"I shall never, in the years remaining,
Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues,
Make you music that should all-express me:
. . . verse alone, one life allows me."
He now gave way to the compulsive Byronic vogue4, with an occasional relapse to the polished artificialism of his father's idol5 among British poets. There were several ballads6 written at this time: if I remember aright, the poet specified8 the "Death of Harold" as the theme of one. Long afterwards he read these boyish forerunners9 of "Over the sea our galleys10 went," and "How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," and was amused by their derivative11 if delicate melodies. Mrs. Browning was very proud of these early blooms of song, and when her twelve-year-old son, tired of vain efforts to seduce12 a publisher from the wary13 ways of business, surrendered in disgust his neatly14 copied out and carefully stitched MSS., she lost no opportunity--when Mr. Browning was absent--to expatiate15 upon their merits. Among the people to whom she showed them was a Miss Flower. This lady took them home, perused16 them, discerned dormant17 genius lurking18 behind the boyish handwriting, read them to her sister (afterwards to become known as Sarah Flower Adams), copied them out before returning them, and persuaded the celebrated20 Rev21. William Johnson Fox to read the transcripts22. Mr. Fox agreed with Miss Flower as to the promise, but not altogether as to the actual accomplishment23, nor at all as to the advisability of publication. The originals are supposed to have been destroyed by the poet during the eventful period when, owing to a fortunate gift, poetry became a new thing for him: from a dream, vague, if seductive, as summer-lightning, transformed to a dominating reality. Passing a bookstall one day, he saw, in a box of second-hand24 volumes, a little book advertised as "Mr. Shelley's Atheistical25 Poem: very scarce." He had never heard of Shelley, nor did he learn for a long time that the "D?mon of the World," and the miscellaneous poems appended thereto, constituted a literary piracy26. Badly printed, shamefully27 mutilated, these discarded blossoms touched him to a new emotion. Pope became further removed than ever: Byron, even, lost his magnetic supremacy28. From vague remarks in reply to his inquiries29, and from one or two casual allusions30, he learned that there really was a poet called Shelley; that he had written several volumes; that he was dead.
Strange as it may seem, Browning declared once that the news of this unknown singer's death affected32 him more poignantly33 than did, a year or less earlier, the tidings of Byron's heroic end at Missolonghi. He begged his mother to procure34 him Shelley's works, a request not easily complied with, for the excellent reason that not one of the local booksellers had even heard of the poet's name. Ultimately, however, Mrs. Browning learned that what she sought was procurable35 at the Olliers' in Vere Street, London.
She was very pleased with the result of her visit. The books, it is true, seemed unattractive: but they would please Robert, no doubt. If that packet had been lost we should not have had "Pauline": we might have had a different Browning. It contained most of Shelley's writings, all in their first edition, with the exception of "The Cenci": in addition, there were three volumes by an even less known poet, John Keats, which kindly36 Mrs. Browning had been persuaded to include in her purchase on Mr. Ollier's assurance that they were the poetic37 kindred of Shelley's writings, and that Mr. Keats was the subject of the elegiac poem in the purple paper cover, with the foreign-looking type and the imprint38 "Pisa" at the foot of the title-page, entitled "Adonais." What an evening for the young poet that must have been. He told a friend it was a May night, and that in a laburnum, "heavy with its weight of gold," and in a great copper-beech at the end of a neighbour's garden, two nightingales strove one against the other. For a moment it is a pleasant fancy to imagine that there the souls of Keats and Shelley uttered their enfranchised39 music, not in rivalry40 but in welcome. We can realise, perhaps, something of the startled delight, of the sudden electric tremors41, of the young poet when, with eager eyes, he turned over the pages of "Epipsychidion" or "Prometheus Unbound," "Alastor" or "Endymion," or the Odes to a Nightingale, on Melancholy42, on a Grecian Urn19.
