First publ. B & P iii (DL), 26 Nov. 1842; repr. 1849, 1863, 18652, 1868, 1872, 1888. Our text is 1842. The date of composition was probably the early summer of 1842, in the aftermath of the emigration to New Zealand at the end of April of B.’s close friend Alfred Domett. Domett (1811–87) was a member of B.’s ‘set’, the ‘Colloquials’, contributed occasional poems to periodicals, and had published two volumes: Poems (1833), and Venice (1839), a long poem which B. mentions admiringly (Correspondence v 328). For further details of Domett’s life, and his relations with B. when he eventually returned from New Zealand in 1872, see RB & AD, Domett Diary, and Maynard. In a letter of May 1842 B. expressed indignation over Domett’s failure to find a commercial publisher for Venice: ‘not even his earnest handsome face … not his sincere voice & gentlemanly bearing, could tempt Moxon to look at a line of it’ (Correspondence v 328). It is likely that B. telescoped this disappointment and Domett’s emigration, making one the motive of the other. In DL 2nd proof, the words ‘Alfred Domett, or’ are written over the title. In the words of another ‘Colloquial’, Joseph Arnould (letter to Domett, c. May 1843), ‘ “Waring” delighted us all very much for we recognized in it a fancy portrait of a very dear friend’ (Correspondence vii 391). In 1875 a correspondent asked B. if he had had in mind a real person called Waring; B. wrote: ‘I assure you I never heard of the Gentleman you mention: and, if you consider, I should be little likely to address the subject of such a poem publicly by his name. I had in my mind some characteristics of an old friend who, after thirty years’ absence, is returned alive and well’ (to Newton Bennett, 5 Dec. 1875, ABL MS). Several details do not fit, e.g. the date of Domett’s departure, that of ‘Waring’ being in winter (l. 14), and in any event the poem’s fanciful and burlesque elements hinder a straightforward biographical reading; J. F. McCarthy (‘Browning’s “Waring”: The Real Subject of the “Fancy Portrait” ’, VP ix [1971] 371–82) seems nearer the mark in describing the poem as ‘an ironic treatment of the early Browning’s favorite theme—the dilemma of the non-communicating artist-prophet’. It has been suggested that some details of ‘Waring’s’ character and appearance were drawn from those of R. H. Horne, author of the ‘farthing epic’ Orion and a close friend of B.’s at this period. Horne had led an adventurous life abroad before entering English literary life in the 1830s; he later emigrated to Australia. The poem accurately portrays B.’s mixed feelings about London literary society in the period; he wrote to Domett on 22 May 1842 of its ‘creeping magnetic assimilating influence nothing can block out’ (Correspondence v 355), and again on 13 July: ‘There is much, everything to be done in England just now—& I have certain plans which shall either fill or succeed, but not lie dormant.—But all my heart’s interest goes to your tree-planting life . . Yet I don’t know’ (ibid. vi 33). For other refs. to Domett in B.’s poetry, see Time’s Revenges 1–30 (II 279–81), and Guardian Angel 36–7, 54–5 (III 18, 19): ‘Guercino drew this angel I saw teach / (Alfred, dear friend)—that little child to pray … Where are you, dear old friend? / How rolls the Wairoa at your world’s far end?’ The name ‘Waring’ itself is that of a ‘king’s messenger’ whom B. met during his trip to Russia in 1834 (Griffin and Minchin 63); see l. 109ff. A possible literary influence is Dryden’s Ode to the Pious Memory of the Accomplisht Young Lady Mrs Anne Killigrew, Excellent in the two Sister-Arts of Poesie and Painting (1686); note the allusion to painting at ll. 146–52. Dryden stresses the corruption of the age in contrast to the purity and integrity of Killigrew’s art; cp. ll. 192–200. There is a verbal parallel at ll. 254–5. The idea of escape from social constrictions into Romantic vagabondage is strong in Byron, notably Childe Harold; in B.’s works of the period, cp. Colombe’s Birthday (1844), Flight of the Duchess (II 295), Glove (II 360); cp. also the ending of Bishop Blougram (pp. 338–9), and contrast How It Strikes (p. 435).
I.
i.
What’s become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest, or staff and scrip,
5 Rather than pace up and down
Any longer London-town?
ii.
