1855

There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well,
And a statue watches it from the square,
And this story of both do our townsmen tell.

Ages ago, a lady there,
At the farthest window facing the East
Asked, "Who rides by with the royal air?"

The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased;
She leaned forth, one on either hand;
They saw how the blush of the bride increased—

They felt by its beats her heart expand—
As one at each ear and both in a breath
Whispered, "The Great-Duke Ferdinand."

The selfsame instant, underneath,
The Duke rode past in his idle way,
Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.

Gay he rode, with a friend as gay,
Till he threw his head back—"Who is she?"
—"A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day."

Hair in heaps lay heavily
Over a pale brow spirit-pure—
Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree,

Crisped like a war-steed's encolure—
And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes
Of the blackest black our eyes endure,

And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise
Filled the fine empty sheath of a man,—
The Duke grew straightway brave and wise.

He looked at her, as a lover can;
She looked at him, as one who awakes:
The past was a sleep, and her life began.

Now, love so ordered for both their sakes,
A feast was held that selfsame night
In the pile which the mighty shadow makes.

(For Via Larga is three-parts light,
But the palace overshadows one,
Because of a crime, which may God requite!

To Florence and God the wrong was done,
Through the first republic's murder there
By Cosimo and his cursed son.)

The Duke (with the statue's face in the square)
Turned in the midst of his multitude
At the bright approach of the bridal pair.

Face to face the lovers stood
A single minute and no more,
While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued—

Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor—
For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred,
As the courtly custom was of yore.

In a minute can lovers exchange a word?
If a word did pass, which I do not think,
Only one out of a thousand heard.

That was the bridegroom. At day's brink
He and his bride were alone at last
In a bed chamber by a taper's blink.

Calmly he said that her lot was cast,
That the door she had passed was shut on her
Till the final catafalk repassed.

The world meanwhile, its noise and stir,
Through a certain window facing the East
She could watch like a convent's chronicler.

Since passing the door might lead to a feast,
And a feast might lead to so much beside,
He, of many evils, chose the least.

"Freely I choose too," said the bride—
"Your window and its world suffice,"
Replied the tongue, while the heart replied—

"If I spend the night with that devil twice,
May his window serve as my loop of hell
Whence a damned soul looks on paradise!"

"I fly to the Duke who loves me well,
Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow
Ere I count another ave-bell."

"'Tis only the coat of a page to borrow,
And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim.
And I save my soul—but not to-morrow"—

(She checked herself and her eye grew dim)
"My father tarries to bless my state:
I must keep it one day more for him."

"Is one day more so long to wait?
Moreover the Duke rides past, I know;
We shall see each other, sure as fate."

She turned on her side and slept. Just so!
So we resolve on a thing and sleep:
So did the lady, ages ago.

That night the Duke said, "Dear or cheap
As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove
To body or soul, I will drain it deep."

And on the morrow, bold with love,
He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call,
As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove)

And smiled "Twas a very funeral,
Your lady will think, this feast of ours,—
A shame to efface, whate'er befall!"

"What if we break from the Arno bowers,
And try if Petraja, cool and green,
Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?"

The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen
On his steady brow and quiet mouth,
Said, "Too much favor for me so mean!"

"But, alas! my lady leaves the South;
Each wind that comes from the Apennine
Is a menace to her tender youth:"

"Nor a way exists, the wise opine,
If she quits her palace twice this year,
To avert the flower of life's decline."

Quoth the Duke, "A sage and a kindly fear.
Moreover Petraja is cold this spring:
Be our feast to-night as usual here!"

And then to himself—"Which night shall bring
Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool—
Or I am the fool, and thou art the king!"

"Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool—
For to-night the Envoy arrives from France
Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool."

"I need thee still and might miss perchance
To-day is not wholly lost, beside,
With its hope of my lady's countenance:"

"For I ride—what should I do but ride?
And passing her palace, if I list,
May glance at its window—well betide!"

So said, so done: nor the lady missed
One ray that broke from the ardent brow,
Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed.

