‘’Tis said, last year,’

[190] (Recounts my author,) ‘that the King had mind

To view his kingdom – guessed at from behind

A palace-window hitherto. Announced

No sooner was such purpose than ’twas pounced

Upon by all the ladies of the land –

Loyal but light of life: they formed a band

Of loveliest ones but lithest also, since

Proudly they all combined to bear their prince.

Backs joined to breasts, – arms, legs, – nay, ankles, wrists,

Hands, feet, I know not by what turns and twists,

[200] So interwoven lay that you believed

’Twas one sole beast of burden which received

The monarch on its back, of breadth not scant,

Since fifty girls made one white elephant.

So with the fifty flowers which shapes and hues

Blent, as I tell, and made one fast yet loose

Mixture of beauties, composite, distinct

No less in each combining flower that linked

With flower to form a fit environment

For – whom might be the painter’s heart’s intent

[210] Thus, in the midst enhaloed, to enshrine?

‘This glory-guarded middle space – is mine?

For me to fill?’

            ‘For you, my Friend! We part,

Never perchance to meet again. Your Art –

What if I mean it – so to speak – shall wed

My own, be witness of the life we led

When sometimes it has seemed our souls near found

Each one the other as its mate – unbound

Had yours been haply from the better choice

– Beautiful Bicé: ’tis the common voice,

[220] The crowning verdict. Make whom you like best

Queen of the central space, and manifest

Your predilection for what flower beyond

All flowers finds favour with you. I am fond

Of – say – yon rose’s rich predominance,

While you – what wonder? – more affect the glance

The gentler violet from its leafy screen

Ventures: so – choose your flower and paint your queen!’

Oh but the man was ready, head as hand,

Instructed and adroit. ‘Just as you stand,

[230] Stay and be made – would Nature but relent –

By Art immortal!’

               Every implement

In tempting reach – a palette primed, each squeeze

Of oil-paint in its proper patch – with these,

Brushes, a veritable sheaf to grasp!

He worked as he had never dared.

                     ‘Unclasp

My Art from yours who can!’ – he cried at length,

As down he threw the pencil – ‘Grace from Strength

Dissociate, from your flowery fringe detach

My face of whom it frames, – the feat will match

[240] With that of Time should Time from me extract

Your memory, Artemisia!’ And in fact, –

What with the pricking impulse, sudden glow

Of soul – head, hand co-operated so

That face was worthy of its frame, ’tis said –

Perfect, suppose!

                They parted. Soon instead

Of Rome was home, – of Artemisia – well,

The placid-perfect wife. And it befell

That after the first incontestably

Blessedest of all blisses (– wherefore try

[250] Your patience with embracings and the rest

Due from Calypso’s all-unwilling guest

To his Penelope?) – there somehow came

The coolness which as duly follows flame.

So, one day, ‘What if we inspect the gifts

My Art has gained us?’

                          Now the wife uplifts

A casket-lid, now tries a medal’s chain

Round her own lithe neck, fits a ring in vain

– Too loose on the fine finger, – vows and swears

The jewel with two pendent pearls like pears

[260] Betters a lady’s bosom – witness else!

And so forth, while Ulysses smiles.

                              ‘Such spells

Subdue such natures – sex must worship toys

– Trinkets and trash: yet, ah, quite other joys

Must stir from sleep the passionate abyss

Of – such an one as her I know – not his

My gentle consort with the milk for blood!

Why, did it chance that in a careless mood

(In those old days, gone – never to return –

When we talked – she to teach and I to learn)

[270] I dropped a word, a hint which might imply

Consorts exist – how quick flashed fire from eye,

Brow blackened, lip was pinched by furious lip!

I needed no reminder of my slip:

One warning taught me wisdom. Whereas here …

Aha, a sportive fancy! Eh, what fear

Of harm to follow? Just a whim indulged!

‘My Beatricé, there’s an undivulged

Surprise in store for you: the moment’s fit

For letting loose a secret: out with it!

[280] Tributes to worth, you rightly estimate

These gifts of Prince and Bishop, Church and State:

Yet, may I tell you? Tastes so disagree!

There’s one gift, preciousest of all to me,

I doubt if you would value as well worth

The obvious sparkling gauds that men unearth

For toy-cult mainly of you womankind;

Such make you marvel, I concede: while blind

The sex proves to the greater marvel here

I veil to balk its envy. Be sincere!

[290] Say, should you search creation far and wide,

Was ever face like this?’

                   He drew aside

The veil, displayed the flower-framed portrait kept

For private delectation.

