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PRINTED AND BOUND 
 BY THE 
 
 Baylor University Press 
 waco, texas 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
Homage to 
 Robert Browning 
 
 By ALEPH TANNER 
 
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 Printed by the 
 Baylor University Press 
 
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INTRODUCTION 
 
 This book has resulted from a course in the study of 
 the poetry of Robert Browning which I took while at- 
 tending Baylor University. My knowledge of the poet 
 and his work was extremely limited — and I fear prejudiced 
 — but the more I studied, the greater was my enthusiasm 
 and admiration. This led me to undertake for my senior 
 thesis (A. B.) the gathering of tributes to Robert Brown- 
 ins;, and the task has afforded me much pleasure — 
 despite the immense amount of work necessary to collect 
 these poems and secure the privilege to print them. 
 
 Some poems contained in the volume have never before 
 been published: they were written and read at special 
 Browning functions, and it has been due to the generous 
 co-operation of Browning lovers everywhere that I have 
 been able to locate these lines. Even now I have secured 
 information concerning other poems which I fear will not 
 reach me in time to include in this book. I feel certain 
 that there will be another volume issued as a supplement 
 to this one, so that I now appeal to all readers to send 
 to me or to Dr. A. J. Armstrong, Baylor University, 
 Waco, Texas, any other poems or information concerning 
 other poems which I have not included. At first it was 
 purposed to include parodies, but the collection grew to 
 such proportions — and the parodies have a unity in them- 
 selves — that it was decided to use only the serious poems 
 and to issue later a collection known as Parodies of 
 Robert Browning's Poems. Any one knowing of paro- 
 dies will confer a great favor by reporting such poems. 
 
 Since the admirers of Browning live in every clime 
 and follow every walk in life, one will not be surprised 
 to find here a variety of verses, and as a natural result 
 the contrast in poems is at times marked, yet all have 
 sought to render "Homage to Robert Browning" — so 
 that in our arrangement "there is no first or last." 
 
 Browning! That name has served as a password which 
 has opened to me many a treasured friendship, for all 
 
 Page Three 
 
Browning lovers seem to have caught the Poet's optimis- 
 tic message and, like Pippa, can always sing, 
 
 "God's in His heaven,, 
 All's right with the world!" 
 
 That you, dear reader, may derive pleasure from these 
 pages is my earnest hope, for it has been a work of love. 
 
 My indebtednesses have been so numerous that I have 
 hardly known where to begin to acknowledge them. Miss 
 Marie Ada Molineux, of the Boston Browning Society; 
 Miss Florence Weir Gibson, of the New York Browning 
 Society; Mr. Frank H. Chase, of the Boston Public 
 Library; Dr. S. G. Ayer, of Garret Biblical Institute, 
 Evanston; the librarians of Baylor University, of New 
 York City, of Congress and of the British Museum, have 
 generously co-operated. The authors and publishers of 
 the poems collected have without exception given me per- 
 mission to reprint their works. But most of all, I would 
 thank my teacher and friend, Dr. A. J. Armstrong, whose 
 •devotion to Browning has through a long period of years 
 induced many students to sit at the feet of this master 
 poet and has sent them on their way with an abiding love 
 for poetry and with higher ideals of life. 
 
 Aleph Tanner. 
 
 Gonzales, Texas, May 7, 1920. 
 
 Page Four 
 
Homage to Robert Browning 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 This Homage to Robert Browning is dedicated to 
 DR. A. J. ARMSTRONG, 
 
 Browning-lover, whose untiring efforts have 
 made this volume possible. 
 
SONNETS 
 
 FROM THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 By Elizabeth Barrett Browning 
 
 i 
 I thought once how Theocritus had sung 
 Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, 
 Who each one in a gracious hand appears 
 To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: 
 And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, 
 I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, 
 The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, 
 Those of my own life, who by turns had flung 
 A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, 
 So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move 
 Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair, 
 
 And a voice said in mastery while I strove, 
 
 'Guess now who holds thee?' — 'Death,' I said. 
 
 But, there, 
 The silver answer rang . . .'Not Death, but Love.' 
 
 II. 
 
 But only three in all God's universe 
 
 Have heard this word thou hast said, — Himself, beside 
 
 Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied 
 
 One of us . . that was God,. . and laid the curse 
 
 So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce 
 
 My sight from seeing thee, — that if I had died, 
 
 The deathweights, placed there, would have signified 
 
 Less absolute exclusion. 'Nay' is worse 
 
 From God than from all others, O my friend! 
 
 Men could not part us with their worldly jars, 
 
 Nor the seas change us, nor the tempest bend; 
 
 Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars, — 
 
 And, heaven being rolled between us at the end, 
 
 We should but vow the faster for the stars. 
 
 Page Seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 in. 
 Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! 
 Unlike our uses and our destinies. 
 Our ministering two angels look surprise 
 On one another as they strike athwart 
 Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art 
 A guest for queens to social pageantries, 
 With gages from a hundred brighter eyes 
 Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part 
 Of chief musician. What hast thou to do 
 With looking from the lattice-lights at me, 
 A poor, tired, wandering singer, . . singing through 
 The dark, and leaning up a cypress-tree? 
 The chrism is on thine head, — on mine, the dew, — 
 And Death must dig the level where these agree. 
 
 rv 
 Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor, 
 Most gracious singer of high poems! where 
 The dancers will break footing, from the care 
 Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. 
 And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor 
 For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear 
 'To let thy music drop here unaware 
 In folds of golden fulness at my door? 
 Look up and see the casement broken in, 
 The bats and owlets builders in the roof! 
 My cricket chirps against thy mandolin. 
 Hush, call no echo up in further proof 
 Of desolation! there's a voice within 
 That weeps . . as thou must sing . . alone, aloof. 
 
 v. 
 
 I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, 
 
 As once Electra her sepulchral urn, 
 
 And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn 
 
 The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see 
 
 What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, 
 
 And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn 
 
 Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn 
 
 Could tread them out to darkness utterly, 
 
 It might be well perhaps. But if instead 
 
 Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow 
 
 The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head, 
 
 O my Beloved, will not shield thee so, 
 
 That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred 
 
 The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go. 
 
 Page Eight 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 VI. 
 
 Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 
 Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore 
 Alone upon the threshold of my door 
 Of individual life, I shall command 
 The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand 
 Serenely in the sunshine as before, 
 Without the sense of that which I forbore, . . 
 Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land 
 Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine 
 With pulses that beat double. What I do 
 And what I dream include thee, as the wine 
 Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue 
 God for myself, He hears that name of thine, 
 And sees within my eyes, the tears of two. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The face of all the world is changed, I think, 
 Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul 
 Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole 
 Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink 
 Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, 
 Was caught up into love, and taught the whole 
 Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole 
 God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink, 
 And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear. 
 The names of country, heaven, are changed away 
 For where thou art or shalt be, there or here ; 
 And this . . this lute and song . . loved yesterday, 
 (The singing angels know) are only dear, 
 Because thy name moves right in what they say. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 What can I give thee back, O liberal 
 
 And princely giver, who hast brought the gold 
 
 And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold, 
 
 And laid them on the outside of the wall 
 
 For such as I to take or leave withal, 
 
 In unexpected largesse? am I cold, 
 
 Ungrateful, that for these most manifold 
 
 High gifts, I render nothing back at all? 
 
 Not so; not cold, — but very poor instead. 
 
 Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run 
 
 The colours from my life, and left so dead 
 
 And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done 
 
 To give the same as pillow to thy head. 
 
 Go farther! let it serve to trample on. 
 
 Page Nine 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 IX 
 
 Can it be right to give what I can give? 
 
 To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears 
 
 As salt as mine and hear the sighing years 
 
 Re-sighing on my lips renunciative 
 
 Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live 
 
 For all thy adjurations? O my fears, 
 
 That this can scarce be right! We are not peers, 
 
 So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve, 
 
 That givers of such gifts as mine are, must 
 
 Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas! 
 
 I will not soil thy purple with my dust, 
 
 Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass, 
 
 Nor give thee any love .... which were unjust. 
 
 Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass. 
 
 x 
 
 Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed 
 
 And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright, 
 
 Let temple burn, or flax. An equal light 
 
 Leaps in the flame from cedar plank or weed, 
 
 And love is fire; and when I say at need 
 
 J love thee . . mark! . . / love thee! . . in thy sight 
 
 I stand transfigured, glorified aright, 
 
 With conscience of the new rays that proceed 
 
 Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low 
 
 In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures 
 
 Who love God, God accepts while loving so. 
 
 And what I feel across the inferior features 
 
 Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show 
 
 How that great work of Love enhances Nature's. 
 
 XI. 
 
 And therefore if to love can be desert, 
 
 I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale 
 
 As these you see, and trembling knees that fail 
 
 To bear the burden of a heavy heart, — 
 
 This weary minstrel-life that once was girt 
 
 To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail 
 
 To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale 
 
 A melancholy music, — why advert 
 
 To these things? O Beloved, it is plain 
 
 I am not of thy worth nor for thy place! 
 
 And yet, because I love thee, I obtain 
 
 From that same love this vindicating grace, 
 
 To live on still in love, and yet in vain, . . 
 
 To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face. 
 
 Page Ten 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 XII. 
 
 Indeed this very love which is my boast, 
 
 And which, when rising up from breast to brow, 
 
 Doth crown me with a ruby large enow 
 
 To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost, . . 
 
 This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost, 
 
 I should not love withal, unless that thou 
 
 Hadst set me an example, shown me how, 
 
 When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed 
 
 And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak 
 
 Of love even, as a good thing of my own. 
 
 Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak, 
 
 And placed it by thee on a golden throne, — 
 
 And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!) 
 
 Is by thee only, whom I love alone. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And wilt thou have me fashion into speech 
 
 The love I bear thee, finding words enough, 
 
 And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, 
 
 Between our faces, to cast light on each? — 
 
 I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach 
 
 My hand to hold my spirit so far off 
 
 From myself . . me. . . that I should bring thee proof 
 
 In words, of love hid in me out of reach. 
 
 Nay, let the silence of my womanhood 
 
 Commend my woman-love to thy belief, — 
 
 Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, 
 
 And rend the garment of my life, in brief, 
 
 By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude, 
 
 Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief. 
 
 XIV. 
 If thou must love me, let it be for nought 
 Except for love's sake only. Do not say 
 I love her for her smile . . her look . . her way 
 Of speaking gently, . . for a trick of thought 
 That falls in well with mine, and certes brought 
 A sense of pleasant ease on such a day' — 
 For these things in themselves, Beloved, may 
 Be changed, or change for thee, — and love, so wrought, 
 May be unwrought so. Neither love me for 
 Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, — 
 A creature might forget to weep, who bore 
 Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! 
 But love me for love's sake, that evermore 
 Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity. 
 
 Page Eleven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 xv. 
 
 Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear 
 Too calm and sad a face in front of thine; 
 For we two look two ways, and cannot shine 
 With the same sunlight on our brow and hair. 
 On me thou lookest, with no doubting care, 
 As on a bee shut in a crystalline, — 
 Since sorrow has shut me safe in love's divine, 
 And to spread wing and fly in the outer air 
 Were most impossible failure, if I strove 
 To fail so. But I look on thee . . on thee . . 
 Beholding, besides love, the end of love, 
 Hearing oblivion beyond memory! 
 As one who sits and gazes from above, 
 Over the rivers to the bitter sea. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 And yet, because thou overcomest so, 
 
 Because thou art more noble and like a king, 
 
 Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling 
 
 Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow 
 
 Too close against thine heart, henceforth to know 
 
 How it shook when alone. Why, conquering 
 
 May prove as lordly and complete a thing 
 
 In lifting upward, as in crushing low! 
 
 And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword 
 
 To one who lifts him from the bloody earth, — 
 
 Even so, Beloved, I at last record, 
 
 Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth, 
 
 I rise above abasement at the word. 
 
 Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes 
 
 God set between His After and Before, 
 
 And strike up and strike off the general roar 
 
 Of the rushing worlds, a melody that floats 
 
 In a serene air purely. Antidotes 
 
 Of medicated music, answering for 
 
 Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour 
 
 From thence into their ears. God's will devotes 
 
 Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine. 
 
 How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use? 
 
 A hope, to sing by gladly? . . or a fine 
 
 Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse? 
 
 A shade, in which to sing ... of palm or pine? 
 
 A grave, on which to rest from singing? . . Choose. 
 
 Page Twelve 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 I never gave a lock of hair away 
 
 To a man, Dearest, except this to thee, 
 
 Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully 
 
 I ring out to the full brown length and say 
 
 'Take it.' My day of youth went yesterday; 
 
 My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee. 
 
 Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree, 
 
 As girls do, any more. It only may 
 
 Now shade on two pale cheeks, the mark of tears, 
 
 Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside 
 
 Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears 
 
 Would take this first, but Love is justified, — 
 
 Take it thou, . . finding pure, from all those years, 
 
 The kiss my mother left here when she died. 
 
 XIX 
 
 The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise; 
 
 I barter curl for curl upon that mart, 
 
 And from my poet's forehead to my heart, 
 
 Receive this lock which outweighs argosies, — 
 
 As purply black, as erst, to Pindar's eyes, 
 
 The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart 
 
 The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, 
 
 Thy hay-crown's shade, Beloved, I surmise, 
 
 Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black! 
 
 Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath, 
 
 I tie the shadow safe from gliding back, 
 
 And lay the gift where nothing hindereth, 
 
 Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack 
 
 No natural heat till mine grows cold in death. 
 
 XX 
 
 Beloved, my Beloved, when I think 
 
 That thou wast in the world a year ago, 
 
 What time I sate alone here in the snow 
 
 And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink 
 
 No moment at thy voice, . . but, link by link, 
 
 Went counting all my chains, as if that so 
 
 They never could fall off at any blow 
 
 Struck by thy possible hand .... why, thus I drink 
 
 Of life's great cup of wonder! Wonderful, 
 
 Never to feel thee thrill the day or night 
 
 With personal act or speech, — nor ever cull 
 
 Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white 
 
 Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull, 
 
 Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight. 
 
 Page Thirteen 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 XXI 
 
 Say over again, and yet once over again, 
 
 That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated 
 
 Should seem 'a cuckoo-song,' as thou dost treat it, 
 
 Remember never to the hill or plain, 
 
 Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain, 
 
 Comes the fresh spring in all her green completed. 
 
 Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted 
 
 By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain 
 
 Cry . . 'Speak once more . . thou lovest!' Who can fear 
 
 Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll — 
 
 Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year! 
 
 Say thou dost love me, love me, love me — toll 
 
 The silver iterance! — only minding, Dear, 
 
 To love me also in silence, with thy soul. 
 
 XXII 
 When our two souls stand up erect and strong, 
 Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, 
 Until the lengthening wings break into fire 
 At either curved point, — what bitter wrong, 
 Can the earth do to us, that we should not long 
 Be here contented ? Think. In mounting higher, — 
 The angels would press on us, and aspire 
 To drop some golden orb of perfect song 
 Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay 
 Rather on earth, Beloved, — where the unfit 
 Contrarious moods of men recoil away 
 And isolate pure spirits, and permit 
 A place to stand and love in for a day, 
 With darkness and the death-hour rounding it. 
 
 XXIII 
 Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead, 
 Would'st thou miss any life in losing mine? 
 And would the sun for thee more coldly shine, 
 Because of grave-damps falling round my head? 
 I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read 
 Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine — 
 But . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine 
 While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead 
 Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range. 
 Then, love me, Love! look on me . . breathe on me 
 As brighter ladies do not count it strange, 
 For love, to give up acres and degree, 
 I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange 
 My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee! 
 
 J? age Fourteen 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 XXIV 
 Let the world's sharpness, like a clasping knife 
 Shut in upon itself and do no harm 
 In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm, 
 And let us hear no sound of human strife 
 After the click of the shutting. Life to life — 
 I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm, 
 And feel as safe as guarded by a charm 
 Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife 
 Are weak to injure. Very whitely still 
 The lilies of our lives may reassure 
 Their blossoms from their roots, accessible 
 Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer; 
 Growing straight, out of man's reach, on the hill. 
 God only, who made us rich, can make us poor. 
 
 XXV 
 
 A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne 
 
 From year to year until I saw thy face, 
 
 And sorrow after sorrow took the place 
 
 Of all those natural joys as lightly worn 
 
 As the stringed pearls . . each lifted in its turn 
 
 By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace 
 
 Were changed to long despairs, till God's own grace 
 
 Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn 
 
 My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring 
 
 And let it drop adown thy calmly great 
 
 Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing 
 
 Which its own nature doth precipitate, 
 
 While thine doth close above it, mediating 
 
 Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate. 
 
 XXVI 
 I lived with visions for my company, 
 Instead of men and women, years ago, 
 And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know 
 A sweeter music than they played to me. 
 But soon their trailng purple was not free 
 Of this world's dust, — their lutes did silent grow, 
 And I myself grew faint and blind below 
 Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come ... to be, 
 Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts, 
 Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same, 
 As river-water hallowed into fonts) 
 Met in thee, and from out thee overcame 
 My soul with satisfaction of all wants — 
 Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame. 
 
 Page Fifteen 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 XXVII 
 
 My own Beloved, who hast lifted me 
 From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown, 
 And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown 
 A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully 
 Shines out again, as all the angels see, 
 Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own, 
 Who earnest to me when the world was gone, 
 And I who looked for only God found thee! 
 I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad. 
 As one who stands in dewless asphodel, 
 Looks backward on the tedious time he had 
 In the upper life. — so I, with bosom swell, 
 Make witness, here, between the good and bad, 
 That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well. 
 
 XXVIII 
 My letters! all dead paper, . . mute and white! — 
 And yet they seem alive and quivering 
 Against my tremulous hands which loose the string 
 And let them drop down on my knee to-night. 
 This said, . . he wished to have me in his sight 
 Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring 
 To come and touch my hand ... a simple thing, 
 
 Yet I wept for it! this, . . the paper's light . . 
 
 Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed 
 As if God's future thundered on my past. 
 This said, / am thine — and so its ink has paled 
 With lying at my heart that beat too fast. 
 And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed, 
 If what this said, I dared repeat at last! 
 
 XXIX 
 
 I think' of thee! — my thoughts do twine and bud 
 
 About thee, as wild vines, about a tree, 
 
 Put out broad leaves, and soon there's nought to see 
 
 Except the straggling green which hides the wood. 
 
 Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood 
 
 I will not have my thoughts instead of thee 
 
 Who art dearer, better! Rather instantly 
 
 Renew thy presence. As a strong tree should, 
 
 Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare. 
 
 And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee 
 
 Drop heavily down, . . burst, shattered, everywhere! 
 
 Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee 
 
 And breathe within thy shadow a new air, 
 
 I do not think of thee — I am too near thee. 
 
 Page Sixteen 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 XXX 
 
 I SEE thine image through my tears to-night, 
 And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How 
 Refer the cause? — Beloved, is it thou, 
 Or I? who makes me sad? The acolyte 
 Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite, 
 May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow, 
 On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow 
 Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight, 
 As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's amen. 
 Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all 
 The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when 
 Too vehement light dilated my ideal, 
 For my soul's eyes? IWill that light come again, 
 As now these tears come . . . falling hot and real ? 
 
 XXXI 
 
 Thou comest! all is said without a word. 
 
 I sit beneath thy looks, as children do 
 
 In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through 
 
 Their happy eyelids from an unaverred 
 
 Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred 
 
 In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue 
 
 The sin most, but the occasion . . . that we two 
 
 Should for a moment stand unministered 
 
 By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close, 
 
 Thou dovelike help! and, when my fears would rise, 
 
 With thy broad heart serenely interpose. 
 
 Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies 
 
 These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those 
 
 Like callow birds left desert to the skies. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 The first time that the sun rose on thine oath 
 
 To love me, I looked forward to the moon 
 
 To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon 
 
 And quickly tied to make a lasting troth. 
 
 Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe; 
 
 And, looking on myself, I seemed not one 
 
 For such man's love ! — more like an out of tune 
 
 Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth 
 
 To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste 
 
 Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note. 
 
 I did not wrong myself so, but I placed 
 
 A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float 
 
 'Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced, — 
 
 And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat. 
 
 Page Seventeen 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 XXXIII 
 Yes, call me by my pet name! let me hear 
 The name I used to run at, when a child, 
 From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled, 
 To glance up in some face that proved me dear 
 With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear 
 Fond voices, which, being drawn and reconciled 
 Into the music of Heaven's undefiled 
 Call me no longer. Silence on the bier, 
 While I call God . . call God ! — So let thy mouth 
 Be heir to those who are now exanimate. 
 Gather the north flowers to complete the south, 
 And catch the early love up in the late. 
 Yes, call me by that name, — and I, in truth, 
 With the same heart, will answer, and not wait. 
 
 XXXIV 
 With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee 
 As those, when thou shalt call me by my name — 
 Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same, 
 Perplexed and ruffled by life's strategy? 
 When called before, I told how hastily 
 I dropped my flowers or break off from a game, 
 To run and answer with the smile that came 
 At play last moment, and went on with me 
 Through my obedience. When I answer now, 
 I drop a grave thought, — break from solitude ; — 
 Yet still my heart goes to thee . . . ponder how . . 
 Not as to a single good, but all my good ! 
 Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow 
 That no child's foot could run fast as this blood. 
 
 XXXV 
 If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange 
 And be all to me? Shall I never miss 
 Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss 
 That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, 
 When I look up, to drop on a new range 
 Of walls and floors . . another home than this? 
 Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is 
 Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change? 
 That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried, 
 To conquer grief, tries more ... as all things prove; 
 For grief indeed is love and grief beside. 
 Alas I have grieved so I am hard to love. 
 Yet love me — wilt thou? Open thine heart wide, 
 And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove. 
 
 Page Eighteen 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 xxxvi 
 
 When we met first and loved, I did not build 
 Upon the event with marble. Could it mean 
 To last, a love set pendulous between 
 Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled, 
 Distrusting every light that seemed to gild 
 The onward path, and feared to overlean 
 A finger even. And, though I have grown serene 
 And strong since then, I think that God has willed 
 A still renewable fear . . O love, O troth . . 
 Lest these enclasped hands should never hold, 
 This mutual kiss drop down between us both 
 As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold. 
 And Love, be false! if he,, to keep one oath, 
 Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold. 
 
 XXXVII 
 Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make 
 Of all that strong divineness which I know 
 For thine and thee, an image only so 
 Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break. 
 It is that distant years which did not take 
 Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow, 
 Have forced my swimming brain to undergo 
 Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake 
 Thy purity of likeness and distort 
 Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit. 
 As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port, 
 His guardian sea-god to commemorate, 
 Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort 
 And vibrant tale, within the temple-gate. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 First time he kissed me, he but only kissed 
 The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; 
 And, ever since, it grew more clean and white, . . 
 Slow to world-greetings . . quick with its 'Oh, list,' 
 When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst 
 I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, 
 Than that first kiss. The second passed in height 
 The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed, 
 Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed! 
 That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown, 
 With sanctifying sweetness did precede. 
 The third upon my lips was folded down 
 In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed, 
 I have been proud and said, 'My love, my own.' 
 
 Page Nineteen 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 xxxix 
 
 Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace 
 To look through and behind this mask of me, 
 (Against which years have beat thus blanchingly 
 With their rains,) and behold my soul's true face, 
 The dim and weary witness of life's race! — 
 Because thou hast the faith and love to see, 
 Through that same soul's distracting lethargy, 
 The patient angel waiting for a place 
 In the new Heavens! — because nor sin nor woe, 
 Nor God's infliction, nor death's neighbourhood, 
 Nor all which others viewing, turn to go, . . 
 Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed, . 
 Nothing repels thee, . . Dearest, teach me so 
 To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good. 
 
 XL 
 
 Oh yes! they love through all this world of ours! 
 
 I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth. 
 
 I have heard love talked in my early youth, 
 
 And since, not so long back but that the flowers 
 
 Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours 
 
 Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth 
 
 For any weeping. Polypheme's white tooth 
 
 Slips on the nut, if, after frequent showers, 
 
 The shell is over-smooth, — and not so much 
 
 Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate, 
 
 Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such 
 
 A lover, my Belove! thou canst wait 
 
 Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch, 
 
 And think it soon when others cry, 'Too late!' 
 
 XLI 
 
 I thank all who have loved me in their hearts, 
 
 With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all 
 
 Who paused a little near the prison-wall, 
 
 To hear my music in its louder parts, 
 
 Ere they went onward, each one to the mart's 
 
 Or temple's occupation, beyond call. 
 
 But thou, who, in my voice's sink and fall, 
 
 When the sob took it, thy divinest Art's 
 
 Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot, 
 
 To hearken what I said between my tears, . . 
 
 Instruct me how to thank thee! — Oh, to shoot 
 
 My soul's full meaning into future years, 
 
 That they should lend it utterance, and salute 
 
 Love that endures, from Life that disappears! 
 