Be sure that each renewed the vow,
No morrow's sun should arise and set
And leave them then as it left them now.

But next day passed, and next day yet,
With still fresh cause to wait one day more
Ere each leaped over the parapet.

And still, as love's brief morning wore,
With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh,
They found love not as it seemed before.

They thought it would work infallibly,
But not in despite of heaven and earth:
The rose would blow when the storm passed by.

Meantime they could profit in winter's dearth
By store of fruits that supplant the rose:
The world and its ways have a certain worth:

And to press a point while these oppose
Were simple policy; better wait:
We lose no friends and we gain no foes.

Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate,
Who daily may ride and pass and look
Where his lady watches behind the grate!

And she—she watched the square like a book
Holding one picture and only one,
Which daily to find she undertook:

When the picture was reached the book was done,
And she turned from the picture at night to scheme
Of tearing it out for herself next sun.

So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam
The glory dropped from their youth and love,
And both perceived they had dreamed a dream;

Which hovered as dreams do, still above:
But who can take a dream for a truth?
Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove!

One day as the lady saw her youth
Depart, and the silver thread that streaked
Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's tooth,

The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked,
And wondered who the woman was,
Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked,

Fronting her silent in the glass—
"Summon here," she suddenly said,
"Before the rest of my old self pass,"

"Him, the Carver, a hand to aid,
Who fashions the clay no love will change,
And fixes a beauty never to fade."

"Let Robbia's craft so apt and strange
Arrest the remains of young and fair,
And rivet them while the seasons range."

"Make me a face on the window there,
Waiting as ever, mute the while,
My love to pass below in the square!"

"And let me think that it may beguile
Dreary days which the dead must spend
Down in their darkness under the aisle,"

"To say, 'What matters it at the end?
I did no more while my heart was warm
Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.'"

"Where is the use of the lip's red charm,
The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow,
And the blood that blues the inside arm—"

"Unless we turn, as the soul knows how,
The earthly gift to an end divine?
A lady of clay is as good, I trow."

But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine,
With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace,
Was set where now is the empty shrine—

(And, leaning out of a bright blue space,
As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky,
The passionate pale lady's face—

Eying ever, with earnest eye
And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch,
Some one who ever is passing by—)

The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch
In Florence, "Youth—my dream escapes!
Will its record stay?" And he bade them fetch

Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes—
"Can the soul, the will, die out of a man
Ere his body find the grave that gapes?"

"John of Douay shall effect my plan,
Set me on horseback here aloft,
Alive, as the crafty sculptor can,"

"In the very square I have crossed so oft:
That men may admire, when future suns
Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft,"

"While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze—
Admire and say, 'When he was alive
How he would take his pleasure once!'"

"And it shall go hard but I contrive
To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb
At idleness which aspires to strive."

* * * * *

So! While these wait the trump of doom,
How do their spirits pass, I wonder,
Nights and days in the narrow room?

Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder
What a gift life was, ages ago,
Six steps out of the chapel yonder.

Only they see not God, I know,
Nor all that chivalry of his,
The soldier-saints who, row on row,

Burn upward each to his point of bliss—
Since, the end of life being manifest,
He had burned his way through the world to this.

I hear you reproach, "But delay was best,
For their end was a crime."—Oh, a crime will do
As well, I reply, to serve for a test,

As a virtue golden through and through,
Sufficient to vindicate itself
And prove its worth at a moment's view!

Must a game be played for the sake of pelf?
Where a button goes, 'twere an epigram
To offer the stamp of the very Guelph.

The true has no value beyond the sham:
As well the counter as coin, I submit,
When your table's a hat, and your prize, a dram.

Stake your counter as boldly every whit,
Venture as warily, use the same skill,
Do your best, whether winning or losing it,

If you choose to play!—is my principle.
Let a man contend to the uttermost
For his life's set prize, be it what it will!

The counter our lovers staked was lost
As surely as if it were lawful coin:
And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost

Is—the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,
Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.
You of the virtue (we issue join)
How strive you? De te, fabula!