Who’d have guessed it from his lip,
Or his brow’s accustomed bearing,
On the night he thus took ship,
10 Or started landward, little caring
For us, it seems, who supped together,
(Friends of his too, I remember)
And walked home thro’ the merry weather,
Snowiest in all December;
15 I left his arm that night myself
For what’s-his-name’s, the new prose-poet,
That wrote the book there, on the shelf—
How, forsooth, was I to know it
If Waring meant to glide away
20 Like a ghost at break of day!
Never looked he half so gay!
iii.
He was prouder than the Devil:
How he must have cursed our revel!
Ay, and many other meetings,
25 Indoor visits, outdoor greetings,
As up and down he paced this London,
With no work done, but great works undone,
Where scarce twenty knew his name.
Why not, then, have earlier spoken,
30 Written, bustled? Who’s to blame
If your silence kept unbroken?
True, but there were sundry jottings,
Stray-leaves, fragments, blurrs and blottings,
Certain first steps were achieved
35 Already which—(is that your meaning?)
Had well borne out whoe’er believed
In more to come: but who goes gleaning
Hedge-side chance-blades, while full-sheaved
Stand cornfields by him? Pride, o’erweening
40 Pride alone, puts forth such claims
O’er the day’s distinguished names.
iv.
Meantime, how much I loved him,
I find out now I’ve lost him:
I, who cared not if I moved him,
45 —Could so carelessly accost him,
Never shall get free
Of his ghostly company,
And eyes that just a little wink
As deep I go into the merit
50 Of this and that distinguished spirit—
His cheeks’ raised colour, soon to sink,
As long I dwell on some stupendous
And tremendous (God defend us!)
Monstr’-inform’-ingens-horrend-ous
Penman’s latest piece of graphic.
Nay, my very wrist grows warm
With his dragging weight of arm!
E’en so, swimmingly appears,
60 Thro’ one’s after-supper musings,
Some lost Lady of old years,
With her beauteous vain endeavour,
And goodness unrepaid as ever;
The face, accustomed to refusings,
65 We, puppies that we were … Oh never
Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled
Being aught like false, forsooth, to?
Telling aught but honest truth to?
What a sin had we centupled
70 Its possessor’s grace and sweetness!
No! she heard in its completeness
Truth, for truth’s a weighty matter,
And, truth at issue, we can’t flatter!
Well, ’tis done with: she’s exempt
75 From damning us thro’ such a sally;
And so she glides, as down a valley,
Taking up with her contempt,
Past our reach; and in, the flowers
Shut her unregarded hours.
v.
80 Oh, could I have him back once more,
This Waring, but one half-day more!
Back, with the quiet face of yore,
So hungry for acknowledgment
Like mine! I’d fool him to his bent!
85 Feed, should not he, to heart’s content?
I’d say, “to only have conceived
“Your great works, tho’ they never progress,
“Surpasses all we’ve yet achieved!”
I’d lie so, I should be believed.
90 I’d make such havoc of the claims
Of the day’s distinguished names
To feast him with, as feasts an ogress
Her sharp-toothed golden-crowned child!
Or, as one feasts a creature rarely
95 Captured here, unreconciled
To capture; and completely gives
Its pettish humours licence, barely
Requiring that it lives.
Ichabod, Ichabod,
100 The glory is departed!
Travels Waring East away?
Who, of knowledge, by hearsay,
Reports a man upstarted
Somewhere as a God,
105 Hordes grown European-hearted,
Millions of the wild made tame
On a sudden at his fame?
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
Or, North in Moscow, toward the Czar,
110 Who, with the gentlest of footfalls
Over the Kremlin’s pavement, bright
With serpentine and siennite,
Steps, with five other Generals,
Who simultaneously take snuff,
115 That each may have pretext enough
To kerchiefwise unfurl his sash
Which, softness’ self, is yet the stuff
To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,
And leave the grand white neck no gash?
120 In Moscow, Waring, to those rough
Cold natures borne, perhaps,
Like the lambwhite maiden, (clear
Thro’ the circle of mute kings,
Unable to repress the tear,
125 Each as his sceptre down he flings),
To the Dome at Taurica,
Where now a priestess, she alway
Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech
With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach,
130 As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands
Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands
Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry
Amid their barbarous twitter!
In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!
135 Ay, most likely ’tis in Spain
That we and Waring meet again—
Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane
Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid
All fire and shine—abrupt as when there’s slid
140 Its stiff gold blazing pall
From some black coffin-lid.