 Page Twenty 
 
ROBERT .BROWNING 
 
 XLII 
 
 'My future will not copy fair my past' — 
 
 .1 wrote that once; and thinking at my side 
 
 My ministering life-angel justified 
 
 The word by his appealing look upcast 
 
 To the white throne of God, I turned at last, 
 
 And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied 
 
 To angels in thy soul! — Then I, long tried 
 
 By natural ills, received the comfort fast, 
 
 While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim's staff 
 
 Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled. 
 
 I seek no copy now of life's first half: 
 
 Leave here the pages with long musing curled, 
 
 And write me new my future's epigraph, 
 
 New angel mine, unhoped for in the world ! 
 
 XLIII 
 
 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 
 
 I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
 
 My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
 
 For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 
 
 I love thee to the level of everyday's 
 
 Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 
 
 I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; 
 
 I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 
 
 I love thee with the passion put to use 
 
 In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 
 
 I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
 
 With my lost saints — I love thee with the breath, 
 
 Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose, 
 
 I shall but love thee better after death. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers 
 
 Plucked in the garden, all the summer through 
 
 And winter, and it seemed as if they grew 
 
 In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers. 
 
 So, in the like name of that love of ours, 
 
 Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, 
 
 And which on warm and cold days I withdrew 
 
 From my heart's ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers 
 
 Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, 
 
 And wait thy weeding: yet here's eglantine, 
 
 Here's ivy! — take them, as I used to do 
 
 Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine. 
 
 Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, 
 
 And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine. 
 
 Page Twenty-one 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Walter Savage Landor 
 
 There is delight in singing, tho' none hear 
 
 Beside the singer; and there is delight 
 
 In praising, tho' the praiser sit alone 
 
 And see the prais'd far off him, far above. 
 
 Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's, 
 
 Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee, 
 
 Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, 
 
 No man hath wallet along our roads with step 
 
 So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue 
 
 So varied in discourse. But warmer climes 
 
 Give brighter plumage, stronger wing: the breeze 
 
 Of Alpine highths thou playest with, borne on 
 
 Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where 
 
 The Siren waits thee, singing song for song. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Alfred Domett 
 
 "By him whose lays like eagles, still upwheeling 
 To that sky Empyrean of high feeling .... 
 Whether he paint, all patience or pure snow, 
 Pompilia's fluttering innocence unsoiled 
 In verse, tho' fresh as dew, one lava flow 
 In fervour, — with rich Titian dyes, aglow — 
 Paint Paracelsus to grand frenzy stung: 
 Quixotic dreams and fiery quackeries foiled; — 
 Or of Sordello's delicate spirit unstrung 
 For action in its vast Ideal's glare, 
 Blasting the Real to its own dumb despair, 
 On that Venetian water-lapped stair-flight, 
 In words condensed to diamond, indite 
 A lay dark — splendid as star-spangled night; — 
 Still — through the pulses of the world-wide throng 
 He wields, with racy life-blood beat so strong, 
 Subtlest Asserter of the Soul in Song." 
 
 — From Ranolf and Amohia. 
 Page Twenty-two 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 FOR THE CENTENARY OF ROBERT 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Alfred Noyes 
 
 Singer of hope for all the world, 
 Is it still morning where thou art, 
 Or are the clouds that hide thee furled 
 Around a dark and silent heart? 
 
 The sacred chords thy hand could wake 
 Are fallen on utter silence here, 
 And hearts too little even to break 
 Have made an idol of despair. 
 
 Come back! The fools that still deny 
 And still destroy in hourly jest, 
 Tempt not thy truth with sophistry 
 But deem it still too stern a test. 
 
 Come back to England, where thy May 
 Returns, but not that rapturous light! 
 God is not in His heaven today 
 And, with thy country, nought is right. 
 
 That bastard child of the half-lie, 
 Paradox, plucks from Truth her crown ; 
 Tears the sure stars from out the sky, 
 And hurls the grave high altars down. 
 
 And some, beneath the skin of man 
 Have peered their solemn inch, and found 
 The skeleton that since Time began 
 Was never yet so robed and crowned. 
 
 And some go mumming through the gloom 
 And laugh to find all souls a-stray; 
 And some — our noblest — fold their doom 
 Around them in the Roman way. 
 
 But thou, whose thought, profound and pure, 
 Moved like one intricate world, sublime 
 With wheeling systems, through the obscure 
 Unfathomed skies of Life and Time, 
 
 Page Twenty-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Across the Dark didst flash the Light 
 Back to its primal Fount above, 
 Nor dream the Nothingness of Night 
 Could e'er bring forth the wings of Love, 
 Or close them ! Speak to us, passionate soul 
 Crowned with rich grief, most strong, most wise, 
 Still point our weakness to the goal 
 That glorified thy constant eyes. 
 No facile flatterers of the hour 
 Dare mock the splendour of thy full hope, 
 Whose mail-clad words in rugged power, 
 Marched up, not down the Avernian slope. 
 No shallow hearts dare find thy faith 
 Shallow ! Deep, deeper than the sea, 
 Abides the Love that stormed through Death, 
 And laid hold on Eternity. 
 
 Published with author's permission. 
 
 GREATHEART 
 
 ( To Robert Browning) 
 By Amelia Josephine Burr 
 
 Lover of earth, great-hearted son of joy, 
 His the transcendent fulness of delight 
 Because life's cup, — too bitter-sweet to cloy, 
 Can yield no dregs to him who drinks aright. 
 Let Beauty veil her strangely as she would, 
 To his clear eyes, Love glowed in everything, 
 And since the heart of man he understood, 
 While men have hearts, he will not cease to sing. 
 
 "Life and Living," George H. Doran Company; pub- 
 lished with permission. 
 
 Page Tiventy-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Witter Bynner 
 
 To tell the truth about you, Robert Browning, 
 I bring no wreath of laurel to your crowning 
 Save this: that no one who has loved — can doubt you, 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 An amateur of melody and hue, 
 
 Of marble outline and of Italy, 
 
 Of heresies and individuals 
 
 And every eccentricity of truth; 
 
 And yet an Englishman, a healthy brute 
 
 Loving old England, thrushes and the dawn; 
 
 A scholar loving polite gentleman ; 
 
 A man of fashion loving the universe; 
 
 A connoisseur loving dead artists' lives, 
 
 Their names, their labors and their enemies ; 
 
 A poet loving all the ways of words; 
 
 A human being giving love as love, 
 
 Denying death and proving happiness; — 
 
 When you love women, because youth loves women, 
 
 And when you love a woman, because heart 
 
 Understands heart through more than youth or age 
 
 Or time, and when you marvellously become 
 
 The man whom Carlyle and whom Landor love — 
 
 You are life's poet by a poet's life. . . . 
 
 But when you set yourself about with words, 
 
 Abracadabra, bric-a-brac and the dust 
 
 Of piled confusion, toying with obsolete 
 
 Prescriptions, and with owlish lenses hide 
 
 Your eyes until you marvellously become 
 
 A ponderous, pondering apothecary — 
 
 You dispense remedies, but not to me! 
 
 Let me take down your bulky book of records, 
 
 And find those certain pages where you tell 
 
 The beauty of a shoulder or reveal 
 
 The pure and simple permanence of love! 
 
 It is enough to learn, by a lazy glance 
 
 Through other passages, how you conserve 
 
 The true susceptibility and pathos 
 
 Of bishops, mediums and murderers, 
 
 Page Twenty-five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Manage the rhythm of fantastic souls, 
 Mark in the fault something to profit by: 
 Challenge the far perfection resident 
 In imperfection's opportunity, 
 And — more magnanimous than most of us — 
 Finding yourself in all humanity, 
 Forgive humanity for what you find. 
 You see, I know your text and care for it! 
 And though I will not hunt for it through all 
 Your dark old corners, I shall wait outside 
 And watch you through the windows and admire 
 The amazing industry with which you piece 
 Your manuscripts together to maintain 
 And to corroborate with many proofs 
 Your cheerful confidence in any man. 
 — Who would has heard me rank you, Robert Browning. 
 I bring no wreath of laurel to your crowning 
 Save this: that for your confidence — I thank you, 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 Published with author s permission. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Richard Burton 
 
 Love that is triumph, music that leaps; 
 Glad on the heights, unabashed in the deeps; 
 Valiant and splendid, great righter of wrong, 
 Hail to the militant hero of Song! 
 
 From Boston Browning Society 1909-1910, p. 18; Pub- 
 lished ivith permission of the Society and the* author. 
 
 Page Twenty-six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 IN PRAISE OF ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 (On His Centenary) 
 
 By Cale Young Rice 
 
 Away with trivial bays, 
 
 With wreaths and dithyrambs, 
 
 Upon this day of a myriad days 
 
 When a great heart came to walk earth's w 7 ays 
 
 And sing it free of shams. 
 
 To sing it free of the pale complaint 
 
 Of souls that will not climb; 
 
 And free of the petty coward taint 
 
 Of the cavillers at Time. 
 
 To gaze so clearly far 
 
 Into its mystic clod 
 
 As to be sure it is a star 
 
 Tilled by the touch of God ! 
 
 From "Wraiths and Realities/' with permission of author 
 and of the Publisher. 
 
 THE TWO NIGHTINGALES 
 
 (Of the boy Browning, May, 1826) 
 By Arthur Upson 
 
 'Twas in an English garden I heard tell 
 How, in the odorous early Spring one day, 
 Book-laden, the boy's mother bore away 
 Homeward from town to him the potent spell 
 Of Shelley's airy verses; how it fell, 
 By chance, with them fair other poems lay — 
 Those of one Keats; how thus the marvellous May 
 Broke on the dreaming boy of Camberwell 
 With new ecstatic music; and, that night, 
 As down his father's garden the lad strolled 
 Where fresh laburnums rained their pallid gold 
 Beneath the moon, how, sharing his delight, 
 Like spirits from out far, ringing Doric dales, 
 There sang to him two tranced nightingales! 
 
 London, May, 1907. 
 
 Published with permission of Boston Browning Society 
 and of Mrs. Arthur Upson. 
 
 Page Twenty-seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 
 
 A Centenary Soliloquy 
 By Percy MacKaye 
 
 i 
 
 A hundred years! — Hardly I understand: 
 
 Unriddle it, Rabbi. Through the Abbey stones 
 
 Hearken — the hushed and reverent monotones, 
 
 The shuffled feet, that pause! "Here lie his bones, 
 
 Who passed away 
 
 From earth, perhaps to heaven, 
 
 Aged seventy-seven ; 
 
 Born on this self-same day, 
 
 The seventh May, 
 
 A century gone." — Look, Rabbi! In my hand 
 
 I hold this little watch they call their world, 
 
 Open it with my thumb, where lo! each cog, 
 
 Each golden wheel, on star-gemmed axis whirled, 
 
 Pulses with delicate action. — Pray you, jog 
 
 My laggard mind once more. — They state, you say, 
 
 This was my timepiece; on this crystal face 
 
 I'd pore, and through dim introspections trace 
 
 The portent of the tickings underneath, 
 
 The mainspring of the action. May be so, 
 
 For you should know, Ben Ezra. All I know 
 
 Is, that the ticks grew fainter, as it slipped 
 
 Under my pillow. Then I fell asleep, 
 
 And have been busy dreaming. That was death, 
 
 They say, — death. Sudden the quick hair-spring skipped 
 
 A turn, trembled, and stopped short. — Much too deep 
 
 For me! — Somehow I don't conceive the soul 
 
 Like to a watch unwound. Yet now, they say, 
 
 I am a poet who has passed away, 
 
 With many common millions, to a goal 
 
 Unkenned. — Here's Limbo, then ; and I, a shade, 
 
 Soliloquize now, in this cloistral corner, 
 
 Among pale forms of other ghosts forlorner, 
 
 With } f ou, Ben Ezra, whom alive I made 
 
 The Rabbi of my rhyme. — A quaint conceit! 
 
 Suppose we grant it. So, then! Let us sit 
 
 On dust of kings and make a rhyme of it 
 
 Together — one dead poet and one rabbi 
 
 Conceived and born of him. While you keep tab, I 
 
 Page Twenty-eight 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Will muse the elegy, and score our text: 
 R. Browning to Ben Ezra; adding next: 
 Suggested by the former's centenary, 
 And after that — lest precious ears be vext — 
 
 Apologies for defunct vocabulary. 
 
