THE history of the earliest printed of Browning's writings is so curious that it seems worth while to give it at greater length than its intrinsic merit would require. As a boy Browning wrote an inordinate amount of verse, imitative largely of Byron, and some of it written when he was twelve struck his father as good enough to deserve printing, but no publisher could be found ready to confirm this faith. Then Browning fell into a Shelleyan mood, and when he was twenty projected a great work of which the introduction only was written. This introduction was Pauline, which to be precise was completed October 22, 1832. Browning's aunt volunteered to pay the expenses of publication, and it was published anonymously early in 1833 by Saunders & Otley. The most authoritative person on literary matters in the young poet's circle of friends was the Rev. William Johnson Fox, a Unitarian clergyman and editor of the Monthly Repository. He had a few years before given emphatic commendation to the boy's verse, and now reviewed the poem with great warmth in his own magazine, so winning the poet's gratitude as to draw from him the extravagant expression: "I shall never write a line without thinking of the source of my first praise, be assured." The poem missed what would have been from its writer a more notable review. Mr. John Stuart Mill, six years Browning's senior, was so delighted with Pauline that he wrote to the editor of Tait's Magazine, the only periodical in which he could write freely, asking leave to review the poem. The editor replied that he had just printed a curt, contemptuous notice, and could not at once take the other track. When Mill died his copy of Pauline, crowded with annotations, fell into Browning's hands and may now be seen in the South Kensington Museum.

In spite of such hopeful promise the poem was still-born from the press. Five years "the only

later, Browning wrote in a copy remaining crab of the shapely Tree of Life in my Fool's Paradise." He appears never to have spoken of it until a striking circumstance

brought it again into light. Many years after it was printed Dante Gabriel Rossetti was browsing among the volumes of forgotten poetry in the British Museum. He came upon a book in which a number of pamphlet poems were bound in a heterogeneous collection. Among these was Pauline. He read it, and from its internal evidence was convinced that it was an unacknowledged poem of Browning's. The book was wholly out of print, and he made a copy of it. He wrote to Browning afterwards taxing the poet with the production, and Browning, greatly surprised at Rossetti's discovery, acknowledged the authorship. In 1865, the editor of this Cambridge edition, meeting Rossetti in London, mentioned the fact that he had been copying at the British Museum Browning's prose introduction to the suppressed spurious collection of Shelley's Letters, whereupon Rossetti told him of this other rare book. Afterwards on learning that he had copied Pauline also he said: "I suppose you will print it when you go back to America." "By no means," ," replied the editor; that would be a breach of faith. I copied it as a student of Browning. I never would make it public without Browning's consent." A year or two later therefore when a new edition of the collected poems was published, he thought himself not unlikely the unwitting occasion of the inclusion of Pauline, for in the introduction Browning wrote as follows:

"The first piece in the series (Pauline), I acknowledge and retain with extreme repugnance, indeed purely of necessity; 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 since written according to a scheme less extravagant and scale less impracticable than were ventured upon in this crude preliminary

66

Twenty years later, upon sending out his final collective edition, Browning added to the preface just quoted the following sentences:

"I preserve, in order to supplement it, the foregoing preface. I had thought, when compelled to include in my collected works the poem to which it refers, that the honest course would be to reprint, and leave mere literary errors unaltered. Twenty years' endurance of an eyesore seems more than sufficient: my faults remain duly recorded against me, and I claim permission to somewhat diminish these, so far

PAULINE

Plus ne suis ce que j'ai été,
Et ne le sçaurois jamais être.
Marot.

Non dubito, quin titulus libri nostri raritate sua quamplurimos alliciat ad legendum: inter quos nonnulli obliquæ opinionis, mente languidi, multi etiam maligni, et in ingenium nostrum ingrati accedent, qui temeraria sua ignorantia, vix conspecto titulo clamabunt. Nos vetita docere, hæresium semina jacere: piis auribus offendiadeo culo, præclaris ingeniis scandalo esse: conscientiæ suæ consulentes, ut nec Apollo, nec Musæ omnes, neque Angelus de cœlo me ab illorum execratione vindicare queant: quibus et ego nunc consulo, ne scripta nostra legant, nec intelligant, nec meminerint: nam noxia sunt, venenosa sunt: Acherontis ostium est in hoc libro, lapides loquitur, caveant, ne cerebrum illis excutiat. Vos autem, qui æqua mente ad legendum venitis, si tantam prudentiæ discretionem adhibueritis, quantam in melle legendo apes, jam securi legite. Puto namque vos et utilitatis haud parum et voluptatis plurimum accepturos. Quod si qua repereritis, quæ vobis non placeant, mittite illa, nec utimini. NAM ET EGO VOBIS ILLA NON PROBO, SED NARRO. Cætera tamen propterea non respuite. . . Ideo, si quid liberius dictum sit, ignoscite adolescentiæ nostræ, qui minor quam adolescens hoc opus composui. - Hen. Corn. Agrippa, De Occult. Philosoph. in Præfat.