More than once Browning alluded43 to this experience as his first pervasive44 joy, his first free happiness in outlook. Often in after life he was fain, like his "wise thrush," to "recapture that first fine careless rapture45." It was an eventful eve.
"And suddenly, without heart-wreck, I awoke
As from a dream."
Thenceforth his poetic development was rapid, and continuous. Shelley enthralled47 him most. The fire and spirit of the great poet's verse, wild and strange often, but ever with an exquisiteness48 of music which seemed to his admirer, then and later, supreme50, thrilled him to a very passion of delight. Something of the more richly coloured, the more human rhythm of Keats affected him also. Indeed, a line from the Ode to a Nightingale, in common with one of the loveliest passages in "Epipsychidion," haunted him above all others: and again and again in his poems we may encounter vague echoes of those "remote isles51" and "perilous53 seas"--as, for example, in "the dim clustered isles of the blue sea" of "Pauline," and the "some isle52, with the sea's silence on it--some unsuspected isle in the far seas!" of "Pippa Passes."
But of course he had other matters for mental occupation besides poetry. His education at Mr. Ready's private academy seems to have been excellent so far as it went. He remained there till he was fourteen. Perhaps because of the few boarders at the school, possibly from his own reticence54 in self disclosure, he does not seem to have impressed any school-mate deeply. We hear of no one who "knew Browning at school." His best education, after all, was at home. His father and mother incidentally taught him as much as Mr. Ready: his love of painting and music was fostered, indirectly55: and in the 'dovecot' bookshelf above the fireplace in his bedroom, were the precious volumes within whose sway and magic was his truest life.
His father, for some reason which has not been made public, but was doubtless excellent, and is, in the light in which we now regard it, a matter for which to be thankful, decided56 to send his son neither to a large public school, nor, later, to Oxford57 or Cambridge. A more stimulative59 and wider training was awaiting him elsewhere.
For a time Robert's education was superintended by a tutor, who came to the house in Camberwell for several hours daily. The afternoons were mainly devoted60 to music, to exercise, and occasionally to various experimental studies in technical science. In the evenings, after his preparatory tasks were over, when he was not in the entertaining company of his father, he read and assiduously wrote. After poetry, he cared most for history: but as a matter of fact, little came amiss to his eager intellectual appetite. It was a period of growth, with, it may be, a vague consciousness that his mind was expanding towards compulsive expression.
"So as I grew, I rudely shaped my life
To my immediate61 wants, yet strong beneath
Was a vague sense of powers folded up--
A sense that though those shadowy times were past,
Their spirit dwelt in me, and I should rule."
When Mr. Browning was satisfied that the tutor had fulfilled his duty he sent his son to attend a few lectures at University College, in Gower Street, then just founded. Robert Browning's name is on the registrar's books for the opening session, 1829-30. "I attended with him the Greek class of Professor Long" (wrote a friend, in the Times, Dec. 14:'89), "and I well recollect3 the esteem62 and regard in which he was held by his fellow-students. He was then a bright, handsome youth, with long black hair falling over his shoulders." So short was his period of attendance, however, and so unimportant the instruction he there derived63, that to all intents it may be said Browning had no University training.
Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Browning but slightly appreciated his son's poetic idols65 and already found himself in an opposite literary camp, he had a profound sympathy with the boy's ideals and no little confidence in his powers. When the test came he acted wisely as well as with affectionate complaisance66. In a word, he practically left the decision as to his course of life to Robert himself. The latter was helped thereto by the knowledge that his sister would be provided for, and that, if need be, there was sufficient for himself also. There was of course but one way open to him. He would not have been a true poet, an artist, if he had hesitated. With a strange misconception of the artistic spirit, some one has awarded the poet great credit for his choice, because he had "the singular courage to decline to be rich." Browning himself had nothing of this bourgeois67 spirit: he was the last man to speak of an inevitable68 artistic decision as "singular courage." There are no doubt people who estimate his resolve as Mr. Barrett, so his daughter declared, regarded Horne when he heard of that poet having published "Orion" at a farthing: "Perhaps he is going to shoot the Queen, and is preparing evidence of monomania."