 II 
 
 The question I would stress, then — pray allow — 
 Is this: To pass away, is it to cease? 
 But if so, how to cease? I said just now 
 That, since my pillow muffled this timepiece, 
 I have been busy dreaming. Ha, those dreams! 
 In what frail shallops, what austere triremes, 
 Unchartered cruisers, barks adventuresome, 
 I have put forth on unimagined seas, 
 And sailed — with what courageous companies! 
 Nay, on no phantom ships! No guest needs fear 
 A skinny-handed ancient mariner 
 In me. I entertain with dice of doom 
 No spectral crews. My fellow-voyagers were — 
 And are, and shall be still — rich-blooded men, 
 Rare-hearted women, lovers of this life 
 And wrestlers with it, reckless of the strain. 
 My visionary barks, those be my books, 
 And I, whose bones consort here with the spooks, 
 Am admiral there of dreamy argosies 
 That ply 'twixt earth and heaven their perilous merchan- 
 dise. 
 
 Perilous, yes; for dreams are perilous craft 
 
 When they be manned by fierce doubts, fore and aft, 
 
 Whose mutinous foreheads scan the heaven for signs, 
 
 And menace their commander: "You, who planned 
 
 Our questing voyage, show us the land — your land 
 
 Of God, His promise! All the lone sea-lines 
 
 Are dim with setting stars and stark with death; 
 
 Yet you, who hold the rudder, answer Faith/ 
 
 And, once more, only Faith!" Thus curse my crews! 
 
 I share their hearts, but overmaster them, 
 
 And hold the rudder straight; 
 
 Till now — a star above each plumed stem — 
 
 Lo, where my galleons, guided by their Muse, 
 
 The surging planet circumnavigate — 
 
 Page Twenty-nine 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 Doubt kindling nobler doubt, faith quelling faith, 
 
 Forms flung to revolution, creeds to rack, 
 
 Old cities of dead empires put to sack, 
 
 Love founding lordlier kingdoms in the future's track! 
 
 So, Rabbi, to our question, if you please: 
 
 Is sailing thus — to cease? 
 
 The ghosts demur; 
 
 For, in the nudging vault, I hear one say: 
 
 "Browning, the poet, who has passed away, 
 
 This is his sepulcher." 
 
 Ill 
 Once a dawn-shaft from God's quiver 
 Struck my soul, and from its embers 
 Flashed a star of song forever. 
 Then the dawn passed. Who remembers? 
 Not remember Pippa? — Pippa who, at sun-up, 
 Rose in her bare attic, while the east boiled gold! 
 With her rising, see, the morning roses run up 
 Clambering live and warm, concealing the night-mold. 
 
 Pippa, she who sang till little Asolo 
 Widened out its walls — like arms, that reach in pity 
 To nestle lonely things that yearn for love — till, lo; 
 Vines of Asolo enwall the heavenly city! 
 
 Pippa, she was Luigi, Ottima was Pippa, 
 Mighty Monsignor, chafer, bee, and weevil ; 
 Life redeemed from listlessness, innocence from evil, 
 Like the cinder-girl that wore the crystal slipper. 
 
 Well, well, Rabbi, so 
 
 Now, as long ago, 
 
 Even thoughts of Pippa 
 
 Lilt another music, breathe an afterglow. 
 
 What, then! Will they say 
 
 She, that passed in song, she, too has passed away? 
 
 Trust me: as I used to sit and ponder, 
 
 Songs, songs, songs she sang me, winged of wonder, 
 
 Flitting sunward, till they quite forsook — 
 
 Like happy birds from open cages — 
 
 My black-barred pages. 
 
 Page Thirty 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 But shyly three and four, with slantwise wing, 
 
 Dartled from heaven back, and hovering 
 
 Around my head, 
 
 Sung my dear earth instead, 
 
 Then nested down, beaks spilling, in my book, 
 
 Splashing its margin with God's meadow-dew. — 
 
 How cage and heart clapped to! 
 
 When lo, all lamely, came a scant-winged few 
 
 That fluttered, just outside the closing covers, 
 
 Too late to slip between, and lingered nigh, 
 
 Teasing with matin-tunes the twilit memory. 
 
 Listen! There pipes one, now! Hark, while it hovers! 
 
 On passion's flower 
 I poised for an hour, 
 A little hour long, 
 Ere I passed in song. 
 
 Stay! cried my lover 
 
 Forsaken : Faded 
 
 Are love's endeavor 
 
 And all that made it! 
 
 Dead — dead! 
 
 But far overhead 
 
 Where faint stars hung, 
 
 And low o'er the grass 
 
 By the eddying river, 
 
 Where poising moon-moths flickered 
 
 and swung, 
 I called to my lover 
 Over and over: 
 
 / poise, I poise, I poise forever, 
 Because I pass. 
 
 IV 
 
 To poise — to pass away! 
 
 Rabbi, beyond the high groins, rose and gray, 
 
 Dimmed by the Minster's adumbrated day, 
 
 How, browed in silence, broods my centenary, 
 
 In silence, bred of dust 
 
 And the dank charnel's must, 
 
 That wraps these bones! Yes, he is passed away 
 
 Forever more; nor London's warping mist, 
 
 Nor Italy's keen amethyst, 
 
 Page Thirty-one 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Shall cast his shadow among men ; and soon 
 
 No lingering friend to care, nor old contemporary. — 
 
 He> I mean, whom once they pointed at 
 
 In Rome and Florence: poet-putterer 
 
 Among old pictures, 
 
 Uncouth utterer 
 
 Of obscure strictures, 
 
 Styleless stutterer 
 
 (Quoth his critics, 
 
 Itching with their own enclitics), — 
 
 Paracelsus! — how he sat 
 
 In chilblain halls, Del Sarto-dippy, 
 
 Robbia-mad, or Lippo Lippi, — 
 
 Like some mage of alchemy, 
 
 Grinding, in his cracked-brain crucible, 
 
 Tortuous rhymes from radiant Titians 
 
 Delving for the thence-deducible 
 
 Dialogue soliloquy: 
 
 Not to mention those musicians! 
 
 Through the dilettantes' drawl 
 
 At the Countess' musicale, 
 
 What surmise you, English ogler, 
 
 Of visions dreamed by old Abt Vogler, 
 
 When you stare (nor note his frowning, 
 
 Conscious of your own silk gowning) 
 
 And pour at tea for Mr. Browning? 
 
 Dust to dust: the large, the little, 
 
 Ashes both! Who cares a tittle, 
 
 At the teas of Goethe, Horace, 
 
 Who wore satin, or who wore lace? 
 
 Ashes all ! even such as — Wait ! 
 
 What of him — even him, the speaker, 
 
 Whose spirit, invoked, comes muffled through this 
 weaker 
 
 Organ of an alien poet, 
 
 Pale, yet not all impassionate, 
 
 Sounding subconscious chords, that flood and over- 
 flow it, — 
 
 Of him, my spirit, Rabbi, — what of him, 
 
 My poising soul? Ah, since I died 
 
 How has this soul of mine been multiplied 
 
 By minds made pregnant with that seraph's fire, 
 
 Whose touch conceptual made aspire 
 
 Mine own from all the ages! 
 
 Wherefore I deem — 
 
 Page Thirty-two 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 No individual ghost, 
 
 Moored on some drifting coast, 
 
 Yearning from out the dark for daylight lost, 
 
 For youth's wild torch, 
 
 Wind-blown with joyous rages, 
 
 Hope's lifted latch and laughter in the porch, — 
 
 Not even now 
 
 For dear exchange of love's undying vow 
 
 With her that was the Aurora of my life, 
 
 My freed soul longs. For I, that lived, grew old 
 
 And died, am born again in beings manifold, 
 
 By grace of that which, once expressed, 
 
 Bequeaths to them the beautiful, the best, 
 
 That bloomed of me; 
 
 Whereby immortally , 
 
 Their passions now partake 
 
 Of mine, of mine their raptures, their far wonder-quest. 
 
 So, in the spirits I pass through, 
 Still I create my own anew, 
 Broadened in scope; still I awake 
 Refreshed, in world-awakened eyes 
 Of all whom mine with thought imbue; 
 Still in my critics criticise, 
 Till, stretching the thralled spirit's cramp, 
 My art becomes an Arabian lamp 
 That, touched, — behold the genie rise! 
 Who bows his blazing form, and cries: 
 "Of all my Master's wealth — the true, 
 The beautiful, the strong, the wise — 
 Mortal, what may his servant bring?" 
 
 Hist, Rabbi! — What bird's that? — I smell the spring. 
 Soft! — Could it be my silk-girl caroling? 
 
 Never alone, 
 
 Lover of joy, 
 
 Delicate scorner 
 
 Of death and his dances, 
 
 Whether you be 
 
 Girl or boy, 
 
 Rapturous mourner 
 
 Of life and her fancies, 
 
 Never may you, never alone, 
 
 Page Thirty-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Utter your ecstasy, 
 Make your moan. 
 
 Garland your hair; 
 Wind, come unwind it! 
 Hide away care; 
 Kind heart, come find it! 
 
 Winter, you gnome, 
 Shrunken and shrilly, 
 Shut Love in her tomb; 
 Tut! — willy, nilly, 
 Love through the loam 
 Unlocks with a lily! 
 
 Starlight or stone, 
 Nothing's its own! 
 
 Fluent through all flows all, as the Greek saith: 
 
 The drowned stone ripples the starlight, even as death 
 
 The living waters, 
 
 With widening discs of light. No sparrow falls 
 
 But gray-stoled choirs revive his matinals 
 
 With incense fresh of dawn. — You, Rabbi, friend, 
 
 Soul-fellow, busy with me to the end, 
 
 Crunching with poet-pestles and rhyme-mortars 
 
 Conundrums for the mind to apprehend, 
 
 Bear witness with me to this paradox: 
 
 What's permanent must pass. All spirit-shocks, 
 
 Numbness and pain, arise 
 
 Conceiving otherwise. 
 
 For Beauty is the flowing of the soul 
 
 Without impediment, the effect being joy; 
 
 So with a ripple may reveal her whole 
 
 Eternal ocean. But the child says: "See! 
 
 My earth is stable; sun and stars spin wild." 
 
 Not so the man: "Our earth spins dizzily 
 
 Round the fixed sun." The poet (man and child) 
 
 Peers in the sun, imagining he sees — 
 
 Beyond his face — the shadowy vortices, 
 
 Vast suctions and compulsions of the soul. 
 
 "Beyond the sun," he sings, "beyond — our goal 
 
 Is God!" Last pries the seer: "Him whom so far 
 
 Page Thirty-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 Ye seek, yourselves consider what you are 
 
 And find Him: stars aspiring to be, 
 
 Life from itself evolving soul — such He! 
 
 Time's runner, not Time's stake; Spring's sap, not sod 
 
 Man's orbit, not his planet — such is God." 
 
 Vouch, then, Ben Ezra, through the texts we glozed 
 
 Of earth's philosophies, I still opposed 
 
 The fixed, immutable. To slake his thirst, 
 
 You said, there lives our soul's utility — 
 
 His thirst unquenchable, for Whom also she, 
 
 My silk-girl, sang: There is no last nor first! 
 
 Therefore through all 
 
 The chambers of His spirit, as I passed 
 
 In changing roles — to lift the dim tent-flap 
 
 (As David) and behold where hung huge Saul, 
 
 Supine, 
 
 Gigantic, serpentine, 
 
 From the cross-beam ; or, through the black storm-gap, 
 
 Panting beneath a woman's hair 
 
 (As Sebald), to watch — now here, now there — 
 
 Blind lightnings stab the dark; thence to unfold 
 
 Before the quiet eyes of Cleon 
 
 His epos on its burning plates of gold; 
 
 Else watch, in Spring of another eon 
 
 (Curled like the finger of an infant faun), 
 
 The prying crocus crimson through the lawn, 
 
 Idling, without other care, 
 
 In England, when my April's there; — 
 
 Still it was mine, and is, in dreams 
 
 To search beyond the world that seems, 
 
 And flash before my fellow-men, 
 
 Kindling His image to their ken, 
 
 Glimpses of that God-man, who wills yet to become, 
 
 Ever for Whom, 
 
 In future as in past, 
 
 There is nor first nor last. 
 
 VI 
 
 But hark! Above our vault, 
 
 Rabbi, the footsteps halt, 
 
 The organ rolls the chant processionaiy. 
 
 Relinquish here this dust; 
 
 Accomplish there Time's trust; 
 
 Ascend with me beyond this centenary. 
 
 Page Thirty-five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Go forth, for we are young! 
 
 Time's song is yet unsung; 
 
 Let our glad voices mingle with God's mass. 
 
 You, Rabbi, on my right, 
 
 Before us both — His light: 
 
 Through men's dear world, with Pippa, still I pass! 
 
