In the fatal contest of love with duty, on which side stands the poet? In that contention of emotion with obedience which inspired the "Nouvelle Heloise" in Rousseau's lonely mind and stirred the depths of Shelley's passionate soul, where stands Browning? Does he, with Tennyson, old and cold even in youth, chafe madly for a while, and then say, with edifying unction,—
Wait, and Love himself will bring
The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit
Of wisdom. My faith is large in time,
And that which shapes it to some perfect end.
What a cool lover is this, with his Fabian advice! Out upon him for a laggard in love! Would young Lochinvar, think you, have ridden out of the west and borne home his gallant bride, if such had been his motto, or hers either? Browning sounds no such feeble note. No genuflections to Mrs. Grundy when Love taps on the window pane. In this little poem called "Bifurcation" he puts the question fully and fairly, and that the judgment may play untrammelled he leaves the decision for some sage to pronounce. If you would divine his own decision, compare the problem of life as expressed, and nobly expressed, by the woman who chose duty, with the same problem as envisaged by others who saw nought greater than love. The fair saint speaks thus:
Deep within my heart of hearts there hid
Ever the confidence, amends for all,
That heaven repairs what wrong earth's journey did,
When love from life-long exile comes at call.
Duty and love, one broad-way, were the best,
Who doubts? But one or other was to choose;
I chose the darkling half and wait the rest
In that new world where light and darkness fuse.
Again the burden, wait,—wait for the mystic compensation in the hereafter. Is it well done thus to tamper with what earth holds dear? Is it wisely done? No, shrills the clear note of the poet in the ballad, "Christina." Listen to his other philosophy of life and love:
