If we see the thoughtful and brilliant Browning in the “Fancies” proper, we perhaps see even more clearly the emotional and passionate Browning in the lyrics which add variety and an unwonted charm to the whole. This feature is also borrowed from Persian form, an interesting example of which has been given to English readers in Edwin Arnold’s “Gulistan” or “Rose Garden” of the poet Sa’di. Indeed Browning evidently derived the hint for his humorous prologue in which he likens the poems to follow to an Italian dish made of ortolans on toast with a bitter sage leaf, symbolizing sense, sight, and song from Sa’di’s preface to the “Rose Garden,” wherein he says, “Yet will men of light and learning, from whom the true countenance of a discourse is not concealed, be well aware that herein the pearls of good counsel which heal are threaded on strings of right sense; that the bitter physic of admonition is constantly mingled with the honey of good humor, so that the spirits of listeners grow not sad, and that they remain not exempt from blessings of acceptance.”
A further interest attaches to these lyrics because they form a series of emotional phases in the soul-life of two lovers whom we are probably justified in regarding as Mr. and Mrs. Browning. One naturally thinks of them as companion pictures to Mrs. Browning’s “Sonnets from the Portuguese.” In these the sunrise of a great love is portrayed with intense and exalted passion, while the lyrics in “Ferishtah’s Fancies” reflect the subsequent development of such a love, through the awakening of whole new realms of feeling, wherein love for humanity is enlarged criticism from the one beloved welcome; all the little trials of life dissolved in the new light; and divine love realized with a force never before possible.
Do we not see a living portrait of the two poets in the lyric “So the head aches and the limbs are faint?” Many a hint may be found in the Browning letters to prove that Mrs. Browning with just such a frail body possessed a fire of spirit that carried her constantly toward attainment, while he, with all the vigor of splendid health, could with truth have frequently said, “In the soul of me sits sluggishness.” These exquisite lyrics, which, whether they conform to Elizabethan models or not, are as fine as anything ever done in this form, are crowned by the epilogue in which we hear the stricken husband crying out to her whom twenty years earlier he had called his “lyric love,” in a voice doubting, yet triumphing in the thought that his lifelong optimism is the light radiating from the halo which her human love had irised round his head.
No more emphatic way than the interspersion of these emotional lyrics could have been chosen to bring home the poet’s conviction of the value of emotion in finding a positive basis for religious belief.
In the “Parleyings” the discussions turn principally upon artistic problems and their relation to modern thought. Four out of the seven were inspired by artist, poet or musician. The forgotten worthies whom Browning rescued from oblivion make their appeal to him upon various grounds that connect them with the present.
Bernard de Mandeville evidently caught Browning’s fancy, because in his satirical poem, “The Grumbling Hive,” he forestalled, by a defence of the Duke of Marlborough’s war policy, the doctrine of the relativity of good and evil. This subject, though so fully treated in the “Fancies,” still continued to fascinate Browning, who seemed to feel the need of thinking his way through all its implications. Fresh interest is added in this case because the objector in the argument was the poet’s contemporary Carlyle, whose well-known pessimism in regard to the existence of evil is graphically presented.
Browning clenches his side of the argument with an original and daring variation upon the Prometheus myth led up to by one of the most magnificent passages in the whole range of his poetry, and probably the finest example anywhere in literature of a description of nature as interpreted by the laws of cosmic evolution. A comparison of this passage with the one in “Paracelsus” brings out very clearly the exact measure of the advance in the poet’s thought during the fifty years between which they were written—1835 and 1887. While in the “Paracelsus” passage it is the thought of the joy in the creator’s soul for his creations, and the participation of mankind in this joy of progression while pleasure climbs its heights forever and forever, which occupies the poet’s mind, in the later passage, there is no attempt at a definite conception of the divine nature. Force represented in the sunlight is described as developing life upon the earth. The thrill of this life-giving power is felt by all things, and is unquestioningly accepted and delighted in.
“Everywhere
Did earth acknowledge Sun’s embrace sublime
Thrilling her to the heart of things: since there
No ore ran liquid, no spar branched anew,
No arrowy crystal gleamed, but straightway grew
Glad through the inrush—glad nor more nor less
Than, ’neath his gaze, forest and wilderness,
Hill, dale, land, sea, the whole vast stretch and spread,
The universal world of creatures bred
By Sun’s munificence, alike gave praise.”
Man alone questions. His mind reaches out for knowledge of the cause; he would know its nature. Man’s mind will not give any definite answer to this question. But Prometheus offered an artifice whereby man’s mind is satisfied. He drew sun’s rays into a focus plain and true. The very sun in little: made fire burn and henceforth do man service. Denuded of its scientific and mystical symbolism, Browning thus makes the Prometheus myth teach his favorite doctrine, namely, that the image of love formed in the human heart by means of the burning glass supplied by sense and feeling is a symbol of infinite love.
Daniel Bartoli, a Jesuit of the seventeenth century who is dyed and doubly dyed in superstition, is set up by Browning in the next poem simply to be knocked down again upon the ground that all the legendary saints he worshipped could not compare with a real woman the poet knows. The romantic story of the lady is told in Browning’s most fascinating narrative style, so rapid and direct that it has all the force of a dramatic sketch. The heroine’s claim upon the poet’s admiration consists in her recognition of the sacredness of love, which she will not dishonor for worldly considerations, and finding her betrothed incapable of attaining her height of nobleness, she leaves him free.