"So did this old woe fade from memory, Till after, in the fulness of the days, I needs must find an ember yet unquenched Such are the main features of the Ring and the Book, and I hope enough has been said to prove to the student the wealth, wonder, and intense human interest of this poem. It must be read and re-read, pondered and thought over; for it is a decided addition to our human experience. Certainly, it is a formidable task to put before a "beginner" in the study of Browning, a poem, consisting of upwards of 21,000 lines. But the reader will be amply repaid for his assiduity; he will have seen a woeful tragedy put before him in an altogether new form; he will have felt the beat and sway of passion and pain, hate and fear, hope and joy; and he will have seen human hearts laid bare before the analytical power of this most incisive and masterful of modern poets. VIII. AND now, in bringing this little work to a close I trust I may have made, to the student at any rate, somewhat clearer the depth of thought and power of inspiration to be found in the works of him whom I take to be the Chief Poet of our Age; chief, because he, more than any other, perceived the needs and yearnings of this restless period, and set himself to supply them. He never aimed at popularity; success was in nowise his ambition: he was content with the judgment of his peers, and could afford to wait the verdict of the populace. "Were you never discouraged," I asked him once, "at the indifference of the public and the hostility of the critics to your writings?" "Never," was his emphatic reply. Why, I had the approbation of Fox, of Mill, of Forster, and I was content with their verdict." It has been well for us that he was so content, and went on his high career regardless of the public indifference or the critics' hostility. Had he so chosen he might, early in his career, have obtained a popularity as large and widespread as that of his great contemporary: for he had a unique lyric power, and in ballad writing was easily L great. On these lines, he might have speedily achieved popularity; but this was not his work-and this would not have won him the title of Chief Poet of the Age. I hold him to be "chief" also because he, of all modern writers, so largely combined the prophetic, or the seeing power, and this it is that places him far above more melodiousvoiced singers. This poet deals with the philosophical and intellectual problems of his day; he is a great religious teacher; he influenced men's actions and lives-in a word, he was a seer. To him the world was alive and radiant with hope; he never lost his hold on God, never faltered in his high ideals of life, never failed in his belief in humanity. God's fatherhood was to him an assured fact—and equally assured was his certainty of Immortality. His Ideath was as noble as his life-it was the triumph hour of his career: surrounded by those to whom he was bound by the tenderest of all ties, he heard across the waters that beat against the walls of the Palazzo Rezzonico, the "well done " of his compatriots in the land of his birth; and his hands had held for a moment the volume containing the last fruits of his brain and heart. Full of trust in the Future, he passed the veil into the Unseen his latest utterance testifying to the greatness of his hope: At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, Will they pass to where-by death, fools think, im prisonedLow he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, -Pity me? No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Bid him forward, breast and back, as either should be, "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed-fight on, fare ever There as here!" And herein lies his power to influence yet further the England he loved so well-for Robert Browning is emphatically the poet of the future. Dreadful things are prophesied of the coming age-and the pessimists are holding high carnival over the downfall of the old creeds but the foundations are firm still, it is only the building that is changing, not the superstructure. Faith is still alive, and uplifting the hearts of men; religion is still doing her beneficent work, as it has never done it before, but bigotry and intolerance are passing away; superstition is dead, but Christ is alive, and the new age is pregnant with a tolerant, large-hearted, all-embracing Christianity, broad as the wide waters of the moon-swayed Atlantic. Of this new age Robert Browning will be the great high-priest and poet, the inspired leader and teacher. Carlyle tells us that some familiar verses of Göethe's sound to him like the marching song of humanity, but Browning has written for us our marching song, and, in his poem of the Grammarian's Funeral, he leads us on, step by step, till we gain the mountain heights. It is an account of the burial of a learned man, who loved learning for learning's sake, seeking payment, not from man, but God. As his friends carry his body, for burial, up to the top of the mountain crest, they chant their uplifting song,-in words that haunt the memory, lifting the spirit above the world's turmoils, into that serener atmosphere where human hearts beat in unison with the heart of the Father: Oh, if we draw a circle premature Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure Was it not great? did not he throw on God God's task to make the heavenly period That low man seeks a little thing to do, This high man, with a great thing to pursue, That low man goes on adding one to one, This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. That, has the world here-should he need the next, This, throws himself on God, and unperplext S. & J. BRAWN, Printers, 13, Gate Street, High Holborn, London. |