Book >G:A - ^ Cop}Tiglil y. IDOST COl'MJIC.IlT DKl-OSIT. SELECT POEMS ROBERT BROWNING By A. J. GEORGE Wordsworth's Complete Poetical Works With Introduction and Notes Wordsworth's Prelude " " Selections from Wordsworth .... " " Wordsworth's Prefaces and Essays on Poetry " <( Select Poems of Burns " a Select Poems of Browning " a Burke's American Orations " " Burke's Speech on Conciliation ... " (< Webster's Select Speeches " <( Webster's Bunker Hill Oration and Wash- ington's Farewell Address .... " (( Coleridge's Ancient Mariner .... " <( Select Poems of Coleridge " << Coleridge's Essays on Poetry. From the Biographia Literaria " (( Tennyson's Princess " (( Carlyle's Essay on Burns " <( Syllabus of English History and Literature " u From Chaucer to Arnold " (< Shorter Poems of Milton. (Complete) . " << Milton's Comus, Lycidas, Etc. (Pocket Classics) " <( Byron's Childe Harold " (< Emerson's Conduct of Life With Introduction Emerson's English Traits " (( Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance <( <( SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BROWNING Arranged hi Chronological Order, with Biographical and Literary Notes S BY Af J. GEORGE, A. M., Litt. D. EDITOR OF "poetical WORKS OF WORDSWORTH," "SHORTER POEMS OF MILTON," " SELECT POEMS OF BURNS," " FROM CHAUCER TO ARNOLD," ETC. " Since Chaucer was alive and hale, No man hath walk'd along our roads with steps So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue So varied in discourse." BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1905 ^'Wo Oopitss rfacwyoii OCT 1905 Copyright, igos. By a. J. George. AH Rights Reserved Published October, 1905 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. ^0 tl)e S^emor^ OF FRANCIS B. HORNBROOKE, D.D. SOMETIME PRESIDENT OF THE BOSTON BROWNING SOCIETY, A RIPE SCHOLAR AND RARE FRIEND, THIS VOLUME IN WHICH HE MANIFESTED A KINDLY INTEREST IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED PREFACE IT is now generally admitted by competent students of Browning that — as a portion of his verse is so far below what is characteristic of him as a poet and artist — such a selection from his representative work in each period of the evolution of his mind and art as will present his peculiar excellencies should be made accessible both to the student and general reader. In the present volume of selections — from "Pauline" to "Asolando" — an attempt has been made to reveal the principles which formed the mind and fashioned the art of this great teacher in his happiest moments and highest ideals. The poems are arranged in chrono- logical order ; and the notes are biographical and lit- erary, relating each poem to the events in the author's life out of which it grew, and to the characteristic forms of art in his own career and that of his great contemporaries, Wordsworth and Tennyson. This method of study has been tested for a long time by the editor in school and college classes, and with gen- eral readers, and has been found to be stimulating and rewarding. Professor Edward Dowden closes his in- teresting and suggestive study of the life and work of Browning with this sentence : " Time will make its discreet selection from his writings. And the portion which seems most likely to survive is that which pre- sents in true forms of art the permanent passions of humanity and characters of enduring interest." viii Preface On one occasion Browning uttered this prohibition against those who would pry into his private Ufa be- cause he happened to be a man of genius : " A peep through my window, if you prefer ; But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine." During his life all self-respecting people honored this wish of his, and since his death have desired to know only such facts as influenced the development of his mind and art. In the absence of such aids we have had much glowing rhetoric and shrill panegyric, — ' in themselves somewhat repelling to the student and general reader who desired to come into close personal relations with the personahty of the poet. His nearest relatives and friends have now removed the prohibition, and have invited those who are interested in literary history to cross the threshold and sit by his fireside, and even listen to the sacred story of how he loved one only and how that love enriched and ennobled his life. In the " Life and Letters of Robert Brown- ing," by Mrs. Sutherland Orr, " The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett," " Mrs. Browning's Letters," " Personalia," by Edmund Gosse, Mrs. Ar- thur Bronson's '* Browning in Venice " and " Browning, in Asolo," *' Story and his Friends," by Henry James, there have been given to us those elements of perspec- tive necessary to a right view of works of art such as he created. With Mrs. Orr's "Handbook to Robert Browning's Works," Dr. Berdoe's " The Browning En- cyclopedia," Mr. Stopford Brooke's "The Poetry of Robert Browning," and Professor Dowden's " Robert Browning," there is little reason why one should be disturbed by the spectre of Browning's obscurity. As Browning seldom recast his lines there is little reason for introducing textual notes, and as extended Preface ix glossarial and explanatory notes would be out of place in a volume of this kind, — the general reader does not care for them, and the special student should prepare his own, — I have limited myself to such notes as are biographical and critical. As the biographical notes present the main features of Browning's life, and the literary notes the leading characteristics of his art, I have devoted the Introduc- tion to a consideration of the genesis, progress, and nature of that disposition which we call optimism in the teaching of Browning, and his great contemporary, Wordsworth. It is impossible to ascertain the date of composition of many of Browning's poems, and therefore I have arranged them in the order of their first publication by the poet, and have placed the date of publication at the head of each poem. In every case the latest text has been given. The only poems not given entire are " Pauline," " Paracelsus," and " Pippa Passes." I am indebted to my friend Professor Edward Dowden of Trinity College, Dublin, for helpful sugges- tions in regard to the list of poems here included. I thank The Macmillan Company and the Boston Browning Society for permission to use parts of my paper now printed in the "Boston Browning Society Papers" in the Introduction to this volume. A. J. G. Brookline, Mass. Sept., 1905. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface . . Introduction FIRST PERIOD — 1841. 1833- From " Pauline : A Fragment of a Confession" A Reflection i Early Ideals i A Revelation 3 Imaginative Delight 4 A Crisis 4 Recovery S 1835- From " Paracelsus " Paracelsus Aspires <> 7 Aprile's Song 9 Aprile's Revelation 10 Song: " Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes " . . 12 Song: " Thus the Mayne glideth " 12 Paracelsus Attains 13 SECOND PERIOD— 1841-1868. 1 841. From " Pippa Passes: A Drama" New Year's Hymn 20 Song : "The year 's at the spring" 20 Song : " Give her but a least excuse to love me T' . 20 Song : " A king lived long ago " 21 Song : " Over-head the tree-tops meet " 22 The Day's Close at Asolo 23 xii Table of Contents 1842. DRAMATIC LYRICS pack Cavalier Tunes : I. Marching Along 25 II. Give a Rouse 26 III. Boot and Saddle 26 My Last Duchess 27 Incident of the French Camp 28 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 30 Waring 32 Cristina 39 The Pied Piper of Hamelin : A Child's Story ... 41 1845. DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS " How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" 49 Pictor Ignotus 51 The Lost Leader 53 Home Thoughts, from Abroad 54 Home Thoughts, from the Sea 55 The Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church 55 The Flower's Name 58 The Flight of the Duchess 61 Fame 84 The Boy and the Angel 84 The Glove 87 MEN AND WOMEN Love Among the Ruins 92 A Lovers' Quarrel 94 Evelyn Hope 99 Up at a Villa — Down in the City 100 Fra Lippo Lippi 105 ^r— A Toccata of Galuppi's 115 By the Fireside 118 Any Wife to Any Husband 125 An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experi- ence of Karshish, the Arab Physician 130 My Star 138 Instans Tyrannus 138 " Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came "... 141 Respectability 147 The Statue and the Bust 148 Table of Contents xili PAGE How it strikes a Contemporary 156 The Last Ride Together 159 The Patriot 162 Memorabilia 163 Andrea del Sarto (called "The Faultless Painter") 164 Old Pictures in Florence 171 Saul 179 "De Gustibus " . . 195 Holy-Cross Day 196 Cleon 201 Two in the Campagna 210 A Grammarian's Funeral 212 "Transcendentalism: A Poem in Twelve Books " . 216 Misconceptions 217 One Word More. To E. B. B 218 i»b4. DRAMATIS PERSONS James Lee's Wife 224 Dis Aliter Visum; or Le Byron de Nos Jours . . . 235 .— ~- Abt Vogler 240 Rabbi Ben Ezra 244 A Death in the Desert 251 Confessions 268 Prospice 269 A Face 270 Apparent Failure 271 Epilogue to Dramatis Personse 273 THIRD PERIOD — 1868-18S9. 1872. Prologue to Fifine at the Fair. (Amphibian) . . 276 1876. From " Pacchiarotto with Other Poems " Natural Magic 278 Magical Nature 279 Herve Riel 279 Epilogue to Pacchiarotto 284 1878. La Saisiaz 290 Epilogue to the Two Poets of Croisic 322 XIV Table of Contents 1879. DRAMATIC IDYLS , pagb Pheidippides 325 1880. DRAMATIC IDYLS — SECOND SERIES Muleykeh 331 Epilogue to Dramatic Idyls — Second Series . . . 335 1883. JOCOSERIA Wanting Is — What? 336 Never the Time and the Place 336 Epilogue to Ferishtah's Fancies 337 1889. ASOLANDO: FANCIES AND FACTS Prologue to Asolando 338 Poetics 340 Summum Bonum 340 A Pearl, a Girl 341 Speculative 341 Epilogue to Asolando 34^ Notes 345 References 409 Index to Poems 411 Index to First Lines 415 INTRODUCTION^ English literature of the nineteenth century derives its distinction from, if not its superiority over, that of any preceding century, from the fact that it has kept close to life — its passion, its pathos, its power. The movement it has told of life, Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife. It has revealed The thread which binds it all in one, And not its separate parts alone. We hear much in these days of the Spirit of the Age, and perhaps too little of the Spirit of the Ages. The spirit of any age, however enlightened it may be, is an unsafe guide if it does not embody the best of what the ages have found to be true. We are con- stantly elevating costume above character, the tran- sient above the abiding, phenomena above noumena, cleverness above style, method above spirit. Our attention in the classroom and the study is too often directed away from the great sources of power to the forms under which that power has revealed itself. The moral progress of the world is most impressive and instructive when viewed in the great moments of the inner life, — those moments awful when power streamed forth ; and the soul received the light reflected, as a light bestowed. These are the periods when earnest souls get glimpses of the eter- 1 Parts of this Introduction appeared in the editor's address on The Optimism of Wordsworth and Browning, before the Boston Browning Society, March 4, 1895, now printed in Bos- ton Browning Society Papers. xvi Introduction nal truths ; it is then that a height is reached in life from which are glimpses of a height that is higher. This is merely afhrming that, consciously or uncon- sciously, the race has lived and moved and had its being in one or the other of two great conceptions of human life : the ideal or the material ; or, in terms of philosophy, Idealism or Materialism. The various forms of Art are but the revelations of man's ascent of the heights and his vision there. The Vedic Hymns, the Hebrew Psalms, Greek Art in all its forms, are but the meeting-place of the finite and the infinite. Where there is no vision the people perish, is the revelation of history. As the man of rich and varied interests has been the man of the largest influence, — the most interest- ing character, — because of his sympathy with the life of our common humanity and his belief that it is at heart sound, so the literature which has reflected this godlike enthusiasm has been the literature of the greatest uplift in an age of marvellous material inter- ests, — an age which, in its worship of the actual, was in danger of losing the reaL The inspired singers and prophets of the century have sounded this note : In faultless rhythm the ocean rolls, A rapturous silence thrills the skies ; And on this earth are lovely souls That softly look with aidful eyes. Though dark, O God, thy course and track, We think Thou must at least have meant That nought which lives should wholly lack The things that are more excellent. Mr. Richard Holt Hutton has given us a study of four leaders, guides to thought in matters of faith, — Newman, Arnold, Carlyle, and George Eliot, — who influenced the age through the art of prose. They represent certain phases of movement toward the new world where humanity is regarded as a spiritual total- ity, living, moving, and having its being in the life of the Eternal. It is in the poetry of Wordsworth, Introduction xvii Tennyson, and Browning that we find most clearly reflected this great awakening. Much may be gained by a comparative study of the works of these great poets, especially of Wordsworth and Browning, by showing how one of the earliest of this gladsome choir, — the poet of serene and blessed moods, — whence came visions of — Something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, — clasps hands across the century with that later fellow- laborer — the poet of tasks — who, as he marched breast forward, cried. Strive and thrive ! Speed, — fight on, fare ever There as here ! It is indeed worth our while to study the mind and art of such teachers at a time when certain other aspirants for leadership come to us and say : " You can dismiss as a fond dream the doctrine of a Divine Father. You are of age, and do not need a Father." Or again : " We are realists, looking facts in the face, and see no evidence in the world that throughout the ages one unceasing purpose of wisdom and goodness runs." There is a story, told with a great deal of satisfac- tion by the dalesmen of the httle valley of Seathwaite in the English Lakes, of an old rector who in time of drought had been ordered by the bishop to offer prayers for rain. On the day appointed for that service he went out and made the usual observations as to sky and wind, and then went to his chapel and announced to his congregation that it was of no use for them to pray for rain so long as the wind was blowing over Hard-Nott. He did not think it wise to fly in the face of Providence as revealed in the laws of nature. We are not always so wise as was this Cumber- land dalesman, for we often invoke blessings from xviii Introduction the great creators of literature in defiance of the fact that the wind is blowing over Hard-Nott. We do not take the trouble to study the conditions of heredity and environment governing the nature of these men — we forget that the wind is blowing over Hard-Nott. There was a time when it was thought possible to fully understand a great author, or a great era in his- tory, by confining one's attention to that author or that era ; but methods of interpretation in literature and history have been revolutionized by the applica- tion of the great principle of Evolution. The greatest obstacle to progress in the new methods has been the disposition of a coterie or a clique to close its eyes to everything but the one object of veneration, be that object a person, a book, or a given period in the world's history. We have had during the last quarter of our century some striking illustrations of the new spirit, the most noteworthy being in the sphere of what is known as Higher Criticism. The Lowell Institute lectures of 1893, by a prominent college president and orthodox clergyman, furnished a beautiful example of the new spirit and the new method. The lecturer sought for the religious content in institutions and in literature which twenty-five years ago would have been consid- ered as totally irreligious. When the Wordsworth Society was instituted, Mr. Matthew Arnold took great pains to warn its members against the spirit of a clique. He said : " If we are to get Wordsworth recognised by the public, we must recommend him, not in the spirit of a clique but in the spirit of disinterested lovers of poetry. We must avoid the historical estimate, and the personal esti- mate, and we must seek the real estimate.''^ Mr. Stopford Brooke, not long after Browning's death, warned us against those "who deceive themselves into a belief that they enjoy poetry because they enjoy Browning, while they never open Milton and have only heard of Chaucer and Spenser." A third IntrodMction xix great teacher and interpreter of literature, Professor Dovvden, has sounded the same note of warning, and has pointed out the only method by which we can arrive at a real estimate. " Our prime object," says he, " should be to get into living relation with a man, with the good forces of nature and humanity that play in and through him. Ap- proach a great writer in the spirit of cheerful and trustful fraternity ; this is better than hero-worship. A great master is better pleased to find a brother than a worshipper or a serf." In keeping close to the great writers from Homer to Browning, we keep close to life, and if we thus become members of the one Catholic Apostolic Church of literature, it will matter little who may be the bishop of our particular diocese. A teacher of literature should present no literary creed to which he demands assent, nor hold a brief as for a client. He should try to reveal an attitude of mind which has been produced by reading and reflection, — an attitude which may be modified by further reading and reflection. His position should be neither that of a defendant nor that of a judge, but that of a guide. Now, the requisites for a good guide are : familiarity with the ground, and a willing- ness to keep himself in the background and allow us to do our own seeing. The greatest question to be asked in regard to a poetic teacher is : What was his attitude toward those problems, those limitless desires in which every human being shares? Did he inspire hope in the unseen order of things? The disposition which we call op- timism, as it reveals itself in literature and life, is dif- ficult of exact definition, and yet we must image the whole, then execute the parts. We need such a conception as will admit of the poetic and the philo- sophic essentials, — that will not be so poetic as to be vague nor so philosophic as to be abstruse, — and we find such in the affirmation of the essential spiritual nature of the universe. This enthroncb man XX Introduction upon the heights, for it regards him in his threefold nature — What Does, what Knows, what Is ; three souls, one man — as the goal of Creative Energy and the special object of God's love. Pessimism is the denial of any such spiritual ele- ment in the universe and the consequent dethrone- ment of man. " Once dethrone Humanity, regard it as a mere local incident in an endless and aimless series of cosmical changes, and you arrive at a doc- trine, which, under whatever specious name it may be veiled, is at bottom neither more nor less than Atheism." ^ There is a class of writers claiming to be teachers who, while accepting what they call the demonstra- tions of the understanding as to man's origin and destiny, yet attempt to save him from the inevitable abyss, — from being drown'd in the deeps of a mean- ingless past. Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing, I cannot ease the burden of your fears, Or make quick-coming death a little thing, Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears ! Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither, As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose. Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them ? What love was ever as deep as the grave ? They are loveless now as the grass above them. Or the wave. We may delight in these pretty theories while life moves serenely, but when the storm and stress come we then find we have need of such revelations as the world has tested. It is when we turn from such idle singers of an empty day to the great poets, that we are thrilled with the wild joys of living. With the optimism of Wordsworth and Browning we are all more or less familiar, but are we equally familiar with the causes and the nature of this per- 1 John Fiske, Destiny of Man. Introdtiction xxi sonal note in each, by which one became the bearer of " plenteous health, exceeding store of joy, and an impassioned quietude," and the other became the "Subtlest Assertor of the Soul in Song "? In any attempt to assign causes for the optimism of a great teacher the influences of hereditary predis- position and of environment must be given a place, but a place subordinate to that third somewhat, — which we can neither analyze nor define, but which we know as the essential self, — the individuality. In the case of Wordsworth, heredity and early en- vironment were no doubt of deep significance, and we fear that too often they have been used as a sufficient cause of his optimism. We wish to show that they were efficient, but not sufficient ; that in Wordsworth's work we have not only the profoundest thought, but well-ordered thought, in union with poetic sensibility unique and unmatchable ; that in the union of natural magic and moral profundity the great body of his work is making for " rest and peace, and shade for spirits fevered with the sun " in a time when " there is no shelter to grow ripe, no leisure to grow wise." Emerson gave a just estimate of the value of heredity and environment in the problem which Wordsworth was to work out, when he said : " It is very easy to see that to act so powerfully in this practical age — as this solitariest and wisest of poets did — he needed, with all his Oriental abstrac- tion, the indomitable vigor rooted in animal consti- tution for which his countrymen are marked." His school days were spent in the rural valley of Hawkshead, at the Edward VI. School. There he lived the simple life of the dalesmen until he was prepared for the work of the university. He was a lover of the woods, the hills and the lakes, and these localities are rich in associations with his boyish sports, of harrying the raven's nest, of setting springes for woodcock that run along the smooth green turf, and of boating on Esthwaite and Windermere. ' The first period, or seed-time of his soul may be called the xxii Introduction period of unconscious relation to Nature, and it is of innportance to bear in mind the fact that in it he was Uving the free, simple, spontaneous life of a boy among boys, with nothing to distinguish him from his mates. He was thus saved from becoming either a prig or a prodigy. Yes, I remember when the changeful earth And twice five summers on my mind had stamped The faces of the moving year, even then I held unconscious intercourse with beauty Old as creation, drinking in a pure Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths Of curling mist, or from the level plain Of waters coloured by impending clouds. But in due time came the period of conscious love of Nature, which is a step of profound significance ; here is the beginning of the philosophic mind : Those incidental charms which first attached My heart to rural objects, day by day Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell How Nature, intervenient till this time And secondary, now at length was sought For her own sake. It was in this period that the basis of his optimism was laid ; then it was that the essential spiritual na- ture of the universe was revealed to him. It is this note that characterizes all of his poems on Nature. It is his master vision — God in nature. He now sees into the life of things : I was only then Contented, when with bliss ineffable I felt the sentiment of Being spread O'er all that moves and all that seemeth still ; O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought And human knowledge, to the human eye Invisible, yet liveth to the heart ; O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings. Or beats the gladsome air ; o'er all that glides Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself. And mighty depth of waters. This was a note absolutely new in English poetry. It is the note which is sounded in every poem written Introductio7i xxiii before he rises into the sphere of the humanities and becomes the poet of man. I could illustrate it from thousands of his verses. It rises to its highest point of exultation in the Tintern Abbey : And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air. And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. The significance of this revelation as poetry has had its due recognition, but in the closing years of the century we are getting its significance as philosophy. Those who have followed the movements of modern thought have not failed to notice that the theist no longer gives much time to defending the outposts, when the central citadel is attacked ; this central citadel is the spiritual content of nature itself. Mr. John Fiske gave especial prominence to this conception in the preface to his Z/ifa a/ God. He said : " It is enough to remind the reader that Deity is unknowable, just in so far as it is not manifested to consciousness through the phenomenal world, — knowable, just in so far as it is thus manifested ; unknowable (in its entirety) in so far as it is infinite and absolute, — knowable in a symbolic way as the Power which is disclosed in every throb of the mighty rhythmic life of the Universe." Again, in Chapter I. : " As in the roaring loom of Time the endless web of events is woven, each strand shall make more and more clearly visible the living gar- ment of God." Both Wordsworth and Fiske have had the vague and uninstructive epithet of " Pantheist " hurled at them by those who feared the results of sus- tained and accurate thinking. " Christianity assumes an unseen world, and then urges that the life of Christ is the fittest way in which such a world could come xxiv Introduction into contact with the world we know. The essential spirituality of the universe, in short, is the basis of religion, and it is precisely this basis which is now assailed. ... It is on the ground of the cosmic law of interpenetrating worlds that I would claim for Wordsworth a commanding place among the teachers of this century." ^ Can there be any doubt as to the cause of Wordsworth's optimism or as to the signifi- cance of it in modern thought? Is it any wonder that he could sing of man, of nature, and of human life with hardly a note of despondency, and never one of despair? Wisdom and Spirit of the universe I Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought, That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain By day or star-light thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul ; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects, with enduring things — With life and nature — purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought. And sanctifying, by such discipline, Both pain and fear, until we recognise A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. The final step in his ascent is that by which he rises from the love of Nature to the love of man. It was a critical moment for him, migration strange for a stripling of the hills, when he was transferred from the calm delights and simple manners of Hawkshead to that world within a world — a great university. Cambridge could present nothing in kind to take the place of those sights and sounds subhme with which he had been conversant, but she offered him those treasures which had been created for her by the hand of man. Oft when the dazzling show no longer new Had ceased to dazzle, ofttimes did I quit My comrades, leave the crowd, buildings and groves, ^ F. W, Myers, Science and a Future Life. Introduction xxv And as I paced alone the level fields Far from those lovely sights and sounds sublime With which I had been conversant, the mind Drooped not; but there into herself returning, With prompt rebound, seemed fresh as heretofore. Here we have a still higher note of optimism. His mind drooped not, because he had as an everlasting possession the harvest of that first period of un- conscious intercourse with Nature. The riches which came to him in that period of health and happiness were the riches of — Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health — Truth, breathed by cheerfuhiess. We are inclined to think that this is- the most im- mediately helpful of all the poet's revelations. It is the fundamental note in the Character of the Happy Warrior. Who is the happy Warrior ? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be ? — It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought : Whose high endeavours are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright. It is this power to transmute sorrow, disappoint- ment, and defeat into means of strength that makes his poetry such a tonic to the weary and heavy-laden. When we rise to the heights, and can say in the face of disappointment, We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind, we have gained the secret of Wordsworth's optimism, and then — Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind I Such happiness, wherever it be known, Is to be pitied ; for 't is surely blind. XX vi Introduction But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be borne ! Such sights, or worse, as are before me here. — Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. *•' Wordsworth's optimism has no fear of sorrow or of evil. He can stand in the shadow of death and pain, ruin and failure, with sympathy that is almost painful in its quiet intensity ; the faith in the omnipotence ' of love and man's unconquerable mind ' is never destroyed or weakened in him. The contemplation of evil and pain always ends with him, by an inevi- table recoil, in an inspired expression of his faith in the good which transmutes and transfigures it, as the clouds are changed into manifestations of the sun- light they strive to hide."