With Browning there never could have been two sides to the question: it were excusable, it were natural even, had his father wavered. The outcome of their deliberations was that Robert's further education should be obtained from travel, and intercourse69 with men and foreign literatures.
By this time the poet was twenty. His youth had been uneventful; in a sense, more so than his boyhood. His mind, however, was rapidly unfolding, and great projects were casting a glory about the coming days. It was in his nineteenth year, I have been told on good authority, that he became ardently70 in love with a girl of rare beauty, a year or two older than himself, but otherwise, possibly, no inappropriate lover for this wooer. Why and when this early passion came to a close, or was rudely interrupted, is not known. What is certain is that it made a deep impression on the poet's mind. It may be that it, of itself, or wrought71 to a higher emotion by his hunger after ideal beauty, was the source of "Pauline," that very unequal but yet beautiful first fruit of Browning's genius.
It was not till within the last few years that the poet spoke72 at all freely of his youthful life. Perhaps the earliest record of these utterances73 is that which appeared in the Century Magazine in 1881. From this source, and from what the poet himself said at various times and in various ways, we know that just about the time Balzac, after years of apparently75 waste labour, was beginning to forecast the Titanic76 range of the Comédie Humaine, Browning planned "a series of monodramatic epics77, narratives79 of the life of typical souls--a gigantic scheme at which a Victor Hugo or a Lope de Vega would start back aghast."
Already he had set himself to the analysis of the human soul in its manifold aspects, already he had recognised that for him at least there was no other study worthy80 of a lifelong devotion. In a sense he has fulfilled this early dream: at any rate we have a unique series of monodramatic poems, illustrative of typical souls. In another sense, the major portion of Browning's life-work is, collectively, one monodramatic "epic78." He is himself a type of the subtle, restless, curious, searching modern age of which he is the profoundest interpreter. Through a multitude of masks he, the typical soul, speaks, and delivers himself of a message which could not be presented emphatically enough as the utterance74 of a single individual. He is a true dramatic poet, though not in the sense in which Shakspere is. Shakspere and his kindred project themselves into the lives of their imaginary personages: Browning pays little heed81 to external life, or to the exigencies82 of action, and projects himself into the minds of his characters.
In a word, Shakspere's method is to depict83 a human soul in action, with all the pertinent84 play of circumstance, while Browning's is to portray85 the processes of its mental and spiritual development: as he said in his dedicatory preface to "Sordello," "little else is worth study." The one electrifies86 us with the outer and dominant87 actualities; the other flashes upon our mental vision the inner, complex, shaping potentialities. The one deals with life dynamically, the other with life as Thought. Both methods are compassed by art. Browning, who is above all modern writers the poet of dramatic situations, is surpassed by many of inferior power in continuity of dramatic sequence. His finest work is in his dramatic poems, rather than in his dramas. He realised intensely the value of quintessential moments, as when the Prefect in "The Return of the Druses" thrusts aside the arras, muttering that for the first time he enters without a sense of imminent88 doom89, "no draught90 coming as from a sepulchre" saluting91 him, while that moment the dagger92 of the assassin plunges94 to his heart: or, further in the same poem, when Anael, coming to denounce Djabal as an impostor, is overmastered by her tyrannic love, and falls dead with the too bitter freight of her emotion, though not till she has proclaimed him the God by her single worshipping cry, Hakeem!--or, once more, in "The Ring and the Book," where, with the superbest close of any dramatic poem in our literature, the wretched Guido, at the point of death, cries out in the last extremity95 not upon God or the Virgin96, but upon his innocent and murdered wife--"Abate,--Cardinal,--Christ,--Maria,--God, ... Pompilia, will you let them murder me?" Thus we can imagine Browning, with his characteristic perception of the profound significance of a circumstance or a single word even, having written of the knocking at the door in "Macbeth," or having used, with all its marvellous cumulative97 effect, the word 'wrought' towards the close of "Othello," when the Moor98 cries in his bitterness of soul, "But being wrought, perplext in the extreme": we can imagine this, and yet could not credit the suggestion that even the author of "The Ring and the Book" could by any possibility have composed the two most moving tragedies writ7 in our tongue.