 Published with author's permission. 
 
 IMAGINATION 
 
 {Written for the Occasion) 
 By Edwin Markham 
 
 Blithe Fancy lightly builds with airy hands 
 Or on the edges of the darkness peers, 
 
 Breathless and frightened at the Voice she hears: 
 
 Imagination (lo! the sky expands) 
 
 Travels the blue arch and Cimmerian sands — 
 Homeless on earth, the pilgrim of the spheres, 
 The rush of light before the hurrying years, 
 
 The voice that cries in unfamiliar lands. 
 
 Men weigh the moons that flood with eerie light 
 The dusky vales of Saturn — wood and stream; 
 But who shall follow on the awful sweep 
 Of Neptune through the dim and dreadful deep? 
 Onward he wanders in the unknown night, 
 And we are shadows moving in a dream. 
 
 From New York Broivning Society, 1912, p. 3; published 
 zvith permission of Society and the author. 
 
 Page Thirty-six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING 
 
 By Sara Teasdale 
 
 (For R. B.'s Anniversary) 
 I said, "I shall weave my poet 
 A song of shining words" — 
 But thro' the open window 
 I heard the call of birds. 
 
 They said, "He wants no praising 
 From those who stay indoors; 
 Come into the house with walls of air 
 And grass upon the floors." 
 
 I followed the grey birds' calling 
 To a shimmering poplar tree 
 That shook in the silver sunlight 
 The leaves that spring set free. 
 
 I thought I should sing in its shadow, 
 For the leaves were half unfurled, 
 But the wind went by me laughing, 
 Bound for the rim of the world. 
 
 It said, "He wants no praising 
 Of dreamers by a tree; 
 Come follow, for I climb at last 
 The hills that hide the sea." 
 
 "And if in far sea-faring 
 Your praise should still be mute, 
 The wordless song your heart will sing 
 Is more than a well-tuned lute." 
 
 "They praise him best who follow 
 In starlight or in rain 
 The winding ways of wind and men 
 That turn not back again." 
 
 Published with permission of the author and of the 
 Boston Transcript. 
 
 Page Thirty-seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 INVOCATION 
 
 Robert Broivning 7 May, 19 12 
 
 By Percy Mack aye 
 
 1 
 Poet of the vast potential, 
 Curious-minded, quintessential 
 Prober of passion, ample-hearted 
 Lover of lovers, virile-arted 
 Robert Browning, plotter of plays, 
 Leaven us in these latter days! 
 
 Now in rebirth, 
 Reneiuing Time's festa 
 Spring — the ivild quester — 
 Quickens the earth. 
 
 II 
 Not mere being, but becoming 
 Makes us vital. Stript from numbing 
 Vestiture of self-complacence 
 Naked for our soul's renascence, 
 Robert Browning, riddler of hearts, 
 Pierce us with your singing darts! 
 
 Sharp through the sod, 
 Flozver-tipped for His aiming, 
 Shoot now the flaming 
 Spear-heads of God. 
 
 Ill 
 Not our prayer-stool, but our passion 
 Makes us holy. Thus to fashion 
 Psalm and Credo to a human 
 Ritual of Man and Woman, 
 Robert Browning, purger of souls, 
 Heap on us your passion-coals! 
 
 So let aspire — 
 
 As now this young season — 
 
 Spirit and reason 
 
 In flower and fire! 
 
 Published zvith author's permission. 
 
 Page Thirty-eight 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 AN INVOCATION 
 
 (On the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of 
 Robert Browning) 
 
 By Francis Medhurst 
 
 Rabbi Ben Ezra — thou, whose valiant spirit 
 Hath plumbed the riddle of the rolling spheres, 
 Who, far aloof from mortal hopes and fears, 
 The fulness of thy calling dost inherit — 
 If in some wondrous wise our thought may reach 
 The region where thou dwellest, and our speech 
 May pierce the lofty calm of thine estate, 
 Take this the homage from our hearts upwinging! 
 Know, mighty master, that thy message ringing 
 Still lifts us skyward, thine ensample great 
 Still shows ideals that we strive in singing 
 To keep inviolate. 
 
 Thou wast both seer and prophet; through the thunder 
 Of all thy deep-mouthed harmonies there runs 
 A strain pythonic that beyond the suns 
 Thrills in thy major C, the tone of wonder. 
 Ah! Couldst thou lend it us for one brief hour, 
 Whisper within our ears that word of power, 
 Should we not sing, indeed, who now must fail, 
 Strive how we may, to catch the chords upwelling 
 From those high choirs wherefrom thy songs are swelling, 
 Who find our feeble notes of no avail 
 To voice the half-formed thought for whose forthtelling 
 Our harps are all too frail. 
 
 Behold, the mighty bards are wrapped in slumber; 
 No soul titanic sets the world on fire; 
 Apollo's fane is bare, unstrung his lyre! 
 The tale of all our minstrels one might number 
 And find none fit to mate his muse to thine; 
 Our altar fires bear flames but half divine. 
 Strive, if thou may'st, to burst the bonds that bar! 
 Bid thy strong spirit, clothed with raiment mortal, 
 Re-enter life by birth's unfolding portal 
 And, in thy pity for our voiceless star, 
 Inform anew some singer all immortal 
 In one last avatar! 
 
 From the Boston Evening Transcript, May^ 4, 1912; pub- 
 lished with the permission of the editor. 
 
 Page Thirty-nine 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 BROWNING 
 By Madison Cawein 
 
 Master of human harmonies, where song 
 And harp and violin and flute accord ; 
 Each instrument proclaiming you its lord 
 There in the deathless Orchestra of Song; 
 Albeit at times your music may sound wrong 
 To our dull senses, and its meaning barred 
 To mortal understanding — never marred 
 Is your high message, clear, of trumpet tongue. 
 
 Poet, revealer, who both soon and late 
 Within an age of doubt kept strong your faith. 
 Crying your cry that with the world all's well — 
 What wizard powers upon your word await, 
 To rout the darkness from the House of Death, 
 And fill it, triumphant, with Life's organ swell! 
 
 From "The Cup of Comus." Published with permission 
 of all parties concerned. Recognition is made to Mrs. 
 Rose de Vaux-Roger of the Cameo Press of New York, 
 Otto A. Rothert, Literary Executor to Madison Ca- 
 wein and to Madison (formerly Preston) Cawein, sole 
 heir to the poet. 
 
 TO BROWNING 
 By Edwin Markham 
 
 You plumbed the timeless tides that wash the shoal 
 Of Time, and from your cliff of vision saw 
 The streaming Will whose other name is Law. 
 
 You sang the urge of the imperious soul, 
 
 Winged with its dream, and pressing toward the goal — 
 Sang of the soul whose flying steps are fate 
 As it goes searching for the secret gate, 
 
 Where each must bring his very all for toll. 
 
 O Poet, vanished from our mortal day, 
 
 Send back some signal from the upward way, 
 
 Send back a whisper from the seraph height: 
 What word for man? will he at last arrive? 
 
 Answer again out of your larger light: 
 The stars are crumbling — will the soul survive? 
 
 New York Browning Society,, 1912; published with per- 
 mission of author and of the Society. 
 
 Page Forty 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 THE CAMBERWELL GARDEN 
 
 By Richard Burton 
 
 (Brozvning was born May Jth, at Cambenvell, a suburb 
 of London) 
 
 May hath her own blithe beauty, nor doth need 
 
 The other loveliness of human deed 
 
 And human fellowship ; yet doubly fair 
 
 She seems to brood o'er Camberwell, since there 
 
 Once walked the lad who made of blooms and bird? 
 
 His cronies, knew their winsome ways and words. 
 
 Far did he wander; many a mile away 
 And many a year, he saw the face of May 
 Rosy, recurrent, in Italian nooks 
 Uplifting summer arms and siren looks. 
 This month of melody and warmth and shine 
 Is welcome to the heart of man as wine ! 
 
 Ah, but at Camberwell each sound and sight 
 
 And scent — sure ministers to his delight — 
 
 Were interwoven with dewy memories 
 
 Stronger and sweeter than from overseas; 
 
 And wheresoe'er his feet in faring turned, 
 
 Whiles, for that garden-place he must have yearned. 
 
 He who comes back to greet an old, dear friend, 
 And finds him gone, knows it is not the end, 
 But lovingly awaits the gladder day 
 When all friends gather in from far-away. 
 So maiden May comes back and waits for him 
 In grass and flower and every greening limb. 
 
 Long gone the garden, and the singer too 
 Sleeps otherwhere; but still the sky is blue, 
 Spring scents are rife, old magic still beguiles, 
 And May in Camberwell recalls, and smiles. 
 
 Published ivith the permission of the author. 
 
 Page Forty-one 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 A BIRTHDAY 
 
 By Charlotte Porter 
 
 Forces unknown of birthdays new — 
 Life's miracles are they ! 
 A hundred years have but found true 
 The worth of one May day. 
 
 Then, that most puny, potent thing — 
 A baby life was born, 
 Whose unguessed force-of-joy to sing, 
 Lasts like a May unworn. 
 
 I think the ripened soul that sung — 
 "Grow old along with me!" — 
 Cries, — Wonder is from each instant sprung! 
 Keep your soul young to see! 
 
 From New York Browning Society, 1912, p 121 ; pub- 
 lished with permission of the Society and of the 
 author. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Richard Le Gallienne 
 
 So many books are gone, lost in the mind, 
 
 Nurture forgotten ; once on fancy's tongue 
 
 Sweet to the taste; many a honeyed song. 
 
 Yea! and deep-thoughted fruit with bitter rind: 
 
 Browning goes not. As when a boy, I find 
 
 Still the old magic master loved so long; 
 
 Here still the strength that still can make me strong, 
 
 Still the delight of mountains still behind. 
 
 And still among the rocks and stars of speech 
 The sudden silver singing of a bird, 
 Perched on the craggy ridges of his thought, 
 Too high 'twould seem to sing — still out of reach 
 Of the world's ear, that hardly yet hath caught 
 The music hidden in the gnarled word. 
 
 From the Boston Evening Transcript, May 4, 1912; pub- 
 lished with permission of the editor. 
 
 Page Forty-tivo 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 IN PRAISE OF BROWNING 
 
 By Charlotte Porter 
 
 Of loveliness, and all the fair 
 
 In Life, the perfect, choice, and rare — 
 
 The bloom of deeds, 
 
 Most poets tell: 
 
 They with the love of Beauty swell 
 
 The heart of Man; and this is well. 
 
 But Browning moves to love of life, 
 
 Oft-failing yet aspiring strife 
 
 Tow'rd Beauty's seeds — 
 
 The sleeping spore 
 
 Such love of life can wake to soar 
 
 Within each heart: O this is more! 
 
 With growing light through ages shine 
 
 The visions of the Love Divine 
 
 Of God made man: 
 
 So seers still win 
 
 A hope for mortals, spite of sin, 
 
 And life is bless'd since that hath been. 
 
 But Browning's vivid eye discerns 
 
 God in each heart where pure love burns: 
 
 Where Spirit ran, 
 
 Flashing strange spells, 
 
 Transcendent love in might upwells; 
 
 God's witness thus in each Soul dwells. 
 
 Published with permission of the author. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Robert Adger Bowen 
 
 As when amid some vast orchestral din 
 
 The organ's deep majestic sound is heard; 
 
 So doth thy voice with Life's great mystery stirred, 
 
 Sweep o'er the strife of flute and violin. 
 
 From Bookman, Vol. 4; published with the permission-, 
 of the editor. 
 
 Page Forty-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Agnes Lee 
 
 He who leaves a glimmer of his soul 
 In a bit of marble, in a song, 
 He shall win the unseen aureole 
 Set above the stars the ages long, 
 And the fleeting import of his days 
 Echoes of eternity shall praise. 
 
 We of earth thy mastery would hail, 
 Iron hand that shook the gates of art, 
 Crumpled rock to ridge's flowering trail, 
 Yours, O feet, that, following no chart, 
 Forged a future, or in spaces free 
 Walked the winding floor of some old sea. 
 
 Poet of life's ordinances deep — 
 Cities lying restless in the night, 
 Tossing, turning ere they fall asleep — 
 Meadow-streams in peace of pale moonlight, 
 We, the tossing city, we, the stream, 
 Share thy noble heritage of dream! 
 
 Ah! There is a name within thy name 
 Known to love and lyric everywhere, 
 Lettered on the heart in strokes of flame, 
 Hers who wrought in love's encloistered air 
 Gathering the guerdon of her hours, 
 Holding up to thee and heaven her flowers. 
 
