His subject-matter fell naturally into three groups of poems: those interpreting love in its various phases, those occupied with art and artists, those treating of religious ideas and emotions. And these again may be subdivided into poems of failure and attainment: it is hard to say which are which, for Browning was the singer of heroic failures, and they, to him, were spiritual triumphs. He held that "we fall to rise—are baffled to fight better,—sleep, to wake." No such moral tonic has ever been proffered to the weary and dispirited as the invulnerable optimism of Browning. He regarded this present life as a state of probation and preparation; therefore, "his faith in the unseen order of things created a hope which persists through all apparent failure." The Miltonic ideal, "and what is else, not to be overcome," is the core and centre of Browning's teaching. Sometimes it refers to hopeless love, as in The Last Ride Together.
I said—Then, Dearest, since 'tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be—
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave,—I claim
Only a memory of the same,
—And this beside, if you will not blame,
Your leave for one more last ride with me.
My mistress bent that brow of hers;
Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs
When pity would be softening through,
Fixed me a breathing-while or two
With life or death in the balance: right!
The blood replenished me again;
My last thought was at least not vain:
I and my mistress, side by side
Shall be together, breathe and ride,
So, one day more am I deified—
Who knows but the world may end to-night?
Sometimes death, to all seeming, has shut the doors of hope for ever:
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too in the glass;
Little has yet been changed, I think:
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.
* * * * * * * * *
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew—
And, just because I was thrice as old
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow-mortals, nought beside?
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:
Much is to learn and much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
But the time will come,—at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say,
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red—
And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead.
* * * * * * * * *
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!
My heart seemed full as it could hold—
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth and the hair's young gold.
So, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep—
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.
There, that is our secret! go to sleep;
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
Or, again, the tragedy of ingratitude and crumbled aspirations ends—as the world might say—upon the scaffold.
It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day!
* * * * * * * * *
There's nobody on the house-tops now—
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate—or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.