The instrument drops to his side, for inspiration at its highest is expressed by the simplest means. With a heart thrilled by love of this fellow-being, out of that human love David comes to realize something of the divine love, and he breaks into the finest strain of nineteenth century poetry. In noble anapestic lines he pours forth the thought as it comes to him:
“‘Behold, I could love if I durst!
But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o’ertake
God’s own speed in the one way of love: I abstain for love’s sake.
What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small,
Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appal?
In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all?
Do I find love so full in my nature, God’s ultimate gift,
That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift?
Here, the creature surpass the Creator,—the end, what Began?...
Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou—so wilt thou!’”
This poem of Browning’s is conceived in the loftiest spirit of religious verse. David foretelling the Christ as the manifestation of divine love, and the authentication of the fact of immortality, reaches the true spirit of all prophecy, a theme almost transcending poetry. Then follow a few words of David’s, descriptive of the effect of the new law which he has discovered upon the world around him on his way home. Illumination has come to him, the world is transfigured by love; and this sublime poem closes with the murmur of the brooks.
What does it all mean? One person makes it the text of a long discussion on the use of music to cure disease. Another thinks it a suggestion in poetry of the spirit of Hebrew prophecy. There is no end to its applications. It is a parable. Is it not the poetic interpretation of all noble endeavor? May not David represent any human being facing some great undertaking? Is not the gloomy tent the world, and Saul outstretched in the form of a cross the race, and David with his harp any trembling soul who attempts to charm away the demon from his fellow-men? Is it too much to say that every successful artist follows David’s example as portrayed by Browning? The artist will also share in David’s experience in the transformation of the world.
Without the monologue could such a marvellous interpretation be possible? how could we receive such suggestions, such glimpses into man’s spiritual nature? What other form of art could serve as an objective means of expressing those experiences? The evolution of the monologue has made “Saul” possible.
There has been much discussion whether the book of Job is a dramatic or an epic poem. It contains both elements, but if we study the singular character of the many speeches, we can see that the real spirit of the poem is explained by the principles of the dramatic monologue. It is a series of monologues by different speakers, each character being separately defined, and his words and ideas definitely colored by his character, as in “The Ring and the Book.”
The ninetieth Psalm is a monologue. Whoever the author may have been, he conceived of Moses as the speaker. The experience is not that of mankind in general. A peculiar situation and type of character are demanded. No other man in history can utter so fittingly the words of the Psalm as can Moses.
“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Thou turnest man to destruction,
And sayest, Return, ye children of men.
For a thousand years in thy sight
Are but as yesterday when it is past,
And as a watch in the night.
Thou carriest them away as with a flood;
They are as a sleep:
In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up;
In the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
For we are consumed in thine anger,
And in thy wrath are we troubled.
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee,
Our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
For all our days are passed away in thy wrath:
We bring our years to an end as a sigh.
The days of our years are threescore and ten,
Or even by reason of strength fourscore years;
Yet is their pride but labor and sorrow;
For it is soon gone, and we fly away.
Who knoweth the power of thine anger,
And thy wrath according to the fear that is due unto thee?
So teach us to number our days,
That we may get us a heart of wisdom.
Return, O Jehovah; how long?
And let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
Oh satisfy us in the morning with thy lovingkindness,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us,
And the years wherein we have seen evil.
Let thy work appear unto thy servants,
And thy glory upon their children.
And let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And establish thou the work of our hands upon us;
Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”
The very first words hint at his experiences. He never had a home; how natural, therefore, for him to say, “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.” Cradled on the Nile, brought up by Pharaoh’s daughter, Jethro’s shepherd for forty years, and for another forty a wanderer in the wilderness and the leader of his people, surely he was rich in tried knowledge!
Notice how these conditions save the Psalm from untruthfulness. “All our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a sigh.” Such statements are true of Moses and the people condemned to die in the desert, Joshua and Caleb only being permitted to pass over the Jordan. Moses in his grief at the divine judgment could say this truthfully to God, but to give these words a universal application would falsify a Christian’s faith and hope. They are dramatic rather than lyric.