Mrs. Browning died suddenly in 1861, and the poet for some time was stunned by this unlooked-for calamity. He spent two years in seclusion at work on poems, but then he gathered up his courage and once more took his old place in the social life of London. In Prospice and One Word More, written in the autumn following his wife's death, he shows that he has overcome all doubts of the reality of immortality. These two poems alone would entitle Browning to the highest place among the world's great poets. In addition he wrote the memorial to his wife, O Lyric Love, that is the cry of the soul left here on this earth to the soul of the beloved in Paradise. To the sympathetic this poem, with its solemn rhythm, will appeal like splendid organ music.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning After the Portrait by Field Talfourd[ToList]
Among Browning's other poems that are noteworthy are Fifine at the Fair, Red Cotton Nightcap Country, The Inn Album and Dramatic Idylls. Browning's last poem, Asolando, appeared in London on the same day that its author died at Venice. As the great bell of San Marco struck ten in the evening, Browning, as he lay in bed, asked his son if there were any news of the new volume. A telegram was read saying the book was well received. The aged poet smiled and breathed his last.
In beginning the reading of Browning it is well to understand that at least half or maybe two-thirds of his work should be discarded at the outset, as it is of interest only to scholars. My suggestion to one who would learn to love Browning is to get a little book, Lyrical Poems of Robert Browning, by Dr. A.J. George. The editor in a preface indicates the best work of Browning, and also brings out strongly the fact that readers, and especially young readers, must be given poems which interest them. His selections of lyrics have been made from this standpoint, and his notes will be found very helpful. He develops the point that Browning's great revelation to the world through his poems was his strong and abiding assurance that man has in him the principle of divinity, and that many of the experiences that the world calls failures are really the stepping stones of the ascent to that conquest of self and that development of the whole nature which means the highest life. He says also that Browning is one of the most eloquent expounders of the doctrine of the reality of a future life, in which those who live a noble and unselfish life will get their reward in an existence free from all physical ills.
In this little book will be found Pippa Passes, a noble series of lyrics, which develops the idea of the silent influence of a little silk weaver of Asolo upon four sets of people in the great crises of their lives. In each episode Pippa sings a song that awakens remorse or kindles manhood or arouses patriotism or duty. It is a perfect poem. Among other lyrics given here are Evelyn Hope, which must be bracketed with Burns' To Mary in Heaven or with Wordsworth's Lucy and Prospice, which sounds the note of deep personal love that is as sure of immortality as of life. It is as beautiful and as inspiring as Tennyson's Crossing the Bar. Other poems due to Browning's love for his wife are My Star and One Word More.
If these lyrics appeal to you, then take up some of Browning's longer poems, A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, Colombe's Birthday, A Soul's Tragedy, Fra Lippo Lippi and Rabbi Ben Ezra. Very few readers in these days have time or patience to read The Ring and the Book, but it will repay your attention, as it is the most remarkable attempt in all literature to revive the tragedy of the great and innocent love of a woman and a priest.
Among the many fine passages in Browning, I think there is nothing which equals these lines in O Lyric Love, the beautiful invocation to his wife:
O lyric Love, half angel and half bird
And all a wonder and a wild desire—
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue
And sang a kindred soul out to his face—
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!
Never may I commence my song, my due
To God who best taught song by gift of thee,
Except with bent head and beseeching hand—
That shall despite the distance and the dark,
What was, again may be; some interchange
Of grace, some splendor once thy very thought,
Some benediction anciently thy smile.