In the late autumn of 1832 Browning wrote a poem of singular promise and beauty, though immature100 in thought and crude in expression. [6] Thirty-four years later he included "Pauline" in his "Poetical101 Works" with reluctance102, and in a note explained the reason of his decision--namely, to forestall103 piratical reprints abroad. "The thing was my earliest attempt at 'poetry always dramatic in principle, and so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine,' which I have since written according to a scheme less extravagant104, and scale less impracticable, than were ventured upon in this crude preliminary sketch105--a sketch that, on reviewal, appears not altogether wide of some hint of the characteristic features of that particular dramatis persona it would fain have reproduced: good draughtsmanship, however, and right handling were far beyond the artist at that time." These be hard words. No critic will ever adventure upon so severe a censure106 of "Pauline": most capable judges agree that, with all its shortcomings, it is a work of genius, and therefore ever to be held treasurable for its own sake as well as for its significance.
[6] Probably from the fact of "Richmond" having been added to the date at the end of the preface to "Pauline," have arisen the frequent misstatements as to the Browning family having moved west from Camberwell in or shortly before 1832. Mr. R. Barrett Browning tells me that his father "never lived at Richmond, and that that place was connected with 'Pauline,' when first printed, as a mystification."
On the fly-leaf of a copy of this initial work, the poet, six years after its publication, wrote: "Written in pursuance of a foolish plan I forget, or have no wish to remember; the world was never to guess that such an opera, such a comedy, such a speech proceeded from the same notable person.... Only this crab107 remains108 of the shapely Tree of Life in my fool's Paradise." It was in conformity109 with this plan that he not only issued "Pauline" anonymously110, but enjoined111 secrecy112 upon those to whom he communicated the fact of his authorship.
When he read the poem to his parents, upon its conclusion, both were much impressed by it, though his father made severe strictures upon its lack of polish, its terminal inconcision, and its vagueness of thought. That he was not more severe was accepted by his son as high praise. The author had, however, little hope of seeing it in print. Mr. Browning was not anxious to provide a publisher with a present. So one day the poet was gratified when his aunt, handing him the requisite113 sum, remarked that she had heard he had written a fine poem, and that she wished to have the pleasure of seeing it in print.
To this kindly act much was due. Browning, of course, could not now have been dissuaded114 from the career he had forecast for himself, but his progress might have been retarded115 or thwarted116 to less fortunate grooves117, had it not been for the circumstances resultant from his aunt's timely gift.
The MS. was forthwith taken to Saunders & Otley, of Conduit Street, and the little volume of seventy pages of blank verse, comprising only a thousand and thirty lines, was issued by them in January 1833. It seems to us, who read it now, so manifestly a work of exceptional promise, and, to a certain extent, of high accomplishment, that were it not for the fact that the public auditory for a new poet is ever extraordinarily118 limited, it would be difficult to understand how it could have been overlooked.