 Call we unto her, thou art in sight, 
 Call we unto thee, she glides to us. 
 And before the garden of delight 
 Where forever song is tremulous 
 Two beloved forms Time radiates, 
 Passing in together through the gates. 
 
 Page Forty-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Helen A. Clarke 
 
 "Say not we know, but rather that we love, 
 
 And so we know enough." Thus deeply spoke 
 
 The Sage ; and in men's stunted hearts awoke 
 
 A haunting fear, for fain are they to prove 
 
 Their life, their God, with yeas and nays that move 
 
 The mind's uncertain flow. Then fierce outbroke, — 
 
 Knowledge, the child of pain shall we revoke? 
 
 The guide wherewith men climb to things above? 
 
 Nay, calm your fears! 'Tis but the mere mind's knowing, 
 
 The soul's alone the poet worthy deeming. 
 
 Let mind up-build its entities of seeming 
 
 With toil and tears! The toil is but for showing 
 
 How much there lacks of truth. But 'tis no dreaming 
 
 When sky throbs back to heart, with God's love beaming. 
 
 From Browning and His Century, p. 2, published zvtth 
 permission of the author. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Aubrey De Vere 
 
 His feast of Life was rich — this life of ours: 
 All human things 'neath yonder azure cope 
 For him were deep in meaning, wide in hope. 
 Nor those alone: above our brakes and bowers 
 Mad dance he saw of Genii scattering flowers. 
 His fancy kept a key strange gates to ope; 
 Became at will that quaint kaleidoscope 
 Which turns all shapes to patterns, then devours 
 The last to fashion new. His grasp was large; 
 He knew that, with the suffering heart of man 
 Compared, all matter-worlds but fill a span. 
 His Song had shafts that pierced a spirit-targe;, 
 Its flight outsoared the agnostic poet-clan, 
 Faithful to humblest Song's implicit charge.. 
 
 From Harper's New Monthly Magazine — Vol. 80:931; 
 published with the permission of the editor. 
 
 Page Forty -five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 MESMERISM 
 
 By Ezra Pound 
 
 "And a cat's in the water-butt." — Robert Browning. 
 
 Aye, you're a man that! ye old mesmerizer! 
 
 Tyin' your meanin' in seventy swadelin's, 
 
 One must of needs be a hang'd early riser 
 
 To catch you at worm turning. Holy Odd's bodykins! 
 
 "Cat's i' the water-butt!" Thought's in your verse-barrel, 
 Tell us this thing rather, then we'll believe you, 
 You, Master Bob Browning, spite your apparel 
 Jump to your sense and give praise as we'd lief do. 
 
 You wheeze as a head-cold, long-tonsiled Calliope, 
 But, God ! What a sight you ha' got o' our in'ards, 
 Mad as a hatter but surely no Myope, 
 Broad as all ocean and leanin' mankin'ards. 
 
 Heart that was big as the bowels of Vesuvius, 
 Words that were wing'd as her sparks in eruption, 
 Eagled and thundered as Jupiter Pluvius, 
 Sound in your wind past all signs o' corruption. 
 
 Here's to you, Old Hippety-hop o' the accents, 
 
 True to the Truth's sake and crafty dissector, 
 
 You grabbed at the gold sure; had no need to pack cents 
 
 Into your versicles. Clear sight's elector! 
 
 Published with permission of the author. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Sara Tawney Lefferts 
 
 We love him since, a man, he makes us see 
 What the true stature of a man should be; 
 And being poet, he has made us feel 
 That truth, the highest thing soul can reveal, 
 Each in himself may find and body forth, 
 Sharing the poet's mind, the poet's worth. 
 
 Published with author's permission. 
 
 Page Forty-six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 THE TWO BOBBIES 
 
 By Bliss Carman 
 
 Bobbie Burns and Bobbie Browning, 
 They're the boys I'd like to see, 
 Though I'm not the boy for Bobbie, 
 Bobbie is the boy for me! 
 
 Bobbie Browning was the good boy; 
 Turned the language inside out; 
 Wrote his plays and had his days, 
 Died — and held his peace, no doubt. 
 
 Poor North Bobbie was the bad boy, — 
 Bad, bad, bad, bad Bobbie Burns! 
 Loved and made the world his lover, 
 Kissed and barleycorned by turns. 
 
 London's dweller, child of wisdom, 
 Kept his council, took his toll ; 
 Ayrshire's vagrant paid the piper, 
 Lost the game — God save his soul ! 
 
 Bobbie Burns and Bobbie Browning, 
 What's the difference, you see? 
 Bob the lover, Bob the lawyer; 
 Bobbie is the boy for me! 
 
 From "Songs From Vagabondia;" published by kind per- 
 mission of the authors. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Mary A. Woods 
 
 The paths of night and death unscathed he trod, 
 His eye still fixed where, pale in whitening skies, 
 Love's herald-star assured a sun's uprise, 
 And darkness slain, and earth "afire with God." 
 
 From Living Age, Vol. 231, p. 528; published with per- 
 mission of the editor. 
 
 Page Forty-seven: 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING'S BIRTHDAY 
 By William Harman van Allen 
 
 For what masterpiece to praise him, Browning, poet of 
 
 the height? 
 For Sordello, dreaming idly till he dies to win his fight? 
 Or for Pippa, gaily singing on the streets of Asolo 
 Like a bird of God whose likings with a benison o'erflow? 
 For the marvellous musicians, Abbot Vogler and the rest, 
 And the painters, half-forgotten, whose dim colors gleam 
 
 their best 
 In the light he pours upon them ? Is it Venice, Florence, 
 
 Rome, 
 Where the thaumaturge we honor shows his genius most 
 
 at home? 
 Evelyn, the Duchess, Waring, Karshish, ever-blessed 
 
 John, 
 Saul, Ben Ezra, Paracelsus, exquisite Balaustion: 
 All immortal, since he limned them with his own creative 
 
 art. 
 But from out them all I single one as lady of my heart, 
 Standing altogether lovely in her lilied innocence. 
 What though hell itself assailed her? She had Michael 
 
 for defense, 
 And, for pattern and consoler, holy Mary, Mother-Maid. 
 So I dare to canonize her, saint and martyr, unafraid. 
 And this laurel-leaf I offer to our poet, gratefully, 
 Painter of Pompilia's portrait, perfect in her purity. 
 
 Tributes read May 7, 1907, from the Boston Browning 
 Society, 1909-1910, p. 1 1 ; published with permission 
 of the Society. 
 
 Page Forty-eight 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Marie Ada Molineux 
 
 With the sunrise woke his life 
 i Flushed with all Youth's noble hopes, 
 Brighter growing as the sun 
 Climbed toward the mountain-slopes. 
 
 As the midday glows with light 
 Sc his glorious manhood came ; 
 Giving hope to all oppressed 
 Shone his beacon-light of fame. 
 
 When the sunset splendors spread 
 In that loved yet alien land 
 Sister, son and nations mourned — 
 Glad he clasped a spirit hand! 
 
 In our night the stars that shine 
 Are the memories of him ; 
 Through the centuries to come 
 Guide they surely, nor grow dim. 
 
 From the Boston Browning Society, 1909-1910, p. 25, 
 and published with permission of the author. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Dorothea Lawrence Mann 
 
 Master, about whose laurelled head the years 
 Fame's fairest, richest aureole have bound, 
 We, tco, within the closing century's round 
 Would tribute bring thee in thy starry spheres, — 
 Love of our hearts and all our gladdening fears 
 We bring to thee, our master-warrior, found 
 Triumphant in life's battles, — victor crowned 
 By voice of all earth's prophets and her seers. 
 
 O magic builder, through thy strong-winged song, 
 
 Thy pinions swept life's farthest deeps of air 
 
 And soaring still thy living spirit sways — 
 
 A wind of fire that stirs like a mighty throng 
 
 Of counselling actions, visioning fair 
 
 Body and spirit through man's length of days. 
 
 From the Boston Evening Transcript, May 4, 1912;; 
 published with permission of the editor. 
 
 Page Forty -nine 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 By Margaret Widdemer 
 
 The world has said in its need since the work of the 
 world began, 
 
 "Fair is the song to heed, so what need we ask of the 
 man? 
 
 Praise for the flame-pure song; what matter the folk 
 that sing? 
 
 Let them hold duty a shame and honor a little thing! 
 
 iWords in a noble flood, and if hearts shall be crushed 
 beneath, 
 
 There must be drops of blood for the gems of the laurel- 
 wreath." 
 
 But this bard stood to his word ; his life to his lyre rang 
 
 true; 
 He held by the truths he spoke; the honor he praised 
 
 he knew ; 
 And where his torch burned high with a steady, joyful 
 
 spark, 
 He heard a wonderful cry that sang and sobbed in the 
 
 dark. 
 His strong hands stretched to the shade and lifted the 
 
 captive free; 
 Close by him, unafraid, she chanted more perfectly. 
 Down through her years till night still held they the 
 
 great dream higher, 
 Clear to the sad world's sight a pulsing of star-white fire. 
 
 Aye, through his years alone of playing the brave world 
 
 part 
 Ever the star-fire shone as vestal-clear in his heart; 
 Changeless his faith and brave, and dauntless his steady 
 
 sight, 
 Watching across her grave to a tryst in the unknown 
 
 light. 
 Loyal comrade and guide, noble poet and friend, 
 Yet beyond all beside true lover and knight to the end! 
 
 From the Century Magazine, Vol. 85, No. 3, p. 416; 
 published with permission of the author. 
 
 Page Fifty 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 ON THE HEIGHTS 
 
 By Mrs. Bloomfield Moore 
 
 I cannot write for fulness of content; 
 
 Poems are born as thunders are, from out 
 
 The strife of elements to purify 
 
 The stagnant air. So high I stand, so near 
 
 To heaven, nor strife nor passion's sultry breath 
 
 Can reach me here. When hearts are full as mine 
 
 Few are the words which break — as bubbles break 
 
 The quiet surface of an ocean deep 
 
 When cradled into calm — few are the words, 
 
 I ween, that stir the sweet content when hearts 
 
 Are still ; but, ere we met, one whom I loved, 
 
 Back from a new-made grave, had stepped to stab 
 
 Me in the dark ; and all my wrongs arose 
 
 To sweep my heart-strings with their myriad hands. 
 
 As wakes the wild wind-harp, so woke my lyre, 
 
 And strain on strain escaped until the storm 
 
 Of tortured feeling ceased within the calm 
 
 Of thy blest presence. Lost my riches were, 
 
 And wrecked the barque which held my all in life. 
 
 I stood in terror on the rock-girt shore, 
 
 No voice to pity, and no arms to save — 
 
 Fearing the worst, nor hoping aught of man! 
 
 Anon, the darkness lifted, and I saw, 
 
 Riding at anchor, on the treacherous sea, 
 
 A noble ship, laden to edge with all 
 
 Which makes life sweet and strong. It brought thy 
 
 hand 
 Out-stretched, to which I clung — with hungry heart 
 And famished soul eating the angels' food 
 Proffered in largess such as great souls yield. 
 There is no wealth like that which thou hast given 
 To me — no riches like the treasure thou 
 Hast poured from founts exhaustless of thine own! 
 I who was poor am rich! I bring my lyre 
 And break it at thy feet: its need is o'er, 
 Since discord and despair can strike its strings 
 No more. Thou art my friend! no greater boon 
 Hath earth to give than friendship such as thine! 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. lo8„ •» 
 
 Page Ft'ffy-one 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Robert Buchanan 
 
 Bearded like some strong shipman, with a beam 
 
 Of grey orbs glancing upward at the sky, 
 
 O friend, thou standest, pondering thy theme, 
 
 And watching while the troublous days blow by 
 
 Their cloudy signs and portents; then thine eye 
 
 Falleth, and reading with poetic gleam 
 
 The human lineaments that round thee lie, 
 
 Peers to the soul, and softens into dreams. 
 
 O dweller in the winds and waves of life, 
 
 Reader of living faces foul and fair, 
 
 No nobler mariner may mortal meet! 
 
 Stedfast and sure thou movest thro' the strife, 
 
 Knowing the signs and symbols of the air, 
 
 Yet gentle as the dews about thy feet. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part I, p. I CO. 
 
 THE POET'S WAY 
 
 By J. B. Oldham 
 
 Chain the poet to your table, 
 Bind his soul with silken chains, 
 While you probe with patient science 
 In the bell-shaped bit of brains 
 For the secret source whence springeth 
 Such a marvel of sweet strains; 
 
 Still the reason will be hidden 
 From your analytic gaze 
 Why the poet sometimes uses 
 Such queer complicated phrase. 
 For a poet moves as God does, 
 In a thousand secret ways. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Vol. 11, p. 329. 
 
