Among the early friends of the youthful poet were Alfred Domett (the “Waring” of his future poem), and Joseph Arnould, who became a celebrated judge in India.
With Browning there was never any question about his definite vocation as a poet. “Pauline” was published in 1833, before he had reached his twenty-first birthday. Rejected by publishers, it was brought out at the expense of his aunt, Mrs. Silverthorne; and his father paid for the publication of “Paracelsus,” “Sordello,” and for the first eight parts of “Bells and Pomegranates.” On the appearance of “Pauline,” it was reviewed by Rev. William Johnson Fox, as the “work of a poet and a genius.” Allan Cunningham and other reviewers gave encouraging expressions. The design of “Pauline” is that spiritual drama to which Browning was always temperamentally drawn. It is supposed to be the confessions and reminiscences of a dying man, and while it is easy to discern its crudeness and inconsistencies, there are in it, too, many detached passages of absolute and permanent value. As this:
“Sun-treader, life and light be thine for ever!
Thou art gone from us; years go by and spring
Gladdens, and the young earth is beautiful,
Yet thy songs come not....”
Mr. Browning certainly gave hostages to poetic art when he produced “Pauline,” in which may be traced the same conceptions of life as those more fully and clearly presented in “Paracelsus” and “Sordello.” It embodies the conviction which is the very essence and vital center of all Browning’s work—that ultimate success is attained through partial failures. From first to last Browning regards life as an adventure of the soul, which sinks, falls, rises, recovers itself, relapses into faithlessness to its higher powers, yet sees the wrong and aims to retrieve it; gropes through darkness to light; and though “tried, troubled, tempted,” never yields to alien forces and ignominious failure. The soul, being divine, must achieve divinity at last. That is the crystallization of the message of Browning.
The poem “Pauline,” lightly as Mr. Browning himself seemed in after life to regard it, becomes of tremendous importance in the right approach to the comprehension of his future work. It reveals to us in what manner the youthful poet discerned “the Gleam.” Like Tennyson, he felt “the magic of Merlin,”—of that spirit of the poetic ideal that bade him follow.
“The Master whisper’d
‘Follow The Gleam.’”
And what unguessed sweetness and beauty of life and love awaited the poet in the unfolding years!