LONDON: January, 1833. V. A. XX.

as style is concerned, in the present and final edition, where Pauline must needs, first of my performances, confront the reader. I have simply removed solecisms, mended the metre a little and endeavored to strengthen the phraseology - experience helping, in some degree, the helplessness of juvenile haste and heat in their untried adventure long ago."

LONDON, February 27, 1888.

The text here given, as throughout this volume, is that of Mr. Browning's latest revision. The text of the first revision, i. e. 1867, may be found at the close of volume i. of the Riverside edition.

The quotations from Marot and Cornelius Agrippa which follow were prefixed to the original edition of the poem. The note enclosed in brackets was Browning's comment on reprinting the poem the last time.

[This introduction would appear less absurdly pretentious did it apply, as was intended, to a completed structure of which the poem was meant for only a beginning and remains a fragment.]

PAULINE, mine own, bend o'er me- thy soft

breast

Shall pant to mine- bend o'er me- thy sweet eyes,

And loosened hair and breathing lips, and arms
Drawing me to thee these build up a screen
To shut me in with thee, and from all fear;
So that I might unlock the sleepless brood
Of fancies from my soul, their lurking-place,
Nor doubt that each would pass, ne'er to return
To one so watched, so loved and so secured.
But what can guard thee but thy naked love?
Ah dearest, whoso sucks a poisoned wound
Envenoms his own veins! Thou art so good,
So calm -
if thou shouldst wear a brow less

I had been spared this shame if I had sat
By thee forever from the first, in place
Of my wild dreams of beauty and of good,
Or with them, as an earnest of their truth':
No thought nor hope having been shut from thee,
No vague wish unexplained, no wandering aim
Sent back to bind on fancy's wings and seek
Some strange fair world where it might be a
law;

But, doubting nothing, had been led by thee, Through youth, and saved, as one at length awaked

Who has slept through a peril. Ah vain, vain!

Thou lovest me; the past is in its grave Though its ghost haunts us; still this much is

ours,

To cast away restraint, lest a worse thing
Wait for us in the dark. Thou lovest me;
And thou art to receive not love but faith,
For which thou wilt be mine, and smile and
take

All shapes and shames, and veil without a fear
That form which music follows like a slave:
And I look to thee and I trust in thee,
As in a Northern night one looks alway
Unto the East for morn and spring and joy.
Thou seest then my aimless, hopeless state,
And, resting on some few old feelings won
Back by thy beauty, wouldst that I essay
The task which was to me what now thou art :
And why should I conceal one weakness more?

Thou wilt remember one warm morn when winter

Crept aged from the earth, and spring's first

breath

Blew soft from the moist hills; the black-thorn boughs,

So dark in the bare wood, when glistening
In the sunshine were white with coming buds,
Like the bright side of a sorrow, and the banks
Had violets opening from sleep like eyes.

I walked with thee who knew'st not a deep shame

Lurked beneath smiles and careless words which sought

To hide it till they wandered and were mute,
As we stood listening on a sunny mound
To the wind murmuring in the damp copse,
Like heavy breathings of some hidden thing
Betrayed by sleep; until the feeling rushed
That I was low indeed, yet not so low
As to endure the calmness of thine eyes.
And so I told thee all, while the cool breast
I leaned on altered not its quiet beating:
And long ere words like a hurt bird's complaint
Bade me look up and be what I had been,
I felt despair could never live by thee:
Thou wilt remember. Thou art not more dear
Than song was once to me; and I ne'er sung
But as one entering bright halls where all
Will rise and shout for him: sure I must own
That I am fallen, having chosen gifts
Distinct from theirs - that I am sad and fain
Would give up all to be but where I was,
Not high as I had been if faithful found,
But low and weak yet full of hope, and sure

A white swan to remain with me; and ages
Rolled, yet I tired not of my first free joy
In gazing on the peace of its pure wings:
And then I said, "It is most fair to me,
Yet its soft wings must sure have suffered
change

From the thick darkness, sure its eyes are dim.
Its silver pinions must be cramped and numbed
With sleeping ages here; it cannot leave me,
For it would seem, in light beside its kind,
Withered, though here to me most beautiful."
And then I was a young witch whose blue eyes,
As she stood naked by the river springs,
Drew down a god: I watched his radiant form
Growing less radiant, and it gladdened me;
Till one morn, as he sat in the sunshine
Upon my knees, singing to me of heaven,
He turned to look at me, ere I could lose
The grin with which I viewed his perishing:
And he shrieked and departed and sat long
By his deserted throne, but sunk at last
Murmuring, as I kissed his lips and curled
Around him, "I am still a god to thee."

Still I can lay my soul bare in its fall,
Since all the wandering and all the weakness
Will be a saddest comment on the song:
And if, that done, I can be young again,
I will give up all gained, as willingly
As one gives up a charm which shuts him out
From hope or part or care in human kind.
As life wanes, all its care and strife and toil
Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees
Which grew by our youth's home, the waving

mass

Of climbing plants heavy with bloom and dew, The morning swallows with their songs like words,

All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts:

So, aught connected with my early life,
My rude songs or my wild imaginings,
How I look on them -most distinct amid
The fever and the stir of after years!

