedde,
Or yet for any good yeman[72] to wedde.
[Footnote 48: Trim and slim.]
[Footnote 49: Girdle.]
[Footnote 50: Apron.]
[Footnote 51: Morning's milk.]
[Footnote 52: Loins.]
[Footnote 53: Embroidered.]
[Footnote 54: Collar.]
[Footnote 55: Cap.]
[Footnote 56: Surely.]
[Footnote 57: Wanton.]
[Footnote 58: Trimmed fine.]
[Footnote 59: Young pear.]
[Footnote 60: Ornamented with pearl-shaped beads of a metal resembling
brass.]
[Footnote 61: Think.]
[Footnote 62: Puppet.]
[Footnote 63: Such.]
[Footnote 64: Brisk.]
[Footnote 65: A sweet drink of ale, honey, and spice.]
[Footnote 66: Mead.]
[Footnote 67: Skittish.]
[Footnote 68: Buckler.]
[Footnote 69: Primrose.]
[Footnote 70: Pansy.]
[Footnote 71: Lie.]
[Footnote 72: Yeoman.]
* * * * *
ANONYMOUS BALLADS OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.
WALY, WALY BUT LOVE BE BONNY.
O waly,[73] waly up the bank,
And waly, waly down the brae,[74]
And waly, waly yon burn[75] side,
Where I and my love wont to gae.
I lean'd my back unto an aik,[76]
I thought it was a trusty tree;
But first it bow'd and syne[77] it brak,
Sae my true love did lightly me.
O waly, waly but love be bonny,
A little time while it is new;
But when 'tis auld it waxeth cauld,
And fades away like the morning dew.
O wherefore should I busk[78] my head?
Or wherefore should I kame[79] my hair?
For my true love has me forsook,
And says he'll never love me mair.
Now Arthur-Seat shall be my bed,
The sheets shall ne'er be fyl'd by me;
Saint Anton's well[80] shall be my drink,
Sinn my true love has forsaken me.
Martinmas' wind, when wilt thou blaw
And shake the green leaves off the tree?
O gentle death, when wilt thou come?
For of my life I'm aweary.
'Tis not the frost that freezes fell,
Nor blawing snow's inclemency;