"Pauline" has a unique significance because of its autopsychical hints. The Browning whom we all know, as well as the youthful dreamer, is here revealed; here too, as well as the disciple119 of Shelley, we have the author of "The Ring and the Book." In it the long series culminating in "Asolando" is foreshadowed, as the oak is observable in the sapling. The poem is prefaced by a Latin motto from the Occult Philosophy of Cornelius Agrippa, and has also a note in French, set forth46 as being by Pauline, and appended to her lover's manuscript after his death. Probably Browning placed it in the mouth of Pauline from his rooted determination to speak dramatically and impersonally120: and in French, so as to heighten the effect of verisimilitude.[7]
[7] "I much fear that my poor friend will not be always perfectly121 understood in what remains to be read of this strange fragment, but it is less calculated than any other part to explain what of its nature can never be anything but dream and confusion. I do not know, moreover, whether in striving at a better connection of certain parts, one would not run the risk of detracting from the only merit to which so singular a production can pretend--that of giving a tolerably precise idea of the manner (genre) which it can merely indicate. This unpretending opening, this stir of passion, which first increases, and then gradually subsides122, these transports of the soul, this sudden return upon himself, and above all, my friend's quite peculiar123 turn of mind, have made alterations124 almost impossible. The reasons which he elsewhere asserts, and others still more cogent125, have secured my indulgence for this paper, which otherwise I should have advised him to throw into the fire. I believe none the less in the great principle of all composition--in that principle of Shakespeare, of Raphael, and of Beethoven, according to which concentration of ideas is due much more to their conception than to their execution; I have every reason to fear that the first of these qualities is still foreign to my friend, and I much doubt whether redoubled labour would enable him to acquire the second. It would be best to burn this, but what can I do?"--(Mrs. Orr.)
"Pauline" is a confession126, fragmentary in detail but synthetic127 in range, of a young man of high impulses but weak determination. In its over-emphasis upon errors of judgment128, as well as upon real if exaggerated misdeeds, it has all the crudeness of youth. An almost fantastic self-consciousness is the central motive129: it is a matter of question if this be absolutely vicarious. To me it seems that the author himself was at the time confused by the complicated flashing of the lights of life.
The autobiographical and autopsychical lines and passages scattered130 through the poem are of immediate interest. Generously the poet repays his debt to Shelley, whom he apostrophises as "Sun-treader," and invokes131 in strains of lofty emotion--"Sun-treader--life and light be thine for ever." The music of "Alastor," indeed, is audible ever and again throughout "Pauline." None the less is there a new music, a new poetic voice, in
"Thou wilt132 remember one warm morn, when Winter
Crept aged99 from the earth, and Spring's first breath
Blew soft from the moist hills--the black-thorn boughs133,
So dark in the bare wood, when glistening134
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."
If we have an imaginary Browning, a Shelleyan phantasm, in
"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-wave:"
we have the real Browning in
"So I will sing on--fast as fancies come
Rudely--the verse being as the mood it paints.
. . . . . . . . . .
I am made up of an intensest life,"
and all the succeeding lines down to "Their spirit dwelt in me, and I should rule."
Even then the poet's inner life was animated135 by his love of the beautiful Greek literature. Telling how in "the first dawn of life," "which passed alone with wisest ancient books," Pauline's lover incorporated himself in whatsoever136 he read--was the god wandering after beauty, the giant standing64 vast against the sunset-light, the high-crested chief sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos--his second-self cries, "I tell you, nought137 has ever been so clear as the place, the time, the fashion of those lives." Never for him, then, had there been that alchemy of the soul which turns the inchoate138 drift of the world into golden ore, not then had come to him the electric awakening139 flash from "work of lofty art, nor woman's beauty, nor sweet nature's face"--
"Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those
On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea:
The deep groves140, and white temples, and wet caves--
And nothing ever will surprise me now--
Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed,
Who bound my forehead with Proserpine's hair."
Further, the allusion31 to Plato, and the more remote one to Agamemnon, the
"old lore141
Loved for itself, and all it shows--the King
Treading the purple calmly to his death,"
and the beautiful Andromeda passage, afford ample indication of how deeply Browning had drunk of that vital stream whose waters are the surest conserver of the ideal loveliness which we all of us, in some degree, cherish in various guises142.
