Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession

(1832). The first work of the poet, and his embryonic work, because it contains in their rudiments all the peculiarities and powers of his genius. He wrote nothing which was not the legitimate development of the forces which we see in this inchoate work. It is nebulous, but it is a nebula which has within itself the potentiality of worlds of thought. Misty and vague as it everywhere seems, it is influenced by laws which will concentrate its thought into stars and planets, such as Para cels us , and the Ring and the Book . It is autobiographical, and admits us into the laboratory of the writer’s thought; it is marvellously consistent with the latest utterances of the poet on the subjects nearest to his heart. High thoughts, which through the years of a long life will live in royal splendour in his brain, are born here in travail, as regal things are wont to be. It was a boy’s work,—the poet was only twenty years old when he wrote it,—but a competent critic could have detected evidence that in the anonymous author of Pauline a psychological poet had arisen, one who determined to probe to their depths the mysteries of the human soul. From Mr. Go e’s article in The Century Magazine we learn that the young poet had produced a quantity of verses while a mere child, and had planned a number of soul-studies of a similar character to Pauline . He published the poem anonymously in 1833, when he was twenty years old. It was reprinted in 1867, with the following note: “The first piece in the series ( Pauline ) I acknowledge and retain with extreme repugnance, indeed purely of nece ity; for not long ago I inspected one, and am certified of the existence of other transcripts, intended sooner or later to be published abroad: by forestalling these I can at least correct some misprints (no syllable is changed), and introduce a boyish work by an exculpatory word. The thing was my earliest attempt at ‘poetry, always dramatic in principle, and so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine,’ which I have written since according to a scheme le extravagant and scale le impracticable than were ventured upon in this crude preliminary sketch—a sketch that, on reviewal, appears not altogether wide of some hint of the characteristic features of that particular dram at is persona it would fain have reproduced; good draughtsmanship, however, and right handling were far beyond the artist at that time.” With the “good draughtsmanship” and “right handling” of the work we need not concern ourselves; what is of paramount importance is the fact that in Pauline we have “the god, though in the germ.” If the mature artist was ashamed of his puerile performance, his disciples have always loved and admired it, and his deeper students have delighted to trace in its pages the nuclei of principles which have in his maturer works dowered the world with a pricele treasure. The poem is a fragment of a confe ion from a young man to a young woman whom he loves. It concerns Pauline very little, but is the revelation of the man as a study of the poet’s own naked soul. It is not a confe ion of deeds, but of moods and mental attitudes. He who could unpack his own heart so completely would be likely to reveal the innermost rece es of the characters with which he should deal in the future. It is the revelation of a soul all self-centred. A soul’s awakening, a soul in terror at its own capabilities, desires and forces too hard to be controlled—“made up of an intensest life”—imbued with “a principle of restle ne which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel all”—a soul terrified at its own vast shadow, fearing to face its own spectres, and instinctively “building up a screen” of woman’s love to be shut in with from a brood of fancies with which he dare not wrestle. Had he never left her side he had been spared this shame. He is sure of her love, though ghosts of the past haunt them. He has not the love to offer which befits her; but he has faith, and he trusts her as we trust the east for morning light. He has communed with her, but she knew not the shame which lurked behind his words and smiles, and she drove away despair from him. He has fallen, is ruined; he has felt in dreams he was a fiend chained in darkne , till, after ages had pa ed came a white swan to remain with him, and it contented him. And again, he had seemed to be a young witch who drew down a god to sing of heaven, and as he sang he perished grinning, but murmuring “I am still a god to thee.” He has thought that his early life, his songs and wild imaginings, were the only worthy things standing out distinct amid the fever of the after years. And this was his (Shelley’s) award. He, the Sun-treader, had drawn out from his worshipper the one spark of love remaining in his soul, and in his tears he praises him. He loved Shelley in his shame, and now he is renowned he watches him as a star, as one altered and worn and full of tears looks to heaven. He strips his mind bare, has a most clear consciousne of self, and recognises that of all his powers an imagination which has been an angel to him is the one which saves his soul from utter death. He feels a need, a trust, a yearning after God, which somehow is reconciled with a neglect of all he deemed His laws. He sees God everywhere, yet can love nothing; has had high dreams and low aims, and so lost himself. Then he turned to song, he gazed without fear on the works of mighty bards, for in them he recognised thoughts his own heart had also borne; then came the outburst of the soul’s power, a key to a new world, a sound as of angelic mutterings. He vowed himself to liberty. Men should be gods, earth,—heaven. His soul rose to meet the new life. As one watches for a fair girl that comes forth a withered hag, so all these high-born fancies dwindled into nothing; faith in man, freedom, virtue, motives, power, human loves, all vanished. They were not mi ed, for wit and mockery and pleasure came in their stead. His powers grew, his soul became as a temple; only God was gone, and a dark spirit sat in His seat, and mocking shadows cried “Hail!” to him. He resolved to wear himself out with joy, then to win men’s praise by undying song, and the mockery laughed out again. Then he met Pauline and knew she loved him; he looked in his heart for a love to return, and love and faith were gone, and selfishne wears him as a flame, and