-"- In passing from the optimism of Wordsworth to that of Browning we cannot do better than maintain the disposition shown by the older to the younger poet that evening at the rooms of Talfourd, when, in the presence of Macready, Landor, Miss Mitford, and others, the host proposed " The Poets of Eng- land," and with a kindly grace having alluded to the company of great men honoring him with their presence, presented "Mr. Robert Browning, the author of Paracelsus^ Miss Mitford, in speaking of the pride which Browning must have felt at that moment, says : " He was prouder still when Words- worth leaned across the table and with stately affa- bility said, ' I am proud to drink your health, Mr. Browning.' " All Wordsworthians, all disinterested lovers of poetry, are proud to drink the health of Robert Browning. We have seen that Wordsworth's optimism did not result from any victory of the intellect over the per- plexities of a scientific age. The era of modern science had not begun when this poet did his great work, but yet he foresaw what was sure to come with such an age. He foresaw that men would " pore," 1 E. Caird, Literature and Philosophy. Introduction xxvii and was disturbed with the thought that they might " dwindle as they pored," and yet he had no fears that the most extensive researches of science would cut the nerve of poetry. He saw the dangers of the new age, and yet he could say : I exult. Casting reserve away, exult to see An intellectual mastery exercised O'er the blind elements. " The knowledge, both of the Poet and the Man of science," he says, " is pleasure ; but the knowledge of the one cleaves to us as a necessary part of our existence, our natural and inalienable inheritance ; the other is a personal and individual acquisition. The Man of science cherishes and loves truth in solitude ; the poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge ; it is the im- passioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science. ... If the time should ever come when what is now called Science shall be ready to put on, as it were, the form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man." ^ The student of Tennyson and Browning is witness- ing the fulfilment of this prophecy of the last year of the eighteenth century. Tennyson, in accepting Evolution, which was thought by some to be a step toward atheism, says : If my body come from brutes tho' somewhat finer than their own, I am heir, and this my kingdom. Shall the royal voice be mute? No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the throne, Hold the sceptre. Human Soul, and rule thy Province of the brute. ^ Prefaces and Essays on Poetry, A. J. George, ed. xxviii Introduction I have climbed to the snows of Age and I gaze at a field in the Past, Where I sank with the body, at times, in the sloughs of a low desire, But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is quiet at last As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height that is higher. Browning's early life was spent near the busy haunts of men, and it was natural therefore that the sub- jects of his work should be man rather than nature. Wordsworth came to the love of man through the love of nature ; with Browning the order is reversed, man is everywhere primary in his thought. The life and work of Browning, as with Words- worth, falls naturally into three periods. The first period, until 1841, is that of preparation, in Pauline, Faracehus, and Sordello, during which time he was gradually coming to a consciousness of his powers. Pauline and Paracels2is are as distinctly revelations of his inner life as is the Prelude of Wordsworth's. In the second period, 1841-1 868, from the publica- tion of the first number of Bells and Pojuegranates to the completion of The Ring and the Book, he attained a full consciousness of his mission as a poet, and a full command of thought and expression upon a greater variety of subjects than had been seen in any poet since Shakespeare ; and we have studies of typical souls in almost every condition in life and of almost every form of experience, revealed in verse forms of widest range and of unique originality. This work is rich in imagination, vital in passion, and moving in melody ; of highest perfection and uni- versal appeal to the tenderest in human feeling and noblest in human thought — verily, bells for delight and pomegranates for sustenance of man. In the third period, 1 868-1 889, to which he passed through The Ring and the Book, we have less of the emotional imagination of the poet, and more of the subtle thinking about origins of thought and feeling. The romantic element of his nature, the revolutionary spirit, and the transcendental ideals were for a time Introduction xxlx subservient to that passion for scientific research. As Professor Dowden says, '* he was condemned to write with his left hand ; " and yet the Browningite of the narrow, exclusive, and sectarian school has often de- manded loyalty to this work as a test of discipleship. Such blundering praise as this has done Browning more harm than all the blundering blame for obscurity and other faults. Master poems are infrequent, and yet at times the intellectual and imaginative ele- ments are so fused by the vital soul of passion that the result is a "recapture of the first fine careless rapture." Now let us review these changes more in detail to ascertain how it was that he retained to the last his vision and faculty divine, — his noble optimism. Browning, with his first plunge into the depths, said in Paracelsus, — • that poem of his youth where may be found those fundamental truths which filled his life with a radiant hope in an endless future : Truth is within ourselves : it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe : There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fulness ; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception — which is truth ; A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Blunts it and makes it error : and " to know" Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in affording entry for a light Supposed to be without. In Paracelsus we have united the two great prin- ciples which lie at the basis of all Browning's work ; one which has for its end knowledge ; the other which has for its end conduct. The first is Browning's philosophy ; the second, Browning's art. These cor- respond very well to the two great classes of literature as given by Matthew Arnold : scientific, ministering to our instinct for knowledge ; poetic, ministering to our instinct for conduct and beauty. Along these lines all life must move, and the poet who attempts XXX Introduction to lead here needs all the courage of the most resolute : Must keep ever at his side The tonic of a wholesome pride. For, ah ! so much he has to do : Be painter and musician too ! The aspect of the moment show, Tlie feeling of the moment know ! But, ah, then comes his sorest spell Of toil, — he must life's ?nove?ne?it tell ! Browning, more than any poet of modern times, has that intellectual fearlessness which is thoroughly Greek ; he looks unflinchingly upon all that meets him, and he apparently cares not for consequences. This impetuosity of mental action resulted in that duality which he seemed so careless about unifying, — philosophy and ethics. It is admitted by all that when Browning appeals to the head for the solution of the problem of evil, he works, not as an artist and poet, dealing with life as a whole, but as a philos- opher interested in certain problems suggested by the mind itself. His solution of the problem of evil can be stated in a few words. Starting with the great principle of evolution, that man is ever becoming, " made to grow, not stop," A thing nor God nor beast. Made to know that he can know and not more : Lower than God who knows all and can all. Higher than beasts which know and can so far As each beast's limit, he is bound to follow life through all its stages of pain and pleasure, victory and defeat, faith and doubt, and face the stern realities. How is he able to do this and not become a pessimist? He sees clearly all the struggle and misery ; he selects a Guido on the one hand, and a Saul on the other ; here a student " dead from the waist down," there a faith- ful teacher left to die in the desert, in order that he may be certain that he has seen life as it actually is. Nothing can save him from despair but the idea that hitroductio7i xxxi man is working out a moral ideal, in which God is omnipresent, and that the manifestation of God's presence in man is love : Be warned by me, Never you cheat yourself one instant ! Love, Give love, ask only love, and leave the rest ! Now this love is made perfect through suffering, man is a god though in the germ. This is percep- tion, not demonstration, and Browning has sought refuge in poetry, not philosophy ; but he will do better next time. Let us see what he does when asked to demonstrate the truth of this faith in the unity of God and man : Take the joys and bear the sorrows — neither with extreme concern ! Living here means nescience simply, 't is next life that helps to learn. Knowledge means Ever-renewed assurance by defeat, That victory is somehow still to reach. To each mortal peradventure earth becomes a new machine, Pain and pleasure no more tally in our sense than red and green. Each man has his own criterion — to question is absurd. Can it be that Browning is teaching a fatal agnosticism ? Wholly distrust thy knowledge, then, and trust As wholly love allied to ignorance ! There lies thy truth and safety. " In degrading human knowledge," says Professor Henry Jones, " the poet is disloyal to the fundamental principle of the Christian faith which he professed — that God can and does manifest himself in man." What shall we say to attaining even a moral life by such a sacrifice ? Shall we cast doubt upon the head in order to secure the heart? This seems, at least, to be an entire abandonment of the principle from which modern philosophy had its origin, Cogito ergo sum. We must confess, therefore, that Browning the xxxii Introduction philosopher fails us whenever he allows his subtle, analytic intellect to gain supremacy over his im- agination and passion. We find no optimism here ; we must turn to Browning the poet. We need not be disturbed in the least at the results reached in our study of Browning the phil- osopher. We all know that the most thorough and sympathetic criticism of Browning has insisted upon Browning the poet as the Browning who is to live. Modern philosophy takes no notice of Browning except to show that his philosophy — if philosophy it can be called — leads to agnosticism, and yet there are those who claim that Browning's final utter- ances are to be found in the argumentative poems, because they were, for the most part, his latest utter- ances. Mr. Stopford Brooke says : " I hold fast to one thing — that the best work of our poet, that by which he will always live, is not in his intellectual analysis, or in his preaching, or in his difficult think- ings, but in the simple, sensuous, and impassioned things he wrote out of the overflowing of his heart." Mr. William Sharp says : " It is as the poet he will live ; not merely as the ' novel thinker ' in verse ; logically, his attitude as thinker is unimpressive." "A philosophy of life," says Professor Jones, "which is based on agnosticism is an explicit self-contradiction, which can help no one. We must appeal from Brown- ing the philosopher to Browning the poet." " It was not much of a philosophy," says Mr. Saintsbury, " this which the poet half echoed from and half taught to the second half of the nineteenth century. But the poet is always saved by his poetry, and this is the case with Browning." Professor Dowden says : " His thought, so far as it is polemical, will probably cease to interest future readers." These men are not hostile to Browning ; they are his most sympa- thetic interpreters : but they appeal from the Aristo- telianism of Browning to his Platonism, and here too much cannot be said ; here his optimism is no trailing cloud, but a bright consummate star, shining 1 Introd-uction xxxiii clear and steady in the heavens from which so many have paled their ineffectual fire. Sound criticism reveals the failures as well as the successes in a poet's work ; but it never mistakes failures for suc- cesses. It has done its very necessary work for Wordsworth and Tennyson, and it is doing it for Browning. Our appreciation of their art is all the more vital and wholesome because we know the causes and the nature of their sometime failures. The age in which Browning lived was an age of introspection, and it is not surprising that at times he should think it necessary to assume the function of philosopher and attempt to solve the problem of evil. The only poem in this volume of Selections where he makes the essay of solving questions by the intellect which lie in quite other spheres is \x\. La Saisiaz ; and here we find the fundamental error which disfigures so many of his argumentative poems, — casting doubt upon the intellect in order to save the truths of the heart ; but he is more cautious here than elsewhere, for he speaks only for himself. The result of such a process is intellectual pessimism, absolute skepticism. If it be true that Living here means nescience simply, then why attempt to consi ruct any theory of good and evil, or of immortality? How can man be a moral agent upon such a doctrine of nescience or agnosti- cism ? It would put an end both to philosophy and poetry. Browning the philosopher in La Saisiaz fails us ; but fortunately the work is saved for poetry by the revelations of the heart, rising in revolution against the conclusions of the intellect and insisting upon the claims of love, which is the activity of his spirit as intelligence. Browning nowhere doubts when the heart rises up and utters, "I have felt." Out of this comes his great theory that the moral quality of the act is determined quite regardless of the power to execute; for 'T is not what man Does that exalts him, But what man Would do. xxxiv Introduction Upon this conception of the moral consciousness of man he is able to rise from the pessimism into which the intellect alone had led him, and with his pulses beating anew he is restored to a noble optimism. In love success is sure, Attainment no delusion, whate'er the prize may be. Browning the poet quietly ignores the logical con- sequences of the theories held by Browning the philosopher, and gives us, not what is contrary to philosophy in general, but what is contrary only to his own poor argument ; he gives us the very thing which poetry is bound to give, — " such a living faith in God's relation to man as leaves no place for that helpless resentment against the appointed order so apt to rise within us at the sight of undeserved pain. This faith is manifested in the highest form in Chris- tian Theism." ^ Browning's optimism as poet and man is the result of Browning's Christian Theism. We have alluded to the fact that Browning as a poet dared to do what Wordsworth predicted the poet of the age of science could do. He has dared to follow side by side with the scientist, and use the material of the scientist for the ends of poetry. This work is distinctly different from that which Browning the philosopher does. This is nowhere more clearly revealed to us than in Brownhig as a Philosophi- cal and Religious Teacher, by Professor Jones. The author nowhere claims for Browning a place among the great philosophers ; but he rightly claims for him a place among the prophets. Browning as a prophet moves in a sphere forever undisturbed by the revelations of the scientist, simply because it is the sphere of poetry, the sphere of man's loves, man's hopes, man's aspirations. As Wordsworth did more for mankind by his Ode to Duty and his Ode on Intimations of Itfimortality than by his Ecclesiasti- cal Sonnets, as Tennyson sounded a higher note in 1 A. J. Balfour, Foundations of Belief. Introduction xxxv his In Memoriam than in his Two Voices and the Supposed Confessions of a Second-rate Sensitive Mind, so Browning contributed more to the spiritual movement of the age by his Saul, Apparent Fail- ure, Prospice, Abt Vogler, etc., than by all his argumentative verse. These are indeed veritable fountain-heads of spiritual power. " High art," says Mr, F, W. Myers, " is based upon unprovable intui- tions, and of all the arts it is poetry whose intuitions take the brightest glow, and best illumine the mystery without us from the mystery within." This was the secret of Browning's work as an optimist, — he il- lumines the mystery without by the mystery within : Not on the vulgar mass Called " work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price ; O'er which, from level stand. The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice. This is the note sounding everywhere in Browning's highest poetry, the note which it is the purpose of this volume of Selections to reveal. It is an appeal to the God-consciousness in every man — " what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose." But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, All I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God. It is no easy-going moral creed that we find in — Progress is the law of life, man is not Man as yet. A principle of restlessness, Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all. Oh, if we draw a circle premature. Heedless of far gain, Greedy for quick returns of profit, Sure Bad is our bargain ! xxxvi Introduction We see, therefore, that the optimism of Browning is the optimism of Christianity in its simplicity and directness : Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature ? In both of such lower types are we Precisely because of our wider nature ; For time, theirs ; — ours, for eternity. To-day's brief passion limits their range ; It seethes with the morrow for us and more. They are perfect — how else ? they shall never change : We are faulty — why not? we have time in store. Browning's joyous, fearless activity in studying life ; the noble aspirations of his intellect and the mighty passions of his heart ; his steady certainty that God and man are one in kind, and are working together in the universe ; his feeling that even hu- man experience has its place in fashioning man for his place in the divine order, and that it is by certain types of experience, called by many failures, that man marks his ascent on the road to success, — make him one of the world's great teachers. Thus at the close of his Hfe, having been wearied out with contrarieties in his intellectual quest, he returns to his first great ideal in Paracelsus : " God ! Thou art Love ! I build my faith on that ! " and reenforces it with all the wealth of his rich ex- perience of years by asserting that man, too, has the nature of God, has the principle of divinity, which is the culmination of the creative process called evolution. This is Browning's supreme reve- lation. It is this which gives the element of unity to his great poetry, and this element is none other than his own noble and unique personality revealing the sanity of true genius. So the message of Browning thus makes common cause with that of Wordsworth and Tennyson, al- though these poets did not attain by casting doubt upon the understanding ; they merely recognized that there was a lower and a higher. Wordsworth's highest note is — Introductio7t xxxvii We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love ; And even as these are well and wisely fix'd. In dignity of being we ascend. While that of Tennyson is — To feel, altho' no tongue can prove. That every cloud that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love. And Browning sings — My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That after Last, returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched ; That what began best, can't end worst. Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. We can see no better ground for optimism than that of these poets who have given us veritable aids to faith. These surpassing spirits, in their serene faith in God and immortality, in their yearning for expan- sion of the subtle thing called Spirit, and their belief in an endless future, Never turn their backs, but march breast forward, , Never doubt clouds will break. Never dream, though right be worsted, wrong will triumph ; Hold we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. Sleep to wake. APPRECIATIONS Browning never thinks but at full speed ; and the rate of his thought is to that of another man's as the speed of a railway to that of a wagon, or the speed of a telegraph to that of a railway. It is hopeless to enjoy the charm or to apprehend the gist of his writings except with a mind thoroughly alert, an attention awake on all points, a spirit open and ready to be kindled by the contact of the writers. A. C. Swinburne. Browning has the sort of insight whose pecuhar characteristic it is to recognize everywhere, not only forms and facts, but their mutual connections and methods of action. This philosophical power which he possesses of seizing subtle and exact relations is met with in more than one thinker, it is true ; but he is one of the first, if not the first, in whom it has reached such develop- ment without becoming the dominant faculty which sub- ordinates all the others. J. Milsand. It is because I regard Browning as not merely a poet but a prophet, that I think I am entitled to seek in him, as in Isaiah or vEschylus, a solution, or a help to the solution, of the problems that press upon us when we reflect upon man, his place in the world, and his destiny. He has given us indirectly, and as a poet gives, a philosophy of life ; he has interpreted the world anew in the light of a dominant idea : and it will be no little gain if we can make clear to ourselves those constitutive principles on which his view of the world rests. Henry Jones. Browning perhaps painted himself, consciously or un- consciously, in the poet of his How it strikes a Con- temporary^ — the man who has no airs, no picturesque Appreciations xxxix costume, nothing of the melodramatic, but who notes everything about him, remembers everything, and can, if needed, tell the tale. This is precisely what Walter Savage Landor had foreshadowed, fifty years before, in comparing him to Chaucer. T. W. HiGGINSON, When Browning's enormous influence upon the spiritual and mental life of our day — an influence ever shaping itself to wise and beautiful issues — shall have lost much of its immediate import, there will still surely be discerned in his work a formative energy whose re- sultant is pure poetic gain. It is as the poet he will Hve : not merely as the "novel thinker inverse." Logically, his attitude as thinker is unimpressive. William Sharp. The obscure author of the undoubtedly obscure Sordello, who came from nobody knew where, and wrote a poem about nobody knew what ; who was vouched for by none of the great schools and universities, of which Englishmen are wont to make much ; who quoted no critic and sought no man's society ; slowly, very slowly, won his audience, made his way, earned his fame without puffs preliminary in the newspapers, or any other of the now well-worn expedients of attracting attention to that lamentable object one's self. Augustine Birrell. The attentive reader of Browning's poetry must soon discover how remarkably homogeneous it is in spirit. There are many authors, and great authors too, the read- ing of whose collected works gives the impression of their having "tried their hand" at many things. No such impression is derivable from the voluminous poetry of Browning. Wide as is its range, one great and homo- geneous spirit pervades and animates it all, from the earliest to the latest. No other living poet gives so decided an assurance of having a burden to deliver. Hiram Corson. The determination never to sacrifice sense to sound is the secret of whatever repels us in Mr. Browning's verse, and also of whatever attracts. Wherever in it xl Appreciations sense keeps company with sound, we have a music far deeper than can arise from mere sound, or even from a flow of real lyric emotion, which has its only counterpart in sound. It is in the idea, and of it. It is the brain picture beating itself into words. Mrs. Sutherland Orr. Scarcely any special bias can be found running through Browning's work ; on the contrary an incessant change of subject and manner, combined with a strong but not overweening individuality, raced, like blood through the body, through every vein of his labour. Creative and therefore joyful, receptive and therefore thoughtful, at one with humanity and therefore loving; aspiring to God and believing in God, and therefore steeped to the tips in radiant Hope ; at one with the past, passionate with the present, and possessing by faith an endless and glorious future — this was a life lived on the top of the wave, and moving with its motion from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age. Stopford a. Brooke. Browning's chief influence, other than what is purely artistic, upon a reader is towards establishing a connec- tion between the known order of things in which we live and move and that larger order of which it is a part. He plays upon the will, summoning it from lethargy to ac- tivity. He spiritualizes the passions by showing that they tend through what is human towards what is divine. He assigns to the intellect a sufficient field for exercise, but attaches more value to its efforts than its attainments. His faith in an unseen order of things creates a hope which persists through the apparent failures of earth. In a true sense he may be named the successor of Words- worth, not indeed as an artist but as a teacher. Edward Dowden. Select Poems of Browning PAULINE (1833) A REFLECTION 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, 10 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. f EARLY IDEALS 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 o 2 Pauline 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? 20 Sun-treader, hfe and light be thine forever I 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. 30 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, 40 Scarce deeming thou wast as a star to men ! As one should worship long a sacred spring Scarce worth a moth's flitting, 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 50 And towers, and seeing old woods which will live Pauline 3 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 ! 60 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 loneHness 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. 70 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. A REVELATION I am made up of an intensest life, Of a most clear idea of consciousness Of self, distinct from all its qualities, From all affections, passions, feelings, powers ; And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all : But linked, in me, to self-supremacy. Existing as a centre to all things, Most potent to create and rule and call Upon all things to minister to it ; And to a principle of restlessness 10 Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all — This is myself ; and I should thus have been Though gifted lower than the meanest soul. 4 Pauline And of my powers, one springs up to save From utter death a soul with such desire Confined to clay — of powers the only one Which marks me — an imagination which Has been a very angel, coming not In fitful visions, but beside me ever And never failing me. 20 IMAGINATIVE DELIGHT They came to me in my first dawn of life Which passed alone with wisest ancient books All halo-girt with fancies of my own ; And I myself went with the tale — a god Wandering after beauty, or a giant Standing vast in the sunset — an old hunter Talking with gods, or a high-crested chief Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos. I tell you, naught has ever been so clear As the place, the time, the fashion of those lives : 10 I had not seen a work of lofty art, Nor woman's beauty nor sweet nature's face, Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea, The deep groves and white temples and wet caves : And nothing ever will surprise me now — Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed, Who bound my forehead with Proserpine's hair. A CRISIS Oh, let me look back ere I leave forever The time which was an hour one fondly waits For a fair girl that comes a withered hag ! And I was lonely, far from woods and fields, And amid dullest sights, who should be loose As a stag ; yet I was full of bHss, who lived With Plato and who had the key to hfe ; And I had dimly shaped my first attempt, And many a thought did I build up on thought, As the wild bee hangs cell to cell ; in vain, 10 For I must still advance, no rest for mind. Pauline 'T was in my plan to look on real life, The life all new to me ; my theories Were firm, so them I left, to look and learn Mankind, its cares, hopes, fears, its woes and joys; And, as I pondered on their ways, I sought How best life's end might be attained — an end Comprising every joy. I deeply mused. And suddenly without heart-wreck I awoke As from a dream : I said, " 'T was beautiful, Yet but a dream, and so adieu to it ! " RECOVERY But whate'er come of it, and though it fade. And though ere the cold morning all be gone, As it may be ; — though music wait to wile. And strange eyes and bright wine lure, laugh like sin Which steals back softly on a soul half saved. And I the first deny, decry, despise, With this avowal, these intents so fair, — Still be it all my own, this moment's pride ! No less I make an end in perfect joy. E'en in my brightest time, a lurking fear lo Possessed me : I well knew my weak resolves, I felt the witchery that makes mind sleep Over its treasure, as one half afraid To make his riches definite : but now These feelings shall not utterly be lost, I shall not know again that nameless care Lest, leaving all undone in youth, some new And undreamed end reveal itself too late : For this song shall remain to tell forever That when I lost all hope of such a change, 2c Suddenly beauty rose on me again. No less I make an end in perfect joy. For I, who thus again was visited. Shall doubt not many another bliss awaits, And, though this weak soul sink and darkness whelm, Some little word shall light it, raise aloft. To where I clearlier see and better love, As I again go o'er the tracts of thought 6 Pauline Like one who has a right, and I shall live With poets, calmer, purer still each time, 30 And beauteous shapes will come for me to seize, And unknown secrets will be trusted me Which were denied the waverer once ; but now I shall be priest and prophet as of old. Sun-treader, I believe in God and truth And love ; and as one just escaped from death Would bind himself in bands of friends to feel He hves indeed, so, I would lean on thee ! Thou must be ever with me, most in gloom If such must come, but chiefly when I die, 40 For I seem, dying, as one going in the dark To fight a giant : but live thou forever, And be to all what thou hast been to me ! All in whom this wakes pleasant thoughts of me Know my last state is happy, free from doubt Or touch of fear. Love me and wish me well. Robert Browning. 1835- Paracelsus PARACELSUS (1835) PARACELSUS ASPIRES See, the great moon ! and ere the mottled owls Were wide awake, I was to go. It seems You acquiesce at last in all save this — If I am like to compass what I seek By the untried career I choose ; and then, If that career, making but small account Of much of life's delight, will yet retain Sufficient to sustain my soul : for thus I understand these fond fears just expressed. And first ; the lore you praise and I neglect, 10 The labors and the precepts of old time, I have not lightly disesteemed. But, friends, Truth is within ourselves ; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fulness ; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in. This perfect, clear perception — which is truth. A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error : and, to know, 20 Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly The demonstration of a truth, its birth. And you trace back the effluence to its spring And source within us ; where broods radiance vast, To be elicited ray by ray, as chance Shall favor : chance — for hitherto, your sage Even as he knows not how those beams are born, 30 As little knows he what unlocks their fount : And men have oft grown old among their books To die case-hardened in their ignorance. 8 Paracelsus Whose careless youth had promised what long years Of unremitted labor ne'er performed : While, contrary, it has chanced some idle day, To autumn loiterers just as fancy-free As the midges in the sun, gives birth at last To truth — produced mysteriously as cape Of cloud grown out of the invisible air. 40 Hence, may not truth be lodged alike in all, The lowest as the highest? some slight film The interposing bar which binds a soul And makes the idiot, just as makes the sage Some film removed, the happy outlet whence Truth issues proudly? See this soul of ours ! How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled By age and waste, set free at last by death : Why is it, flesh enthralls it or enthrones? 50 What is this flesh we have to penetrate ? Oh, not alone when hfe flows still, do truth And power emerge, but also when strange chance Ruffles its current ; in unused conjuncture, When sickness breaks the body — hunger, watching, Excess or languor — oftenest death's approach, Peril, deep joy or woe. One man shall crawl Through life surrounded with all stirring things, Unmoved ; and he goes mad : and from the wreck Of what he was, by his wild talk alone, 60 You first collect how great a spirit he hid. Therefore, set free the soul alike in all, Discovering the true laws by which the flesh Accloys the spirit ! We may not be doomed To cope with seraphs, but at least the rest Shall cope with us. Make no more giants, God, But elevate the race at once ! We ask To put forth just our strength, our human strength, All starting fairly, all equipped alike. Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted — 70 See if we cannot beat thine angels yet ! Such is my task. I go to gather this The sacred knowledge, here and there dispersed About the world, long lost or never found. Paracelsus APRILE'S SONG {Paracelsus hears a voice from within.') I hear a voice, perchance I heard Long ago, but all too low, So that scarce a care it stirred If the voice were real or no : I heard it in my youth when first The waters of my life outburst : But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear That voice, still low, but fatal-clear — As if all poets, God ever meant Should save the world, and therefore lent lo Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused To do his work, or lightly used Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavor, So, mourn, cast off by him forever, — As if these leaned in airy ring To take me ; this the song they sing. " Lost, lost ! yet come, With our wan troop make thy home. Come, come ! for we Will not breathe, so much as breathe 20 Reproach to thee, Knowing what thou sink'st beneath. So sank we in those old years. We who bid thee, come ! thou last Who, living yet, hast life o'erpast. And altogether we, thy peers. Will pardon crave for thee, the last Whose trial is done, whose lot is cast With those who watch but work no more, Who gaze on life but live no more. 30 Yet we trusted thou shouldst speak The message which our hps, too weak, Refused to utter, — shouldst redeem Our fault : such trust, and all a dream ! Yet we chose thee a birthplace. Where the richness ran to flowers : Couldst not sing one song for grace ? lO Paracelsus Not make one blossom man's and ours ? Must one more recreant to his race Die with unexerted powers, 40 And join us, leaving as he found The world, he was to loosen, bound? Anguish ! ever and forever ; Still beginning, ending never! Yet, lost and last one, come ! How couldst understand, alas. What our pale ghosts strove to say, As their shades did glance and pass Before thee night and day? Thou wast blind as we were dumb : 50 Once more, therefore, come, O come ! How should we clothe, how arm the spirit Shall next thy post of life inherit — How guard him from thy speedy ruin? Tell us of thy sad undoing Here, where we sit, ever pursuing Our weary task, ever renewing Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave Our powers, and man they could not save ! " APRILE'S REVELATION Apr. I would love infinitely, and be loved. First : I would carve in stone, or cast in brass. The forms of earth. No ancient hunter lifted Up to the gods by his renown, no nymph Supposed the sweet soul of a woodland tree Or sapphirine spirit of a twilight star, Should be too hard for me ; no shepherd-king Regal for his white locks ; no youth who stands Silent and very calm amid the throng. His right hand ever hid beneath his robe 10 Until the tyrant pass ; no lawgiver, No swan-soft woman rubbed with lucid oils Given by a god for love of her — too hard ! Every passion sprung from man, conceived by man, Would I express and clothe it in its right form, Or blend with others struggling in one form. Or show repressed by an ungainly form. Paracelsus 1 1 Oh, if you marvelled at some mighty spirit With a fit frame to execute its will — Even unconsciously to work its will — 20 You should be moved no less beside some strong Rare spirit, fettered to a stubborn body. Endeavoring to subdue it and inform it With its own splendor ! All this I would do : And I would say, this done, " His sprites created, God grants to each a sphere to be its world, Appointed with the various objects needed To satisfy its own peculiar want ; So, I create a world for these my shapes Fit to sustain their beauty and their strength ! " 30 And, at the word, I would contrive and paint Woods, valleys, rocks and plains, dells, sands and wastes, Lakes which, when morn breaks on their quivering bed. Blaze like a wyvern flying round the sun. And ocean isles so small, the dog-fish tracking A dead whale, who should find them, would swim thrice Around them, and fare onward — all to hold The offspring of my brain. Nor these alone : Bronze labyrinth, palace, pyramid and crypt, Baths, galleries, courts, temples and terraces, 40 Marts, theatres, and wharfs — all filled with men, Men everywhere ! And this performed in turn, When those who looked on, pined to hear the hopes And fears and hates and loves which moved the crowd, I would throw down the pencil as the chisel, And I would speak ; no thought which ever stirred A human breast should be untold ; all passions. All soft emotions, from the turbulent stir Within a heart fed with desires like mine, To the last comfort shutting the tired lids 50 Of him who sleeps the sultry noon away Beneath the tent-tree by the wayside well : And this in language as the need should be, Now poured at once forth in a burning flow. Now piled up in a grand array of words. 