The two volumes of Dramatic Idyls are full of paradoxes, for Browning became fonder and fonder of the paradox as he descended into the vale of years. The Russian poem Ivan Ivanovitch justly condemns mothers who prefer their own safety to that of their children. When a stranger gives up his life for another, as happens frequently in crises of fire and shipwreck, we applaud: but when a mother sacrifices her life for that of her child, she does the natural and expected thing. The woman in this poem was a monster of wickedness and did not deserve to live. She started with three children and arrived with none. Now there are some things in life for which no apology and no explanation suffice. What do we care about her story? Who cares to hear her defence? What difference does it make whether she actively threw out the children or allowed the wolves to take them? She arrives safe and sound without them and there is no mistaking the fact that she rejoices in her own salvation. She does not rejoice long, however, for Ivan, who is Browning's ideal of resolution, neatly removes her head. Practically and literally Ivan is a murderer: but paradoxically he is God's servant, for the woman is not fit to live, and he eliminates her.

From the practical point of view there is a difficulty ahead. The husband is due; when he hears that the children are lost, he will suffer horribly, and will enquire anxiously as to the fate of his wife. When he learns that she arrived in good condition and that then Ivan knocked her head off, he may not fully appreciate the ethical beauty of Ivan's deed. But this detail does not affect the moral significance of the story. Yet I can not help thinking that a man with such strong convictions as Ivan ought not to carry an axe.

Ivan, however, is still needed in Russia. Two or three years ago, immediately after a wedding ceremony, the bride and groom, with the whole wedding party, set out in sledges for the next town. The wolves attacked them and ate every member of the party except the four in the first sledge—husband, wife, and two men. As the wolves drew near, these two heroes advised the husband to throw out the bride, for if he did so, the three left might be saved, as their haven was almost in sight. Naturally the bridegroom declined. Then the two men threw out both bride and groom, and just managed to reach the town in safety, the sole survivors of the whole party. I wish that Ivan had been there to give them the proper welcome.

The poem Clive is a psychological analysis of courage and fear, two of the most interesting of human sensations. Clive seems to have been an instrument in the hands of Destiny. When an obscure young man, he twice tried to commit suicide, and both times the pistol missed fire. A born gambler, he judged that he was reserved for something great. He was: he conquered India. Then, after his life-work was fully accomplished, his third attempt at suicide was successful.

After describing the dramatic incident at card-play, which he gave to the old buck as the only time in his life when he felt afraid, his companion remarked that it was enough to scare anybody to face a loaded pistol. But here comes the paradox. Clive was intensely angry because his friend failed to see the point. "Why, I wasn't afraid he would shoot, I was afraid he wouldn't." Suppose the general had said contemptuously that young Clive was not worth the powder and ball it would take to kill him—suppose he had sent him away wholly safe and wholly disgraced. Then Clive would have instantly killed himself. Either the general was not clever enough to play this trump, or the clear unwinking eyes of his victim convicted him of sin.

Clive was one of those exceedingly rare individuals who have never known the sensation of physical fear. But I do not think he was really so brave as those men, who, cursed with an imagination that fills their minds with terror, nevertheless advance toward danger. For your real hero is one who does not allow the desires of his body to control his mind. The body, always eager for safety, comfort, and pleasure, cries out against peril: but the mind, up in the conning-tower of the brain, drives the protesting and shivering body forward. Napoleon, who was a good judge of courage, called Ney the bravest of the brave: and I admired Ney more intensely when I learned that in battle he was in his heart always afraid.

The courage of soldiers in the mass seems sublime, but it is the commonest thing on earth: all nations show it: it is probably an inexplicable compound of discipline, pride, shame, and rage: but individuals differ from one another as sharply in courage as they do in mental ability. In sheer physical courage dive has never been surpassed, and Browning, who loved the manly virtues, saw in this corrupt and cruel man a great hero.