Or, best of all,
I love to think
The leaving us was just a feint;
145 Back here to London did he slink;
And now works on without a wink
Of sleep, and we are on the brink
Of something great in fresco-paint:
Some garret’s ceiling, walls and floor,
150 Up and down and o’er and o’er
He splashes, as none splashed before
Since great Caldara Polidore:
Then down he creeps and out he steals
Only when the night conceals
155 His face—in Kent ’tis cherry-time,
Or, hops are picking; or, at prime
Of March, he steals as when, too happy,
Years ago when he was young,
Some mild eve when woods were sappy,
160 And the early moths had sprung
To life from many a trembling sheath
Woven the warm boughs beneath,
While small birds said to themselves
What should soon be actual song,
165 And young gnats, by tens and twelves,
Made as if they were the throng
That crowd around and carry aloft
The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,
Out of a myriad noises soft,
170 Into a tone that can endure
Amid the noise of a July noon,
When all God’s creatures crave their boon,
All at once and all in tune,
And get it, happy as Waring then,
175 Having first within his ken
What a man might do with men,
And far too glad, in the even-glow,
To mix with the world he meant to take
Into his hand, he told you, so—
180 And out of it his world to make,
To contract and to expand
As he shut or oped his hand.
Oh, Waring, what’s to really be?
A clear stage and a crowd to see!
185 Some Garrick—say—out shall not he
The heart of Hamlet’s mystery pluck?
Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,
Some Junius—am I right?—shall tuck
His sleeve, and out with flaying-knife!
190 Some Chatterton shall have the luck
Of calling Rowley into life!
Some one shall somehow run a muck
With this old world, for want of strife
Sound asleep: contrive, contrive
195 To rouse us, Waring! Who’s alive?
Our men scarce seem in earnest now:
Distinguished names, but ’tis, somehow,
As if they played at being names
Still more distinguished, like the games
200 Of children. Turn our sport to earnest
With a visage of the sternest!
Bring the real times back, confessed
Still better than the very best!
II.
i.
“When I last saw Waring … ”
205 (How all turned to him who spoke—
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:
210 “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
215 “At once, so came the light craft up,
“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,
220 “And drew itself up close beside,
“Its great sail on the instant furled,
“And o’er its planks, a shrill voice cried,
“(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar’s)
“ ‘Buy wine of us, you English Brig?
225 “ ‘Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?
“ ‘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.’
230 “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
235 “Under the furled sail, soon I spied,
“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
240 “Their longest at us; and 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
245 “Her sparkling path beneath our bow;
“And so went off, as with a bound,
“Into the rose and golden half
“Of the sky, to overtake the sun,
“And reach the shore like the sea-calf 250
“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
225 Was lost here, but it rose afar!
Look East, where whole new thousands are!
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
4. staff and scrip: traditional emblems of pilgrimage (‘scrip’ means wallet or satchel), both literal and figurative: cp. Raleigh. The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage 2–3: ‘My staff of faith … My scrip of joy’.
14. Snowiest] The snowiest (1849–88).
17. That] Who (1865–88).
32–4. sundry jottings … first-steps: for Domett’s writing in this period, see headnote.
38. chance-blades: blades of grass which have been sown by chance; the prefix ‘chance-’ occurs several times in B., usually attached to a verb, e.g. ‘chance-sown plant’ (Paracelsus v 686, I 300), ‘chance-sown cleft-nursed seed’ (Ring x 1036), and ‘chance-rooted’ (Inapprehensiveness [Asolando, 1889] 9).
44. moved: annoyed, irritated.
45. —Could ] Who could (1849–88).
46. Never] Henceforth never (1849–88).
48. And ] His (1849–88).
53. God] Heaven (1849–88).
54. A burlesque of Virgil, Aeneid iii 658: ‘Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens’ [a horrid monster, mis-shapen, huge]. There may be a hint of self-parody of Sordello; see also Pippa i 282–92n. (p. 115).
55. The accent falls on the third syllable, the ‘i’ of ‘Demoniaco’, pronounced ‘eye’.
59–79. The speaker feels the ghostly presence of Waring as he would that of a woman whom he and others had formerly treated with arrogant ‘frankness’, being proud of their forthrightness about her lack of beauty, and not valuing her real qualities; she is now dead, and ‘exempt’, therefore, from ‘damning them’ by really telling the truth about them, as they had made a show of doing about her. In the same way, Waring is now past being affected by his friend’s former misprision.
59–61. Cp. Dubiety (Asolando, 1889), in which the speaker, ‘ensconce[d] / In luxury’s sofa-lap of leather’ (ll. 3–4), muses on the past, and remembers ‘when a woman leant / To feel for my brow where her kiss might fall’ (ll. 22–3).