 Page Fifty-tivo 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 TO BROWNING 
 
 By Clement G. Clarke 
 
 Thou are so sure! and yet thou speak'st of things 
 
 Which have eternal weight. Thy song is fraught 
 
 With proofs of that which saint and seer have sought 
 
 In vain to demonstrate; what spirit brings 
 
 Thee surety? Others hope; thou says't, "I know— 
 
 The spirit is immortal." Hast thou seen 
 
 From Patmos Isle the vision? art serene 
 
 Because thy faith— or sight— hath made thee so? 
 
 We question not ; but for thy confidence 
 
 In that which was our mothers' ground of trust 
 
 We thank thee — thou, so nobly learn'd,so just 
 
 In judgment, thought, and feeling; so intense 
 
 In all that makes a man.— We give thee praise 
 
 And thanks, thou trusting soul, midst doubting days. 
 
 From Outlook, 52:97; published with the permission 
 of the editor. 
 
 TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 Poet, Seer, Philosopher 
 
 By Eric Mackey 
 
 I knew thee first as one may know the fame, 
 Of some apostle, as a man may know 
 The mid-day sun, far-shining o'er the snow. 
 I hail'd thee prince of poets! I became 
 Vassal of thine, and warm'd me at the flame 
 Of thy pure thought, my spirit all aglow 
 With dreams of peace, and pomp, and lyric show, 
 And all the splendors, Browning! of thy name. 
 But now, a man reveal'd, a guide for men, 
 I see thy face. I clasp thee by the hand ; 
 And though the Muses in thy presence stand, 
 There's room for my to loiter in thy ken. 
 O lordly soul! O wizard of the pen! 
 What news from God? What word from Fairy- 
 land? 
 
 From Broivning Society Papers, Feb. 22, 1889, P- 329- 
 Page Fifty-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 BROWNING AT "THE CENCI" 
 
 May 7, 1886 
 By J. J. Britton 
 
 To Shelley's festival, we keep to-day, 
 Comes, honored guest, with genial smile, the man, 
 Whom we name first of all the poet clan 
 Now drawing breath ; and so our glances stray 
 To where he sits attentive; whilst the grey, 
 Cold cloak of misery, that grows alway 
 Wraps Beatrice — till, from the ruthless ban 
 Comes peace, outsmitten by the axe's sway. 
 
 Ave! dead singer, caught by hungry seas 
 
 That swept upon thee, swamping half thy song, 
 
 Great as thou wert, a greater yet is here. 
 
 Hail! living singer, mayest thou tarry long 
 
 Among us, love us, weave, with harmonies 
 
 Grave thoughts of power to calm life's fret and fear. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 8, p. 147. 
 
 MOUNTAIN-BIRTH 
 
 (On The Ring and the Book) 
 How It Strikes a Contemporary. 
 
 By Alfred Forman 
 
 "The mountain would be better were its snow 
 
 A furlong wider on the sunset side; 
 
 Or farther had its pines crept up to hide 
 
 The scars it gathered in its rising-throe; 
 
 The torrent, as it seems to me below, 
 
 Might well have ventured from its line to swerve 
 
 Into the semblance of a purer curve 
 
 Before the precipice received its flow." 
 
 So the coeval critic; yet its head 
 
 The mountain still shoots up to keep from sun 
 
 Or thunder safe the vale beneath it spread. 
 
 The critic's word was over soon and done. 
 
 The mountain, hardly rooted in its bed, 
 
 Its deathless duties had not yet begun. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 8, p. 120. 
 
 Page Fifty-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 WHAT COMES TO PERFECTION PERISHES 
 
 By Sarah A. Bennett 
 
 "What comes to perfection perishes" — 
 Yet ah ! the bloom on the vine ! 
 The velvet sheen of its garlanded green, 
 And the purple, purple wine! 
 
 ''What comes to perfection perishes" — 
 The wild rose wreathed in a pall, 
 Just kissed by the sun, then her race is run: 
 Let the waxen petals fall! 
 
 "What comes to perfection perishes" — 
 From its stem you sever the spray, 
 But those heather bells from the mountain fells 
 Shall ring their chime alway. 
 
 "What comes to perfection perishes" — 
 Slips from the hold of our hand, 
 But lives in its place (as a beautiful face) 
 In the perfectly beautiful Land. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part IO, p. 228. 
 
 TO A BROWNING POEM 
 
 By James L. Hughes 
 
 I read you many times before, 
 And thought you clear and true; 
 Today I read your lines once more 
 And found a message new. 
 
 Why did you not reveal to me 
 That message long ago? 
 "Because you had not power to see; 
 You had to wait and grow. 
 
 "Live out the message of today, 
 And when you read again, 
 Your vision will have stronger ray 
 For higher message then." 
 
 From "Songs of Gladness;" published with permission of 
 the author. 
 
 Page Fifty-five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 DEDICATION OF POEMS 
 TO MY FRIEND ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Mrs. Clara Jessop Moore 
 
 Thou wilt not turn away — thou wilt not say, 
 "I care not for such sad, wild strains as these, 
 I care not for pale field-flowers like to thine, 
 Nor yet for fractured stones though set in gold." 
 Thou wilt bend over them, and from thy eyes 
 Some pitying drops will fall to give them worth. 
 A beggar might choose pebbles by the road, 
 As well, to take unto a king, whose crown 
 Is set with gems: — a peasant better could 
 Choose wayside flowers, and bear them to a queen 
 Whose palace gardens glow in gorgeous blaze 
 Of tropic hues. The king, the queen, might turn 
 In cold disdain; but thou, the king of men, 
 Wilt say, "No flower but that to me is sweet, 
 Which love or friendship places at my feet." 
 
 From Poems, "The Modern Pilgrim's Progress" and 
 "Slander and Gossip." 
 
 A GREETING TO BROWNING LOVERS 
 
 By Ruth Baldwin Chenery 
 
 Lovers of Robert Browning, could we praise 
 Our Poet-Master in a dreamy verse, 
 That born and steeped in music, might rehearse 
 His mighty genius, building phrase on phrase, 
 
 He scarce would thank us; for the victor bays 
 Are green about his brow, and no reverse 
 Can ever dim them: fame howe'er perverse, 
 No more can vex him with her long delays. 
 
 O, let us feel like him the joy of life; 
 
 The throstle's singing and the hawthorne flower 
 
 Cheered his whole soul, and nothing mean or sad 
 
 Made him despair that man shall rise through strife; 
 "God's in His heaven!" we will not flinch or cower, 
 So shall we make the Heart of Browning glad. 
 
 From "At Vesper Time," p. 48, with permission of the 
 author. 
 
 Page Fifty-six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Miles M. Dawson 
 
 This was the prince of suitors. He divined 
 The subtle cravings of a woman's mind — 
 Her sense of worth, of pride and dignity. 
 These plumbed he tenderly, unerringly, 
 Whether poor Pippa or the jilted queen 
 Or fleeing duchess ventures on the scene. 
 
 This was the master-wooer ; for he knew 
 That he who loves sublimely need not sue, 
 That the mute adoration of the soul 
 Which is her very being, doth control 
 Her every impulse for him and her flesh, 
 As the rapt spirit's counterpact, enmesh. 
 
 This was the royal lover. This was he 
 
 Who knew, and was, what all lovers should be. 
 
 To him the love of woman was a thing 
 
 So sacred that no other offering — 
 
 Not life, not honor, not whate'er men prize — 
 
 Is pure or precious with it in his eyes. 
 
 Published with author's permission. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Jeanie Peet 
 
 Near a great forest, one cried out "Obscure!" 
 
 As if it angered him ; the other, "True ; 
 
 Yet none the less those shadowed deeps allure. 
 
 Keep to the sanded alleys, friend ! For you 
 
 Such paths were laid. 'Tis one good reason more 
 
 Why I prefer the forest to explore. 
 
 "Just where the thick-starred tapestry of vines 
 Seems to say 'No admittance', look, they part! 
 Far sweep the fragrant vistas through the pines. 
 Obscure! Like nature, like the human heart." 
 
 From the Century Magazine, Vol. 72, No. 2, p. 253; 
 published with permission of editor. 
 
 Page Fifty-seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 TO BROWNING 
 
 By Pakenham Beatty 
 
 None love in vain; for God, who will not take 
 Mis least gift back, takes not the heavenliest one; 
 None of his faithful will Love's heart forsake, 
 Though death make dumb the spring and dark the sun. 
 
 The dead are always with us everywhere, 
 Unseen of mortal eyes, yet unremoved, 
 Those gracious ghosts that make the twilight fair, 
 The souls that lighted ours, and hearts that loved. 
 
 No nightingale sings for the rose alone, 
 But the least leaf may share his gift of song; 
 So, while the many mourners make their moan, 
 I, least of all who loved thee, shall not wrong 
 
 Thy fame, when these have left thee with thy peers 
 Nor of thy spirit be misunderstood 
 That bring thee my Love's gift of song and tears — 
 I give my best, and each heart's best is good. 
 
 From Living Age, 198-770; published with permission 
 of editor. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By C. E. D. Phelps 
 
 A thought-bow which the world-string scarce can pull; 
 A hand too heavy for the instrument; 
 A gold that needs alloy ere it be sent 
 To mint or graver; verse of faults as full 
 As is the gem of facets; myriad lights 
 
 There sparkle, none converge; gigantic wings, 
 With feet unfit for homely travellings: 
 
 They can but perch on Himalaya-heights. 
 
 Ears may be dull or low, he never seeks 
 
 To reach them stooping, as another man. 
 
 They rise who hear him ; he hath proved he can 
 
 Be understanded of Babel-host: 
 
 And who shall blame the poet if he speaks 
 
 His own peculiar language more than most? 
 
 Fjom Poet Lore, Vol. 5, p. 288; published with permis- 
 sion of the editor. 
 
 Page Fifty -eight 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Cara E. Wkiton-Stone 
 
 Oh, English Mother of that flame-crowned race, 
 
 High priests of Song, who nurtured on thy breast 
 
 Live on immortal, — Browning with the rest, 
 
 Proud of thine ownership lift up thy face 
 
 His birthday on Time's shining page to trace, 
 
 Whose song, like thunder of the heavens, has passed 
 
 Magnificently onward East and West. 
 
 Till in Fame's citadel it has found place. 
 
 Fitting his advent to the world of men 
 
 The nightingales should chorus near and far 
 
 Who into Epics sang them back again, 
 
 Enrapturing Springs that ages cannot mar, 
 
 And set thy heavens to music with a pen 
 
 Dipt in the flooding splendour of a star. 
 
 From the Boston Browning Society, 1909-1910, p. 24; 
 published with permission of the Society. 
 
 TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 ON RE-READING SOME POEMS LONG 
 
 UNREAD 
 
 By E. Dickinson West 
 
 Friend, "strong since joyful" — guide upon the heights 
 
 Of life's best blessedness and life's best pain — 
 
 Awhile I left thee. Now I come again, 
 
 Urged by the vigor lent of old, which fights 
 
 Within my soul, and there makes good its rights 
 
 Over the sloths and langours of the plain. 
 
 Lead me! I, if I follow thee, am sane 
 
 From sad-sick dreams and lotus-flower delights 
 
 That o'er the indolence of heart's despair 
 
 Shed charm of Art. Thy nobler Art doth cope 
 
 With doubts and ills. And they who with thee dare 
 
 Thought's strenuous climb on rugged mountain slope, 
 
 Find vision purged, like thine, by that keen air, 
 
 To catch dear glimpses of a far-off hope. 
 
 Aug. 30, 1881. From Academy, Dec. 17, 1881, p. 454. 
 
 Page Fifty-nine 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Edmund Gosse 
 
 As young Greek athletes hung their votive strigils 
 Within the temples of the Powers above; 
 As lovers gave the lamp that lit their vigils 
 Through sleepless hours of love; 
 
 So I this lyric symbol of my labour, 
 This antique light that led my dreams so long, 
 This battered hull of a barbaric tabor, 
 Beaten to runic song, 
 
 Bear to that shrine where your dear presence lingers, 
 Where stands your Muse's statue white as snow; 
 I take my poor gift in my trembling fingers, 
 And hang it there and go. 
 
 This very day one hundred years are over 
 Since Landor's godlike spirit came to earth; 
 Surely the winter air laughed like a lover, 
 The hour that give him birth. 
 