The poem MulÉykeh, which is one of the oldest of Oriental stories, is really an analysis of love. The mare was dearer to her owner than life itself: yet he intentionally surrendered her to his rival rather than have her disgraced. His friends called him an idiot and a fool: but he replied, "You never have loved my Pearl." And indeed, from his point of view, they did not know the meaning of love. What is love? Simply the desire for possession, or the desire that the beloved object should be incomparably pure and unsullied by defeat and disgrace? The man who owned MulÉykeh really loved her, since her honor was more precious to him than his own happiness.

The short poem Which? published on the last day of Browning's life, is a splendid paradox. In the Middle Ages, when house-parties assembled, an immense amount of time was taken up by the telling of stories and by the subsequent discussions thereupon. The stock subject was Love, and the ideal lover was a favorite point of debate. In this instance, the three court ladies argue, and to complete the paradox, a Priest is chosen for referee. Perhaps he was thought to be out of it altogether, and thus ready to judge with an unprejudiced mind.

The Duchess declares that her lover must be a man she can respect: a man of religion and patriotism. He must love his God, and his country; then comes his wife, who holds the third place in his affections.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.

The Marquise insists that her lover must be a man who has done something. He must not only be a man inspired by religious and patriotic motives, but must have actually suffered in her service. He has received wounds in combat, he is pointed out everywhere as the man who has accomplished great deeds. I can not love him unless I can be proud of his record.

The Comtesse says that her ideal lover must love her first: he must love her more than he loves God, more than he loves his country, more than he loves his life—yes, more than he loves his own honor. He must be willing, if necessary, not only to sacrifice his health and life in her behalf, indeed, any true knight would do that: he must be willing to sacrifice his good name, be false to his religion and a traitor to his country. What do I care whether he be a coward, a craven, a scoundrel, a hissing and a byword, so long as he loves me most of all?

This is a difficult position for the AbbÉ, the man of God: but he does not flinch. His decision is that the third lover is the one of whom Almighty God would approve.

One thing is certain: the third man really loved his Lady. We do not know whether the other two loved or not. When a man talks a great deal about his honor, his self-respect, it is just possible that he loves himself more than he loves any one else. But the man who would go through hell to win a woman really loves that woman. Browning abhors selfishness. He detests a man who is kept from a certain course of action by thoughts of its possible results to his reputation. Ibsen has given us the standard example of what the first and second lover in this poem might sink to in a real moral crisis. In A Doll's House, the husband curses his wife because she has committed forgery, and his good name will suffer. She replied that she committed the crime to save his life—her motive was Love: and she had hoped that when the truth came out the miracle would happen: her husband would step forward and take the blame all on himself. "What fools you women are," said he, angrily: "you know nothing of business. I would work my fingers to the bone for you: I would give up my life for you: but you can't expect a man to sacrifice his honor for a woman." Her retort is one of the greatest in literature. "Millions of women have done it."

1889

So, the three Court-ladies began
Their trial of who judged best
In esteeming the love of a man:
Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed
Boy-Cupid's exemplary catcher and cager;
An AbbÉ crossed legs to decide on the wager.

First the Duchesse: "Mine for me—
Who were it but God's for Him,
And the King's for—who but he?
Both faithful and loyal, one grace more shall brim
His cup with perfection: a lady's true lover,
He holds—save his God and his king—none above her."

"I require"—outspoke the Marquise—
"Pure thoughts, ay, but also fine deeds:
Play the paladin must he, to please
My whim, and—to prove my knight's service exceeds
Your saint's and your loyalist's praying and kneeling—
Show wounds, each wide mouth to my mercy appealing."

Then the Comtesse: "My choice be a wretch,
Mere losel in body and soul,
Thrice accurst! What care I, so he stretch
Arms to me his sole saviour, love's ultimate goal,
Out of earth and men's noise—names of 'infidel,' 'traitor,'
Cast up at him? Crown me, crown's adjudicator!"

And the AbbÉ uncrossed his legs,
Took snuff, a reflective pinch,
Broke silence: "The question begs
Much pondering ere I pronounce. Shall I flinch?
The love which to one and one only has reference
Seems terribly like what perhaps gains God's preference."