1 2 Paracelsus This done, to perfect and consummate all, Even as a luminous haze links star to star, I would supply all chasms with music, breathing Mysterious motions of the soul, no way To be defined save in strange melodies. 60 Last, having thus revealed all I could love, Having received all love bestowed on it, I would die : preserving so throughout my course God full on me, as I was full on men : He would approve my prayer, " I have gone through The loveliness of life ; create for me If not for men, or take me to thyself, Eternal, infinite love ! " SONG Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair : such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals. From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main. To treasure half their island-gain And strew faint sweetness from some old Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud Which breaks to dust when once unrolled ; Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed. With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among, As when a queen, long dead, was young. SONG Thus the Mayne glideth Where my Love abideth. Sleep 's no softer : it proceeds On through lawns, on through meads, On and on, whate'er befall, Paracelsus 1 3 Meandering and musical, Though the niggard pasturage Bears not on it shaven ledge Aught but weeds and waving grasses To view the river as it passes, Save here and there a scanty patch Of primroses too faint to catch A weary bee. And scarce it pushes Its gentle way through strangling rushes Where the glossy kingfisher Flutters when noon-heats are near, Glad the shelving banks to shun, Red and steaming in the sun, Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat Burrows, and the speckled stoat ; Where the quick sandpipers flit In and out the marl and grit That seems to breed them, brown as they ; Naught disturbs its quiet way. Save some lazy stork that springs, Trailing it with legs and wings, Whom the shy fox from the hill Rouses, creep he ne'er so still. PARACELSUS ATTAINS Par. Yes, it was in me ; I was born for it — I, Paracelsus : it was mine by right. Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul Might learn from its own motions that some task Like this awaited it about the world ; Might seek somewhere in this blank life of ours For fit delights to stay its longings vast ; And, grappling Nature, so prevail on her To fill the creature full she dared thus frame Hungry for joy ; and, bravely tyrannous, Grow in demand, still craving more and more, And make each joy conceded prove a pledge Of other joy to follow — bating naught Of its desires, still seizing fresh pretence 1 4 Paracelsus To turn the knowledge and the rapture wrung As an extreme, last boon, from destiny, Into occasion for new covetings, New strifes, new triumphs : doubtless a strong soul, Alone, unaided might attain to this, So glorious is our nature, so august 20 Man's inborn, uninstructed impulses, His naked spirit so majestical ! But this was born in me ; I was made so ; Thus much time saved : the feverish appetites, The tumult of unproved desire, the unaimed. Uncertain yearnings, aspirations blind, Distrust, mistake, and all that ends in tears Were saved me ; thus I entered on my course. You may be sure I was not all exempt From human trouble ; just so much of doubt 30 As bade me plant a surer foot upon The sun-road, kept my eye unruined 'mid The fierce and flashing splendor, set my heart Trembling so much as warned me I stood there On sufferance — not to idly gaze, but cast Light on a darkling race ; save for that doubt, I stood at first where all aspire at last To stand : the secret of the world was mine. I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed, Uncomprehended by our narrow thought, 40 But somehow felt and known in every shift And change in the spirit, — nay, in every pore Of the body, even,) — what God is, what we are, What life is — how God tastes an infinite joy In infinite ways — one everlasting bliss, From whom all being emanates, all power Proceeds ; in whom is life for evermore, Yet whom existence in its lowest form Includes; where dwells enjoyment there is He! With still a flying point of bliss remote, 50 A happiness in store afar, a sphere Of distant glory in full view ; thus climbs Pleasure its heights forever and forever. The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth, And the earth changes like a human face ; The molten ore bursts up among the rocks, Paracelsus 1 5 Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds, Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask — God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged 60 With foam, white as the bitten hp of hate, When, in the soHtary waste, strange groups Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like, Staring together with their eyes on flame — God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride. Then all is still ; earth is a wintry clod : But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost, 70 Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face ; The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms Like chrysalids impatient for the air, The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run Along the furrows, ants make their ado ; Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark Soars up and up, shivering for very joy ; Afar the ocean sleeps ; white fishing-gulls Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe Of nested limpets ; savage creatures seek 80 Their loves in wood and plain — and God renews His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all, From life's minute beginnings, up at last To man — the consummation of this scheme Of being, the completion of this sphere Of life : whose attributes had here and there Been scattered o'er the visible world before, Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant To be united in some wondrous whole, Liiperfect qualities throughout creation, go Suggesting some one creature yet to make. Some point where all those scattered rays should meet Convergent in the faculties of man. Power — neither put forth blindly, nor controlled Calmly by perfect knowledge ; to be used At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear : Knowledge — not intuition, but the slow, 1 6 Paracelsus Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil, Strengthened by love : love — not serenely pure, But strong from weakness, like a chance-sown plant loo Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed buds And softer stains, unknown in happier climes ; Love which endures and doubts and is oppressed And cherished, suffering much and much sustained, And blind, oft-failing, yet beheving love, A half-enlightened, often-checkered trust : — Hints and previsions of which faculties Are strewn confusedly everywhere about The inferior natures, and all lead up higher, All shape out dimly the superior race, no The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false. And man appears at last. So far the seal Is put on life ; one stage of being complete, One scheme wound up : and from the grand result A supplementary reflux of light Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains Each back step in the circle. Not alone For their possessor dawn those qualities, But the new glory mixes with the heaven And earth ; man, once descried, imprints forever 120 His presence on all lifeless things : the winds Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout, A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh, Never a senseless gust now man is born. The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts, A secret they assemble to discuss When the sun drops behind their trunks, which glare Like grates of hell : the peerless cup afloat Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph Swims bearing high above her head : no bird 130 Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above That let light in upon the gloomy woods, A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top. Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye. The morn has enterprise, deep quiet droops With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour. Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn Paracelsus 1 7 Beneath a warm moon like a happy face : — And this to fill us with regard for man, With apprehension of his passing worth, 140 Desire to work his proper nature out, And ascertain his rank and final place, For these things tend still upward, progress is The law of life, man is not Man as yet. Nor shall I deem his object served, his end Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth, While only here and there a star dispels The darkness, here and there a towering mind O'erlooks its prostrate fellows : when the host Is out at once to the despair of night, 150 When all mankind alike is perfected, Equal in full-blown powers — then, not till then, I say, begins man's general infancy. For wherefore make account of feverish starts Of restless members of a dormant whole. Impatient nerves which quiver while the body Slumbers as in a grave? Oh, long ago The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir, The peaceful mouth disturbed ; half uttered speech Ruffled the hp, and then the teeth were set, 160 The breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand clenched stronger, As it would pluck a lion by the jaw ; The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep ! But when full roused, each giant-Hmb awake. Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast, He shall start up and stand on his own earth, Then shall his long triumphant march begin . . . The power I sought for man, seemed God's. In this conjuncture, as I prayed to die, A strange adventure made me know, one sin 170 Had spotted my career from its uprise ; I saw Aprile — my Aprile there ! And as the poor melodious wretch disburdened His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear, I learned my own deep error ; love's undoing Taught me the worth of love in man's estate, And what proportion love should hold with power In his right constitution ; love preceding 1 8 Paracelsus Power, and with much power, always much more love ; Love still too straightened in his present means, i8o And earnest for new power to set love free. I learned this, and supposed the whole was learned : And thus, when men received with stupid wonder My first revealings, would have worshipped me, And I despised and loathed their proffered praise — ■ When, with awakened eyes, they took revenge For past credulity in casting shame On my real knowledge, and I hated them — It was not strange I saw no good in man, To overbalance all the wear and waste 190 Of faculties, displayed in vain, but born To prosper in some better sphere : and why ? In my own heart love had not been made wise To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, To know even hate is but a mask of love's, To see a good in evil, and a hope In ill success ; to sympathize, be proud Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies, Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts ; 200 All with a touch of nobleness, despite Their error, upward tending all, though weak, Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, But dream of him, and guess where he may be, And do their best to climb and get to him. All this I knew not, and I failed. Let men Regard me, and the poet dead long ago Who loved too rashly ; and shape forth a third And better-tempered spirit, warned by both : As from the over-radiant star too mad 210 To drink the life-springs, beamless thence itself — And the dark orb which borders the abyss. Ingulfed in icy night, — might have its course, A temperate and equidistant world. Meanwhile, I have done well, though not all well. As yet men cannot do without contempt ; 'T is for their good, and therefore fit awhile That they reject the weak, and scorn the false. Rather than praise the strong and true, in me : Paracelsus 19 But after, they will know me. If I stoop 220 Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time ; I press God's lamp Close to my breast ; its splendor, soon or late, Will pierce the gloom : I shall emerge one day. You understand me? I have said enough 1 Festiis. Now die, dear Aureole ! Paracelsus. Festus, let my hand — This hand, lie in your own, my own true friend ! Aprile ! Hand in hand with you, Aprile 1 Festus. And this was Paracelsus ! 20 Pippa Passes PIPPA PASSES (1841) NEW YEAR'S HYMN All service ranks the same with God : If now, as formerly he trod Paradise, his presence fills Our earth, each only as God wills Can work — God's puppets, best and worst, 'Are we ; there is no last nor first. Say not " a small event ! " Why " small " ? Costs it more pain that this, ye call A "great event," should come to pass, Than that? Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in or exceed ! SONG The year 's at the spring, And day 's at the morn ; Morning 's at seven ; The hillside 's dew-pearled The lark 's on the wing ; The snail 's on the thorn : God 's in his heaven — All 's right with the world ! SONG Give her but a least excuse to love me ! When — where — How — can this arm establish her above me, If fortune fixed her as my lady there, There already, to eternally reprove me? Pippa Passes 21 (" Hist ! " — said Kate the Queen ; But " Oh ! " cried the maiden, binding her tresses, " 'T is only a page that carols unseen, Crumbling your hounds their messes ! ") Is she wronged? — To the rescue of her honor, 10 My heart ! Is she poor? — What costs it to be styled a donor? Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her ! (" Nay, list ! " — bade Kate the Queen ; And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, " 'T is only a page that carols unseen, Fitting your hawks their jesses ! ") SONG A king lived long ago, In the morning of the world, When earth was nigher heaven than now ; And the king's locks curled. Disparting o'er a forehead full As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn Of some sacrificial bull — Only calm as a babe new-born : For he was got to a sleepy mood, So safe from all decrepitude, 10 Age with its bane so sure gone by (The gods so loved him while he dreamed) That, having lived thus long, there seemed No need the king should ever die. Among the rocks his city was : Before his palace, in the sun, He sat to see his people pass, And judge them every one From its threshold of smooth stone. They haled him many a valley-thief 20 Caught in the sheep-pens, robber-chief Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat, Spy-prowler, or rough pirate found 22 Pippa Passes On the sea-sand left aground ; And sometimes clung about his feet, With bleeding lip and burning cheek, A woman, bitterest wrong to speak Of one with sullen thickset brows : And sometimes from the prison-house The angry priests a pale wretch brought, 30 Who through some chink had pushed and pressed On knees and elbows, belly and breast, Worm-like into the temple, — caught He was by the very god Who ever in the darkness strode Backward and forward, keeping watch O'er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch ! These, all and every one. The king judged, sitting in the sun. His councillors, on left and right, 40 Looked anxious up, — but no surprise Disturbed the king's old smiling eyes Where the very blue had turned to white. 'T is said, a Python scared one day The breathless city, till he came. With forky tone and eyes on flame. Where the old king sat to judge alway ; But when he saw the sweepy hair Girt with a crown of berries rare, Which the god will hardly give to wear 50 To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights, At his wondrous forest rites, — Seeing this, he did not dare Approach that threshold in the sun, Assault the old king smiling there- Such grace had kings when the world begun ! SONG Over-head the tree-tops meet. Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet ; There was naught above me, naught below, My childhood had not learned to know : Pippa Passes 23 For, what are the voices of birds — Ay, and of beasts, — but words, our words, Only so much more sweet? The knowledge of that with my life begun. But I had so near made out the sun, And counted your stars, the seven and one, Like the fingers of my hand : Nay, I could all but understand Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges ; And just when out of her soft fifty changes No unfamiliar face might overlook me — Suddenly God took me. THE DAY'S CLOSE AT ASOLO Oh, what a drear, dark close to my poor day ! How could that red sun drop in that black cloud ? Ah, Pippa, morning's rule is moved away, Dispensed with, never more to be allowed! Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's. Oh lark, be day's apostle To mavis, merle and throstle, Bid them their betters jostle From day and its delights ! But at night, brother howlet, over the woods, 10 Toll the world to thy chantry ; Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods Full complines with gallantry : Then, owls and bats, Cowls and twats, Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods. Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry ! \_After she has begun to tmdress herself. Now, one thing I should like to really know : How near I ever might approach all these I only fancied being, this long day : 20 — Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so As to . . .in some way . . . move them — if you please. Do good or evil to them some slight way. For instance, if I wind Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind 24 Pippa Passes \Sitting on the bedside. And border Ottima's cloak's hem. Ah me, and my important part with them, This morning's hymn half promised when I rose ! True in some sense or other, I suppose. \As she lies down. God bless me ! I can pray no more to-night. 30 No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right All service ranks the same with God — With God, whose puppets, best and worst, Are we ; there is no last nor first. \She sleeps. Cavalier Tunes 25 CAVALIER TUNES (1842) I. MARCHING ALONG Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, Bidding the crop-headed Parhament swing : And, pressing a troop unable to stoop And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, Marched them along, fifty-score strong. Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. God for King Charles ! Pym and such carles To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous paries ! Cavaliers, up 1 Lips from the cup, Hands from the pasty, nor bite take, nor sup, Till you 're — Chorus. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song! Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry, as well ! England, good cheer ! Rupert is near ! Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here, Cho. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ? Then, God for King Charles ! Pym and his snarls To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles ! Hold by the right, you double your might ; So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight, Cho. — March we along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ! 26 Cavalier Tunes II. GIVE A ROUSE King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now ? Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, King Charles ! Who gave me the goods that went since ? Who raised me the house that sank once ? Who helped me to gold I spent since ? Who found me in wine you drank once ? Cho. — King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now ? Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, King Charles ! To whom used my boy George quaff else, By the old fool's side that begot him ? For whom did he cheer and laugh else, While Noll's damned troopers shot him ? Cho. — King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now? Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, King Charles! III. BOOT AND SADDLE Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! Rescue my castle before the hot day Brightens to blue from its silvery gray. Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you 'd say ; Many 's the friend there, will listen and pray " God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay — • Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! " Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay, Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array Who laughs, " Good fellows ere this, by my fay, Cho. — Bootj saddle, to horse, and away ! " My Last Duchess 27 Who ? My wife Gertrude ; that, honest and gay, Laughs when you talk of surrendering, " Nay ! I *ve better counsellors ; what counsel they ? Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! " MY LAST DUCHESS (1842) FERRARA That 's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now : Fra Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will 't please you sit and look at her ? I said "Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance. But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 10 And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there ; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek : perhaps Frk Pandolf chanced to say, " Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much," or " Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat : " such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 20 For calling up that spot of joy. She had ~ ., A heart — how shall I say ? — too soon made glad. Too easily impressed : she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. ,.-- ' Sir, 't was all one I My favor at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace — all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30 28 Incident of the French Camp Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good ! but thanked Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who 'd stoop to blame .This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, " Just this Or that in you disgusts me ; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark " — and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 40 Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, — E'en then would be some stooping ; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her ; but who passed without Much the same smile ? This grew; I gave commands ; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will 't please you rise ? We '11 meet The company below, then. I repeat. The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence 50 Of mine for dowry will be disallowed ; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we '11 go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though. Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Glaus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me ! INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP (1842) You know, we French stormed Ratisbon : A mile or so away. On a little mound, Napoleon Stood on our storming-day ; With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, Legs wide, arms locked behind, As if to balance the prone brow Oppressive with its mind. Incident of the French Camp 29 Just as perhaps he mused, " My plans That soar, to earth may fall, 10 Let once my army-leader Lannes Waver at yonder wall," — Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping ; nor bridle drew Until he reached the mound. Then off there flung in smiling joy, And held himself erect By just his horse's mane, a boy : You hardly could suspect — 20 (So tight he kept his lips compressed, Scarce any blood came through) You looked twice ere you saw his breast Was all but shot in two. '* Well," cried he, '' Emperor, by God's grace We 've got you Ratisbon ! The Marshal 's in the market-place, And you '11 be there anon To see your flag-bird flap his vans Where I, to heart's desire, 30 Perched him ! " The chief's eye flashed ; his plans Soar'd up again like fire. The chief's eye flashed ; but presently Softened itself, as sheathes A film the mother-eagle's eye When her bruised eaglet breathes ; " You 're wounded ! " " Nay," the soldier's pride Touched to the quick, he said : "I 'm killed, Sire ! " And, his chief beside, Smiling the boy fell dead. 40 30 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER (1842) Gr-r-r — there, go, my heart's abhorrence ! Water your damned flower-pots, do ! If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God's blood, would not mine kill you ! What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming? Oh, that rose has prior claims — Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? Hell dry you up with its flames ! At the meal we sit together : Salve tibi! I must hear 10 Wise talk of the kind of weather, Sort of season, time of year : Not a plenteous cork-erop : scarcely Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt : What 'j the Latin 7iame for ^^ parsley " What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout? Whew ! We '11 have our platter burnished, Laid with care on our own shelf ! With a fire-new spoon we 're furnished. And a goblet for ourself, 20 Rinsed like something sacrificial Ere 't is fit to touch our chaps — Marked with L for our initial ! (He-he ! There his lily snaps !) Saint, forsooth ! While brown Dolores Squats outside the Convent bank With Sanchicha, teUing stories, Steeping tresses in the tank, Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, — Can't I see his dead eye glow 30 Bright as 't were a Barbary corsair's ? (That is, if he 'd let it show !) Soliloqity of the Spanish Cloister 31 When he finishes refection, Knife and fork he never lays Cross-wise, to my recollection. As do I, in Jesu's praise. I the Trinity illustrate, Drinking watered orange-pulp — In three sips the Arian frustrate ; While he drains his at one gulp. 40 Oh, those melons ! If he 's able We 're to have a feast ! so nice ! One goes to the Abbot's table, All of us get each a slice. How go on your flowers ? None double ? Not one fruit-sort can you spy? Strange ! — And I, too, at such trouble Keep them close-nipped on the sly ! There 's a great text in Galatians, Once you trip on it, entails 50 Twenty-nine distinct damnations, One sure, if another fails : If I trip him just a-dying, Sure of heaven as sure can be, Spin him round and send him flying Off to hell, a Manichee ? Or, my scrofulous French novel On gray paper with blunt type ! Simply glance at it, you grovel Hand and foot in Belial's gripe : 60 If I double down its pages At the woeful sixteenth print, When he gathers his greengages. Ope a sieve and slip it in 't? Or, there 's Satan ! — one might venture Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave Such a flaw in the indenture As he 'd miss till, past retrieve, Blasted lay that rose-acacia We 're so proud of ! Hy, Zy, Hine ... 70 'St, there 's Vespers ! Plena gratia, Ave, Virgo ! Gr-r-r — you swine I 32 Waring WARING (1842) 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, Rather than pace up and down Any longer London town? Who 'd have guessed it from his lip Or his brow's accustomed bearing, On the night he thus took ship Or started landward? — little caring 10 For us, it seems, who supped together (Friends of his, too, I remember) And walked home through the merry weather. The snowiest in all December. I left his arm that night myself For what 's-his-name's, the new prose-poet Who wrote the book there, on the shelf — How, forsooth, was I to know it If Waring meant to glide away Like a ghost at break of day? 20 Never looked he half so gay ! He was prouder than the devil : How he must have cursed our revel ! Ay, and many other meetings, 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. Written, bustled ? Who 's to blame 30 If your silence kept unbroken ? Waring 33 " True, but there were sundry jottings, Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings, Certain first steps were achieved Already which " — (is that your meaning?) " Had well borne out who e'er believed In more to come ! " But who goes gleaning Hedgeside chance-blades, while, full-sheaved, Stand cornfields by him ? Pride, o'erweening Pride alone, puts forth such claims 40 O'er the day's distinguished names. Meantime, how much I loved him, I find out now I 've lost him. I who cared not if I moved him, Who could so carelessly accost him, Henceforth never shall get free Of his ghostly company. His eyes that just a little wink As deep I go into the merit Of this and that distinguished spirit — 50 His cheeks' raised color, soon to sink, As long I dwell on some stupendous And tremendous (Heaven defend us 1) Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous Demoniaco-seraphic Penman's latest piece of graphic. Nay, my very wrist grows warm With his dragging weight of arm. E'en so, swimmingly appears, Through one's after-supper musings, 60 Some lost lady of old years With her beauteous vain endeavor And goodness unrepaid as ever ; The face, accustomed to refusings. 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 Its possessor's grace and sweetness ! 70 No ! she heard in its completeness 34 Waring Truth, for truth 's a weighty matter, And truth, at issue, we can't flatter ! Well, 'tis done with ; she 's exempt From damning us through 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. Oh, could I have him back once more, 80 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. Feed, should not he, to heart's content? I 'd say, " to only have conceived, Planned your great works, apart from progress. Surpasses little works achieved ! " I 'd lie so, I should be believed, I 'd make such havoc of the claims 90 Of the day's distinguished names To feast him with, as feasts an ogress Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child ! Or as one feasts a creature rarely Captured here, unreconciled To capture ; and completely gives Its pettish humors license, barely Requiring that it lives. Ichabod, Ichabod, The glory is departed ! 100 Travels Waring East away ? Who, of knowledge, by hearsay. Reports a man up started Somewhere as a god. Hordes grown European-hearted, Millions of the wild made tame On a sudden at his fame ? In Vishnu-land what Avatar? Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar, With the demurest of footfalls no Waring 35 Over the Kremlin's pavement, bright With serpentine and syenite, Steps, with five other Generals That simultaneously take snuff. For each to have pretext enough And kerchiefvvise unfold 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? Waring in Moscow, to those rough 120 Cold northern natures born perhaps, Like the lambwhite maiden dear From the circle of mute kings Unable to repress the tear, Each as his sceptre down he flings, To Dian's fame at Taurica, Where now, a captive priestess, she alway Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach, As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands 130 Rapt by the whijrlblast to fierce Scythian strands Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry Amid their barbarous twitter ! In Russia ? Never ! Spain were fitter ! Ay, most likely 't is 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 Its stiff gold blazing pall 140 From some black coffin-lid. Or, best of all, I love to think The leaving us was just a feint ; 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, Up and down and o'er and o'er, . 150 He splashes, as none splashed before Since great Caldara Polidore ; 36 Waring Or Music means this land of ours Some favor yet, to pity won By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers, — "Give me my so-long promised son, Let Waring end what I begun ! " Then down he creeps and out he steals Only when the night conceals His face; in Kent 'tis cherry-time, 160 Or hops are picking : or at prime Of March he wanders as, too happy, Years ago when he was young, Some mild eve when woods grew sappy 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, And young gnats, by tens and twelves, 1 70 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, 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, Having first within his ken 180 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 — - And out of it his world to make, To contract and to expand As he shut or oped his hand. O Waring, what 's to really be ? A clear stage and a crowd to see ! Some Garrick, say, out shall not he 190 The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck ? Or, where most unclean beasts are rife, Some Junius — am I right? — shall tuck His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife ! Waring 2i7 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 To rouse us, Waring ! Who's alive? 200 Our men scarce seem in earnest now. Distinguished names ! — but 't is, somehow, As if they played at being names Still more distinguished, like the games Of children. Turn our sport to earnest With a visage of the sternest ! Bring the real times back, confessed Still better than our very best ! II " When I last saw Waring ..." (How all turned to him who spoke ! 