VII
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while.
My heart seemed full as it could hold?
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep:
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
The dramatic lyric in two parts called Meeting at Night and Parting at Morning contains only sixteen lines and is a flawless masterpiece. Of the four dimensions of mathematics, one only has nothing to do with poetry. The length of a poem is of no importance in estimating its value. I do not fully understand what is meant by saying that a poem is too long or too short. It depends entirely on the art with which the particular subject is treated. A short poem of no value is too long; a long poem of genius is not too long. Richardson's Clarissa in eight volumes is not too long, as is proved by the fact that the numerous attempts to abridge it are all failures; whereas many short stories in our magazines are far too long. Browning's Night and Morning is not too short, because it contains in sixteen lines everything necessary; The Ring and the Book is not too long, because the twenty thousand and odd lines are all needed to make the study of testimony absolutely complete. But whilst the mathematical dimension of length is not a factor in poetry, the dimensions of breadth and depth are of vital importance, and the mysterious fourth dimension is the quality that determines whether or not a poem is a work of genius. Poems of the highest imagination can not be measured at all except in the fourth dimension. The first part of Browning's lyric is notable for its shortness, its breadth and its depth; the second part possesses these qualities even more notably, and also takes the reader's thoughts into a world entirely outside the limits of time and space.
Browning has often been called a careless writer and although he maintained that the accusation was untrue, the condition of some of the manuscripts he sent to the press—notably Mr. Sludge, the Medium —is proof positive that he did not work at each one of his poems at his highest level of patient industry. He was however in general a fastidious artist; much more so than is commonly supposed. He was one of our greatest impromptu poets, like Shakespeare, writing hot from the brain; he was not a polisher and reviser, like Chaucer and Tennyson. But he studied with care the sound of his words. Many years ago, Mrs. Le Moyne, who has done so much to increase the number of intelligent Browning lovers in America, met the poet in Europe, and told him she would like to recite to him one of his own poems. "Go ahead, my dear." So she began to repeat in her beautiful voice Meeting at Night; she spoke the third line
And the little startled waves that leap
"Stop!" said Browning, "that isn't right." She then learned from him the sharp difference between "little startled waves" as she read it, and "startled little waves" as he wrote it. He was trying to produce the effect of a warm night on the beach with no wind, where the tiny wavelets simply crumble in a brittle fashion on the sand. "Startled little waves" produces this effect; "little startled waves" does not.
The impressionistic colors in this poem add much to its effect; the grey sea, the black land, the yellow moon, the fiery ringlets, the blue spurt of the match, the golden light of morning. The sounds and smells are realistic; one hears the boat cut harshly into the slushy sand; the sharp scratch of the match; one inhales the thick, heavy odor radiating from the sea-scented beach that has absorbed all day the hot rays of the sun.
It is probable that the rendezvous is not at dusk, as is commonly supposed, but at midnight. Owen Wister, in his fine novel, The Virginian, speaks of the lover's journey as taking place at dusk. Now the half-moon could not scientifically be low at that early hour, and although most poets care nothing at all for the moon except as a decorative object, Browning was generally precise in such matters. An American poet submitted to the Century Magazine a poem that was accepted, the last line of each stanza reading
And in the west the waning moon hangs low.
One of the editorial staff remembered that the waning moon does not hang low in the west; he therefore changed the word to "weary," which made the poet angry. He insisted that he was a poet, not a man of science, and vowed that he would place his moon exactly where he chose. The editors replied, "You can have a waning moon in the west in some magazines, perhaps, but you can not have it there in the Century." So it was published "weary," as any one may see who has sufficient time and patience.
Furthermore the contrast in this poem is not between evening and morning, but between night and morning. The English commonly draw a distinction between evening and night that we do not observe in America. Pippa Passes is divided into four sections, Morning, Noon, Evening, Night. Furthermore the meeting is a clandestine one; not the first one, for the man's soliloquy of his line of march shows how often he has travelled this way before, and now his eager mind, leaping far ahead of his feet, repeats to him each stage of the journey. The cottage is shrouded in absolute darkness until the lover's tap is heard; then comes the sound and the sight of the match, and the sudden thrill of the mad embrace, when the wild heart-beats are louder than the love-whispers.
The dramatic contrast in this poem is between the man's feelings at night, and his mood in the morning. Both parts of the lyric, therefore, come from the man's heart. It is absurd to suppose, as many critics seem to think, that the second part is uttered by the woman. Such a mistake could never have arisen if it had not been for the word "him" in the penultimate line, which does not of course, refer to the man, but to the sun. To have the woman repeat in her heart these lines not only destroys the true philosophy of life set forth in the lyric, but the last reflection,
And the need of a world of men for me
would seem to make her taste rather catholic for an ideal sweetheart.
The real meaning of the poem is simply this: The passionate intensity of love can not be exaggerated; in the night's meeting all other thoughts, duties, and pleasures are as though they were not; but with the day comes the imperious call of life and even if the woman could be content to live forever with her lover in the lonely cottage, he could not; he loves her honestly with fervor and sincerity, but he simply must go out into the world where men are, and take his share of the excitement and the struggle; he would soon be absolutely miserable if marooned from life, even with the woman he loves. Those novels that represent a man as having no interest in life but love are false to human nature. In this poem Browning represents facts as they are; it is not simply that the man wants to go out and live among other men, it is a natural law that he must, as truly a natural law as gravitation.
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.
Just as the sun must take his prescribed course through the sky, so must I run my circle of duties in the world of men. It is not a moral call of duty; it is the importunate pull of necessity.
There is still the possibility of another interpretation of the last line, though I think the one just given is correct, "I need the world of men; it is a natural law." Now it is just possible that we could interpret "need" in another sense, with an inversion; "the world of men needs me, and I must go to do my share." This would make the man perhaps nobler, but surely not so natural; indeed it would sound like a priggish excuse to leave his mistress. I have never quite surrendered to the cavalier's words
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.
Are we sure it is honor, and not himself, he loves more?
It is impossible to improve on the Cowboy's comment on these lines in Mr. Wister's Virginian; after Molly has read them aloud to the convalescing male, he remarks softly, "That is very, very true." Molly does not see why the Virginian admires these verses so much more than the others. "I could scarcely explain," says he, "but that man does know something." Molly wants to know if the lovers had quarrelled. "Oh, no! he will come back after he has played some more of the game." "The game?" "Life, ma'am. Whatever he was adoin' in the world of men. That's a bed-rock piece, ma'am."
The Virginian is much happier in his literary criticism of this lyric than he is of the Good News or of the Incident of the French Camp; in the latter instance, he misses the point altogether. The boy was not a poseur. The boy was so happy to think he had actually given his life for his master that he smilingly corrected Napoleon's cry "You're wounded!" It is as though one should congratulate an athletic contestant, and say "My felicitations! you won the second prize!" "No, indeed: I won the First."
Night and Morning suggests so many thoughts that we could continue our comments indefinitely; but time suffices for only one more. The nature picture of the dawn is absolutely perfect.
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea.
He does not say that finally the cape became visible, but that the sea suddenly came round the cape. Any one who has stood on the ocean-shore before dawn, and gazed along the indented coast in the grey light, has observed the precise effect mentioned in these words. At first one sees only the blur of land where the cape is, and nothing beyond it; suddenly the light increases, and the sea actually appears to come around the point.