She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well
Lose who may—I still can say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they!
"I can not reproach myself, for I did my best, and lost: still less can I reproach her; all I can say is, the man who gets her is lucky."
Finally, the same kind of character appears in one of the greatest love-poems in all literature, The Last Ride Together. The situation just before the opening lines is an exact parallel to that of The Lost Mistress. Every day this young pair have been riding together. The man has fallen in love, and has mistaken the girl's camaraderie for a deeper feeling. He has just discovered his error, and without minimising the force of the blow that has wrecked his life's happiness, this is what he says:
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
(curse, oh, no!)
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.
What does the rejected lover mean by such brave words as "pride" and "thankfulness"? He means that it is a great honor to be rejected by such a woman, as Mr. Birrell says it is better to be knocked down by Doctor Johnson than to be picked up by Mr. Froude. He is thankful, too, to have known such a wonderful woman; and to show that he can control himself, and make the situation easier for her, he requests that to-day for the last time they ride just as usual—indeed they had met for that purpose, are properly accoutred, and were about to start, when he astonished her with his sudden and no longer controllable declaration. Right! We shall ride together. I am not yet banished from the sight of her. Perhaps the world will end to-night.
In the course of this poem, Browning develops one of his favorite ideas, that Life is always greater than Art. A famous poet may sit at his desk, and write of love in a way to thrill the hearts of his readers; but we should place him lower than rustic sweethearts meeting in the moonlight, because they are having in reality something which exists for the poet only in dreams. The same is true of sculpture and all pictorial art; men will turn from the greatest masterpiece of the chisel or the brush to look at a living woman.
And you, great sculptor,—so, you gave
A score of years to Art, her slave,
And that's your Venus, whence we turn
To yonder girl that fords the burn!
I was once seated in the square room in the gallery at Dresden that holds the most famous picture in the world, Rafael's Sistine Madonna. A number of tourists were in the place, and we were all gazing steadfastly at the immortal Virgin, when a pretty, fresh-colored young American girl entered the room. Every man's head twisted away from the masterpiece of art, and every man's eyes stared at the commonplace stranger, because she was alive! I was much amused, and could not help thinking of Browning's lines.
This doctrine, that Life is greater than Art, is repeated by Browning in Cleon, and it forms the whole content of Ibsen's last drama, When We Dead Awaken.
The lover's reasoning at the close of Browning's poem, that rejection may be better for him because now he has an unrealised ideal, and that the race itself is better than the victor's garland, reminds us of Lessing's noble saying, that if God gave him the choice between the knowledge of all truth and the search for it, he would humbly take the latter.