“Why from the World.” The first words of the twelfth lyric in Ferishtah’s Fancies.
Why I am a Liberal was a poem written for Cassell & Co. in 1885, who published a volume of replies by English men of letters, etc., to the question, “Why I am a Liberal?”
“Why I am a Liberal.
“‘Why?’ Because all I haply can and do,
All that I am now, all I hope to be,—
Whence comes it save from future setting free
Body and soul the purpose to pursue
God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,
Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,
These shall I bid men—each in his degree,
Also God-guided—bear, and gayly, too?
But little do or can, the best of us:
That little is achieved through Liberty.
Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus,
His fellow shall continue bound? Not I,
Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss
A brother’s right to freedom. That is ‘Why.’”
Will, The. (Sordello.) Mr. Browning uses the term “will” to express Sordello’s effort to “realise all his aspirations in his inner consciousness, in his imagination, in his feeling that he is potentially all these things.” See Professor Alexander’s Analysis of “Sordello,” lvii., p. 406 (Browning Society’s Papers); “The Body, the machine for acting Will” (Sordello, Book II., line 1014, and p. 477 of this work). Mr. Browning’s early opinions were so largely formed by his occult and theosophical studies that it is necessary for the full understanding of his theory of the will and its power, to study the following axioms from the work of an occult writer, Eliphas Levi, as a good summary of the teaching so largely imbibed by the poet.
“Axiom 1. Nothing can resist the will of man when he knows what is true and wills what is good. Axiom 2. To will evil is to will death. A perverse will is the beginning of suicide. Axiom 3. To will what is good with violence is to will evil, for violence produces disorder and disorder produces evil. Axiom 4. We can and should accept evil as the means to good; but we must never practise it, otherwise we should demolish with one hand what we erect with the other. A good intention never justifies bad means; when it submits to them it corrects them, and condemns them while it makes use of them. Axiom 5. To earn the right to possess permanently we must will long and patiently. Axiom 6. To pass one’s life in willing what it is impossible to retain for ever is to abdicate life and accept the eternity of death. Axiom 7. The more numerous the obstacles which are surmounted by the will, the stronger the will becomes. It is for this reason that Christ has exalted poverty and suffering. Axiom 8. When the will is devoted to what is absurd it is reprimanded by eternal reason. Axiom 9. The will of the just man is the will of God Himself, and it is the law of nature. Axiom 10. The understanding perceives through the medium of the will. If the will be healthy, the sight is accurate. God said, ‘Let there be light!’ and the light was. The will says: ‘Let the world be such as I wish to behold it!’ and the intelligence perceives it as the will has determined. This is the meaning of Amen, which confirms the acts of faith. Axiom 11. When we produce phantoms we give birth to vampires, and must nourish these children of nightmare with our own blood and life, with our own intelligence and reason, and still we shall never satiate them. Axiom 12. To affirm and will what ought to be is to create; to affirm and will what should not be is to destroy. Axiom 13. Light is an electric fire, which is placed by man at the disposition of the will; it illuminates those who know how to make use of it, and burns those who abuse it. Axiom 14. The empire of the world is the empire of light. Axiom 15. Great minds with wills badly equilibrated are like comets, which are abortive suns. Axiom 16. To do nothing is as fatal as to commit evil, and it is more cowardly. Sloth is the most unpardonable of the deadly sins. Axiom 17. To suffer is to labour. A great misfortune properly endured is a progress accomplished. Those who suffer much live more truly than those who undergo no trials. Axiom 18. The voluntary death of self-devotion is not a suicide,—it is the apotheosis of free-will. Axiom 19. Fear is only indolence of will; and for this reason public opinion brands the coward. Axiom 20. An iron chain is less difficult to burst than a chain of flowers. Axiom 21. Succeed in not fearing the lion, and the lion will be afraid of you. Say to suffering, ‘I will that thou shalt become a pleasure,’ and it will prove such, and more even than a pleasure, for it will be a blessing. Axiom 22. Before deciding that a man is happy or otherwise seek to ascertain the bent of his will. Tiberius died daily at Caprea, while Jesus proved His immortality, and even His divinity, upon Calvary and the Cross.”
“Wish no word unspoken.” (Ferishtah’s Fancies.) The first words of the lyric to the second poem.
Woman’s Last Word, A. (Men and Women, 1855; Lyrics, 1863; Dramatic Lyrics, 1868.) In the presence of perfect love words are often superfluous, wild, and hurtful; words lead to debate, debate to contention, striving, weeping. Even truth becomes falseness; for if the heart is consecrated by a pure affection, love is the only truth; and the chill of logic and the precision of a definition can be no other than harmful; therefore hush the talking, pry not after the apples of the knowledge of good and evil, or Eden will surely be in peril. The only knowledge is the charm of love’s protecting embrace, the only language is the speech of love, the only thought to think the loved one’s thought—the absolute sacrifice of the whole self on the altar of love; but before the altar can be approached sorrow must be buried, a little weeping has to be done; the morrow shall see the offering presented,—“the might of love” will drown alike both hopes and fears.
Women and Roses. (Men and Women, 1855; Lyrics, 1863; Dramatic Lyrics, 1868.) The singer dreams of a red rose tree with three roses on its branches; one is a faded rose whose petals are about to fall,—the bees do not notice it as they pass; the second is a rose in its perfection, its cup “ruby-rimmed,” its heart “nectar-brimmed,”—the bee revels in its nectar; the third is a baby rosebud. And in these flowers the poet sees types of the women of the ages,—the past, the present, and the future: the shadows of the noble and beautiful, or wicked women in history and poetry dance round the dead rose; round the perfect rose of the present dance the spirits of the women of to-day; round the bud troop the little feet of maidens yet unborn; and all dance to one cadence round the dreamer’s tree. The dance will go on as before when the dreamer has departed, roses will bloom then for other beholders, and other dreamers will see and remember their loveliness; the creations of the poet even must join the dance. As the love of the past, so the love to come, must link hands and trip to the measure.