Yet, as in every long poem that he has written (and, it must be admitted, in too many of the shorter pieces of his later period) there is an alloy143 of prose, of something that is not poetry, so in "Pauline," written though it was in the first flush of his genius and under the inspiring stimulus144 of Shelley, the reader encounters prosaic145 passages, decasyllabically arranged. "Twas in my plan to look on real life, which was all new to me; my theories were firm, so I left them, to look upon men, and their cares, and hopes, and fears, and joys; and, as I pondered on them all, I sought how best life's end might be attained146, an end comprising every joy." Again: "Then came a pause, and long restraint chained down my soul, till it was changed. I lost myself, and were it not that I so loathe147 that time, I could recall how first I learned to turn my mind against itself ... at length I was restored, yet long the influence remained; and nought but the still life I led, apart from all, which left my soul to seek its old delights, could e'er have brought me thus far back to peace." No reader, alert to the subtle and haunting music of rarefied blank verse (and unless it be rarefied it should not be put forward as poetry), could possibly accept these lines as expressionally poetical. It would seem as though, from the first, Browning's ear was keener for the apprehension148 than for the sustained evocation149 of the music of verse. Some flaw there was, somewhere. His heart, so to say, beat too fast, and the singing in his ears from the o'er-fevered blood confused the serene150 rhythm haunting the far perspectives of the brain, "as Arab birds float sleeping in the wind."
I have dwelt at this length upon "Pauline" partly because of its inherent beauty and autopsychical significance, and partly because it is the least familiar of Browning's poems, long overshadowed as it has been by his own too severe strictures: mainly, however, because of its radical151 importance to the student who would arrive at a broad and true estimate of the power and scope and shaping constituents152 of its author's genius. Almost every quality of his after-verse may be found here, in germ or outline. It is, in a word, more physiognomic than any other single poem by Browning, and so must ever possess a peculiar interest quite apart from its many passages of haunting beauty.
To these the lover of poetry will always turn with delight. Some will even regard them retrospectively with alien emotion to that wherewith they strive to possess their souls in patience over some one or other of the barbarisms, the Titanic excesses, the poetic banalities recurrent in the later volumes.
How many and how haunting these delicate oases153 are! Those who know and love "Pauline" will remember the passage where the poet, with that pantheistic ecstasy154 which was possibly inspired by the singer he most loved, tells how he can live the life of plants, content to watch the wild bees flitting to and fro, or to lie absorbent of the ardours of the sun, or, like the night-flowering columbine, to trail up the tree-trunk and through its rustling155 foliage156 "look for the dim stars;" or, again, can live the life of the bird, "leaping airily his pyramid of leaves and twisted boughs of some tall mountain-tree;" or be a fish, breathing the morning air in the misty157 sun-warm water. Close following this is another memorable158 passage, that beginning "Night, and one single ridge58 of narrow path;" which has a particular interest for two notes of a deeper and broader music to be evolved long afterwards. For, as it seems to me, in
"Thou art so close by me, the roughest swell159
Of wind in the tree-tops hides not the panting
Of thy soft breasts -----"
(where, by the way, should be noticed the subtle correspondence between the conceptive and the expressional rhythm) we have a hint of that superb scene in "Pippa Passes," where, on a sinister160 night of July, a night of spiritual storm as well as of aerial tempest, Ottima and Sebald lie amid the lightning-searcht forest, with "the thunder like a whole sea overhead." Again, in the lovely Turneresque, or rather Shelleyan picture of morning, over "the rocks, and valleys, and old woods," with the high boughs swinging in the wind above the sun-brightened mists, and the golden-coloured spray of the cataract161 amid the broken rocks, whereover the wild hawks162 fly to and fro, there is at least a suggestion, an outline, of the truly magnificent burst of morning music in the poet's penultimate volume, beginning--
"But morning's laugh sets all the crags alight
Above the baffled tempest: tree and tree
Stir themselves from the stupor163 of the night,
And every strangled branch resumes its right
To breathe, shakes loose dark's clinging dregs, waves free
In dripping glory. Prone164 the runnels plunge93,
While earth, distent with moisture like a sponge,
Smokes up, and leaves each plant its gem165 to see,
Each grass-blade's glory-glitter," etc.
