Роберт Браунинг - Dramatic Romances

I

"When I last saw Waring…"

(How all turned to him who spoke! 210

You saw Waring? Truth or joke?

In land–travel or sea–faring?)

II

"We were sailing by Triest

Where a day or two we harboured:

A sunset was in the West,

When, looking over the vessel's side,

One of our company espied

A sudden speck to larboard.

And as a sea–duck flies and swims

At once, so came the light craft up, 220

With its sole lateen sail that trims

And turns (the water round its rims

Dancing, as round a sinking cup)

And by us like a fish it curled,

And drew itself up close beside,

Its great sail on the instant furled,

And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried,

(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's)

'Buy wine of us, you English Brig?

Or fruit, tobacco and cigars? 230

A pilot for you to Triest?

Without one, look you ne'er so big,

They'll never let you up the bay!

We natives should know best.'

I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,'

Our captain said, 'The 'long–shore thieves

Are laughing at us in their sleeves.'

III

"In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;

And one, half–hidden by his side

Under the furled sail, soon I spied, 240

With great grass hat and kerchief black,

Who looked up with his kingly throat,

Said somewhat, while the other shook

His hair back from his eyes to look

Their longest at us; then the boat,

I know not how, turned sharply round,

Laying her whole side on the sea

As a leaping fish does; from the lee

Into the weather, cut somehow

Her sparkling path beneath our bow 250

And so went off, as with a bound,

Into the rosy and golden half

O' the sky, to overtake the sun

And reach the shore, like the sea–calf

Its singing cave; yet I caught one

Glance ere away the boat quite passed,

And neither time nor toil could mar

Those features: so I saw the last

Of Waring!"—You? Oh, never star

Was lost here but it rose afar! 260

Look East, where whole new thousands are!

In Vishnu–land what Avatar?

NOTES:

"Waring." In recounting the sudden disappearance from among his friends of a man proud and sensitive, who with fine powers of intellect yet incurred somewhat of disdain because of his failure to accomplish anything permanent, expression is given to the deep regret experienced by his friends now that he has left them, his absence having brought them to a truer realization of his worth. If only Waring would come back, the speaker, at least, would give him the sympathy and encouragement he craved instead of playing with his sensibilities as he had done. Conjectures are indulged in as to Waring's whereabouts. The speaker prefers to think of him as back in London preparing to astonish the world with some great masterpiece in art, music, or literature. Another speaker surprises all by telling how he had seen the "last of Waring" in a momentary meeting at Trieste, but the first speaker is certain that the star of Waring is destined to rise again above their horizon.

1. Waring: Alfred Domett (born at Camberwell Grove, Surrey, May 20, 1811), a friend of Browning's, distinguished as a poet and as a Colonial statesman and ruler. His first volume of poems was published in 1832. Some verses of his in Blackwood's, 1837, attracted much attention to him as a rising young poet. In 1841 he was called to the bar, and in 1841 went out to New Zealand among the earliest settlers. There he lived for thirty years, filling several important official positions. His unceremonious departure for New Zealand with no leave–takings was the occasion of Browning's poem, which is said by Mrs. Orr to give a lifelike sketch of Domett's character. His "star" did, however, rise again for his English friends, for he returned to London in 1871. The year following saw the publication of his "Ranolf and Amohia," a New Zealand poem, in the course of which he characterizes Browning as "Subtlest Asserter of the Soul in Song." He met Browning again in London, and was one of the vice–presidents of the London Browning Society. Died Nov.12, 1877.

15. I left his arm that night myself: George W. Cooke points out that in his Living Authors of England Thomas Powell describes this incident, the "young author" mentioned being himself: "We have a vivid recollection of the last time we saw him. It was at an evening party, a few days before he sailed from England; his intimate friend, Mr. Browning, was also present. It happened that the latter was introduced that evening for the first time to a young author who had just then appeared in the literary world. This, consequently, prevented the two friends from conversation, and they parted from each other without the slightest idea on Mr. Browning's part that he was seeing his old friend Domett for the last time. Some days after, when he found that Domett had sailed, he expressed in strong terms to the writer of this sketch the self–reproach he felt at having preferred the conversation of a stranger to that of his old associate."

54. Monstr'–inform'–ingens–horrend–ous: a slight transposition of part of a line in Virgil describing Polyphemus, "Monstrum horrendum informe ingens," a monster horrid, misshapen, huge.

55. Demoniaco–seraphic: these two lines form a compound of adjectives humorously used by Browning to express the inferiority of the writers he praised to Waring.

99. Ichabod: "Ichabod, the glory is departed." I Samuel IV. 21.

112. syenite: Egyptian granite

122. Lamb–white maiden: Iphigenia, who was borne away to Taurus by Diana, when her father, Agamemnon, was about to sacrifice her to obtain favorable winds for his expedition to Troy.

152. Caldara Polidore: Surnamed da Caravaggio. He was born in Milan in 1492, went to Rome and was employed by Raphael to paint the friezes in the Vatican. He was murdered by a servant in Messina, 1543.

155. Purcell: an eminent English musician, composer of church music, operas, songs, and instrumental music. (1658–1695).—Rosy Bowers: One of Purcell's most celebrated songs. "'From Rosie Bowers' is said to have been set in his last sickness, at which time he seems to have realized the poetical fable of the Swan and to have sung more sweetly as he approached nearer his dissolution, for it seems to us as if no one of his productions was so elevated, so pleasing, so expressive, and throughout so perfect as this" (Rees's Cyclopaedia, 1819).

190. Garrick: David, an English actor, celebrated especially for his Shakespearian parts (1716–1779).

193. Junius: the assumed name of a political writer who in 1769 began to issue in London a series of famous letters which opposed the ministry in power, and denounced several eminent persons with severe invective and pungent sarcasm.

195. Some Chatterton shall have the luck of calling Rowley into life: the chief claim to celebrity of Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770) is the real or pretended discovery of poems said to have been written in the fifteenth century by Thomas Rowley, a priest of Bristol, and found in Radcliffe church, of which Chatterton's ancestors had been sextons for many years. They are now generally considered Chatterton's own.

"Give" and "It–shall–be–given–unto–you"