                   No adept

In florist’s lore more accurately named

And praised or, as appropriately, blamed

Specimen after specimen of skill,

Than Bicé. ‘Rightly placed the daffodil –

Scarcely so right the blue germander. Grey

Good mouse-ear! Hardly your auricula

[300] Is powdered white enough. It seems to me

Scarlet not crimson, that anemone:

But there’s amends in the pink saxifrage.

O darling dear ones, let me disengage

You innocents from what your harmlessness

Clasps lovingly! Out thou from their caress,

Serpent!’

           Whereat forth-flashing from her coils

On coils of hair, the spilla in its toils

Of yellow wealth, the dagger-plaything kept

To pin its plaits together, life-like leapt

[310] And – woe to all inside the coronal!

Stab followed stab, – cut, slash, she ruined all

The masterpiece. Alack for eyes and mouth

And dimples and endearment – North and South,

East, West, the tatters in a fury flew:

There yawned the circlet. What remained to do?

She flung the weapon, and, with folded arms

And mien defiant of such low alarms

As death and doom beyond death, Bicé stood

Passively statuesque, in quietude

[320] Awaiting judgement.

                And out judgement burst

With frank unloading of love’s laughter, first

Freed from its unsuspected source. Some throe

Must needs unlock love’s prison-bars, let flow

The joyance.

              ‘Then you ever were, still are,

And henceforth shall be – no occulted star

But my resplendent Bicé, sun-revealed,

Full-rondure! Woman-glory unconcealed,

So front me, find and claim and take your own –

My soul and body yours and yours alone,

[330] As you are mine, mine wholly! Heart’s love, take –

Use your possession – stab or stay at will

Here – hating, saving – woman with the skill

To make man beast or god!’

                        And so it proved:

For, as beseemed new godship, thus he loved,

Past power to change, until his dying-day, –

Good fellow! And I fain would hope – some say

Indeed for certain – that our painter’s toils

At fresco-splashing, finer stroke in oils,

Were not so mediocre after all;

[340] Perhaps the work appears unduly small

From having loomed too large in old esteem,

Patronized by late Papacy. I seem

Myself to have cast eyes on certain work

In sundry galleries, no judge needs shirk

From moderately praising. He designed

Correctly, nor in colour lagged behind

His age: but both in Florence and in Rome

The elder race so make themselves at home

That scarce we give a glance to ceilingfuls

[350] Of such like as Francesco. Still, one culls

From out the heaped laudations of the time

The pretty incident I put in rhyme.

Spring Song

Dance, yellows and whites and reds, –

Lead your gay orgy, leaves, stalks, heads

Astir with the wind in the tulip-beds!

There’s sunshine; scarcely a wind at all

Disturbs starved grass and daisies small

On a certain mound by a churchyard wall.

Daisies and grass be my heart’s bedfellows

On the mound wind spares and sunshine mellows:

Dance you, reds and whites and yellows!

Notes

Porphyria’s Lover

Published January 1836 in W. J. Fox’s liberal Unitarian journal, the Monthly Repository, with the title ‘Porphyria’. Fox had praised and promoted Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835). Immediately following ‘Porphyria’ was ‘Johannes Agricola in Meditation’, then called ‘Johannes Agricola’ (see below): these were the first dramatic monologues by Browning to appear in print. In Dramatic Lyrics (1842) the two poems lost their individual titles and became parts one and two of ‘Madhouse Cells’, with ‘Johannes Agricola’ now first in order. In Poems (1849) the two were given their final titles, though still linked as ‘Madhouse Cells’ I and II. In Poetical Works (1863) they were separated, and the ‘Madhouse Cells’ title was dropped; the two poems were placed in the section called ‘Dramatic Romances’. Finally, in Poetical Works (1868), ‘Johannes Agricola in Meditation’ was placed in the section called ‘Men and Women’.

Johannes Agricola in Meditation

For publication and title see above. The original publication in the Monthly Repository included an epigraph quoting (with minor errors) the entry on antinomianism in Defoe’s Dictionary of all Religions (1704):

Antinomians, so denominated for rejecting the Law as a thing of no use under the Gospel dispensation: they say, that good works do not further, nor evil works hinder salvation; that the child of God cannot sin, that God never chastiseth him, that murder, drunkenness, etc. are sins in the wicked but not in him, that the child of grace being once assured of salvation, afterwards never doubteth … that God doth not love any man for his holiness, that sanctification is no evidence of justification, etc. Potanus, in his Catalogue of Heresies, says John Agricola was the author of this sect, A.D.