hunger for pleasure has become pain. Then came a craving after knowledge, as a sleeple harpy. He begins now to know what hate is. Yet with it all he has learned the great truth that his restle longings, his all encompa ing selfishne , only prove that earth is not his sphere, because he cannot so narrow himself but he exceeds it. Hateful as his selfishne has grown to be, he can pa from such thoughts. Andromeda, rock-chained, awaiting the snake, causes you no fear for her safety: God will come in thunder from the stars to save her, so he will triumph over his decay; when the calm comes again after the fever has subsided, he will do something equal to his conjecture. He can project himself into all forms of Nature, live the life of plants, mount bird-like, breathe in a fish the morning air in the sun-warm water. He will build a thought-world; he is inspired. Pauline shall come with him to the world of fancy through the ghostly night and sun-warmed morning; he is concentrated, he drinks in the life of all, yet cannot be immortal for all these struggling aims. What is this pa ionate hunger for the All—this insatiable thirst for utmost pleasure? It is man’s cry for the satisfying presence of God in his soul. The alone to the Alone; nothing intervening can give peace and rest to the spirit of man; flame-like it tends upwards to its source. The only One, the Crucified, the Risen Christ—“Christ us Consol at or” is recognised as the remedy for his sense of infinite lo ; and as he recognises the Divine love he is united with the purest earthly soul he knows:—“Pauline, I am thine for ever.” “Love me, Pauline—leave me not.” And so the hideous past shall be the past, and he will go forward with her— “Feeling God loves us, and that all that errs, Is a strange dream which death will di ipate.” Again he will go o’er the tracts of thought, again will beauteous shapes come to him and unknown secrets be divulged,—priest and lover as of old—“Shelley, Sun-treader,” he cries, “I believe in God, and truth, love—I would lean on thee.” Profe or Johnson, in his paper on “Conscience and Art in Browning,” gives the following as the theme of the poem:—“The Divine call and anointing of the poet, so to speak; his sin, which consists in a self-divorce; his decline and degradation as he sinks into the ‘dim orb of self’; finally, his redemption and restoration by Divine love, mediated to him by human love.” Notes. —“ His award ,” “ Him whom all honour ,” “ Thou didst smile, poet ,” “ Sun-treader ” (lines 142, 144, 151, 1020): all these refer to Shelley. “ A god wandering after beauty ” (line 321): Apollo seeking Daphne. Apollo pursued Daphne, who fled from him, seeking the aid of the gods, who changed her into a laurel. “ A giant standing vast in the sunset ” (line 322): Atlas, one of the Titans, is referred to here. “ A high-crested chief Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos ” (line 324): “After the fall of Troy, many of the Greek chiefs, among them Nestor, set sail for home, while others, at the desire of Agamemnon, remained behind to sacrifice to Pallas. Those who set sail went to the island of Tenedos, where they made offerings to the gods” ( Poet Lore , vol. i., p. 244; Homer, Ody ey , iii.). “ The dim clustered isles in the blue sea ” (line 321): the islands of the Ægean Sea, east of Greece. “ Who stood beside the naked swift-footed, Who bound my forehead with Proser pine’s hair ” (line 334): the swift-footed was Hermes, the name of Mercury among the Greeks. He was the me enger of the gods. He was presented by the King of Heaven with a winged cap, called petasus , and with wings for his feet, called talaria . Proser pine was the daughter of Ceres by Jupiter. “ As Arab birds float sleeping in the wind ” (line 479): this is considered by some to refer to the pelican, by others to the Birds of Paradise. “ The king Treading the purple calmly to his death ” (line 568): Agamemnon, to whom his loved Cas sandra foretells his doom in vain:— “Well, sire, I yield me vanquished by thy voice; I go, treading on purple, to my house.” (Potter’s “Agamemnon” of Æschylus , 1017.) “ The boy with his white breast ,” etc. (line 574): see Potter’s “Choephoræ” of Æschylus , 1073: Orestes avenged his father’s death by a a inating his mother Clytemnestra and the adulterer Ægisthus. Andromeda (line 656): Andromeda was ordered to be exposed to a sea-monster, and was tied naked to a rock; but Perseus delivered her, changed the monster into a rock, and married her. “ The fair pale sister went to her chill grave ” (line 963): Anti gone interred by night the remains of her brother Polynices against the orders of Creon, who commanded her to be buried alive. She, however, killed herself before the sentence could be executed (see “Anti gone” of Sophocles ). The long Latin preface to Pauline from the Occult Philosophy of Cornel i us-Agrippa is thus englished in Mr. Cooke’s Browning Guide-Book :—“I doubt not but the title of our book, by its rarity, may entice very many to the perusal of it. Among whom many of hostile opinions, with weak minds, many even malignant and ungrateful, will a ail our genius, who in their rash ignorance, hardly before the title is before their eyes, will make a clamour. We are forbidden to teach, to scatter abroad the seeds of philosophy, pious ears being offended, clear-seeing minds having arisen. I, as a counsellor, a ail their consciences; but neither Apollo nor all the Muses, nor an angel from heaven, would be able to save me from their execrations, whom now I counsel that they may not read our books, that they may not understand them, that they may not remember them, for they are noxious—they are poisonous. The mouth of Acheron is in this book: it speaks often of stones: beware, lest by these it shape the understanding. You, also, who with fair wind shall come to the reading, if you will apply so much of the discernment of prudence as bees in gathering honey, then read with security. For, indeed, I believe you about to receive many things not a little both for instruction and enjoyment. But if you find anything that pleases you not, let it go that you may not use it, for I do not declare these things good for you, but merely relate them. Therefore, if any freer word may be, forgive our youth; I, who am le than a youth, have composed this work.” The preface is dated London, January 1833. V.A. XX. is the Latin abbreviation of Vixi annos viginti , I was twenty years old.