Who that has ever read "Pauline" will forget the masterful poetry descriptive of the lover's wild-wood retreat, the exquisite49 lines beginning "Walled in with a sloped mound166 of matted shrubs167, tangled168, old and green"? There is indeed a new, an unmistakable voice here.
"And tongues of bank go shelving in the waters,
Where the pale-throated snake reclines his head,
And old grey stones lie making eddies169 there;
The wild mice cross them dry-shod"....
What lovelier image in modern poetry than that depictive of the forest-pool in depths of savage170 woodlands, unvisited but by the shadows of passing clouds,--
"the trees bend
O'er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl."
How the passionate171 sexual emotion, always deep and true in Browning, finds lovely utterance in the lines where Pauline's lover speaks of the blood in her lips pulsing like a living thing, while her neck is as "marble misted o'er with love-breath," and
"... her delicious eyes as clear as heaven,
When rain in a quick shower has beat down mist,
And clouds float white in the sun like broods of swans."
In the quotations172 I have made, and in others that might be selected (e.g., "Her fresh eyes, and soft hair, and lips which bleed like a mountain berry"), it is easy to note how intimate an observer of nature the youthful poet was, and with what conscious but not obtrusive173 art he brings forward his new and striking imagery. Browning, indeed, is the poet of new symbols.
"Pauline" concludes with lines which must have been in the minds of many on that sad day when the tidings from Venice sent a thrill of startled, half-incredulous, bewildered pain throughout the English nations--
"Sun-treader, I believe in God, and truth,
And love; . . .
. . . but chiefly when I die . . .
All in whom this wakes pleasant thoughts of me,
Know my last state is happy--free from doubt,
Or touch of fear."
Never again was Browning to write a poem with such conceptive crudeness, never again to tread the byways of thought so falteringly174 or so negligently175: but never again, perhaps, was he to show so much over-rapturing joy in the world's loveliness, such Bacchic abandon to the ideal beauty which the true poet sees glowing upon the forlornest height and brooding in the shadow-haunted hollows of the hills. The Browning who might have been is here: henceforth the Browning we know and love stands unique among all the lords of song. But sometimes do we not turn longingly176, wonderingly at least, to the young Dionysos upon whose forehead was the light of another destiny than that which descended177 upon him? The Icelanders say there is a land where all the rainbows that have ever been, or are yet to be, forever drift to and fro, evanishing and reappearing, like immortal178 flowers of vapour. In that far country, it may be, are also the unfulfilled dreams, the visions too perfect to be fashioned into song, of the young poets who have gained the laurel.
We close the little book lovingly:
"And I had dimly shaped my first attempt,
And many a thought did I build up on thought,
As the wild bee hangs cell to cell--in vain;
For I must still go on: my mind rests not."
