ABSTRACT
All through these poems, at the same time, are touches in abundance that save the poet from any charge of a materialist temper in such teaching. In ‘Evelyn Hope;’ in the address of the dying wife, ‘Any Wife to any Husband’; in many another page, and not least in those pages where the poet, speaking in his own person, dedicates his Men and Women to his own wife; there is full expression given to the purest spiritual feeling. But we must quote no more. Only indeed to establish beyond dispute that these volumes are not exclusively ‘obscure and mystical’ have we been induced to quote so much. No doubt there are too many pieces in the volumes to which the objection of obscurity in the meaning, and of a perverse harshness in the metres, may be justly urged. It is Mr. Browning’s old fault. Since his first poem was published twenty years ago, when we were the first to promise him the reputation he has won, this journal has been incessantly objecting to it. But there is some danger at present, we see, of the objection being carried too far. An occasional obscurity of expression which may be the drawback on a full mind, is a very different thing from that constant, obscurity of no expression which is the only claim to admiration in an empty one. Much of the former proceeds in the present case from what we fear is inseparable from a cast of thought imparting nevertheless to the whole its pervading excellence and flavour. The robust intellect works actively; and the perceptions of a poet, when applied to thoughts of more than common subtlety, will often necessarily outrun his reader’s. Such obscurity proceeds from fullness, not emptiness; and it is not always that a thought which is hard to follow will be found not worth the exercise of mind required for overtaking it. A distinctive quaintness, a complete absence of diffuseness, and the inborn dramatic feeling which is often apt to suggest breaks of phrase, and striking interruptions to a train of thought, are among the chief causes of what is most complained of in Mr. Browning. They are part of the writer’s individuality, and it is by right of his individuality that he will live, if he is to be read by future generations. We do not say this by way of defending
lyrics as ‘A Woman’s Last Word’, ‘Love among the Ruins’, the stanzas so wonderfully expressive of ‘Mesmerism’, the ‘Last Ride’, the ‘Patriot’, &c.), to be as genuine as poetry any that has been written in our time.