210 You saw Waring ? Truth or joke ? In land-travel or sea-faring?) " We were sailing by Triest, Where a day or two we harbored : 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 At once, so came the light craft up, 220 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, And drew itself up close beside. Its great sail on the instant furled, And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried (A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's), ' Buy wine of us, you EngHsh brig? Or fruit, tobacco and cigars ? 230 A pilot for you to Triest ? 38 Waring Without one, look you ne'er so big, They '11 never let you up the bay ! We natives should know best.' I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,' Our captain said. ' The 'long-shore thieves Are laughing at us in their sleeves.' " In truth, the boy leaned laughing back ; And one, half-hidden by his side Under the furled sail, soon I spied, 240 With great grass hat and kerchief black, AVho looked up with his kingly throat Said somewhat, while the other shook His hair back from his eyes to look Their longest at us ; then 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 Her sparkling path beneath our bow, 250 And so went off, as with a bound, Into the rosy and golden half O' the sky, to overtake the sun And reach the shore, like the sea-calf 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 Was lost here but it rose afar ! 260 Look East, where whole new thousands are ! In Vishnu-land what Avatar ? Cristiita 39 CRISTINA (1842) She should never have looked at me If she meant I should not love her ! There are plenty . . . men, you call such, I suppose . . . she may discover All her soul to, if she pleases, And yet leave much as she found them : But I 'm not so, and she knew it When she fixed me, glancing round them. What? To fix me thus meant nothing? But I can't tell (there 's my weakness) 10 What her look said ! — no vile cant, sure, About " need to strew the bleakness Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed, That the sea feels " — no " strange yearning That such souls have, most to lavish Where there's chance of least returning." Oh, we 're sunk enough here, God knows ! But not quite so sunk that moments, Sure though seldom, are denied us When the spirit's true endowments 20 Stand out plainly from its false ones, And apprise it if pursuing Or the right way or the wrong way, To its triumph or undoing. There are flashes struck from midnights, There are fire-flames noondays kindle, Whereby piled-up honors perish, Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle, While just this or that poor impulse, Which for once had play unstifled, 30 Seems the sole work of a lifetime. That away the rest have trifled. 40 Cristina Doubt you if, in some such moment, As she fixed me, she felt clearly Ages past the soul existed, Here an age 't is resting merely, And hence fleets again for ages : While the true end, sole and single, It stops here for is, this love-way, With some other soul to mingle ? 40 Else it loses what it lived for, And eternally must lose it ; Better ends may be in prospect, Deeper blisses (if you chooee it), But this life's end and this love-bliss Have been lost here. Doubt you whether This she felt, as, looking at me. Mine and her souls rushed together? Oh, observe ! Of course, next moment. The world's honors, in derision, 50 Trampled out the light forever : Never fear but there 's provision Of the devil's to quench knowledge. Lest we walk the earth in rapture ! — Making those who catch God's secret Just so much more prize their capture ! Such am I : the secret 's mine now ! She has lost me, I have gained her ; Her soul 's mine : and thus, grown perfect, I shall pass my life's remainder. 60 Life will just hold out the proving Both our powers, alone and blended : And then, come the next life quickly ! This world's use will have been ended. The Pied Piper of Hamelin 4 1 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN A child's story (1842) Hamelin Town 's in Brunswick, By famous Hanover city ; The river Weser, deep and wide, Washes its wall on the southern side ; A pleasanter spot you never spied ; But, when begins my ditty. Almost five hundred years ago, To see the townsfolk suffer so From vermin, was a pity. Rats! 10 They fought the dogs and killed the cats, And bit the babies in the cradles. And ate the cheeses out of the vats, And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles. Split open the kegs of salted sprats, Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, And even spoiled the women's chats By drowning their speaking With shrieking and squeaking In fifty different sharps and flats. 20 At last the people in a body To the Town Hall came flocking : " 'Tis clear," cried they, " our Mayor's a noddy ; And as for our Corporation — shocking To think we buy gowns lined with ermine For dolts that can't or won't determine What 's best to rid us of our vermin ! You hope, because you 're old and obese. To find in the furry civic robe ease ? Rouse up, sirs ! Give your brains a racking 30 To find the remedy we 're lacking. Or, sure as fate, we '11 send you packing ! " 42 The Pied Piper of Hamelin At this the Mayor and Corporation Quaked with a mighty consternation. An hour they sat in council ; At length the Mayor broke silence : " For a guilder I 'd my ermine gown sell, I wish I were a mile hence ! It 's easy to bid one rack one's brain — I 'm sure my poor head aches again, 40 I Ve scratched it so, and all in vain. Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap ! " Just as he said this, what should hap At the chamber-door but a gentle tap ? "Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that ?" (With the Corporation as he sat. Looking Httle, though wondrous fat ; Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister. Than a too-long-opened oyster. Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous 50 For a plate of turtle, green and glutinous) " Only a scraping of shoes on the mat ? Anything like the sound of a rat Makes my heart go pit-a-pat ! " " Come in ! " — the Mayor cried, looking bigger : And in did come the strangest figure! His queer long coat from heel to head Was half of yellow and half of red, And he himself was tall and thin, With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, 60 And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin. No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, But lips where smiles went out and in ; There was no guessing his kith and kin : And nobody could enough admire The tall man and his quaint attire. Quoth one : " It 's as my great-grandsire, Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, Had walked this way from his painted tombstone ! " He advanced to the council-table: 70 And, " Please your honors," said he, " I 'm able, By means of a secret charm, to draw The Pied Piper of Hamelin 43 All creatures living beneath the sun, That creep or swim or fly or run, After me so as you never saw ! And I chiefly use my charm On creatures that do people harm, The mole and toad and newt and viper ; And people call me the Pied Piper." (And here they noticed round his neck 80 A scarf of red and yellow stripe To match with his coat of the self-same cheque ; And at the scarfs end hung a pipe ; And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying As if impatient to be playing Upon this pipe, as low it dangled Over his vesture so old-fangled.) "Yet," said he, " poor piper as I am. In Tartary I freed the Cham, Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats ; 90 I eased in Asia the Nizam Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats : And as for what your brain bewilders, If I can rid your town of rats Will you give me a thousand guilders?" " One ? fifty thousand ! " — was the exclamation Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation. Into the street the Piper stept, Smiling first a little smile, As if he knew what magic slept 100 In his quiet pipe the while \ Then, like a musical adept, To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled. Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled ; And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, You heard as if an army muttered ;• And the muttering grew to a grumbling ; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling ; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. 1 10 Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, 44 The Pied Piper of Hamelin Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives — Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he piped advancing. And step for step they followed dancing, 120 Until they came to the river Weser, Wherein all plunged and perished ! — Save one, who, stout as Julius Caesar, Swam across and lived to carry (As he the manuscript he cherished) To Rat-land home his commentary : Which was, " At the first shrill notes of the pipe, I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, And putting apples, wondrous ripe, Into a cider-press's gripe : 130 And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks ; And it seemed as if a voice (Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery Is breathed) called out, ' Oh rats, rejoice ! The world is grown to one vast drysaltery ! So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon. Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!' 140 And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon. All ready staved, like a great sun shone Glorious scarce an inch before me, Just as methought it said, ' Come, bore me ! ' — I found the Weser rolling o'er me." You should have heard the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles, Poke out the nests and block up the holes ! Consult with carpenters and builders, 150 And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats ! " — when suddenly, up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a, " First, if you please, my thousand guilders ! " The Pied Piper of Hamelin 45 A thousand guilders ! The Mayor looked blue ; So did the Corporation, too. For council dinners made rare havoc With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock ; And half the money would replenish Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. 160 To pay this sum to a wandering fellow With a gypsy coat of red and yellow ! " Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink, " Our business was done at the river's brink ; We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, And what's dead can't come to life, I think; So, friend, we 're not the folks to shrink From the duty of giving you something for drink, And a matter of money to put in your poke ; But as for the guilders, what we spoke 170 Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. Beside, our losses have made us thrifty : A thousand guilders ! Come, take fifty ! " The Piper's face fell, and he cried, " No trifling ! I can't wait, beside ! I Ve promised to visit by dinner time Bagdat, and accept the prime Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he 's rich in, For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, Of a nest of scorpions no survivor : 180 With him I proved no bargain-driver, With you, don't think I '11 bate a stiver ! And folks who put me in a passion May find me pipe after another fashion." " How?" cried the Mayor, "d' ye think I brook Being worse treated than a Cook ? Insulted by a lazy ribald With idle pipe and vesture piebald ? You threaten us, fellow ? Do your worst, Blow your pipe there till you burst ! " 190 Once more he stept into the street. And to his lips again Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane ; 46 The Pied Piper of Hamelin And ere he blew three notes (such sweet Soft notes as yet musician's cunning Never gave the enraptured air) There was a rustHng that seemed hke a busthng Of merr)' crowds justhng at pitching and hustUng ; Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering, 200 And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering, Out came the children running. All the little boys and girls, With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood As if they were changed into blocks of wood, Unable to move a step, or cry 210 To the children merrily skipping by, — Could only follow with the eye That joyous crowd at the Piper's back. But how the Mayor was on the rack, And the wretched Council's bosoms beat, As the Piper turned from the High Street To where the Weser rolled its waters Right in the way of their sons and daughters ! However, he turned from South to West, And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, 220 And after him the children pressed ; Great was the joy in every breast. " He never can cross that mighty top ! He 's forced to let the piping drop, And we shall see our children stop ! " When, lo ! as they reached the mountain-side, A wondrous portal opened wide, As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed ; And the Piper advanced and the children followed, And when all were in to the very last, 230 The door in the mountain-side shut fast. Did I say all? No ! One was lame. And could not dance the whole of the way ; And in after years, if you would blame The Pied Piper of Hamelin 47 His sadness, he was used to say, — " It 's dull in our town since my playmates left ! I can't forget that I 'm bereft Of all the pleasant sights they see, Which the Piper also promised me. For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, 240 Joining the town and just at hand. Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew And flowers put forth a fairer hue, And everything was strange and new ; The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here, And their dogs outran our fallow deer, And honey-bees had lost their stings, And horses were born with eagles' wings : And just as I became a^^sured My lame foot would be speedily cured, 250 The music stopped and I stood still, And found myself outside the hill, Left alone against my will, To go now limping as before. And never hear of that country more ! " Alas, alas, for Hamelin ! There came into many a burgher's pate A text which says that heaven's gate Opes to the rich at as easy rate As the needle's eye takes a camel in ! 260 The Mayor sent East, West, North and South, To offer the Piper, by word of mouth, Wherever it was men's lot to find him, Silver and gold to his heart's content. If he 'd only return the way he went, And bring the children behind him. But when they saw 't was a lost endeavor. And Piper and dancers were gone forever, They made a decree that lawyers never Should think their records dated duly 270 If, after the day of the month and year, These words did not as well appear, " And so long after what happened here On the Twenty-second of July, Thirteen hundred and seventy-six ; " 48 The Pied Piper of Hamelin And, the better in memory to fix The place of the children's last retreat, They called it the Pied Piper's Street — Where any one playing on pipe or tabor Was sure for the future to lose his labor. 280 Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern To shock with mirth a street so solemn ; But opposite the place of the cavern They wrote the story on a column, And on the great church-window painted The same, to make the world acquainted How their children were stolen away, And there it stands to this very day. And I must not omit to say That in Transylvania there 's a tribe 290 Of alien people, who ascribe The outlandish ways and dress On which their neighbors lay such stress. To their fathers and mothers having risen Out of some subterraneous prison Into which they were trepanned Long time ago in a mighty band Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land, But how or why, they don't understand. So, Willy, let me and you be wipers 300 Of scores out with all men — especially pipers ! And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice. If we 've promised them aught, let us keep our promise ! ^ " How They Brought the Good News " 49 "HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX" . (1845) I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; " Good speed ! " cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew ; " Speed 1 " echoed the wall to us galloping through ; Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast. Not a word to each other ; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place ; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 10 Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 'T was moonset at starting ; but while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear ; At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see ; At DUffeld, 't was morning as plain as could be ; And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half- - chime. So Joris broke silence with, " Yet there is time I " At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray : 4 50 "-How They Brought the Good News " And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track ; And one eye's black intelligence, — ever that glance O'er its white edge at ine, his own master, askance ! And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 30 By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris, " Stay spur! Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her, We'll remember at Aix" — for one heard the quick wheeze Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees. And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; 40 Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white. And "Gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight! " "How they '11 greet us!" — and all in a moment his roan Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate. With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, Shook off" both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 50 Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; Pic tor Ignotus 5 1 Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. And all I remember is — friends flocking round As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground ; And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine. Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. 60 PICTOR IGNOTUS FLORENCE, I 5 — (1845) I could have painted pictures like that youth's Ye praise so. How my soul springs up ! No bar Stayed me — ah, thought which saddens while it soothes ! — Never did fate forbid me, star by star, To outburst on your night with all my gift Of fires from God ; nor would my flesh have shrunk From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk To the centre, of an instant ; or around Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan lo The license and the limit, space and bound, Allowed the truth made visible in man. And, like that youth ye praised so, all I saw, Over the canvas could my hand have flung, Each face obedient to its passion's law, Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue ; Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, A tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, Oi Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place ; 20 52 Pictor Ignotus Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up, And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved, — O human faces, hath it spilt my cup ? What did ye give me that I have not saved? Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well !) Of going — I, in each new picture, — forth. As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell, To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North, Bound for the calmly satisfied great State, Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, 30 Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, Through old streets named afresh from the event, Till it reached home, where learned age should greet My face and youth, the star not yet distinct Above his hair, lie learning at my feet ! — Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked With love about, and praise, till life should end, And then not go to heaven, but linger here, Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend, — The thought grew frightful, 't was so wildly dear ! 40 But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights Have scared me, like the revels through a door Of some strange house of idols at its rites ! This world seemed not the world it was before ; Mixed with my loving, trusting ones, there trooped . . . Who summoned these cold faces that begun To press on me and judge me? Though I stooped Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . enough ! These buy and sell our pictures, take and give, 50 Count them for garniture and household-stuff, And where they live needs must our pictures live And see their faces, listen to their prate. Partakers of their daily pettiness. Discussed of, — " This I love, or this I hate, This likes me more, and this affects me less ! " Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint These endless cloisters and eternal aisles With the same series, Virgin, Babe and Saint, 60 With the same cold calm beautiful regard, — At least no merchant traffics in my heart ; The Lost Leader 53 The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart ; Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, They moulder on the damp wall's travertine, 'Mid echoes the light footstep never woke. So, die my pictures ! surely, gently die ! O youth, men praise so, — holds their praise its worth ? 70 Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry? Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth? THE LOST LEADER (184s) Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat — Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others she lets us devote ; They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, So much was theirs who so little allowed : How all our copper had gone for his service ! Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud ! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 10 Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to die ! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us, — they watch from their graves ! He alone breaks from the van and the freemen ! — He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! We shall march prospering, — not through his presence ; Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre ; Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire : 20 54 Home Thoughts, Froi7t Abroad Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God ! Life's night begins : let him never come back to us ! There would be doubt, hesitation and pain. Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight, Never glad, confident morning again ! Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly, Menace our heart ere we master his own ; 30 Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD (1845) Oh, to be in England Now that April 's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England — now ! And after April, when May follows. And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows ! 10 Hark ! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture ! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the httle children's dower — Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower ! 20 The Bishop Orders his Tomb 55 HOME THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA (1845) Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away ; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray ; " Here and here did England help me : how can I help England ? " — say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH Rome, 15 — (1845) Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity ! Draw round my bed : is Anselm keeping back ? Nephews — sons mine ... ah God, I know not ! Well — She, men would have to be your mother once. Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was ! What 's done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves. And thence ye may perceive the world 's a dream. Life, how and what is it? As here I he 10 In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask " Do I live, am I dead? " Peace, peace seems all. 56 The Bishop Orders his Tomb Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace ; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know : — Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same ! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 20 One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam 's sure to lurk : And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands : Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe, As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. 30 — Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him ! True peach, Rosy and flawless : how I earned the prize ! Draw close : that conflagration of ray church — What then? So much was saved if aught were missed ! My sons, ye would not be my death ? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find ... Ah God, I know not, I ! . . . Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 40 And corded up in a tight olive-frail. Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast . . . Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like God the Father's globe on both his hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst ! 50 Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years : Man goeth to the grave, and where is he ? Did I say basalt for my slab, sons ? Black — 'T was ever antique-black I meant ! How else The Bishop Orders his Tomb 5 7 Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath ? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables . . . but I know Ye mark me not ! What do they whisper thee, \ Child of my bowels, Ansehn ? Ah, ye hope ^- To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at ! Nay, boys, ye love me — all of jasper, then ! 'T is jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve My bath niust needs be left behind, alas I 70 One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There 's plenty jasper somewhere in the world — And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs ? — That 's if ye carve my epitaph aright. Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf s second line — TuUy, my masters ? Ulpian serves his need 1 And then how I shall lie through centuries, 80 And hear the blessed mutter of the mass. And see God made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke ! For as I he here, hours of the dead night, Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor' s-work : 90 And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, About the Hfe before I lived this life, And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount. Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, 58 Garden Fancies And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, — Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend ? No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best ! loc Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. All lapis, all, sons ! Else I give the Pope My villas ! Will ye ever eat my heart ? Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, They glitter like your mother's for my soul, Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase With grapes, and add a visor and a Term, And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, iic To comfort me on my entablature Whereon I am to lie till I must ask " Do I live, am I dead ? " There, leave me, there ! For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude To death — ye wish it — God, ye wish it ! Stone — Gritstone, a-crumble ! Clammy squares which sweat As if the corpse they keep were oozing through — And no more lapis to delight the world ! Well, go ! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row : and, going, turn your backs 12c — Ay, like departing altar-ministrants. And leave me in my church, the church for peace, That I may watch at leisure if he leers — Old Gandolf — at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was ! GARDEN FANCIES (1845) . THE FLOWER'S NAME Here 's the garden she walked across. Arm in my arm, such a short while since: Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss Hinders the hinges and makes them wince ! Garde7i Fancies 59 She must have reached this shrub ere she turned, As back with that murmur the wicket swung ; For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned, To feed and forget it the leaves among. Down this side of the gravel-walk She went, while her robe's edge brushed the box : 10 And here she paused in her gracious talk To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox. Roses, ranged ia valiant row, I will never think that she passed you by ! She loves you, noble roses, 1 know ; But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie ! This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim ; Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip, Its soft meandering Spanish name. 20 What a name ! Was it love or praise ? Speech half-asleep or song half-awake ."* I must learn Spanish, one of these days, Only for that slow sweet name's sake. Roses, if I live and do well, I' may bring her, one of these days, To fix you fast with as fine a spell, Fit you each with his Spanish phrase ; But do not detain me now ; for she lingers There, like sunshine over the ground, 30 And ever I see her soft white fingers Searching after the bud she found. Flower, yoil Spaniard, look tha* you grow not. Stay as you are and be loved forever ! Bud, if I kiss y6u 't is that you blow not. Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never ! For while it pouts, her fingers wrestle, Twinkling the audacious leaves between, Till round they turn and down they nestle — Is not the dear mark still to be seen ? 40 6o Garden Fancies Where I find her not, beauties vanish ; Whither I follow her, beauties flee ; Is there no method to tell her in Spanish June 's twice June since she breathed it with me? Come, bud, show me the least of her traces, Treasure my lady's lightest footfall ! — Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces — Roses, you are not so fair after all ! The Flight of the Duchess 6 1 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS (1S45) You 're my friend : I was the man the Duke spoke to ; I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too ; So, here 's the tale from beginning to end My friend ! Ours is a great wild country : If you climb to our castle's top, I don't see where your eye can stop ; For when you Ve passed the cornfield country, Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed, 10 And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract, And cattle-tract to open-chase, And open-chase to the very base Of the mountain, where, at a funeral pace, Round about, solemn and slow, One by one, row after row, Up and up the pine-trees go, So, like black priests up, and so Down the other side again To another greater, wilder country, 20 That 's one vast red drear burnt-up plain, Branched through and through with many a vein Whence iron 's dug and copper 's dealt ; Look right, look left, look straight before, — Beneath they mine, above they smelt. Copper-ore and iron-ore. And forge and furnace mould and melt, And so on, more and ever more. Till at the last, for a bounding belt. Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore, 30 — And the whole is our Duke's country ! I was born the day this present Duke was — (And O, says the song, ere I was old !) 62 The Flight of the Duchess In the castle where the other Duke was — (When I was happy and young, not old !) I in the kennel, he in the bower : We are of like age to an hour. My father was huntsman in that day ; Who has not heard my father say That, when a boar was brought to bay, 40 Three times, four times out of five, With his huntspear he 'd contrive To get the killing-place transfixed, And pin him true, both eyes betwixt ? And that 's why the old Duke would rather He lost a salt-pit than my father, And loved to have him ever in call ; That 's why my father stood in the hall When the old Duke brought his infant out To show the people, and while they passed 50 The wondrous bantling round about. Was first to start at the outside blast As the Kaiser's courier blew his horn, Just a month after the babe was born. " And," quoth the Kaiser's courier, " since The Duke has got an heir, our Prince Needs the Duke's self at his side: " The Duke looked down and seemed to wince, But he thought of wars o'er the world wide, Castles a-fire, men on their march, 60 The toppling tower, the crashing arch ; And up he looked, and awhile he eyed The row of crests and shields and banners Of all achievements after all manners, And "ay," said the Duke with a surly pride. The more was his comfort when he died At next year's end, in a velvet suit, With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot In a silken shoe for a leather boot, Petticoated like a herald, 70 In a chamber next to an ante-room. Where he breathed the breath of page and groom. What he called stink, and they, perfume : — They should have set him on red Berold The Flight of the Duchess 63 Mad with pride, like fire to manage ! They should have got his cheek fresh tannage Such a day as to-day in the merry sunshine ! Had they stuck on his fist a rough-foot merlin ! (Hark, the wind 's on the heath at its game ! Oh for a noble falcon-lanner 80 To flap each broad wing like a banner, And turn in the wind, and dance like flame !) Had they broached a white-beer cask from Berlin — Or if you incline to prescribe mere wine Put to his lips, when they saw him pine, A cup of our own Moldavia fine, Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrel And ropy with sweet, — we shall not quarrel. So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess Was left with the infant in her clutches, 90 She being the daughter of God knows who : And now was the time to revisit her tribe. Abroad and afar they went, the two, And let our people rail and gibe At the empty hall and extinguished fire, As loud as we liked, but ever in vain, Till after long years we had our desire, And back came the Duke and his mother again. And he came back the pertest little ape That ever affronted human shape ; 100 Full of his travel, struck at himself. You 'd say, he despised our bluff old ways ? — Not he ! For in Paris they told the elf Our rough North land was the Land of Lays, The one good thing left in evil days ; Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time, And only in wild nooks like ours Could you taste of it yet as in its prime. And see true castles, with proper towers. Young-hearted women, old-minded men, no And manners now as manners were then. So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it, This Duke would fain know he was, without being it ; 64 The Flight of the Duchess 'Twas not for the joy's self, but the joy of his show- ing it, Nor for the pride's self, but the pride of our seeing it, He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out, The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn -out : And chief in the chase his neck he perilled, On a lathy horse, all legs and length, With blood for bone, all speed, no strength ; 120 — They should have set him on red Rerold With the red eye slow consuming in fire, And the thin stiff ear like an abbey spire ! Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard : And out of a convent, at the word, Came the lady, in time of spring. — Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling ! That day, I know, with a dozen oaths I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes Fit for the chase of urochs or buflle 130 In winter-time when you need to muffle. But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure. And so we saw the lady arrive : My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger! She was the smallest lady alive, Made in a piece of nature's madness, Too small, almost, for the life and gladness That over-filled her, as some hive Out of the bears' reach on the high trees Is crowded with its safe merry bees : 140 In truth, she was not hard to please ! Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead, Straight at the castle, that 's best indeed To look at from outside the walls : As for us, styled the " serfs and thralls," She as much thanked me as if she had said it, (With her eyes, do you understand?) Because I patted her horse while I led it ; And Max, who rode on her other hand, Said no bird flew past but she inquired 150 What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired — If that was an eagle she saw hover, llie Flight of the Duchess 65 And the green and gray bird on the field was the plover. When suddenly appeared the Duke : And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed On to my hand, — as with a rebuke, And as if his backbone were not jointed, The Duke stepped rather aside than forward, And welcomed her with his grandest smile ; And, mind you, his mother all the while 160 Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor'ward ; And up, like a weary yawn, with its pulleys Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis ; And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies, The lady's face stopped its play, As if her first hair had grown gray; For such things must begin some one day. In a day or two she was well again ; As who should say, " You labor in vain ! This is all a jest against God, who meant 170 I should ever be, as I am, content And glad in his sight ; therefore, glad I will be." So, smiling as at first went she. She was active, stirring, all fire — Could not rest, could not tire — To a stone she might have given life ! (I myself loved once, in my day) — For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife, (I had a wife, I know what I say) Never in all the world such an one ! 180 And here was plenty to be done, And she that could do it, great or small, She was to do nothing at all. There was already this man in his post. This in his station, and that in his office. And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, at most, To meet his eye, with the other trophies, Now outside the hall, now in it. To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen. At the proper place in the proper minute, 190 And die away the life between. 5 66 The Flight of the Duchess And it was amusing enough, each infraction Of rule — (but for after-sadness that came) To hear the consummate self-satisfaction With which the young Duke and the old dame Would let her advise and criticise, And, being a fool, instruct the wise, ■ And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame : They bore it all in complacent guise. As though an artificer, after contriving 200 A wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him ! So found the Duke, and his mother like him : The lady hardly got. a rebuff — That had not been contemptuous enough. With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept off the old mother-cat's claws. So, the little lady grew silent and thin, Paling and ever paling, As the way is with a hid chagrin ; 210 And the Duke perceived that she was ailing, And said in his heart, " 'T is done to spite me, But I shall find in my power to right me ! " Don't swear, friend ! The old one, many a year, Is in hell, and the Duke's self . . . you shall hear. Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning, When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morn- ing, A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice, Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold, 220 And another and another, and faster and faster, Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled : Then it so chanced that the Duke our master Asked himself what were the pleasures in season, And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty, He should do the Middle Age no treason In resolving on a hunting-party. Always provided old books showed the way of it ! What meant old poets by their strictures ? And when old poets had said their say of it, 230 The Flight of the Duchess 6 7 How taught old painters in their pictures ? We must revert to the proper channels, Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels, And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions : Here was food for our various ambitions. As on each case, exactly stated — To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup, Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting your stirrup — We of the household took thought and debated. Blessed was he whos^ back ached with the jerkin 240 His sire was wont to do forest-work in ; Blesseder he who nobly sunk " ohs " And "ahs" while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk- hose ; What signified hats if they had no rims on, Each slouching before and behind like the scallop, And able to serve at sea for a shallop. Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson ? So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on 't, What with our Venerers, Prickers and Verderers, Might hope for real hunters at length and not mur- derers, 250 And oh the Duke's tailor, he had a hot time on 't ! Now you must know that when the first dizziness Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided. The Duke put this question, " The Duke's part pro- vided, Had not the Duchess some share in the business ? " For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses : And, after much laying of heads together, Somebody's cap got a notable feather By the announcement with proper unction 260 That he had discovered the lady's function ; Since ancient authors gave this tenet, " When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege, Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet. And, with water to wash the hands of her liege In a clean ewer with a fair towelling, Let her preside at the disembowelling." 68 The Flight of the Duchess Now, my friend, if you had so little religion As to catch a hawk, some falcon-lanner, And thrust her broad wings like a banner 270 Into a coop for a vulgar pigeon ; And if day by day and week by week You cut her claws, and sealed her eyes, And clipped her wings, and tied her beak, Would it cause you any great surprise If, when you decided to give her an airing, You found she needed a Httle preparing ? — I say, should you be such a curmudgeon, If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon ? Yet when the Duke to his lady signified, 280 Just a day before, as he judged most dignified, In what a pleasure she was to participate, — And, instead of leaping wide in flashes, Her eyes just Mfted their long lashes, As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate, And duly acknowledged the Duke's forethought, But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught, Of the weight by day and the watch by night, And much wrong now that used to be right. So, thanking him, declined the hunting, — 290 Was conduct ever more affronting? With all the ceremony settled — With the towel ready, and the sewer Polishing up his oldest ewer, And the jennet pitched upon, a piebald. Black-barred, cream-coated and pink eye-balled, — No wonder if the Duke was nettled ! And when she persisted nevertheless, — Well, I suppose here 's the time to confess That there ran half-round our lady's chamber 300 A balcony none of the hardest to clamber ; And that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in waiting, Stayed in call outside, what need of relating ? And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a fervent Adorer of Jacynth of course was your servant ; And if she had the habit to peep through the casement, How could I keep at any vast distance ? And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence, The Duke, dumb-stricken with amazement, The Flight of the Duchess 69 Stood for a while in a sultry smother, 310 And then, with a smile that partook of the awful, Turned her over to his yellow mother To learn what was held decorous and lawful ; And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct, As her cheek quick whitened through all its quince-tinct. Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once ! What meant she? — Who was she? — Her duty and station. The wisdom of age and the folly of youth, at once, Its decent regard and its fitting relation — In brief, my friend, set all the devils in hell free 320 And turn them out to carouse in a belfry And treat the priests to a fifty-part canon, And then you may guess how that tongue of hers ran on ! Well, somehow or other it ended at last And, licking her whiskers, out she passed ; And after her, — making (he hoped) a face Like Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin, Stalked the Duke's self with the austere grace Of ancient hero or modern paladin, From door to staircase — oh such a solemn 330 Unbending of the vertebral column ! However, at sunrise our company mustered ; And here was the huntsman bidding unkennel. And there 'neath his bonnet the pricker blustered. With feather dank as a bough of wet fennel ; For the court-yard walls were filled with fog You might have cut as an axe chops a log — Like so much wool for color and bulkiness ; And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness, Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily, 340 And a sinking at the lower abdomen Begins the day with indifferent omen. And lo ! as he looked around uneasily. The sun ploughed the fog up and drove it asunder This way and that from the valley under ; And, looking through the court-yard arch, Down in the valley, what should meet him But a troop of Gypsies on their march ? No doubt with the annual gifts to greet him. 70 The Flight of the Duchess Now, in your land, Gypsies reach you, only 350 After reaching all lands beside ; North they go, South they go, trooping or lonely, And still, as they travel far and wide, Catch they and keep now a trace here, a trace there, That puts you in mind of a place here, a place there. But with us, I believe they rise out of the ground. And nowhere else, I take it, are found With the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned : Born, no doubt, like insects which breed on The very fruit they are meant to feed on. 360 For the earth — not a use to which they don't turn it, The ore that grows in the mountain's womb, Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb, They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it — Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle With side-bars never a brute can baffle ; Or a lock that 's a puzzle of wards within wards ; Or, if your colt's forefoot inclines to curve inwards, Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel And won't allow the hoof to shrivel. 370 Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle That keep a stout heart in the ram with their tinkle ; But the sand — they pinch and pound it like otters ; Commend me to Gypsy glass-makers and potters! Glasses they'll blow you, crystal-clear, Where just a faint cloud of rose shall appear, As if in pure water you dropped and let die A bruised black-blooded mulberry ; And that other sort, their crowning pride, With long white threads distinct inside, 380 Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots which dangle Loose such a length and never tangle, Where the bold sword-lily cuts the clear waters, And the cup-lily couches with all the white daughters : Such are the works they put their hand to. The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to. And these made the troop, which our Duke saw sally Toward his castle from out of the valley, Men and women, like new-hatched spiders. Come out with the morning to greet our riders. 390 And up they wound till they reached the ditch. The Flight of the Duchess 7 1 Whereat all stopped save one, a witch That I knew, as she hobbled from the group, By her gait directly and her stoop, I, whom Jacynth was used to importune I'o let that same witch tell us our fortune, The oldest Gypsy then above ground ; And, sure as the autumn season came round. She paid us a visit for profit or pastime, And every time, as she swore', for the last time. 400 And presently she was seen to sidle Up to the Duke till she touched his bridle, So that the horse of a sudden reared up As under its nose the old witch peered up With her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holes Of no use now but to gather brine, And began a kind of level whine Such as they use to sing to their viols When their ditties they go grinding Up and down with nobody minding: 410 And then, as of old, at the end of the humming Her usual presents were forthcoming — A dog-whistle blowing the fiercest of trebles, (Just a seashore stone holding a dozen fine pebbles,) Or a porcelain mouthpiece to screw on a pipe-end, — And so she awaited her annual stipend. But this time the Duke would scarcely vouchsafe A word in reply ; and in vain she felt With twitching fingers at her belt For the purse of sleek pine-marten pelt, 420 Ready to put what he gave in her pouch safe, — Till, either to quicken his apprehension, Or possibly with an after-intention, She was come, she said, to pay her duty To the new Duchess, the youthful beauty. No sooner had she named his lady. Than a shine lit up the face so shady. And its smirk returned with a novel meaning — For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning ; If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow, 430 She, foolish to-day, would be wiser to-morrow ; And who so fit a teacher of trouble As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double ? 72 The Flight of the Duchess So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture, (If such it was, for they grow so hirsute That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit) He was contrasting, 't was plain from his gesture, The life of the lady so flower-like and delicate With the loathsome squalor of this helicat. I, in brief, was the man the Duke beckoned 440 From out of the throng, and while I drew near He told the crone — as I since have reckoned By the way he bent and spoke into her ear With circumspection and mystery — The main of the lady's history, Her frowardness and ingratitude : And for all the crone's submissive attitude I could see round her mouth the loose plaits tightening, And her brow with assenting intelligence brightening, As though she engaged with hearty goodwill 450 Whatever he now might enjoin to fulfil, And promised the lady a thorough frightening. And so, just giving her a glimpse Of a purse, with the air of a man who imps The wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hern-shaw, He bade me take the Gypsy mother And set her telling some story or other Of hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw, To while away a weary hour For the lady left alone in her bower, 460 Whose mind and body craved exertion And yet shrank from all better diversion. Then clapping heel to his horse, the mere curveter, Out rode the Duke, and after his hollo Horses and hounds swept, huntsman and servitor, And back I turned and bade the crone follow. And what makes me confident what 's to be told you Had all along been of this crone's devising. Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you, There was a novelty quick as surprising : 470 For, first, she had shot up a full head in stature. And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered, As if age had foregone its usurpature, And the ignoble mien was wholly altered. The Flight of the Duchess 73 And the face looked quite of another nature, And the change reached too, whatever the change meant, Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak's arrangement : For where its tatters hung loose like sedges, Gold coins were glittering on the edges, Like the band-roll strung with tomans 480 Which proves the veil a Persian woman's : And under her brow, like a snail's horns newly Come out as after the rain he paces. Two unmistakable eye-points, duly Live and aware, looked out of their places. So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry Of the lady's chamber standing sentry ; I told the command and produced my companion, And Jacynth rejoiced to admit any one, For since last night, by the same token, 490 Not a single word had the lady spoken : They went in both to the presence together. While I in the balcony watched the weather. And now, what took place at the very first of all I cannot tell, as I never could learn it. Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall On that little head of hers and burn it. If she knew how she came to drop so soundly Asleep of a sudden, and there continue The whole time sleeping as profoundly 500 As one of the boars my father would pin you 'Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison, — Jacynth, forgive me the comparison ! But where I begin my own narration Is a little after I took my station To breathe the fresh air from the balcony, And, having in those days a falcon eye, To follow the hunt through the open country. From where the bushes thinlier crested The hillocks, to a plain where 's not one tree. 510 When, in a moment, my ear was arrested By — was it singing, or was it saying, Or a strange musical instrument playing In the chamber ? — and to be certain 74 The Flight of the Duchess I pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain, And there lay Jacynth asleep, Yet as if a watch she tried to keep, In a rosy sleep along the floor With her head against the door ; While in the midst, on the seat of state, 5 20 Was a queen — the Gypsy woman late, With head and face downbent, On the lady's head and face intent : For, coiled at her feet like a child at ease. The lady sat between her knees. And o'er them the lady's clasped hands met, And on those hands her chin was set. And her upturned face met the face of the crone Wherein the eyes had grown and grown As if she could double and quadruple 530 At pleasure the play of either pupil — Very like, by her hands' slow fanning, As up and down like a gor-crow's flappers They moved to measure, or bell clappers. I said, " Is it blessing, is it banning, Do they applaud you or burlesque you — Those hands and fingers with no flesh on ? " But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue, At once I was stopped by the lady's expression : For it was life her eyes were drinking 540 From the crone's wide pair above unwinking, — Life's pure fire received without shrinking Into the heart and breast, whose heaving Told you no single drop they were leaving, — Life, that, filling her, passed redundant Into her very hair, back swerving Over each shoulder, loose and abundant. As her head thrown back showed the white throat curving ; And the very tresses shared in the pleasure, Moving to the mystic measure, 550 Bounding as the bosom bounded. I stopped short, more and more confounded. As still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened, As she listened and she listened : When all at once a hand detained me, The Flight of the Ditchess 75 The selfsame contagion gained me, And I kept time to the wondrous chime, Making out words and prose and rhyme, Till it seemed that the music furled Its wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped 560 From under the words it first had propped, And left them midway in the world : Word took word as hand takes hand, I could hear at last, and understand, And when I held the unbroken thread, The Gypsy said : — '' And so at last we find my tribe. And so I set thee in the midst. And to one and all of them describe What thou saidst and what thou didst 570 Our long and terrible journey through, And all thou art ready to say and do In the trials that remain : I trace them the vein and the other vein That meet on thy brow and part again, Making our rapid mystic mark ; And I bid my people prove and probe Each eye's profound and glorious globe Till they detect the kindred spark In those depths so dear and dark, 580 Like the spots that snap and burst and flee, Circling over the midnight sea. And on that round young cheek of thine I make them recognize the tinge, As when of the costly scarlet wine They drip so much as will impinge And spread in a thinnest scale afloat One thick gold drop from the olive's coat Over a silver plate whose sheen Still through the mixture shall be seen. 590 For so I prove thee, to one and all. Fit, when my people ope their breast, To see the sign, and hear the call. And take the vow, and stand the test Which adds one more child to the rest — When the breast is bare and the arms are wide, 76 The Flight of the Duchess And the world is left outside. For there is probation to decree, And many and long must the trials be Thou shalt victoriously endure, 600 If that brow is true and those eyes are sure ; Like a jewel-finder's fierce assay Of the prize he dug from its mountain tomb — Let once the vindicating ray Leap out amid the anxious gloom, And steel and fire have done their part And the prize falls on its finder's heart; So, trial after trial past, Wilt thou fall at the very last Breathless, half in trance 610 With the thrill of the great deliverance, Into our arms forevermore ; And thou shalt know, those arms once curled About thee, what we knew before, How love is the only good in the world, Henceforth be loved as heart can love, Or brain devise, or hand approve! Stand up, look below, It is our life at thy feet we throw To step with into light and joy ; 620 Not a power of life but we employ To satisfy thy nature's want ; Art thou the tree that props the plant, Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree — Canst thou help us, must we help thee ? If any two creatures grew into one, They would do more than the world has done ; Though each apart were never so weak. Ye vainly through the world should seek For the knowledge and the might 630 Which in such union grew their right : So, to approach at least that end, And blend, — as much as may be, blend Thee with us or us with thee, — As climbing plant or propping tree. Shall some one deck thee, over and down, Up and about, with blossoms and leaves ? Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland-crown, The Flight of the Duchess 77 Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves, Die on thy boughs and disappear 640 While not a leaf of thine is sere ? Or is the other fate in store, And art thou fitted to adore, To give thy wondrous self away, And take a stronger nature's sway ? I foresee and could foretell Thy future portion, sure and well : But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true, Let them say what thou shalt do ! Only be sure thy daily life, 650 In its peace or in its strife, Never shall be unobserved ; We pursue thy whole career, And hope for it, or doubt, or fear, — Lo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved, We are beside thee in all thy ways. With our blame, with our praise, Our shame to feel, our pride to show, Glad, angry — but indifferent, no! Whether it be thy lot to go, 660 For the good of us all, where the haters meet In the crowded city's horrible street ; Or fhou step alone through the morass Where never sound yet was Save the dry quick clap of the stork's bill, For the air is still, and the water still. When the blue breast of the dipping coot Dives under, and all is mute. So, at the last shall come old age, Decrepit as befits that stage ; 670 How else wouldst thou retire apart With the hoarded memories of thy heart, And gather all to the very least Of the fragments of life's earlier feast, Let fall through eagerness to find The crowning dainties yet behind ? Ponder on the entire past Laid together thus at last. When the twilight helps to fuse The first fresh with the faded hues, 680 "jS The Flight of the Duchess And the outline of the whole, As round eve's shades their framework roll. Grandly fronts for once thy soul. And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam Of yet another morning breaks, And, like the hand which ends a dream, Death, with the might of his sunbeam, Touches the flesh and the soul awakes, Then "— Ay, then, indeed, something would happen ! But what? For here her voice changed like a bird's ; [690 There grew more of the music and less of the words ; Had Jacynth only been by me to clap pen To paper, and put you down every syllable With those clever clerkly fingers. Ail I 've forgotten as well as what lingers In this old brain of mine, that 's but ill able To give you even this poor version Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering — More fault of those who had the hammering Of prosody into me and syntax, 700 And did it, not with hobnails but tintacks ! But to return from this excursion, — Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest, The peace most deep and the charm completest, There came, shall I say, a snap — And the charm vanished ! And my sense returned, so strangely banished, And, starting as from a nap, I knew the crone was bewitching my lady. With Jacynth asleep ; and but one spring made I 710 Down from the casement, round to the portal, Another minute and I had entered, — When the door opened, and more than mortal Stood, with a face where to my mind centred All beauties I ever saw or shall see, The Duchess : I stopped as if struck by palsy. She was so different, happy and beautiful, I felt at once that all was best, And that I had nothing to do, for the rest, The Flight of the Duchess 79 But wait her commands, obey and be dutiful. 720 Not that, in fact, there was any commanding ; I saw the glory of her eye, And the brow's height and the breast's expanding, And I was hers to live or to die. As for finding what she wanted, You know God Almighty granted Such little signs should serve wild creatures To tell one another all their desires. So that each knows what his friend requires, And does its bidding without teachers. 730 I preceded her ; the crone Followed silent and alone ; I spoke to her, but she merely jabbered In the old style ; both her eyes had slunk Back to their pits ; her stature shrunk ; In short, the soul in its body sunk Like a blade sent home to its scabbard. We descended, I preceding; Crossed the court with nobody heeding ; All the world was at the chase, 740 The court-yard like a desert-place, The stable emptied of its small fry ; I saddled myself the very palfrey I remember patting while it carried her. The day she arrived and the Duke married her. And, do you know, though it 's easy deceiving One's self in such matters, I can't help believing The lady had not forgotten it either, And knew the poor devil, so much beneath her. Would have been only too glad for her service 750 To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise, But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it. Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it : For though the moment I began setting His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting, (Not that I meant to be obtrusive) She stopped me, while his rug was shifting, By a single rapid finger's lifting, And, with a gesture kind but conclusive, And a little shake of the head, refused me, — 760 I say, although she never used me, 8o The Flight of the Duchess Yet when she was mounted, the Gypsy behind her, And I ventured to remind her, I suppose with a voice of less steadiness Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me, — Something to the effect that I was in readiness Whenever God should please she needed me, — Then, do you know, her face looked down on me With a look that placed a crown on me, And she felt in her bosom, — mark, her bosom — 7 70 And, as a flower-tree drops its blossom, Dropped me ... ah, had it been a purse Of silver, my friend, or gold that 's worse, Why, you see, as soon as I found myself So understood, — that a true heart so may gain Such a reward, — I should have gone home again, Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself ! It was a little plait of hair Such as friends in a convent make To wear, each for the other's sake, — 780 This, see, which at my breast I wear, Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment), And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment. And then, — and then, — to cut short, — this is idle, These are feeUngs it is not good to foster, — I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle, And the palfrey bounded — and so we lost her. When the liquor 's out why clink the cannikin ? I did think to describe you the panic in The redoubtable breast of our master the manni- kin, 790 And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness, How she turned as a shark to snap the sparerib Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib, When she heard what she called the flight of the feloness — But it seems such child's play. What they said and did with the lady away ! And to dance on, when we 've lost the music, Always made me — and no doubt makes you — sick. Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern As that sweet form disappeared through the pos- tern, 800 The Flight of the Duchess 8 1 She that kept it in constant good-humor, It ought to have stopped j there seemed nothing to do more. But the world thought otherwise and went on, And my head's one that its spite was spent on : Thirty years are fled since that morning, And with them all my head's adorning. Nor did the old Duchess die outright, As you expect, of suppressed spite, The natural end of every adder Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder : 8io But she and her son agreed, I take it, That no one should touch on the story to wake it For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery ; So they made no search and small inquiry — And when fresh Gypsies have paid us a visit, I *ve Noticed the couple were never inquisitive, But told them they 're folks the Duke don't want here, And bade them make haste and cross the frontier. Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it, And the old one was in the young one's stead, 820 And took, in her place, the household's head. And a blessed time the household had of it ! And were I not, as a man may say, cautious How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous, I could favor you with sundry touches Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness (To get on faster) until at last her Cheek grew to be one master-plaster Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse : 830 In short, she grew from scalp to udder Just the object to make you shudder. You 're my friend — What a thing friendship is, world without end ! How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up, As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet. And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit, Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup, Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids — 6 82 The Flight of the Duchess Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids ; 840 Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs, Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease. I have seen my little lady once more, Jacynth, the Gypsy, Berold, and the rest of it, For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before ; I always wanted to make a clean breast of it : And now it is made — why, my heart's blood, that went trickle, Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets, 850 Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle, And genially floats me about the giblets. I '11 tell you what I intend to do : I must see this fellow his sad life through — He is our Duke, after all, And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall. My father was born here, and I inherit His fame, a chain he bound his son with ; Could I pay in a lump, I should prefer it, But there 's no mine to blow up and get done with : 860 So I must stay till the end of the chapter. For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter, Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on, Some day or other, his head in a morion And breast in a hauberk, his heels he 'U kick up, Slain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup. And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust, And its leathern sheath lie o'ergrown with a blue crust, Then I shall scrape together my earnings ; For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes, 870 And our children all went the way of the roses : It 's a long lane that knows no turnings. One needs but little tackle to travel in ; So, just one stout cloak shall I indue : And for a staff, what beats the javelin With which his boars my father pinned you ? And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently, Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful, The Flight of the Duchess 83 I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly ! Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful. 880 What 's a man's age ? He must hurry more, that 's all ; Cram in a day what his youth took a year to hold : When we mind labor, then only, we 're too old — What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul ? And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees (Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil), I hope to get safely out of the turmoil And arrive one day at the land of the Gypsies, And find my lady, or hear the last news of her From some old thief and son of Lucifer, 890 His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop Sunburned all over like an ^thiop. And when my Cotnar begins to operate, And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate, And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent, I shall drop in with — as if by accident — " You never knew, then, how it all ended, What fortune, good or bad, attended The litde lady your Queen befriended ? " — And when that's told me, what's remaining? 900 This world 's too hard for my explaining. The same wise judge of matters equine, Who still preferred some slim four-year-old To the big-boned stock of mighty Berold, And, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak wine, He also must be such a lady's scorner ! Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau : Now up, now down, the world's one see-saw. — So, I shall find out some snug corner Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight, 910 Turn myself round and bid the world good-night ; And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowing Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen) To a world where will be no further throwing Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen ! 84 The Boy and the Angel EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES (184s) I. FAME See, as the prettiest graves will do in time, Our poet's wants the freshness of its prime ; Spite of the sexton's browsing horse, the sods Have struggled through its binding osier rods ; Headstone and half-sunk footstone lean awry, Wanting the brick-work promised by-and-by ; How the minute gray lichens, plate o'er plate, Have softened down the crisp-cut name and date ! THE BOY AND THE ANGEL {1845) Morning, evening, noon and night, " Praise God! " sang Theocrite. Then to his poor trade he turned, Whereby the daily meal was earned. Hard he labored, long and well ; O'er his work the boy's curls fell. But ever, at each period. He stopped and sang, " Praise God !" Then back again his curls he threw, And cheerful turned to work anew. 10 Said Blaise, the hstening monk, " Well done ; I doubt not thou art heard, my son : " As well as if thy voice to-day Were praising God, the Pope's great way. The Boy and the Afigel 85 " This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome Praises God from Peter's dome." Said Theocrite, " Would God that I Might praise him that great way, and die ! " Night passed, day shone, And Theocrite was gone. 20 With God a day endures alway, A thousand years are but a day. God said in heaven, ' ' Nor day nor night Now brings the voice of ray deh'ght." Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, Spread his wings and sank to earth ; Entered, in flesh, the empty cell, Lived there, and played the craftsman well ; And morning, evening, noon and night, Praised God in place of Theocrite. 30 And from a boy, to youth he grew ; The man put off the stripling's hue : The man matured and fell away Into the season of decay ; And ever o'er the trade he bent, And ever lived on earth content. (He did God's will; to him, all one If on the earth or in the sun.) God said, " A praise is in mine ear ; There is no doubt in it, no fear : 40 " So sing old worlds, and so New worlds that from my footstool go. 86 The Boy and the Angel " Clearer loves sound other ways : I miss my little human praise." Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell The flesh disguise, remained the cell. 'T was Easter Day : he flew to Rome, And paused above Saint Peter's dome. In tiring-room close by The great outer gallery, 50 With holy vestments dight, Stood the new Pope, Theocrite. And all his past career Came back upon him clear. Since, when a boy, he plied his trade, Till on his life the sickness weighed ; And in his cell, when death drew near. An angel in a dream brought cheer : And, rising from the sickness drear, He grew a priest, and now stood here. 60 To the East with praise he turned, And on his sight the angel burned. " I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell. And set thee here ; I did not well. " Vainly I left my angel-sphere, Vain was thy dream of many a year. "Thy voice's praise seemed weak ; it dropped — Creation's chorus stopped ! " Go back and praise again The early way, while I remain. 70 The Glove Sy " With that weak voice of our disdain, Take up creation's pausing strain. " Back to the cell and poor employ : Resume the craftsman and the boy ! " Theocrite grew old at home ; A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome. One vanished as the other died : They sought God side by side. THE GLOVE , (Peter Ronsard loquitur) (1S45) " Heigho," yawned one day King Francis, " Distance all value enhances ! When a man 's busy, why, leisure Strikes him as wonderful pleasure : 'Faith, and at leisure once is he, Straightway he wants to be busy. Here we 've got peace ; and aghast I 'm Caught thinking war the true pastime. Is there a reason in metre ? Give us your speech, master Peter ! " I who, if mortal dare say so, Ne'er am at loss with my Naso, ''Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets: Men are the merest Ixions " — Here the King whistled aloud, " Let 's — Heigho — go look at our lions ! " Such are the sorrowful chances If you talk fine to King Francis. And so, to the courtyard proceeding, Our company, Francis was leading, Increased by new followers tenfold Before he arrived at the penfold ; 88 The Glove Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen At sunset the western horizon. And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost With the dame he professed to adore most. Oh, what a face ! One by fits eyed Her, and the horrible pitside ; For the penfold surrounded a hollow Which led where the eye scarce dared follow, 30 And shelved to the chamber secluded Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded. The King hailed his keeper, an Arab As glossy and black as a scarab, And bade him make sport and at once stir Up and out of his den the old monster. They opened a hole in the wire-work Across it, and dropped there a firework, And fled ; one's heart's beating redoubled ; A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled, 40 The blackness and silence so utter. By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter ; Then earth in a sudden contortion Gave out to our gaze her abortion. Such a brute ! Were I friend Clement Marot (Whose experience of nature 's but narrow, And whose faculties move in no small mist When he versifies David the Psalmist) I should study that brute to describe you Ilium yuda Leonem de Tribu. 50 One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy To see the black mane, vast and heapy, The tail in the air stiff and straining, The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning, As over the barrier which bounded His platform, and us who surrounded The barrier, they reached and tliey rested On space that might stand him in best stead : For who knew, he thought, what the amazement, The eruption of clatter and blaze meant, 60 And if, in this minute of wonder, No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder, Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered. The Glove 89 The lion at last was delivered ? Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead ! And you saw by the flash on his forehead, By the hope in those eyes wide and steady, He was leagues in the desert already, Driving the flocks up the mountain, Or, catlike, couched hard by the fountain 70 To waylay the date-gathering negress : So guarded he entrance or egress. " How he stands ! " quoth the King : " we may well swear, (No novice, we 've won our spurs elsewhere And so can afford the confession,) We exercise wholesome discretion In keeping aloof from his threshold, Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold, Their first would too pleasantly purloin The visitor's brisket or surloin : 80 But who 's he would prove so fool-hardy ? Not the best man of Marignan, pardie ! " The sentence no sooner was uttered. Than over the rails a glove fluttered, Fell close to the lion, and rested : The dame 't was, who flung it and jested With life so, De Lorge had been wooing For months past ; he sat there pursuing His suit, weighing out with nonchalance Fine speeches, like gold from a balance. 90 Sound the trumpet, no true knight 's a tarrier ! De Lorge made one leap at the barrier. Walked straight to the glove, — while the lion Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire, And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir, — Picked it up, and as calmly retreated, Leaped back where the lady was seated, And full in the face of its owner Flung the glove. " Your heart's queen, you dethrone her? 100 So should I ! " — cried the King — " 't was mere vanity, 90 The Glove Not love, set that task to humanity ! " Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing. Not so, I ; for I caught an expression In her brow's undisturbed self-possession Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment, — As if from no pleasing experiment She rose, yet of pain not much heedful So long as the process was needful, — no As if she had tried in a crucible, To what " speeches like gold " were reducible, And, finding the finest prove copper, Felt the smoke in her face was but proper ; To know what she hod not to trust to, Was worth all the ashes and dust too. She went out 'mid hooting and laughter ; Clement Marot stayed ; I followed after, And asked, as a grace, what it all meant? If she wished not the rash deed's recallment? 120 " For I " — so I spoke — " am a poet : Human nature, — behooves that I know it ! " She told me, " Too long had I heard Of the deed proved alone by the word : For my love — what De Lorge would not dare ! With my scorn — what De Lorge could compare ! And the endless descriptions of death He would brave when my lip formed a breath, I must reckon as braved, or, of course. Doubt his word and moreover, perforce, 130 For such gifts as no lady could spurn, Must offer my love in return. When I looked on your lion, it brought All the dangers at once to my thought. Encountered by all sorts of men, Before he was lodged in his den, — From the poor slave whose club or bare hands Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands. With no King and no Court to applaud. By no shame, should he shrink, overawed, 140 Yet to capture the creature made shift, The Glove 91 That his rude boys might laugh at the gift, — To the page who last leaped o'er the fence Of the pit, on no greater pretence Than to get back the bonnet he dropped, Lest his pay for a week should be stopped. So, wiser I judged it to make One trial what ' death for my sake ' Really meant, while the power was yet mine, Than to wait until time should define 150 Such a phrase not so simply as I, Who took it to mean just ' to die.' The blow a glove gives is but weak : Does the mark yet discolor my cheek ? But when the heart suffers a blow, Will the pain pass so soon, do you know ? " I looked, as away she was sweeping, And saw a youth eagerly keeping As close as he dared to the doorway. No doubt that a noble should more weigh 160 His life than befits a plebeian ; And yet, had our brute been Nemean — (I judge by a certain calm fervor The youth stepped with, forward to serve her) — He 'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turn If you whispered, " Friend, what you 'd get, first earn ! " And when, shortly after, she carried Her shame from the Court, and they married, To that marriage some happiness, maugre The voice of the Court, I dared augur. 170 For De Lorge, he made women with men vie, Those in wonder and praise, these in envy ; And in short stood so plain a head taller That he wooed and won . . . how do you call her ? The beauty, that rose in the sequel To the King's love, who loved her a week well. And 't was noticed he never would honor De Lorge (who looked daggers upon her) With the easy commission of stretching 92 Love Among the Ruins His legs in the service, and fetching i8o His wife, from her chamber, those straying Sad gloves she was always mislaying, While the King took the closet to chat in, — But of course this adventure came pat in. And never the King told the story, How bringing a glove brought such glory, But the wife smiled — " His nerves are grown firmer : Mine he brings now and utters no murmur." Veiiienti occurrite morbo I With which moral I drop my theorbo. igo LOVE AMONG THE RUINS (185s) Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep, Half-asleep, Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop As they crop — Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say) Of our country's very capital, its prince Ages since 10 Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war. Now, — the country does not even boast a tree. As you see, To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills From the hills Intersect and give a name to, (else they run Into one,) Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires 20 O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall Bounding all, Love Among the Ruins 93 Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, Twelve abreast. And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass Never was ! Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads And embeds Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, Stock or stone — 30 Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe Long ago ; Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame Struck them tame : And that glory and that shame alike, the gold Bought and sold. Now, — the single little turret that remains On the plains, By the caper overrooted, by the gourd Overscored, 40 While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Through the chinks — Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time Sprang sublime, And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced As they raced, And the monarch and his minions and his dames Viewed th» games. And I know, while thus the quiet-colored eve Smiles to leave 50 To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece In such peace. And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray Melt away — ■ That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair Waits me there In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul For the goal, When the king looked, where she looks now, breath- less, dumb Till I come. 60 94 A Lovers' Quarrel But he looked upon the city, every side, Far and wide, All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' Colonnades, All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, — and then. All the men ! When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, Either hand On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace Of my face, 70 Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech Each on each. In one year they sent a million fighters forth South and North, And they built their gods a brazen pillar high As the sky, Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force — Gold, of course ! Oh heart ! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns ! Earth's returns 80 For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin ! Shut them in. With their triumphs and their glories and the rest ! Love is best. A LOVERS' QUARREL (^855) Oh, what a dawn of day ! How the March sun feels like May! All is blue again After last night's rain, And the South dries the hawthorn-spray. Only, my Love 's away ! I 'd as lief that the blue were gray. Runnels, which rillets swell. Must be dancing down the dell, With a foaming head 10 On the beryl bed A Lovers Quarrel 95 Paven smooth as a hermit's cell ; Each with a tale to tell, Could my Love but attend as well. Dearest, three months ago ! When we lived blocked-up with snow, — When the wind would edge In and in his wedge, In, as far as the point could go — Not to our ingle, though, 20 Where we loved each the other so ! Laughs with so little cause ! We devised games out of straws, We would try and trace One another's face In the ash, as an artist draws ; Free on each other's flaws, How we chattered like two church daws ! What 's in the " Times " ? — a scold At the Emperor deep and cold ; 30 He has taken a bride To his gruesome side, That 's as fair as himself is bold : ' There they sit ermine-stoled, And she powders her hair with gold. Fancy the Pampas' sheen ! Miles and miles of gold and green Where the sunflowers blow In a solid glow, And — to break now and then the screen — 40 Black neck and eyeballs keen, Up a wild horse leaps between ! Try, will our table turn ? Lay your hands there light, and yearn Till the yearning slips Through the finger-tips 96 A Lovers Quarrel In a fire which a few discern, And a very few feel burn, And the rest, they may live and learn ! Then we would up and pace, 50 For a change, about the place, Each with arm o'er neck : 'T is our quarter-deck, We are seamen in woeful case. Help in the ocean-space ! Or, if no help, we '11 embrace. See, how she looks now, dressed In a sledging-cap and vest ! 'T is a huge fur cloak — Like a reindeer's yoke 60 Falls the lappet along the breast : Sleeves for her arms to rest. Or to hang, as my Love likes best. Teach me to flirt a fan As the Spanish ladies can. Or I tint your lip With a burnt stick's tip And you turn into such a man ! Just the two spots that span Half the bill of the young male swan. 70 Dearest, three months ago When the mesmerizer Snow With his hand's first sweep Put the earth to sleep : 'T was a time when the heart could show All — how was earth to know, 'Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro ? Dearest, three months ago When we loved each other so, Lived and loved the same 80 Till an evening came A Lovers Quarrel 97 When a shaft from the devil's bow Pierced to our ingle-glow, And the friends were friend and foe ! Not from the heart beneath — ' T was a bubble born of breath, Neither sneer nor vaunt, Nor reproach nor taunt. See a word, how it severeth ! Oh, power of life and death 90 In the tongue, as the Preacher saith ! Woman, and will you cast, For a word, quite off at last Me, your own, your You, — Since, as truth is true, I was You all the happy past — Me do you leave aghast With the memories We amassed? Love, if you knew the light That your soul casts in my sight, 100 How I look to you For the pure and true. And the beauteous and the right, — Bear with a moment's spite When a mere mote threats the white ! What of a hasty word ? Is the fleshly heart not stirred By a worm's pin-prick Where its roots are quick? See the eye, by a fly's foot blurred — no Ear, when a straw is heard Scratch the brain's coat of curd ! Foul be the world or fair More or less, how can I care ? 'T is the world the same For my praise or blame, 7 98 A Lovers^ Quarrel And endurance is easy there. Wrong in the one thing rare — Oh, it is hard to bear ! Here 's the spring back or close, 120 When the ahnond-blossom blows ; We shall have the word In a minor third, There is none but the cuckoo knows : Heaps of the guelder-rose ! I must bear with it, I suppose. Could but November come, Were the noisy birds struck dumb At the warning slash Of his driver's-lash — 130 I would laugh like the valiant Thumb Facing the castle glum And the giant's fee-faw-fum ! Then, were the world well stripped Of the gear wherein equipped We can stand apart, Heart dispense with heart In the sun, with the flowers unnipped, — Oh, the world's hangings ripped. We were both in a bare-walled crypt! 140 Each in the crypt would cry, " But one freezes here ! and why? When a heart, as chill, At my own would thrill Back to life, and its fires out-fly ? Heart, shall we live or die ? The rest, . . . settle by and by ! " So, she 'd efface the score. And forgive me as before. It is twelve o'clock : 150 I shall hear her knock In the worst of a storm's uproar, I shall pull her through the door, I shall have her for evermore ! Evelyn Hope 99 EVELYN HOPE (i8ss) Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead ! Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her book-shelf, this her bed ; She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, Beginning to die too, in the glass ; Little has yet been changed, I think : The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. Sixteen years old when she died ! Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name ; 10 It was not her time to love ; beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little cares, And now was quiet, now astir, Till God's hand beckoned unawares, — And the sweet white brow is all of her. Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? What, your soul was pure and true. The good stars met in your horoscope, Made you of spirit, fire and dew — 20 And, just because I was thrice as old And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was naught to each, must I be told ? We were fellow mortals, naught beside ? No, indeed ! for God above Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love : I claim you still, for my own love's sake ! Delayed it may be for more lives yet. Through worlds I shall traverse not a few : 30 Much is to learn, much to forget, Ere the time be come for taking you. lOO .Evelyn Hope But the time will come, — at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) In the lower earth, in the years long still, That body and soul so pure and gay ? Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geranium's red — And what you would do with me, in fine, In the new life come in the old one's stead. 40 I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, Given up myself so many times, Gained me the gains of various men, Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes ; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed or itself missed me : And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope ! What is the issue? let us see ! I loved you, Evelyn, all the while ! My heart seemed full as it could hold ; 50 There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. So, hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep : See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand ! There, that is our secret : go to sleep ! You will wake, and remember, and understand. up at a Villa — Down m the City loi UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY (as distinguished by an ITALIAN PERSON OF quality) (isss) Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city- square ; Ah, such a Hfe, such a Hfe, as one leads at the window there ! Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least ! There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast ; While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast. Well now, look at our villa ! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull, Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull ! — I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair 's turned wool. lo But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses ! Why? They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there 's some- thing to take the eye ! Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry ; You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by ; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high ; And the shops with fanciful signs, which are painted properly. I02 Up at a Villa — Down in the City What of a villa ? Though winter be over in March by rights, 'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights : You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze, And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive-trees. 20 Is it better in May, I ask you ? You 've summer all at once ; In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well. The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. Is it ever hot in the square ? There 's a fountain to spout and splash ! In the shade it sings and springs ; in the shine such foambows flash On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not abash. Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash. 30 All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle. Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill, up at a Villa — Down in the City 103 And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. Enough of the seasons, — I spare you the months of the fever and chill. Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church- bells begin : No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in : You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. 40 By and by there 's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth ; Or the Pulcinello-trurapet breaks up the market be- neath. At the post-ofifice such a scene picture — the new play, piping hot ! And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's ! Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so, Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and Cicero, "And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the skirts of Saint Paul has reached. Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unc- tuous than ever he preached." 50 Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smihng and smart With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart ! Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootk-te-tootle the fife; No keeping one's haunches still : it 's the greatest pleasure in life. I04 Up at a Villa — Down in the City But bless you, it's dear — it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate. They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate It 's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city ! Beggars can scarcely be choosers : but still — ah, the pity, the pity ! Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles ; 60 One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals : Bang-whang-zuhang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootk the fife. Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life ! Fra Lippo Lippi 105 FRA LIPPO LIPPI (1855) I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! You need not clap your torches to ray face. Zooks, what 's to blame? you think you see a monk! What, 't is past midnight, and you go the rounds, And here you catch me at an alley's end Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? The Carmine 's my cloister : hunt it up, Do, — harry out, if you must show your zeal, Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, 10 Weke^ weke, that 's crept to keep him company ! Aha, you know your betters ! Then you '11 take Your hand away that 's fiddHng on my throat, And please to know me hkewise. Who am I ? Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend Three streets off — he's a certain . . . how d'ye call? Master — a . . . Cosimo of the Medici, I' the house that caps the corner. Boh ! you were best! Remember and tell me, the day you 're hanged, How you affected such a gullet's-gripe ! 20 But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves Pick up a manner nor discredit you : Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets And count fair prize what comes into their net ? He 's Judas to a tittle, that man is ! Just such a face ! Why, sir, you make amends. Lord, I 'm not angry ! Bid your hangdogs go Drink out this quarter-florin to the health Of the munificent House that harbors me (And many more beside, lads! more beside!) 30 And all 's come square again. I 'd like his face — His, elbowing on his comrade in the door With the pike and lantern — for the slave that holds John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair With one hand (" Look you, now," as who should say) io6 Fra Lippo Lippi And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped ! It 's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, A wood-coal, or the like ? or you should see ! Yes, I 'm the painter, since you style me so. What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, 40 You know them and they take you? like enough! I saw the proper twinkle in your eye — 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. Let 's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands To roam the town and sing out carnival, And I 've been three weeks shut within my mew, A-painting for the great man, saints and saints And saints again. I could not paint all night — Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 50 There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song, — Flower n HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY A Spaniard is telling a friend of the only poet he ever knew — a man who was mistaken by the popular imagination for a spy in the employ of the inquisitorial king. The people pictured his sumptuous living at the very time he was starving and dying in a garret. It is the purpose of the artist to reveal that while he was despised by men he was dear to God. Here Browning illustrates his own ideal of the subjective poet as he expressed it in his Essay on Shelley by showing, " not what man sees, but what God sees — the ideas of Plato, seeds of creation lying burningly in the Divine Hand." THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 1855 Browning's habit of concentrating fundamental thought and feeling into a moment of one's life was never more clearly revealed than in this little poem of resignation under the trial of unrequited love. In such moments the poet flashes upon us the truth of a soul's ascent to the heights of life, — heights never to be lost, come what may, and from which there are visions of heights that are higher. This power to rise on stepping stones of apparent failure is to his mind the only progress ; all else is failure. M. Milsand says : " His imagi- natien is attracted and brought into play no less by small things than by great; if it has a preference, it is for great truths manifesting themselves ui trifling episodes." In this method he is a natural successor of Wordsworth. In common things that round us lie Some random truth he can impart, — The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and sleeps on his own heart. THE PATRIOT 1855 Browning as a student of things eternal becomes the his- torian of the human heart. He reaches solid ground when amid the revelations of fickleness of popular applause with its tragic consequences, he assures us that with God there is "no 378 Notes [Pages 162-164 variableness nor shadow of turning." While the characters and environment of this poem are Italian, the lesson to be drawn from the striking contrast of what was to what is, " 'T is God shall repay : I am safer so," is of universal import. MEMORABILIA 1855 "Composed," says Dr. Berdoe, "in the Roman Campagna in the winter of 1853-54." This poem originated in the fact that when on one occasion Browning was in a London bookstore, he overheard a stranger say that he had seen and spoken to Shelley. Years after this Browning wrote : " I have not yet forgotten how strangely the sight of one who had spoken with Shel'ey affected me." It is one of the few poems in which Browning lays aside his dramatic masque and speaks in propria persona. The memory of his first discovery of Shelley while crossing a tract of life otherwise uninteresting, gives the time and place dis- tinction by suggesting as did the eagle's feather that there are men who, while they inhabit the upper regions, at times drop celestial plumage in the path of ordinary mortals. What Browning's idea of Shelley was in 1885 is seen in a letter which he wrote to Dr. Furnivall, quoted by Professor Dowden : " For myself I painfully contrast my notions of Shelley the man and Shelley, well, even the poet, with what they were sixty years ago." ANDREA DEL SARTO 1855 Of the origin of this poem Professor Dowden says (quoting Mrs. Andrew Crosse) : " When the Brownings were living in Florence, Kenyon had begged them to procure for him a copy of the portrait in the Pitti of Andrea del Sarto and his wife. Mr. Browning was unable to get the copy made with any promise of satisfaction, and so wrote the exquisite poem of Andrea del Sarto and sent it to Kenyon." This poem is a contrast to Fra Lippo Lippi in that what Lippo yearns for is now attained in Italian art, and more, — faultless technique in painting the actual, — but at the expense of Infinite passion and pain, Of finite hearts that yearn. Pages 164-171] NotCS 379 In Andrea, Browning makes the attainment of the artist's ideal earthly love in the handsome and faithless Lucrezia, together with his attainment of perfection in technique, the cause of his ruin. Andrea's own dishonesty in dealing with others, especially his friend the king who had trusted him, his treatment of his parents, and complicity with his wife's im- morality, were reasons enough why he could not reach the heaven of art granted to Leonardo and Raphael. This is almost the only poem of Browning's in which there is not some one character to be admired : we neither admire nor pity the man and woman ; we despise both. This poem has been pronounced by artists of high authority " an autobiography of Andrea." 11. 33-47. " You smile," etc. Mr. Stopford Brooke says : " No better sketch could be given of the sudden spiritual fash- ion in which great pictures are generated." Mrs. Oliphant says of the days in 1529 when Michael Angelo was fortifying the city of Florence : " It is touching to find that they paused at the sight of the fresco painted recently by An- drea del Sarto, and spared the half-ruined walls for the sake of the picture, like true art-loving Florentines." 