I ne'er had ventured e'en to hope for this,
Had not the glow I felt at His award,
Assured me all was not extinct within:

His whom all honor, whose renown springs up
Like sunlight which will visit all the world,
So that e'en they who sneered at him at first,
Come out to it, as some dark spider crawls
From his foul nets which some lit torch invades,
Yet spinning still new films for his retreat.
Thou didst smile, poet, but can we forgive?

Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever!
Thou art gone from us; years go by and spring
Gladdens and the young earth is beautiful,
Yet thy songs come not, other bards arise,
But none like thee: they stand, thy majesties,
Like mighty works which tell some spirit there
Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn,
Till, its long task completed, it hath risen
And left us, never to return, and all
Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain.
The air seems bright with thy past presence yet,
But thou art still for me as thou hast been
When I have stood with thee as on a throne
With all thy dim creations gathered round
Like mountains, and I felt of mould like them,
And with them creatures of my own were
mixed,

Like things half-lived, catching and giving life.
But thou art still for me who have adored
Though single, panting but to hear thy name
Which I believed a spell to me alone,
Scarce deeming thou wast as a star to men!
As one should worship long a sacred spring
Scarce worth a moth's fitting, which long

grasses cross,

And one small tree embowers droopingly
Joying to see some wandering insect won
To live in its few rushes, or some locust
To pasture on its boughs, or some wild bird
Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air:
And then should find it but the fountain-head,
Long lost, of some great river washing towns
And towers, and seeing old woods which will live
But by its banks untrod of human foot,
Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering
In light as some thing lieth half of life
Before God's foot, waiting a wondrous change;
Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay
Its course in vain, for it does ever spread
Like a sea's arm as it goes rolling on,
Being the pulse of some great country-so
Wast thou to me, and art thou to the world!
And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret
That I am not what I have been to thee:
Like a girl one has silently loved long
In her first loneliness in some retreat,
When, late emerged, all gaze and glow to view
Her fresh eyes and soft hair and lips which
bloom

Like a mountain berry: doubtless it is sweet
To see her thus adored, but there have been
Moments when all the world was in our praise,
Sweeter than any pride of after hours.
Yet, sun-treader, all hail! From my heart's
heart

I bid thee hail! E'en in my wildest dreams,
I proudly feel I would have thrown to dust
The wreaths of fame which seemed o'erhanging

me,

To see thee for a moment as thou art.

And if thou livest, if thou lovest, spirit!
Remember me who set this final seal
To wandering thought-that one so pure as thou
Could never die. Remember me who flung
All honor from my soul, yet paused and said,

There is one spark of love remaining yet,
For I have naught in common with him, shapes
Which followed him avoid me, and foul forms
Seek me, which ne'er could fasten on his mind;
And though I feel bow low I am to him,
Yet I aim not even to catch a tone
Of harmonies he called profusely up:

So, one gleam still remains, although the last."
Remember me who praise thee e'en with tears,
For never more shall I walk calm with thee;
Thy sweet imaginings are as an air,

A melody some wondrous singer sings,
Which, though it haunt men oft in the still eve,
They dream not to essay; yet it no less
But more is honored. I was thine in shame,
And now when all thy proud renown is out,
I am a watcher whose eyes have grown dim
With looking for some star which breaks on him
Altered and worn and weak and full of tears.

Autumn has come like spring returned to us,
Won from her girlishness; like one returned
A friend that was a lover, nor forgets

The first warm love, but full of sober thoughts
Of fading years; whose soft mouth quivers yet
With the old smile, but yet so changed and still!
And here am I the scoffer, who have probed
Life's vanity, won by a word again
Into my own life-by one little word
Of this sweet friend who lives in loving me,
Lives strangely on my thoughts and looks and
words,

As fathoms down some nameless ocean thing
Its silent course of quietness and joy.
O dearest, if indeed I tell the past,
May'st thou forget it as a sad sick dream!
Or if it linger - my lost soul too soon
Sinks to itself and whispers we shall be
But closer linked, two creatures whom the earth
Bears singly, with strange feelings unrevealed
Save to each other; or two lonely things
Created by some power whose reign is done,
Having no part in God or his bright world.
I am to sing whilst ebbing day dies soft,
As a lean scholar dies worn o'er his book,
And in the heaven stars steal out one by one
As hunted men steal to their mountain watch.
I must not think, lest this new impulse die
In which I trust; I have no confidence:
So, I will sing on fast as fancies come;
Rudely, the verse being as the mood it paints.

I strip my mind bare, whose first elements
I shall unveil - not as they struggle forth
In infancy, nor as they now exist,
When I am grown above them and can rule
But in that middle stage when they were full
Yet ere I had disposed them to my will;
And then I shall show how these elements
Produced my present state, and what it is.

I am made up of an intensest life,
Of a most clear idea of consciousness