73. And, truth] And truth (1863–1888, except 1872, 1884 as 1842).
77. Either ‘accepting, swallowing our contempt for her’ or ‘espousing, adopting her attitude of contempt for us’.
78–9. and in … hours: ‘the flowers [of the grave] enclose her sad history of neglect’; cp. the use of ‘shut in’ in the final lines of Love Among the Ruins (p. 539).
81. This Waring: a typical Carlylean phrasing.
84. I’d fool him to his bent: from Hamlet III ii 408: ‘They fool me to the top of my bent’. See also ll. 185–6n.
86–8. Cp., among many other expressions of this idea in B.’s work, A Grammarian 97ff. (p. 595).
86–7. conceived / Your great works, tho’ they never progress,] conceived / Your great works, tho’ they ne’er make progess, (1849–65); conceived, / Planned your great works, apart from progress, (1868–88).
88. all we’ve yet] little works (1868–88).
90–8. Cp. B. to Domett, 13 July 1842 (Correspondence vi 33): ‘Sir L. Bulwer has published a set of sing-songs—I read two, or one, in a Review—& thought them abominable. Mr Taylor’s affected unreal putting-together, called “Edwin the Fair,” is the flattest of fallen … . Dickens is back, and busy in “doing” America for his next numbers—sad work’. See also ll. 199–200n.
92–3. as feasts an ogress … child!: taken, with characteristic variations, from one of Charles Perrault’s fairy-stories, ‘Little Thumb’ (‘Le Petit Poucet’, originally publ. in Histoires et contes du temps passé, Paris 1697) in which Little Thumb and his six brothers come to an ogre’s house; his wife takes pity on them and attempts to conceal them, but the ogre discovers their hiding-place: ‘Here is good game, which comes very luckily to entertain three Ogres of my acquaintance, who are to pay me a visit in a day or two … The Ogre had seven daughters, all little children, and these young Ogresses … had little grey eyes quite round, hooked noses, wide mouths and very long sharp teeth, standing at a good distance from each other. They were not as yet over and above mischievous; but they promised very fair for it; for they already bit little children, that they might suck their blood. They had been put to bed early, with every one a crown of gold upon her head’ (transl. R. Samber, 1729).
93.] Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child (1868–88).
94–8. Cp. the description of Goito as a ‘captured creature in a pound’ (Sordello i 384ff., I 420).
99–100. Cp. 1 Samuel iv 21; the daughter-in-law of Eli, the high priest, gives birth at a time of calamity: ‘And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel’.
103. upstarted: ‘who has sprung up’.
108. ‘Vishnu-land’ is India. B. refers to the cycles of creation over which the god Vishnu rules in Hindu religious myth. ‘To each cycle of creation there corresponds an “avatar”, literally a “descent”, of the god Vishnu. These avatars theoretically number ten, but the wealth of popular imagination has greatly increased the number’ (‘Mythology of Hinduism’, Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology).
109–10.] Or who, in Moscow, toward the Czar, / With the demurest of footfalls (1849–88, except ‘who in’ 1865–88).
112. Serpentine is an ornamental stone with markings resembling those of a serpent’s skin; siennite (syenite) is a crystalline rock allied to granite.
114. Who] That (1849–88).
115. That each may] For each to (1849–88).
116. To] And (1865–88). unfurl ] unfold (1863–88).
120–33. This sentence lacks a main verb, unless ‘is’ is understood before ‘borne’ in l. 121.
120. In Moscow, Waring] Waring, in Moscow (1849–88, except ‘Waring in’, 1865–88).
121. Cold natures] Cold northern natures (1849–88).
122–33. The ‘lambwhite maiden’ is Iphigenia, for whose sacrifice by her father Agamemnon, at the outset of the expedition against Troy, the other Greek leaders reluctantly voted (by throwing their sceptres to the ground), in order to ensure a favourable wind; however, in one version of the legend she was spirited away by Artemis to her temple at Tauris, in Scythia (Asia Minor), where she became priestess; she was eventually rescued by her brother Orestes. In Euripides’ Iphigenia at Tauris, which B. greatly admired, Iphigenia laments her enforced isolation among barbarians who do not speak her language. B. treats a similar legend, the rescue of Hippolytus, in a poem written in the same period, Artemis. 122. maiden, (clear] maiden clear (1849–88; the closing bracket was removed inv l. 125).
123. Thro’] From (1849–88).
126. the Dome] Dian’s fane (1849–88); i.e. ‘temple’. ‘Dian’ (Diana) is the Latin name for Artemis.