1. 120. "Nay, Love," etc. This implies that Lucrezia has been offended by what has just been said. I. 146. "Paris lords." Andrea had been commissioned by Francis I. of France to purchase works of art for him, and had misused the funds entrusted to him to keep Lucrezia in luxury. II. 149-165. Andrea visited the French court at the invita- tion of the king, and had been honored by him. 1. 220. " That cousin." One of his wife's paramours has whistled to her. OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 185s This vision of the campanile and what it suggested to the poet constitutes one of the most significant revelations of the spirit of great art to be found in literature. It is a rec- ognition of the new life for art brought in through the funda- mental truth of Christianity. The contrast of the idea of the physical perfection of the classic era with that of the spiritual aspiration of Christian art has repeated itself in history in various reforms in art, — noticeably that of Wordsworth in poetry, and Turner in painting. 38o Notes [Pages i;i-i73 Keats alludes to the decadence of the classic arts as follows : The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll'd Its gathering waves — ye felt it not. The blue Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew Of summer nights collected still to make The morning precious : beauty was awake — ! Why were ye not awake ? Wordsworth asserts the new spirit thus : How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold ? Because the lovely little flower is free Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold ; And so the grandeur of the forest-tree Comes not by casting in a formal mould, But from its own divine vitality. In reviewing the mundane fate of the great masters, Brown- ing mildly chides Giotto for permitting such treatment of art by a secular age, and especially for not directing him to where he might find a coveted bit of his work. He concludes with the hope of a new day in the life of art for Italy, when what these great painters began will be appreciated and carried a step farther. I. 15. "Bell-tower." The famous campanile. Cf. Mrs. Oliphant, Makers of Floreiice ; The Cathedral Builders. Here where Giotto planted His campanile, like an unperplexed Question to Heaven ! Casa Guidi Windows. I. 30. " Gift." " That first great gift the vital soul." Wordsworth. Cf. Tennyson, Merlin and the Gleam. II. 44-48. " Stands One." A graphic picture of the spirits of the wronged great watching the abuse of their work. The origin of the strong figure in line 45 was evidently from an experience Browning had in very early youth. Mrs. Orr says that his mother used to read to him from Croxall's fables, and that one of the stories was of a lion kicked to death by an ass. It affected him so painfully that he hid the book from his mother. 1. 81. Said by one who fears the criticism of the previous stanza. It gives the poet an opportunity to assert the claims of Greek classic art and to show its limitations. It was a stage, an important stage, in the development of art, and the world must learn to appreciate it as a preparation for the next great revelation of Christian art. Pages 174-179] Notes 381 I. 135. "O." The reigning pope, Boniface VIII. or Bene- dict XI., sent a messenger into Tuscany for the best specimen procurable from each master. He came to Giotto, who gave him only the perfect O drawn with a turn of the hand as his elbow rested in his side to form a compass. As a result he - was selected to go to Rome to adorn St. Peter's. II. 149-1 52. " Early Christian art, even by faultily presenting spiritual ideals not to be attained on earth but to be pursued through an immortal life, taught men to aspire." (E. Dowden.) Browning's intimate friend, Mr. W. W. Story, the American sculptor, says : " No perfect work was ever made, or ever will be made. Success is a relative term. It is not victory, but the battle that delights." 1. 236. " Tablet." The " Last Supper " which had been lost, but was afterwards found. Browning saw it when in Florence. 1. 260. " Casa Guidi." Mrs. Browning's poem inspired by the struggles in Italy. 1.271. "Curt Tuscan." Dignified literary language of Italy. 1. 274. " issimo." Superlative. 1.275. "To end," etc. Alluding to his own unfinished story — the Campanile : Or call up him that left half told The story of Cambuscan bold. Milton, // Penseroso. Milton of course has Chaucer in mind, who left the Sqider's Tale in the Canterbury Talcs incomplete. 1. 285. " God and the People." Browning and his wife were deeply interested in Italy's struggle for freedom in 1847-1848, but were discouraged at the fickleness of the people. They still hoped for what is expressed in this stanza, but their hope was a vain one. SAUL 1855 Sections 1-9 were published in 1845; the remainder in 1855. The first version (Sections 1-9) was in short lines — three feet in one and two in the next. In the last revision the poet united the two in one strong line. More than any other poet of modern times, Browning pays indirect compliment to his readers, for though he does not 382 Notes [Pages 179-195 frequent the highways of thought and action that most of us travel for the strange and unfrequented byways, he assumes that we are as familiar with the conditions there as he himself is. This is the main reason for the oft-repeated charge of obscurity, which is in reality no obscurity in the poet, but darkness in our own minds. Goethe said that the plainest of handwriting would be obscure by twilight. One of the distinctive features of Browning's nature is a god- like sympathy with souls at the crisis of a struggle which to the superficial world seems failure. In this he is like the great poet who in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews sings the epic of failure. In the study of the art of healing as revealed to the human soul, Browning has attained the highest rank, and nowhere does his art show itself more divinely than in his treatment of Saul. The subtlety of the various stages in the process of healing at the hands of David is a triumph of the artist. The young physician first ministers to the physical nature through those songs of " the wild joys of living ; " then he voices those which appeal to the sense of pride in action, " motions and habitudes kingly ; " and lastly, those which give the final reve- lation to the soul through the love of the singer, which would Wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, by which is revealed the Christ-nature in man. The poem is so simple, so sensuous, so impassioned, that it becomes the most inevitable of the poet's works. The teaching that sympathy is the law which unites God, man, and nature, and to which they respond, is made prophetic of the Messianic ideal of self- sacrifice. O Saul, it shall be a Face like my face that receives thee. The serenity, sweetness, and beauty of the closing scene where David returns to his simple task of tending his flocks, when all nature is alive with the new impulse and pronounces the benediction on his efforts, is not surpassed by anything in our literature. Only in a few of Browning's longer poems do we find such sanity in distributing poetic values as appears in Saul. By a series of vivid and impassioned movements, we are led by natural degrees to the great illumination. The ele- ment of growth is revealed through these movements by a most vigorous and original manifestation of poetic complications Pages 181-196] NoteS 383 and resolutions, concluding in that picturesque and tranquil dawn when the voice of God in nature pronounced, " E'en so, it is so I " Truth and seriousness of subject Browning always has, but he often lacks beauty and felicity of form. In Saul the intellectual interest is rich, the descriptions bril- liant, the passion intense, and the style has a sweetness, grace, and finish. Browning is less of an intellectual apologist here and more of a poet. Every detail of the oriental scene, pictur- ing the life with nature, is made to contribute to the impres- siveness of the theme, " a Messianic oratorio." Mr. J. T. Nettleship says of Saul : " It is a noble illustration of the power of the prayer spirit of the Jewish people, which Christians may well follow." 1. 46. " Jerboa." It is interesting to note that at a very early age Browning made friends with the birds and beasts. He kept owls, monkeys, eagles, snakes, hedgehogs, and other creatures. His eye thus became very keen in observing. "DE GUSTIBUS-" 185s This poem reveals how thoroughly Italian in taste Browning was ; for in it he good-naturedly contrasts himself with a friend who admires England. If we take Tennyson as the friend, we have an interesting picture, for Tennyson is as typically English in taste as Browning is Italian. If we take the conclusion here, " de giistibus est non disptitandum" as Browning's ultimatum to the critics, we shall make a mistake, for he would never question the fact that, while there should be liberty in matters of taste, there must be such a thing as authority; he would affirm authority to rest with true genius itself, which reveals the universal. HOLY CROSS DAY 1855 In Old Pictures in Florence Browning indulged ]n a playful humor ; in this poem he uses satire not unlike that in Hiidi- bras to great advantage against those Christians who would make followers of the Cross by a system of tyranny devilish in 384 Notes [Pages 196-201 all its nature. The poet is a draughtsman working with a burnt stick, and yet in its clear and expressive lines every feature is disclosed with the vividness of a Rembrandt or a Retzsch. In the realistic presentation of the motley crowd elbowing its way to the church in a masquerade of piety, in the piteous and pathetic undertone of revolt against the inhu- manity of man culminating in that lurid line which flashes the sublime truth of the momentary scene upon us — Men I helped to their sins, help me to their God, Browning reveals a genuine Shakespearean humor; while in the refuge of the sufferer in meditation upon Rabbi Ben Ezra's Song of Death, he has a genuine Shakespearean pity for a people persecuted by this '' devil's crew " of Christianity. Perhaps the highest dramatic touch is in the conclusion, where, through their faith in the Messiah, they call upon Christ to help them against their Christian tormentors. Some critics have maintained that a subject so repulsive in its nature cannot be a proper subject for art, and perhaps the best statement of their case is to be found in Mr. Walter Bagehot's Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in English Poetry. Literary Studies, vol. ii. CLEON 1855 (First printed in pamphlet, privately, 1855.) The best introduction to this great poem is that chapter in Professor Butcher's interesting book, Some Aspects of the Greek Gettiics, where he discusses The Melancholy of the Greeks. Professor Butcher says : " The first conscious sigh over the mortality of man that is found in Greek poetry is in the words spoken by Glaucus to Diomede when the two warriors met in single combat, Iliad, vi, 146-9." The pathetic in Greek poetry is often not far from the sublime, when the sense of man's feebleness heightens his energy of will as with Cleon. Browning lays the scene of this poem at a time in the Greco-Roman civilization when the feeling of the vanity of life had brought paralysis to creative effort, and in the two characters presented we have types of this period. In Greek art may be found anticipations in many ways of the great awak- ening which revealed itself in the sublime utterances of the Syrian Peasant, culminating in the Sermon on the Mount. So Pages 201-209] JMOtCS 6 the poet takes as his text the testimony of St. Paul, when invited to declare his message on Mars Hill, to the fact tha many of the fundamental truths of Christianity were implicit in the Greek poets: '^As certain of your own poets have said, for we also are his offspring.-'T' (Acts xvii. 28.) They were seeking the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him. Protus, the man of action, has achieved the fame and material success which men of his type strive for, while he has not neglected the culture of art and poetry nor the association with those men who had led lives of contemplation ; but he has arrived at the period in life when he looks before and after, and pines for what is not, - the very completeness of his suc- cess brings pain, and so he turns to Cleon, the poet, artist, and philosopher, who has sought truth in a life of meditation, and asks if he has achieved what he most desired, m the activities of creation and appreciation of the things of beauty. Cleon s reply written from the courtyard of his house in the sprinkled isles reveals first of all (lines 1-30) the luxury of sensuous beauty in which a Greek of his period delighted, and in it is a compliment to King Protus in that he has appreciated Cleon s art enough to make such splendid material return for it. The various steps of the poem are clear and impressive ; they reveal thoughts which have again and again sounded the deep- est yearnings of the human soul. Cleon is sure that he has pro- gressed in that he has combined the individual excellences of his predecessors into one personality, and gets satisfaction frorn the thought that all has been done that was possible to do. And when Protus sees immortality in the work which Cleon has done, and only vanity in his own, it does not satisfy the poet ; such Positivist ideals do not satisfy him in the declme of life, _ death is real. The most human of all feelings is this revolt of Cleon to the cold philosophy which only intensifies his misery ; it is the cry of the soul for personal immortality ; and here we find the clear revelation of Browning's own ideal : that neither material possessions, honor and fame, nor intellec- tual and moral culture, avail to satisfy the soul when '• most progress is most failure." , ru- Cleon, being contemporary with St. Paul, has heard of his teaching, but with a characteristic Greek skepticism he dis- misses the idea that any revelation of the destiny of man can come from a "barbarian Jew." Cf. Tennyson's treatment of this idea in The Palace of Art and Wages. 25 ^86 JN^OtCS [Pages 210-212 TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA 1855 In this poem we find a method, not uncommon in Browning, by which some minute and delicate observation of nature is made to lead up to a tender and touching mood of the soul. It has been susceptible of two types of interpretation ; one critic finding in it " Browning's hunger for eternity in the midst of mortality, in which all the hunger for earthly love is burnt to dust ;" and the other viewing it " as the expression of a love almost but not altogether complete." The Campagna, with its restfulness and beaut}', is a fitting scene for this poem of unrest and search for infinity. The suffer- ing man seeks rest and satisfaction in finite love, and almost reaches his goal, only to be startled with the feeling that it will not satisfy, as the infinite is summoning him on. It is a graphic picture of one moved by a dual passion, — earthly love, and hunger for eternity in which alone is completeness. The moral significance of the principle of love is the richest revelation to be found in Browning's poetry. Love everywhere, even in its most unenlightened manifestations, encumbered with its earthy vesture, has infinite attraction for him because of its possibilities in developing the human soul. Cf. My Star, for a revelation of love's complete development in his own life. A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 1855 The most prominent and important features of Greek edu- cation were comprised under Grammar and Rhetoric, — the one including the study of literature, especially poetry ; the other, literary expression and forensic argument. At the Re- vival of Learning, when Greek had to be mastered as a foreign language, grammar came to mean a study of the structure and laws of language as a prerequisite to mastery of its literature. In such a period Browning lays the scene of this poem. " The glorious pedant," as Professor Dowden calls him, whose en- thusiasm over little things has often been the subject of satire, is canonized by the poet, not for what he actually did, but for the spirit which lifted him out of the ruts of drudgery to the heights of enjoyment. PAGES 212-2,6] Notes 387 It is a glowing picture of the aspiration of tlie Revival of Learning by which routine was softened and ennobled by a god- like idealism. Here, as so often, Browning the thinker outshxnes Browning the poet ; the intellectual and imaginative elements are of the highest order, but the lyrical form is at times strained and awkward. The rhapsody of thought and feeling is no always revealed in a corresponding rhapsody of emotional language. Nothing could be finer than the harmony which exists between the aspects of nature and the conception of the spirit of this great devotee of the new Learning. As the sun shines clearer and the joyous procession climbs higher, leav- ing the vulgar thorpes each safe in its tether, the air grows fresher and more invigorating and the prospect more extended, -symbolic of the infinities of knowledge beyond the earth. It is full of the individuality of Browning himself, and it has a specific lesson for our time in that it suggests that righteous- ness may be found in the spirit of intense and laborious spe- cialization. Mr. Stopford Brooke says: "I wish Browmng had been buried on a mountain top, all Italy below him. Among English poets of the first order, Milton stands alone in his absolute devotion to his art. No phase of artistic work tempts him from his path. Wordsworth at times yields to the seductions of his theory of simplicity ; Tennyson occasional y loses the poet in his quest of finish ; and Browning, in subtle thinking about his thoughts. When these artists are at their best, it is useless, if not immoral, to indulge in the petty gossip of the classroom as to which is the greatest. " TRANSCENDENTALISM " 1855 Poets are sensitive creatures, and feel acutely the sting of criticism; consequently, somewhere in their writings one may find an Irs Poela full of individuality. This poem is Brown- ing's reply to his critics, who had accused hun of too much •"naked thought." Had he lived up to his creed as here re- valed, thought more of song and less of subtle -tdlectual research, what an abundance of 'rose glory ' we should have had ' He would have been, as he often is, a veritable magician Prof W.T.Courthope,in speaking of the exaggeration of the individual element in modern poetry and the neglect of the milversal, says of Browning: "Should future generations be 388 Notes [Pages 216-224 less inclined than our own to surrender their imaginations to his guidance, he will not be able to appeal to them through that element of life which lies in the universal." 1. 22. Jacob Boehme. 1. 37. John of Halberstadt. ONE WORD MORE This epilogue to his " fifty men and women " is Browning's Epithalammm, — his expression of joy, peace, and high en- deavor which his marriage brought him ; in it the poet " attains." It should be read with the similar revelations of do- mestic happiness of his two great contemporaries, Wordsworth and Tennyson, who owed quite as much of their success as poets to noble women as did Browning, albeit in a different way. They all reveal the power of the woman of their love to keep them true to a high ideal of art and life. See Words- worth, " O dearer far than light and life are dear," and Tennyson, " Dear, near and true, no truer time itself," etc. JAMES LEE'S WIFE 1S64 (The original title was James Lee.) Before Men and Wotnen issued from the press in the fall of 1855, the Brownings went to Paris and spent the winter there. They returned to London in June, 1856, because of their anxiety for the health of their friend, John Kenyon. In the autumn they went to Florence. Aurora Leigh, dedicated to Kenyon, was published and at once won popular recognition ; but the pleasure this brought was clouded because of Kenyon's death. He had always been a friend of those in need ; he had given the Brownings a hundred jjounds annually, and in his will he put them forever beyond anxiety in regard to worldly main- tenance by leaving them ;^i 1,000. It was in 1858 that Hawthorne and other Americans became acquainted with the Brownings, and it is from them that we get some of the most interesting and valuable information of their life in Florence. Pages 224-225] NoteS 3^9 Of his first meeting the Brownings atCasa Guidi, Hawthorne writes : " Really I do not see how Mr. Browning can suppose that he has an earthly wife. ... She will flit away from him some day when he least thinks of it. She is a good and kind fairy, however, and sweetly disposed toward the human race, only remotely akin to it. It is wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her cheek, how bright and dark her eyes. There is not such another figure in the world. ... I could not form any judgment about her age; it may range anywhere within the limits of human life or elfin life. ... I am rather surprised that Browning's conversation should be so clear, and so much to the purpose at the moment, since his poetry can seldom proceed far without roaming into the high grass of latent meanings and obscure allusions." I. 22. San Sisto. In Dresden . . . Foligno. In the Vatican. II. 23, 24. In the Pitti Palace ... In the Louvre. 1. 57. Bice. Beatrice. Mr. William Sharp says : " It is, strangely enough, from Americans that we have the best accounts of the Brownings in their life at Casa Guidi. From R. H. Stoddard, Bayard Taylor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Stillman Hillard, and W. W. Story." In this year they spent some time in Paris, where Browning's father was living. On returning to Florence the winter was found to be too severe for Mrs. Browning, and they went to Rome. From this time until 1861 they lived either in Rome or in Florence. Browning was now modelling in clay in the studio of his friend Story, but no diversion could drive away the feeling of anxiety for his wife's health. Suffering from a bronchial attack not considered serious, early in the morning of June 29, 1861, "while talking, jesting, and giving expression to her love in teuderest moods," says W. W. Story, she passed from him, at Casa Guidi. She was buried in the Protestant Cemetery at Florence, where now stands the beauti- ful memorial of her designed by Lord Leighton. The municipality of Florence placed a tablet in the walls of Casa Guidi with the following from the poet Tommaseo : Here lived and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Who in her woman's heart reconciled the science of Learning with the spirit of poetry, and made of her Verse a golden ring between Italy and England. Grateful Florence places this tablet. 1861. Browning's nature was a strong one, but the loss of such associations as had glorified his life and art was well-nigh in- 390 Motes [pages 225-235 supportable. " I shall grow still, I hope," he said, " but my root is taken." Special help came to him at this time from a generous and gifted American lady, Mrs. Blagden, who had been a friend of the family in Florence. In August he and his son went to Paris and spent two months with his father and sister. At this time Story wrote : " The home at Florence is broken up, and I have lost my best friend. . . . For three years now we 've been always together. . . . All the last winter he worked with me daily for three hours in my studio." They then went to London, chiefly in order to give his son an Eng- lish education. In his home at Warwick Crescent he lived in retirement and loneliness save for an occasional vacation in the Pyrenees or in Brittany, although hard at work on a new vol- ume of his poems. Early in 1863 he abandoned his habit of seclusion, as being "morbid and unworthy," as Mr. Gosse says, " and began to seek recreation at dining-table, concert- hall, and places of refined entertainment," as means of es- cape for his restless energy. In 1864 the new volume. Dra- matis Persona, eighteen poems, was published. The interest of the poet here is in types of love, and problems of art and religion, as in Men and lVo?nen. The first poem of this volume \sjanies Lee's Wife. The landscape, forms, and colors which furnish the setting of the poem are those of the little hamlet on the coast of Brittany, where he visited in 1862-1863. Of the series of soliloquies, i-iv and ix are addressed to the husband, who is not present. " The first six stanzas of vi," says Professor Corson, " were written in Browning's twenty-third year and published in 1836 in the Monthly Repository, and entitled simply ' Lines.' " In a series of meditative lyrics Browning reveals the stages of disappointment from anxiety to final action through which the woman passes. Is her action true self-sacrifice, or self- interest ? James Lee's story has not been told. Mrs. Orr says : " We learn from the two last monologues that she was a plain woman. This may throw some light on the situation." DIS ALITER VISUM In the mingling of elements Virgilian and Byronic in the title. Browning seems to reveal the fact that time, place, and circumstance, however heterogeneous they may seem to the average mind, assume a unity to him who views life as a Pages 235-244] NoteS 39 1 whole. The characters and incidents given in this poem are not on the whole such as one would think interesting for purposes of art; they become interesting only when viewed in relation to the poet's idea of time as related to eter- nity in the lives of men and women. Tennyson would have expanded the elements of this poem into a series full of inci- dent, character, and action. ABT VOGLER 1S64 This is a companion piece to The Grammarian's Funeral and a necessary supplement to A Toccata of Galuppi's. It reveals a permanent pleasure instead of an ephemeral one. Thought and feeling are glorified by imagination in a noble, stately, and rapturous movement to the climax in the line, — Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name ? which is the note of Browning's nature destined to sound through the ages to cheer and strengthen humanity. It then dies away in a cadence subtle, sweet, solemn, and restful. Professor Dowden says : " Never were a ghostly troop of souls reanimated and incarnated into industrious life more actually than by Browning's verse. The poem touches the border-land where art and religion meet. ... It is the song of triumph of devout old age." In this poem we have the highest poetic mood of Brown- ing; thought and feeling steal gently upon him as they did so often upon Wordsworth and Tennyson. He is usually too intellectually alert to be surprised by such imaginative moods. It illustrates what Mr. Edmund Gosse says of his escape in the volume of 1855 from the designation of '"that unintelli- gible man who married a poet.' There is no wilful eccen- tricity and interlunar darkness of style here . . . heights were scaled of melodious and luminous thought." RABBI BEN EZRA In this poem, a natural supplement to Clean, we have Hebrew optimism in its noblest manifestation. It is deeply suggestive that in this type of a " Happy warrior who wrought upon the 392 Notes [Pages 244-251 plan which pleased his boyish thought," and who " when the mortal mist was gathering drew his breath in confidence of Heaven's applause," Browning selected an aged Rabbi. It is not the first time that he has shown knowledge of and admi- ration for what was most characteristic in the nature of the Jew. Mr. Stopford Brooke says: "I do not know whether Browning had any Jewish blood in his body by descent, but he certainly had Jewish elements in his intellect, spirit, and character." To the Rabbi life is a thing to be enjoyed to the utmost only when it is considered as a divine training for nobler functions in the world of the future, a fashioning of the vessel meet for the Master's use. Such a life is never to be judged merely by what 's done, but rather by what 's striven for. Sat- isfaction is in the struggle, even if actual material attainment be not reached ; noble exercise of noble ideals is attainment. Tennyson touches this idea in By an Evolutionist, and elabo- rates it in that noble poem of faith and achievement, /;/ Memo- riam ; Wordsworth, in the Ode to Duly, Ode o)i Intimations of Immortality, and Character of the Happy Warrior. In all of these death is only a call to start on that " adventure brave and new." " At no time," says Professor Dowden, " did Browning write verse which soars with a more steadfast and impassioned libration of wing." A DEATH IN THE DESERT 1864 This Apologia pro Fide sua touches that sphere of modern theology which was so characteristic of Browning's age. It is so penetrated with noble emotion and illumined with lofty imagination that in spite of its abounding in subtle thought it will be read for its essential poetic power. That histor- ical accuracy of detail in life and its environment which others travel far to find Browning reached here by a gift God gave him now and then. The grotto in the desert, where the beloved disciple lies dying, the rugged hills and sandy waste, the Bactrian waiting for the camels, and the little group of witnesses, are sketched with a picturesqueness, vividness, dignity, and simplicity which is of the highest art. Those who would base faith in Christianity upon the tes- timony of mere facts, rather than upon the witness of the race Pages 251-270] NoteS 393 to the certainty of divine love and its power through humanity to transform the world, are not doing the highest service to mankind. Bishop Brooks once said that when Christianity returns to its original state it will be a children's religion. The first fourteen lines of Coleridge's Poems of Sleep is an expression of such childlike faith. The late Senator Hoar called these Hnes "the best statement of religious faith, and our relation to the great unseen mysteries, in all literature since the New Testament." Cf. The Witness to the Influence of Christ, W. Boyd Car- penter, Bishop of Ripon. U. 1-12. This explanation of the parchment recording the last words of St. John purports to have been written by the writer, whose wife was a niece of Xanthus. Pamphylax and Xanthus with two others are watching the dying Apostle. CONFESSIONS 1864 Like A Flower's N'ame, this poem reveals the delights which come through memory to many who are weary and heavy-laden with the world's work and worry, — delights that illumine the past and create hope for the future. PROSPICE 1864 (First appeared in Atlantic Monthly, June, 1864.) In Rabbi Ben Ezra death was a friend to be anticipated ; here it is an enemy to be conquered. By the Fireside, One Word More, and Prospice are full of revelations of the poet's personal love : the first two, of his love in association with his wife ; the last, written in the autumn following her death, is his heroic determination, through the memory of her love, to meet and conquer all the enemies of faith and hope in personal immortality. It is a trumpet-call to all who are wavering. It is as characteristic of Browning as Crossing the Bar is of Tennyson. 