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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writ
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specified
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forerunners
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| n.先驱( forerunner的名词复数 )；开路人；先兆；前兆 | |
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galleys
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| n.平底大船，战舰( galley的名词复数 )；（船上或航空器上的）厨房 | |
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derivative
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| n.派(衍)生物；adj.非独创性的，模仿他人的 | |
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12
seduce
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| vt.勾引，诱奸，诱惑，引诱 | |
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13
wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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15
expatiate
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| v.细说，详述 | |
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16
perused
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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17
dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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18
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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19
urn
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| n.（有座脚的）瓮；坟墓；骨灰瓮 | |
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20
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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21
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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22
transcripts
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| n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本 | |
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23
accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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24
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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25
atheistical
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| adj.无神论（者）的 | |
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26
piracy
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| n.海盗行为，剽窃，著作权侵害 | |
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27
shamefully
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| 可耻地； 丢脸地； 不体面地； 羞耻地 | |
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28
supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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29
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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30
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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31
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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32
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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33
poignantly
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34
procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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35
procurable
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| adj.可得到的，得手的 | |
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36
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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38
imprint
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| n.印痕，痕迹；深刻的印象；vt.压印，牢记 | |
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39
enfranchised
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| v.给予选举权( enfranchise的过去式和过去分词 )；（从奴隶制中）解放 | |
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40
rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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41
tremors
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| 震颤( tremor的名词复数 )； 战栗； 震颤声； 大地的轻微震动 | |
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42
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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43
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
pervasive
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| adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的 | |
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45
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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46
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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47
enthralled
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| 迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快 | |
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48
exquisiteness
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49
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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50
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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51
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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52
isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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53
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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54
reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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55
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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56
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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57
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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58
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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59
stimulative
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| n.刺激，促进因素adj.刺激的，激励的，促进的 | |
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60
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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61
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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62
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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63
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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64
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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65
idols
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| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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66
complaisance
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| n.彬彬有礼，殷勤，柔顺 | |
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67
bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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68
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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69
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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70
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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71
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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72
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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73
utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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74
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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75
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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76
titanic
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| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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77
epics
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| n.叙事诗( epic的名词复数 )；壮举；惊人之举；史诗般的电影（或书籍） | |
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78
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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79
narratives
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| 记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分 | |
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80
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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81
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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82
exigencies
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| n.急切需要 | |
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83
depict
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| vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述 | |
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84
pertinent
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| adj.恰当的；贴切的；中肯的；有关的；相干的 | |
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85
portray
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| v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等) | |
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86
electrifies
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| v.使电气化( electrify的第三人称单数 )；使兴奋 | |
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87
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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88
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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89
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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90
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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91
saluting
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的现在分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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92
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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93
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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94
plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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95
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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96
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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97
cumulative
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| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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98
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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99
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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100
immature
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| adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的 | |
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101
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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102
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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103
forestall
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| vt.抢在…之前采取行动；预先阻止 | |
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104
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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105
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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106
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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107
crab
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| n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气 | |
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108
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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109
conformity
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| n.一致，遵从，顺从 | |
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110
anonymously
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| ad.用匿名的方式 | |
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111
enjoined
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| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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112
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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113
requisite
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| adj.需要的，必不可少的；n.必需品 | |
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114
dissuaded
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| 劝（某人）勿做某事，劝阻( dissuade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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115
retarded
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| a.智力迟钝的，智力发育迟缓的 | |
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116
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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117
grooves
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| n.沟( groove的名词复数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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118
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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119
disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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120
impersonally
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| ad.非人称地 | |
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121
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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122
subsides
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的第三人称单数 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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123
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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124
alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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125
cogent
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| adj.强有力的，有说服力的 | |
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126
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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127
synthetic
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| adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品 | |
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128
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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129
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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130
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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131
invokes
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| v.援引( invoke的第三人称单数 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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132
wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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133
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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134
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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135
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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136
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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137
nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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138
inchoate
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| adj.才开始的，初期的 | |
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139
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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140
groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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141
lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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142
guises
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| n.外观，伪装( guise的名词复数 )v.外观，伪装( guise的第三人称单数 ) | |
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143
alloy
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| n.合金，(金属的)成色 | |
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144
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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145
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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146
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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147
loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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148
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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149
evocation
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| n. 引起，唤起 n. <古> 召唤，招魂 | |
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150
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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151
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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152
constituents
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| n.选民( constituent的名词复数 )；成分；构成部分；要素 | |
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153
oases
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲( oasis的名词复数 )；（困苦中）令人快慰的地方（或时刻）；乐土；乐事 | |
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154
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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155
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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156
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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157
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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158
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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159
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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160
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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161
cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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162
hawks
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| 鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物 | |
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163
stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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164
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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165
gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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166
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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167
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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168
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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169
eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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170
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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171
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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172
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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173
obtrusive
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| adj.显眼的；冒失的 | |
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174
falteringly
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| 口吃地，支吾地 | |
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175
negligently
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176
longingly
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| adv. 渴望地 热望地 | |
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177
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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178
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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