127. a priestess] a captive priestess (1849–88).
130. the myrrhy lands: Arabia, or ‘the East’ generally, the source of myrrh; B.’s use is the first rec. in OED.
131. whirlblast: a Cumbrian dialect word for a whirlwind or hurricane, popularized by Wordsworth, after whom OED cites Coleridge and Shelley.
134. Spain were fitter: B. had not visited Spain.
145. slink: the implication of stealth is usually, but not always, pejorative.
152. great Caldara Polidore: Polidoro Caldara da Caravaggio (c. 1492–1543), a painter B. greatly admired (see Pauline 656–67n., p. 49).
152 ^153.]
Or Music means this land of ours
Some favour yet, to pity won
By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers,—
“Give me my so long promised son,
“Let Waring end what I begun!” (1849–88)
Henry Purcell (1659–95) was working on a setting of ‘From Rosy Bowers’ at his death.
153–82. In Sordello i, Sordello goes through a similar formative process in which the mastery of the imagination excuses him from any practical creative work.
157. he steals as when] he wanders as (1849–88).
159. were sappy] grew sappy (1849–88).
178. the world] your world (1849–88).
185–6. David Garrick (1717–79), the great actor and friend of Samuel Johnson, was especially celebrated in the role of Hamlet; l. 186 is an adaptation of Hamlet’s words to Guildenstern (III ii 389): ‘you would pluck out the heart of my mystery’. This comes from the same portion of the play as the allusion in l. 84 above. Cp. also Bishop Blougram 946–7 (p. 355), and note that Gigadibs in that poem ends by emigrating.
187. unclean beasts: alluding to the Old Testament prohibition of the eating of certain animals; here used metaphorically to mean corrupt politicians.
188. Junius: pseudonym (borrowed from the Roman satirist) of the famous 18th-century Whig pamphleteer who castigated corruption in government, and whose real identity is still at issue. Books relating to the controversy over his identity were in the library of B.’s father, who also wrote a short essay on the subject (Collections J 83, p. 533).
190–1. Thomas Chatterton (1752–70) passed off some of his own poetry as the work of a medieval priest called Rowley. B. defended him in Chatterton, written in the same period as Waring (see Appendix C, II 475).
192–203. Cp. Wordsworth’s two sonnets London, 1802 and Written in London, September, 1802, and Shelley’s Sonnet: England in 1819.
193–4. this old world, for want of strife / Sound asleep: cp. B. to Domett, 15 May 1843 (Correspondence vii 124): ‘What shall I tell you?—that we are dead asleep in literary things and in great want of a “rousing word” (as the old puritans phrase it) from New Zealand or any place out of this snoring dormitory’. This is clearly a case of the poem influencing the letter, but see also the letters of 22 May and 13 July 1842 quoted above, and next note.
199–200. like the games / Of children: cp. B. to Domett, 13 July 1842 (Correspondence vi 33): ‘our poems &c are poor child’s play’.
200–3. Turn our sport … the very best: Carlyle is indicated here. See headnote to Flight of the Duchess, II 297.
203. the] our (1849–88).
208. Triest: the modern spelling is Trieste; B. had visited this Adriatic port on his 1838 trip.
213. to larboard: to the port side.
214–15. And … At once: cp. Pope, Dunciad ii 63–4: ‘As when a dabchick waddles through the copse / On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops’.
214. sea-duck: the eider duck.
216. lateen sail: a triangular sail suspended by a long yard at an angle of 45 degrees to the mast; lateen-rigged boats such as feluccas were common in the Mediterranean.
222. planks] thwarts (1868–88); ‘thwarts’ are rowing-benches.
223. Lascar’s: Lascars were East Indian sailors.
227. look you ne’er so big: ‘no matter how important a pose you strike’.
231. ’long-shore: from ‘along shore’, i.e. employed or active on the shoreline; often derogatory, as here (OED cites Marryat, 1837: ‘half-bred, long-shore chap’).
240. and] then (1849–88).
247. rose] rosy (1863–88).
248. Of the] O’ the (1870–88).
249. sea-calf: the common seal.
254–5. Cp. Dryden, Ode to … Mrs Anne Killigrew (see headnote): ‘But look aloft, and if thou ken’st from far / Among the Pleiads a new-kindl’d star, / If any sparkles, than the rest, more bright, / ’Tis she that shines in that propitious light’; also Shelley, Adonais 494–5: ‘The soul of Adonais, like a star, / Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are’.