394 Notes [pages 270-276 A FACE 1864 Professor Dowden says : " No poem in the volume of Dra- matis PersoncE is connected with pictorial art, unless it be the few lines entitled A Face, lines of which Emily Patmore, the poet's wife, was the subject, and written, as Browning seldom wrote, for the mere record of beauty. That ' little head of hers ' is transferred to Browning's panel in the manner of an early Tuscan piece of ideal loveliness." APPARENT FAILURE This poem, so characteristic of Browning's splendid opti- mism in the presence of human frailty — and wickedness, so called — reveals an outlook so broad and a feeling so catholic that those reformers who have always in hand A broom To rid the world of nuisances, have rejected its conclusions with scorn. It is in harmony with Wordsworth's Old Cumberland Beggar — 'T is nature's law That none, the meanest of created things, Of forms created the most vile and brute, The dullest or most noxious, should exist Divorced from good. DRAMATIS PERSONiE EPILOGUE The thought of this poem supplements that in Death in the Desert. It presents three stages in the history of religion : that of the Old Testament, with David as the representa- tive; that of nineteenth century skepticism, with Renan as spokesman ; and that of which Browning, and the great poets PAGES 276-278] Notes 395 of his time, prophesy,— a type of religion which recognizes God immanent in his universe. Cf. John Fiske, Through Nahire to God : " I often think, when working over my plants, of what Linnaeus once said of the unfolding of a blossom : ' I saw God in His glory passing near me, and bowed my head in worship.' " The great English scientist. Sir Oliver Lodge, recently said of the arrogance of certain scientists : " In the presence of a poet witnessing the cloud-glories of a sunset, who is con- strained to ascribe this wealth and prodigality of beauty to the joy of the eternal being in his own existence, to an anticipation, as it were, of the developments which lie before the universe in which he is at work, tending toward an unimaginable perfec- tion, it behooves the man of science to put his hand upon his mouth." Third Period, 1868-1889 AMPHIBIAN PROLOGUE TO FIFINE AT THE FAIR 1872 Between 1865 and 1876 Browning lived in London, but made frequent visits to France, Normandy, and Scotland. The loss of his father, and of his sister-in-law. Miss Arabella Barrett, bore heavily upon him. Honor came to him from an increas- ing number of readers of his poetry. As so many were young men of Oxford and Cambridge, he wrote : " All my new cultivators are young men." He was made honorary Fellow of Balliol thr-ough his friendship with the great teacher Benja- min Jowett. In 1S72 his life was again saddened by the death of his friend, Mrs. Blagden. All of this time he was busy at his work, for he published from 1868 to 1876 no less than nine poems, all of them of considerable length. The Ring and the Book contains over twenty-one thousand lines. Through The Ring and the Book his poetic genius gained full recognition, and henceforth his works had a ready sale. The poems of the early third period of his work were on classical subjects — studies often baffling in their subtle psychology — and sketches. Intellect was usurping the place of imagination. This prologue to Fifine was written while he was at Pornic on the coast of Brittany, where he was enjoying the quieting 396 Notes [Pages 278-284 and refreshing sights and sounds of the sea. It reveals his dual nature, the physical and the spiritual, and that as man may leave the land and, " unable to fly, swims," so at times he may quit the sphere of the material and, " emancipate through pas- sion," sport in the atmosphere of poetry. Stanza eighteen reveals what Browning did too often in these later years, — return too frequently to the world of scientific fact. NATURAL MAGIC 1876 After the death of Mrs. Blagden, who had been so much to Browning and his son, Miss Ann Egerton-Smith, a woman of wealth and refinement, whom he had known in Florence, be- came an inmate of his home and an influence in his life. In 1876 he published a volume of miscellaneous poetry char- acterized by much of his early vigor of imagination and deli- cacy of passion, but marred at times by a somewhat caustic wit aimed at his critics. In Natural Magic and Magical Nature, the short love lyrics, the beauty is without any disfigurement and is its own excuse for being, compelling admiration. The first, a fairy tale of how a thing of beauty vanishes ; the second, a revelation of how the same thing of beauty becomes a joy forever — no fading flower, but an imperishable gem. HERVE RIEL 1876 This spirited ballad was written during Browning's visit to Le Croisic, a little town in Brittany, in 1867. It was first printed in the Cornhill Magazine in 1871, and the proceeds (;f 100) sent to the people of Paris, who were suffering from the results of the Franco-Prussian war. The facts regarding the Breton sailor as given by the poet are essentially historical, but had been forgotten until this poem recalled them. Records show that the holiday was for life. It is significant of the poet's sympathies that this dashing ballad of the sea, heroic in devotion to home and fatherland, should be in every detail of thought and feeling instinct with the soul of a Breton sailor. For a similar type of English sailors' heroism see Tennyson's Revenge. Pages 2S4-291] NoteS 397 EPILOGUE TO PACCHIAROTTO, WITH OTHER POEMS 1876 In 1872 Browning dedicated a volume of his poems "To Alfred Tennyson. In poetry illustrious and consummate; in friendship noble and sincere." In the preface to that volume he paid his compliments to those who had complained that he was obscure, saying, "Nor do I apprehend any more charges of being wilfully obscure, unconsciously careless, or perversely harsh." About this time he wrote to a friend : " I can have little doubt that my writing has been in the main too hard for many I should have been pleased to communicate with ; but I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some of my critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never pre- tended to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar or a game at dominoes to an idle man. So, perhaps, on the whole, I get my deserts and something over, — not a crowd, but a few I value more." In Wordsworth's letter to Lady Beaumont we have a rev- elation of what Browning was experiencing. Wordsworth says : " Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished ; he must teach the art by which he is to be seen, and this must be the work of time.'' In this Epilogue Browning is not so calm in his own de- fence, nor so thorough a reader of his own poetic art, as was Wordsworth in his letter to Lady Beaumont. He misses the point when he argues that sweetness and strength, beauty and truth, can be divorced in great poetry ; his own poetry, where it is of the first order, refutes his teaching here. The allusion in the second line is to Mrs. Browning. Cf. Mrs. Browning's Wine of Cyprus. LA SAISIAZ (Savoyard for the Sun) 1878 In 1877 Browning made an attempt to translate the Aga- memnon ^//Eschylus into English verse, but the result proved that his premises were wrong, — a verse translation " literal at 398 Notes [Pages 291-317 every cost ; " or that his genius was unequal to the task of translation from the Greek to the English. La Saisiaz had its origin in events of this same year, when Browning, his sister, and Miss Egerton-Smith were spend- ing a vacation at La Saisiaz ( Saleve ) near Geneva. The natural beauty of the place, its repose, its wealth of prospect, refreshed and inspired him. He bathed twice every day in a mountain stream; he wrote, he read, he climbed the hills, and delighted in nature and the society of his two friends. But the holidays came to a tragic close in the sudden death of Miss Egerton-Smith while preparing for a climb up Saleve. The old yearning of the soul in regard to the great question, " If a man die, shall he live again.'" took possession of him and these movements of his mind and spirit, records of a solitary climb up Saleve, are given to us in this poem, his In Metnoriam. The introductory movement of the poem reveals to us that he has lost none of his early power to detect the minutest de- tails of the sights of nature ; that he has still a quick response to her gentlest whisper. In Wordsworth's greatest poems nature is viewed as the revelation of personality in harmony with man, to be communed with, loved, and adored; in Tennyson, nature is impersonal, merely the appropriate background or framework for his art; but in Browning nature is used for the purpose of teaching us to aspire to know what is above and beyond — the Infinite God. The poem can hardly be called an argument ; it is only a meditation. Its action is in the sphere of the subjective, like Wordsworth's great Ode, and Tennyson's In Metnoriam. Emerson says : " I am a better believer, and all serious souls are better believers, in immortality than we can give grounds for. The real evidence is too subtle, or is higher than we can write down in propositions, and therefore Wordsworth's Ode is the best modern essay on the subject." Tennyson says in In Metnoriatn : If these brief lays, of sorrow born, Were taken to be such as closed Grave doubts and answers here proposed. Then these were such as men might scorn. And so with Browning. He writes not to refute or prove, not as a theist or agnostic, or Christian even, but rather as a man, to reveal what he himself has found to be true in a very large way for his own soul, in at least one great crisis of his life. There are no facts reviewed either of science or religion, as in Pages 291-318] NoteS 399 In Memoriam. What it may be worth to us he does not imply, beyond the fact that he hopes to interest us in what has interested him. The stages in his meditation interest us, therefore, because of the nature of the subject and the character of the poet. These stages reveal deliberation, modesty, candor, and direct- ness of an open mind — the method of Browning the poet and thinker. His line of procedure is a simple and familiar one : Our existence here is the result of blind force on the one hand or of conscious purpose on the other ; and each one must decide this question for himself in the face of such evidence as he has. Browning at first doubts here ; but finally nothing less than belief in the latter will satisfy the conditions as he finds them. Having satisfied himself upon this point, the next step is taken by viewing the present stage of man's develop- ment as an end in itself, or as a means to a higher attain- ment. He accepts the latter view as the only possible one in the premises ; then all seems clear. Each act of life has a meaning because related to every other, and earth becomes " a pupil's place ; " ignorance of the to-morrow is the only possible means of attaining, for absolute assurance would defeat the end for which we are here. This is no new conclusion on the part of the poet; every word he has written from the days of Fauliiie has implied or expressed this. His idea of life as a probation makes it inevitable that the fact of immortality should be impossible of attainment. In this apparent failure to attain lies the real success of human activity in faith and hope, " the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." This satisfied the yearning soul of the poet ; if it fails to satisfy us, he has nothing to say. " May not our ignorance of the future life be providential ? May it not be that, while we have enough of faith in the future life to enlarge our vision of human possibilities, we have not enough to prevent us from putting our best into the life that now is ? " (Rev. F. B. Hornbrooke.) 1. 543. " Hope the arrowy," etc. Professor Dowden says : " This conclusion is in entire accordance with what Browning wrote two years previously to a lady who supposed herself to be dying, and who had thanked him for help derived from his poems. ' All the help I can offer, in my poor degree, is the assurance that I see ever more reason to hold by the same hope.' To Dr. Moncure Conway, who had lost a son, he wrote : ' If I, who cannot, would restore your son, He who can, will.' " 400 Notes [Pages 31S-321 Mr. John Fiske,the distinguished historian and philosopher, held opinions upon this great subject quite like those of the poet. He says: "For my own part I believe in the immortal- ity of the soul, not in the sense in which I accept the demon- strable truths of science, but as a supreme act of faith in the reasonableness of God's work. Such a belief, relating to regions quite inaccessible to experience, cannot of course be clothed in terms of definite and tangible meaning. For the experience which alone can give us such terms, we must await that solemn day which is to overtake us all." — Destiny of Man, p. 116. Mr. Henry Drummond, after reviewing the processes of nature as revealed in the Evolutionist, writes : " Kindled even by this past, man may surely say, ' I shall arrive ! ' The further evolution must go on, Higher Kingdoms come, — first the blade, where we are to-day; then the ear, where we shall be to-morrow ; then the full corn in the ear." — The Ascent oj Man, chap. x. 11. 550, etc. Looking down upon Geneva, Browning asso- ciates with the place some famous men who did a part of their work there. Each of these men held opinions which conserva- tive thinkers called heretical. Rousseau, who led the revolt against the religion and philosophy of his time ; Diodati, who was expelled from Italy because of his religious views, and taught Hebrew in Geneva (he was the uncle of Charles Diodati, the young friend of Milton) ; Byron, who wrote his Prisoner of Chillon at Ouchy by the lake ; Voltaire, who built a church at Ferney with the inscription " Deo ercxit Voltaire ;" Gibbon, who wrote a part of his great history at Lausanne : all of these Browning believed helped to pass on the torch of truth, because they At least believed in Soul, were very sure of God. 1. 580. " Makistos." Alluding probably to the town from whose watch-tower the beacon flashed the news of the capture of Troy by the Greeks, as in Aga7nemnon : So as on high to skim the broad sea's back The stalwart fire rejoicing went its way ; The pine-wood, like a sun, sent forth its light, Of golden radiance to Makistos' watch. In a letter written soon after the death of Mr. W. W. Story's little son, Browning wrote : " I can't look on the earth side of death. When I look deathward, I look over death and up- ward, or I can't look that way at all.'' Pages 322-331] NoteS 4OI THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC 1878 EPILOGUE After the death of his wife, Browning did not return to Italy until the fall of 1878, from which time until his death he spent a part of each year at Venice or Asolo. The Tiuo Poets of Croisic was written in London soon after La Saisiaz. The only part of the poem which is in Browning's best vein is the Epilogue, in which he pays a delicate compli- ment to those women who by their love have added that " treble " to his otherwise " sombre drone." PHEIDIPPIDES 1879 In 1879 Browning published the first series of Dramatic Idyls. While he is interested mainly in the Epic of Thought, which yields a philosophy of life, he often has the genuine Homeric delight in the Epic of Action, which attracts us by pictures of noble personalities. In Herve Riel and Pheidip- pides, heroic idyls of different times and nations, he touches those feelings which respond to the folk-lore of all peoples. He gives us the riches of ballad literature, — a natural, as contrasted with a literary poetry. This idyl of heroic devotion is based on Greek legendary history as given by Plerodotus (Book VI) and others. It falls naturally into three parts. The first reveals how the Athenian athlete Pheidippides ran two days and two nights to reach Sparta and implore her aid against the Persians ; when the Spartans delayed answer, and at last replied that they could not go to war while the moon was not yet at full, the hero started back, calling upon the gods, and while passing Parnassus at the top of his speed he saw Pan and heard the voice commanding him to halt. The god asks why Athens does not follow him, and commands the runner to say that he will nevertheless aid them, giving as a token a sprig of fennel. Pheidippides then flew to Athens with the shout, " Praise Pan, we stand no more in danger ! " The second part introduces Miltiades, asking what reward Pan promised him. The youth replies, " No vulgar 26 402 Notes [Pages 331-337 reward," only release from his toil and union with the girl he loved, the founding of a house in Athens. The third part, revealing the pathos and power of the old story, shows how the youth fought at Marathon, and, when victory had been won, throwing down his shield, he ran to the Acropolis and shouted Xaipfre, ytK&ixev, "Rejoice, we conquer!" and fell dead in exultant joy, — the reward of Pan for well doing. This is another illustration of Browning's " apparent failure " which is highest success; in this respect Browning's narrative ballads differ from the old folk-ballads, which never reach a climax of passion ; the feeling is distributed throughout. Cf. Mrs. Browning's T/ie Dead Pan. Mrs. Orr calls attention to the metre here, which the poet created as specially fit for such a poem. MUL^YKEH In 1880 Browning made the acquaintance of an American lady, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, who was living at Asolo. Through her generous hospitality and ready sympathy, she became associated with the remaining years of his life. In this year he published the second series of Dramatic Idyls. In Muleykeh, a pathetic idyl of the East, Browning makes central a characteristic feature of oriental character, — the affection of man for his noble associate, the horse. In How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, this is merely suggested. Such a poem as this, full of action and passion, would seem naturally to belong to the period of youth rather than to that of age. Here Browning reveals his power " to recapture the first fine careless rapture." The pathetic close, as Professor Dowden says, " shows that to perfect love, pride in the supremacy of the beloved is more than possession." Cf. Kipling's The Ballad of East and West. EPILOGUE TO DRAMATIC IDYLS This poem is of interest as revealing Browning's theory of contrasts between ephemeral poetry and that which endures. The same is shown in Wordsworth's definition of poetry as " Emotion recollected in tranquillity," and Tennyson's — I think not much of yours or mine, I hear the roll of the ages. Pages 337-338] NoteS 4^3 WANTING IS — WHAT? '^ 1S83 In i8Si the English Browning Society was established and gave new impetus to the increasing interest in his life and work. To it we owe much that is interesting and valuable. To Browning himself, as to some others, at first it seemed somewhat excessive in its enthusiasm, for he wrote : " That there is a grotesque side to the thing is certain. The Brown- ing Society, I need not say, as well as Browning himself, is a fair game for criticism. ... I had no more to do with found- ing it than a babe unborn." That he appreciated the origin and purpose of the society is certain. In 1883 he published the v Q\Mm& Jocoseria, " grave and gay." The little poem, Watttifig is— What? which stood first in the volume, reveals in terse and rugged form the power and po- tency of love — the Christ spirit — to complete incompletion, which is his message so frequently in longer poems. It is re- lated to his work much as Wordsworth's " My heart leaps up " is to his. NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE 1883 Some think this poem is in remembrance of his wife, while others consider it purely imaginative ; at any rate, it is a de- lightful bit of work, which should be read with By the Fireside. It is full of that subtle and pervasive power which conquers all obstacles by its lovely idealism, as did his early love for Miss Barrett while beating its wings against the cage of ad- verse circumstances. FERISHTAH'S FANCIES EPILOGUE In 1884, owing to the ill-health of his sister. Browning did not travel much, but remained at the charming villa of an American friend, Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, at St. Moritz. 404 Notes [Pages 338-340 In this " delicious mountain air," he writes, " my sister is absolutely herself again ; I was hardly in want of such doctoring." He published this year Ferisktak's Fancies, — a series of poems under this fanciful Persian title which reveal that a young man's heart still beats in his breast, but to the rhythm of an old man's wisdom. The note here is — ' T is life, not death, for which we pant ; More life and fuller that we want, and this is heard most clearly in the Epilogue. None of the great problems of life can be settled by mere intellect; until the halo of individual passion envelops, warms, and stimulates them, they fail to move men and women to noble action. Here he builds upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought, and the result is the essential Browning. ASOLANDO PROLOGUE From 1884 to 1889 Browning's life was quiet and uneventful, although full of interest ; there was little searching, but much rest and peace in the enjoyment of those truths of the heart which, once wakened, perish never. There was a sweetness and graciousness in his old age born of serenity and the assurance that he had attained, not to the very things for which he had sought, but to something infinitely higher, that Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we knew. " Love, honor, troops of friends," came to him, and he ac- knowledged them all with a full heart. He spent a part of almost every year in travel, mostly in Italy, and when in 1885 his son visited there, for the first time since childhood, he thought of securing a haven of rest from the storms of age, and negotiated for the Palazzo Manzoni, which he considered the loveliest house in Venice. When the bargain was about to be closed, he found to his great disap- pointment that the foundations were not sound, and the cherished hope had to be abandoned. Pages 340-341] NoteS 405 In 1887 he published a volume, Parleyings with Certain People, which revealed that he still loved the intellectual gymnastics of his middle life. While the subjects are varied, only here and there is to be found the fascinating lyrical cry, or any descriptive beauty, and it is evident, as Mr. Stopford Brooke says, that "imagination such as belongs to a poet has deserted Browning." It was in this year that he changed his London residence from Warwick Crescent to De Vere Gardens. In Italy he and his sister were guests of Mrs. Bronson in Venice. In 18S8 his son, soon after his marriage, acquired the Palazzo Rezzonico, on the Grand Canal, and there he found a " corner for his old age." In the spring of 1889 he was in England, but returned to Italy in July. He was delighted to visit Asolo, fragrant with the memory of Pippa's songs, and said to Mrs. Bronson : " I was right to fall in love with the place fifty years ago, was I not ? " He even planned to purchase a house there, where he might spend his summers, enjoying the life with nature. "It shall have a tower," he said, "whence I can see Venice at every hour of the day, and I shall call it Pippa's Tower." On his return to Venice in November, full of plans for the future, he began to have some discomfort from shortness of breath, which interfered with vigorous exercise ; and, having taken cold, physicians perceived the gravity of the situation. He had already arranged for a new volume of his poems, Asolando, to be brought out in England, and on the evening of December 12, as he lay in bed, he heard the great bell of San Marco strike ten and asked if there were any news of the volume. His son read him a telegram telling that it was that day published, and of the great prospects of its sale. The aged poet smiled and said, " How gratifying ! " and passed away. " Browning had said that he wished to be buried where he died, " says Mrs. Orr : " if in England, with his mother ; if in France, with his father ; if in Italy, with his wife." But Dean Stanley offered a grave in the old Abbey, and the offer was ac- cepted, partly because the cemetery at Florence in which his wife was buried was closed. A private service was held in the Palazzo Rezzonico, and then the coffin was borne to the chapel on the island of San Michele. Mr. William Sharp says : " Venice has never in modern times afforded a more impressive sight than those craped processional gondolas following the high flower-strewn funeral barge through the thronged waterways and out across the lagoon to the desolate Isle of the Dead." Thence the body was taken to De Vere 4o6 Notes [Pages 341-343 Gardens ; and on the last day of the year, amid a throng of mourners of all classes, to the music of Mrs. Browning's " He giveth his beloved sleep," it was laid at rest in West- minster Abbey. The city of Venice affixed a memorial tablet to the Rezzonico Palace with the following inscription : A ROBERTO BROWNING MORTO EN QUESTO PALAZZO // 12 Dicentbre i88g VENEZIE POSE " Open my heart and you will see Graved inside it, ' Italy.' " Asolo also placed a tablet on the house which Browning had occupied there. Asolando was dedicated "To Mrs. Arthur Bronson. To whom but you, dear Friend, should I dedicate verses — some few written, all of them supervised, in the comfort of your presence." The volume reveals the sights and sounds, the joyous reveries and noble emotions, his vespers on that evening of Extraordinary Beauty and Splendor — his closing years. But 't is endued with power to stay, And sanctify one closing day, That frail mortality may see — What is ? — ah no, but what can be. Surely, The sunrise Well warranted our faith in this full noon. The Prologue sounds the note of Wordsworth in the great Ode. He thinks of that hour of splendor in the grass and beauty in the flower, when he first visited Asolo ; and feels that there hath passed away a glory from the earth. But in the poems which follow he reveals Those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may. Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing. Page 344] NoteS 407 And in the noble Epilogtie he is clear and strong in the determination that he Will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind ; In the primal sympathy Which, having been, must ever be : In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering ; In the faith that looks through death, In the years that bring the philosophic mind. In his interesting essay, Browning in Westminster Abbey, Mr. Henry James writes : " A good many oddities and a good many great writers have been entombed in the Abbey ; but none of the odd ones have been so great, and none of the great ones so odd. . . . His voice sounds loudest, and also clearest, for the things that, as a race, we like best, — the fascination of faith, the acceptance of life, the respect for its mysteries, the endurance of its changes, the vitality of the will, the validity of character, the beauty of action, the seriousness, above all, of the great human passion." Mr. C. H. Herford says: " Browning's poetry is one of the most potent of the influences which in the nineteenth century helped to break down the shallow and mischievous distinction between the ' sacred ' and the ' secular,' and to set in its place the profounder division between man enslaved by apathy, routine, and mechanical morality, and man lifted by the law of love into a service which is perfect freedom, into an ap- proximation to God which is only the fullest realization of humanity." REFERENCES BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL Alexander, W. H. Introduction to the Poetry of Robert Browning. Bagehot, W. Literary Studies. Vol. II. Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning. Berdoe, E. Browning's Message to his Time. The Browning Cyclopedia. Birrell, a. Essays and Addresses. Robert Browning. Obiter Dicta. First Series. On the Alleged Obscurity of Mr. Browning's Poetry. Bronson, Mrs. A. Browning in a Solo. Century Magazine. 1900. Browning in Venice. Century Magazine. 1900. Browning, R., and Elizabeth Barrett. Letters. Browning Society Papers. Boston. Browning Society Papers. London. Burt, M. E. Browning's Women. Chesterton, G. K. Robert Browning. (English Men of Letters.) Cooke, G. W. Poets and Problems. Corson, H. Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry. Dawson, W. J. Makers of Modern English. Robert Browning. Dowden, E. Studies in Literature. Mr. Browning and Mr. Tennyson. Robert Browning. Fotheringham, J. Studies in the Poetry of Robert Browning. Gosse, E. Critical Kit-Kats. The Sonnets from the Portuguese. Robert Browning Personalia. Hawthorne, N. Italian Note Books. Herford, C. H. Robert Browning. (Modern Writers.) Hutton, R. H. Literary Essays. Mr. Browning. James, H. William Wetmore Story and his friends. 4IO References Jones, H. Browning as a Religious and Philosophical Teacher. Nettleship, J. T. Essays on Browning's Poetry. Noel, R. Essays on Poetry and Poets. Robert Browning. Orr, Mrs. S. Hand Book to Robert Browning's Works. Robert Browning, Life and Letters. Ritchie, Mrs. Anne Thackeray. Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning. Scudder, Miss V. The Life of the Spirit in the Modern English Poets. Sharp, W. Robert Browning. ( Great Writers Series.) Stedman, E. C. Victorian Poets. Stephen, L. Studies of a Biographer. Vol. III. The Browning Letters. Story, W. W. Conversations in a Studio. Symons, a. Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning. Wise, T. J. Bibliography of Browning's Poetry. INDEX TO POEMS Page Abt Vogler 240 Amphibian 276 Andrea del Sarto 164 Any Wife to Any Husband 125 Apparent Failure 271 Asolando, Prologue to 340 " Epilogue to 344 Bishop, The, Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church 55 Boot and Saddle 26 Boy, The, and the Angel 84 By the Fireside 118 Campagna, Two in the 210 Cavalier Tunes 25 " Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came" , ... 141 Cleon 201 Confessions 268 Cristina 39 Croisic, The Two Poets of, Epilogue to 322 " De GusTiBUS — " 195 Death in the Desert, A 251 Dis Aliier Visum ; or, Le Byron de nos Jours .... 235 Dramatic Idyls, Second Series, Epilogue to 337 Dramatis Personas, Epilogue to 273 Duchess, My Last 27 Duchess, The Flight of the 61 Earth's Immortalities 84 Epistle, An, containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician 130 Evelyn Hope 99 Face, A 270 Failure, Apparent 271 Fame 84 412 Index to Poems Page Ferishtah's Fancies, Epilogue to 338 Fifine at the Fair, Prologue to 276 Flight of the Duchess, The 61 Florence, Old Pictures in 171 Flower's Name, The 58 Fra Lippo Lippi 105 French Camp, Incident of the 28 Galuppi's, A Toccata of 115 Garden Fancies 58 " Ghent to Aix, How they brought the Good News from " 49 Girl, A Pearl, a 343 Give a Rouse 26 Glove, The 87 Grammarian's Funeral, A 212 Herv6 Riel 279 Holy-Cross Day 196 Home Thoughts, from Abroad 54 Home Thoughts, from the Sea 55 How it Strikes a Contemporary 156 " How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix " 49 Incident of the French Camp 28 Instans Tyrannus 138 James Lee's Wife 224 La Saisiaz 291 Last Duchess, My 27 Last Ride Together, The 159 Lippo Lippi, Fra 105 Lost Leader, The 53 Love Among the Ruins 92 Lovers' Quarrel, A 94 Magical Nature 279 Marching Along 25 Memorabilia 163 Misconceptions 217 Muleykeh 331 My Last Duchess 27 My Star 138 Natural Magic 278 Never the Time and the Place 338 Index to Poems 413 Page Old Pictures in Florence 171 One Word More. To E. B. B 218 Pacchiarotto, and how he Worked in Distemper, Epilogue to 284 Paracelsus, Selections from 7 Patriot, The — An Old Story 162 Pauline, Selections from i Pearl, a Girl, A 343 Pheidippides 325 Pictor Ignotus 51 Pictures, Old, in Florence 171 Pied Piper of Hamelin, The — A Child's Story . ... 41 Pippa Passes, Selections from 20 Poetics 342 Prospice 269 Quarrel, A Lovers' 94 Rabbi Ben Ezra 244 Respectability 147 Saisiaz, La 291 Saul ' 179 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 30 Speculative 343 Star, My 138 Statue, The, and the Bust 148 Summum Bonum 342 Toccata of Galuppi's, A 115 "Transcendentalism; A Poem in Twelve Books " . . 216 Two in the Campagna 210 Two Poets of Croisic, The Epilogue 322 Tyrannus, Instans 138 Up at a Villa — Down in the City loi VoGLER, Abt 240 Wanting is — What? 337 Waring 32 Wife, Any, to Any Husband 125 INDEX TO FIRST LINES Page A King lived long ago ^^ A simple ring with a single stone 34J Ah, did you once see Shelley plain i03 Ah, Love, but a day "4 All I can say is — I saw it I . . 270 All service ranks the same with God 20 All that I know • • • • . • • • ' • ^3» All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag ot one bee • • ■^'z " As like as a Hand to another Hand ! 231 At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time ... 344 Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead ! 99 Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 20 But do not let us quarrel any more io4 Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles 201 Dared and done : at last I stand upon the summit . . 292 Dear, had the world in its caprice M7 Fear death ? — to feel the fog in my throat 269 Fee, faw, fum ! bubble and squeak 1 ^97 First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock 1 . . 325 Flower — I never fancied, jewel — I profess you ! . . 279 Give her but a least excuse to love me ! 20 Good, to forgive ^^i Grow old along with me ! 244 Gr-r-r — there, go, my heart's abhorrence I 3° Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare loi Hamelin Town 's in Brunswick 4^ Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes 12 " Heigho," yawned one day King Francis »7 Here 's the garden she walked across 5° How well I know what I mean to do ^^° I AM poor brother Lippo, by your leave ! •;•••• ^°^ I could have painted pictures like that youth s . • . . 5^ I leaned on the turf "^ I only knew one poet in my life ^2P 4i6 Index to First Lines Page I said — Then, dearest, since 't is so 159 I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he 49 I will be quiet and talk with you 226 I wonder do you feel to-day 210 If a stranger passed the tent of Hoseyn, he cried " A churl's ! " 331 If one could have that little head of hers 270 Is all our fire of shipwreck wood 224 It was roses, roses, all the way 162 Just for a handful of silver he left us 53 Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs .... 130 Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King 25 King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? 20 Let us begin and carry up this corpse 212 Morning, evening, noon and night 84 My first thought was, he lied in every word 141 My love, this is the bitterest, that thou 125 Never the time and the place 338 Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away 55 No, for I '11 save it I Seven years since 271 Of the million or two, more or less 138 Oh, Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find . . . 115 Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth . . . 231 Oh, Love — no, Love! All the noise below, Love . . 338 Oh, to be in England 54 Oh, what a dawn of day ! 94 On the first of the Feast of Feasts 273 On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two 279 Others may need new life in Heaven 343 Over-head the tree-tops meet 22 Said Abner, " At last thou art come I Ere I tell, ere thou speak I79 See, as the prettiest graves will do in time 84 She should never have looked at me 39 " So say the foolish ! " Say the foolish so. Love ? . . . 342 Still ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no ? .... 228 Stop, let me have the truth of that ! 235 Stop playing, poet ! May a brother speak ? 216 [Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene 251 That 's my last Duchess painted on the wall .... 27 The fancy I had to-day 276 The morn when first it thunders in March 171 Index to First Lines 417 Page " The Poet's age is sad : for why ? 340 " The poets pour us wine — " 284 The swallow has set her six young on the rail .... 225 The year 's at the spring 20 There is nothing to remember in me 234 There 's a palace in Florence, the world knows well . . 148 There they are, my fifty men and women 218 This is a spray the Bird clung to 217 Thus the Mayne glideth 12 " Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke . . . 337 Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity ! 55 Wanting is — what? 337 What a pretty tale you told me 322 What is he buzzing in my ears 'i 268 What 's become of Waring 32 Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles ... 92 Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build 240 You know, we French stormed Ratisbon 28 Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees 195 You 're my friend 61 27 OCT 9