 Ah ! had he lived to hear our hearts' emotion, 
 What lyric love had strewn his path today! 
 Yourself had sung; and Swinburne's rapt devotion 
 Had cleft its sunward way; 
 
 And I too, though unknown and unregarded, 
 Had thrown my violets where you threw your bays, 
 Had seen my garland, also, not discarded, 
 Had gloried all my days! 
 
 But since the world his august spirit haunted 
 Detains him here no more, but mourns him dead, 
 And other chaplets, in strange airs enchanted, 
 Girdle his sacred head, 
 
 Take thou my small oblation, yea! receive it! 
 Laid at thy feet, within thy shrine it stands! 
 I brought it from my heart, and here I leave it. 
 The work of reverent hands. 
 
 January 30, 1875. 
 Page Sixty 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 ESSAY ON ROBERT BROWNING, DEC. 1886 
 
 By W. G. Kingsland 
 
 O strong-soul'd singer of higher themes and wide — 
 Thrice noble in thy work and life alike — 
 Thy genius glides upon a sea, whose tide 
 Heaves with a pain and passion infinite! 
 
 Men's hearts laid bare beneath thy pitying touch; 
 Strong words that comfort all o'erwearied much; 
 Thoughts whose calm cadence moulds our spirit-life, 
 Gives strength to bravely bear amid world-strife; 
 And one large hope, full orb'd as summer sun, 
 That souls shall surely meet when LIFE is won ! 
 
 So round thy heart our grateful thanks entwine; 
 Men are the better for these songs of thine! 
 At eve thy muse doth o'er us mellower swell, 
 Strong with the strength of life lived long and well. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 11, p. 399. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Bertha Laffan 
 
 He stands like some tall monarch of the hills 
 About whose feet the hamlets clustering spread 
 In valleys daily ringing with the tread 
 Of labour, and the unresting whirr of mills — 
 Above, the air is vocal with the trills 
 Of woodland birds, and tree tops overhead 
 Weave the green curtains of Titania's bed 
 Lapped in the murmur of a thousand rills — 
 Then upward, sheer, a sudden rock-face grows 
 Rugged and rent, and cleft with lightning scars, 
 Or furrowed with the glacier's travail throes. 
 But far beyond the roughness and the jars 
 Of warring forces, rise the virgin snows 
 Up to the silence of the eternal stars! 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 96. 
 
 Page Sixty -one 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 By Harriet Adams Sawyer 
 That soul of thine, thou peerless bard immortal, 
 Is like unto the bounteous, soundless sea — 
 Upon its shores a few bright shells we gather, 
 In ocean-bed some pearls are found to be; 
 But, who could tell the gems thy depths have treasured ? 
 Who, understand the sources whence they spring? 
 We only know those depths could not be measured, — 
 Our best powers falter, when of thee we sing. 
 O, mortal, with a god-like insight dealing 
 With men, and women walking earthly ways, 
 How learned you pathways into all hearts stealing? 
 What tuned your song for hymning human lays? 
 And, too, we dimly see thy likeness peering 
 Through night's celestial canopy above, 
 We know and name some of its constellations 
 Our souls read mystic messages of Love. 
 But, when strained ears have listened to their story, 
 Our inner light reveals far more than they, — 
 We know well that we know not half the glory 
 The heavens declare. We hearken — we obey: 
 So, will we seek thy message to remember; — 
 To see divinity through weakness shine, 
 To know that man at length in joy must waken 
 In image of his Maker — all divine. 
 
 From the Boston Browning Society, 1909-1910, p. 22; 
 published with permission of the society. 
 
 THE TWO FELICITIES 
 
 (Appended to the Pompilia Monologue of 
 'The Ring and the Book') 
 By William Watson 
 'Tis human fortune's happiest heights to be 
 A spirit melodious, lucid, poised, and whole; 
 Second in order of felicity 
 I hold it, to have walked with such a soul. 
 
 By Charles B. Wright 
 A goodly truth, and goodliest here to write, 
 In the pure ether of each happy height; 
 The first felicity Pompilia's dower, 
 And ours the other by a poet's power. 
 From Poet Lore, Vol. 9, p. 472; with permission. 
 Page Sixty-two 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 BROWNING'S LINEAGE 
 
 By Henry Van Dyke 
 
 How blind the toil that burrows like the mole, 
 In winding graveyard pathways underground, 
 For Browning's lineage! What if men have found 
 Poor footmen or rich merchants on the roll 
 Of his forbears? Did they beget his soul? 
 Nay, for he came of ancestry renowned 
 In poesy through all the world, and crowned 
 With fadeless light that shines from pole to pole. 
 
 The blazons on his poet's shield are these: 
 The flaming sign of Shelley's heart on fire, 
 The golden globe of Shakespeare's human stage, 
 The staff and scrip of Chaucer's pilgrimage, 
 The rose of Dante's deep, divine desire, 
 The tragic mask of wise Euripides. 
 
 From the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 99, No. 2, p. 260; 
 published with the permission of the author. 
 
 BROWNING SAID OF THE "THE RING AND 
 THE BOOK:" 
 
 "It lives, if precious be the soul of man to man." 
 
 By Ruth Baldwin Chenery 
 
 O thou Great Soul, with what a joyous beat 
 The heart still throbs at thine exultant cry, 
 For thou art not of those that would deny 
 To Genius, even thine own, largest meet; 
 It was not thine to taste the lulling sweet 
 Of early praise; for long did men decry 
 The greatness of thy powers, but for reply, 
 At last. Fame cast her laurels at thy feet. 
 "If precious be the soul of man to man, 
 It lives" ; what though the centuries forget 
 It's crowding details as the English plod 
 Forever forward in Heaven's unknown plan: 
 "It lives"; its truth shall be immortal yet, 
 If precious be the soul of man to God. 
 
 From "At Vesper Time," p. 53; with permission of the 
 author. 
 
 Page Sixty-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 IN A COPY OF BROWNING 
 By Bliss Carman 
 
 Browning, old fellow, your leaves grow yellow, 
 
 Beginning to mellow as seasons pass. 
 Your cover is wrinkled and stained and sprinkled, 
 
 And warped and crinkled from sleep on the grass. 
 
 Is it a wine stain or only a pine stain, 
 
 That makes such a fine stain on your dull blue — 
 
 Got as we numbered the clouds that lumbered 
 
 Southward and slumbered when day was through? 
 
 What is the dear mark there like an ear mark? 
 
 Only a tear mark a woman let fall, 
 As, bending over, she bade me discover, 
 
 "Who plays the lover, he loses all!" 
 
 With you for teacher we learned love's feature 
 In every creature that roves or grieves; 
 
 When the winds were brawling, or bird-folk calling 
 Or leaf-folk falling about our eaves. 
 
 No law must straiten the ways they wait in, 
 Whose spirits greaten and hearts aspire. 
 
 The world may dwindle, and summer brindle, 
 So love but kindle the soul to fire. 
 
 Here many a red line, or penciled headline, 
 Shows love could wed line to perfect sense; 
 
 And something better than wisdom's fetter 
 Has made your letter dense to the dense. 
 
 You made us farers and equal sharers 
 
 With homespun-wearers in home-made joys; 
 
 You made us princes no plea convinces 
 That spirit winces at dust and noise. 
 
 When Fate was nagging, and days were dragging, 
 And fancy lagging, you gave it scope, 
 
 When eaves were drippy, and pavements slippy, 
 From Lippo Lippi to Evelyn Hope. 
 
 Page Sixty-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 When winter's arrow pierced to the marrow, 
 And thought was narrow, you gave it room; 
 
 We guessed the warder on Roland's border, 
 And helped to order the Bishop's Tomb. 
 
 When winds were harshish, and ways were marshish, 
 We found with Karshish escape at need ; 
 
 Were bold with Waring in far seafaring, 
 And strong in sharing Ben Ezra's creed. 
 
 We felt dark menace of lovers pen us, 
 
 Afloat in Venice, devising fibs; 
 And little mattered the rain that pattered, 
 
 While Blougram chattered to Gigadibs. 
 
 And we too waited with heart elated 
 
 And breathing bated, for Pippa's song; — 
 
 Saw Satan hover with wings to cover 
 Porphyrin's lover, Pompilia's wrong. 
 
 Long thoughts were started, when youth departed 
 
 From the half-hearted Riccardi's bride; 
 For, saith your fable, great Love is able 
 
 To slip the cable and take the tide. 
 
 Or truth compels us with Paracelsus, 
 
 Till nothing else is of worth at all, 
 Del Sarto's vision is our own mission, 
 
 And art's ambition is God's own call. 
 
 Through all the seasons, you gave us reasons 
 For splendid treasons to doubt and fear; 
 
 Bade no foot falter, though weaklings palter, 
 And friendships alter, from year to year. 
 
 Since first I sought you, found you and brought you, 
 Hugged you and brought you home from Cornhill, 
 
 While some upbraid you, and some parade you, 
 Nine years have made you my master still. 
 
 Published by kind permission of the author and publishers; 
 
 Page Sixty-five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 THE WOMEN OF BROWNING 
 By Sivori Levey 
 
 The Ghosts cf Browning's Women pass before my dream- 
 ing sight, — 
 
 Pauline, the Soul's Confessor ; and with songs of heart's 
 delight 
 
 Young Pippa passes; 
 
 Now Ottima and Phene take their shape within my mind, 
 And the friend of Paracelsus, faithful Michal; — just 
 behind 
 
 Some laughing lasses; 
 
 And Evelyn Hope, the golden-haired ; Count Gismond's 
 
 bride from France; 
 Porphyria fair (her neck entwined) with ever-trustful 
 
 glance, 
 
 And My Last Duchess; 
 
 Domizia, and Eulalia, with all their doubts dispelled ; 
 And James Lee's lonely, melancholy wife whose heart 
 is held 
 
 In Sorrow's clutches; 
 
 Artemis, classic goddess; and the sweet Balaustion now 
 Approaches with the wreath of Athens' favours on her 
 brow ; 
 
 Then Klutemnaistra ; 
 Anael ; Mildred Tresham ; Violante — still distressed — 
 And the Spirit of Pompilia comes her baby at her breast, 
 
 No foes to pester her; 
 Madame Riel, the Belle Aurore; the Gipsy-Soul, Fifine; 
 Then one in gorgeous Eastern robes, 'tis Balkis, Sheba's 
 Queen, 
 
 So wise and placid ; 
 Colombe; then Kate from Cyprus; the Riccardi's bride 
 
 comes too ; 
 Dove-like, the dainty Duchess, and the Yellow Duchess, 
 who 
 
 Looks grim and acid! 
 
 Page Sixty -six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 The Faultless Painter's wayward wife; Court Ladies, 
 
 one, two, three, 
 Good Wives and Bad Wives, high and low, from France 
 
 and Italy, 
 
 With husband, lover, — 
 The Queen and Constance, Beatrice, and Christina, — 
 
 still they come 
 With others, see, from Florence, and from Venice, and 
 
 from Rome .... 
 My dream is over. 
 
 From the Journal of the Robert Browning Guild — Vol. 
 I, No. i, (1914), p. 20; published with permission 
 of the author. 
 
 SONNET ON BROWNING'S MASTERPIECE 
 "THE RING AND THE BOOK" 
 
 By Ruth Baldwin Chenery 
 
 O Ring, no slender, narrow circlet, thou ! 
 Enwrought thou liest firm and massive there, 
 Welded of virgin gold; some craftsman rare 
 Enrich thee thus, mayhap for marriage vow. 
 
 Old Yellow Book, the centuries allow 
 A thousand readers, and but one aware 
 Thou hadst a soul ; when in that Florence square 
 *The wind of inspiration swept his brow: 
 
 Behold, O ye the Poet's voice awakes, 
 Another Ring, from gold was never mined, 
 To guard his singer's "golden verse" he said ; 
 
 Another Book, which tells that morning breaks, 
 With Phosphor-star of Truth, for humankind; 
 This Ring and Book, forever shall be wed. 
 
 *"A spirit laughs and leaps through every Umb,^ 
 And lights my eye, and lifts me by the hair.'" 
 
 From "At Vesper Time;' p. 52; with permission of the 
 author. 
 
 Page Sixty-seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 AN ODE FOR THE CENTENARY OF THE 
 BIRTH OF ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By George Sterling 
 
 As unto lighter strains a boy might turn 
 
 From where great altars burn 
 
 And Music's grave archangels tread the night, 
 
 So I, in seasons past, 
 
 Loved not the bitter might 
 
 And merciless control 
 
 Of thy bleak trumpets calling to the soul. 
 
 Their consummating blast 
 
 Held inspirations of affright, 
 
 As when a faun 
 
 Hears mournful thunders roll 
 
 On breathless, wide transparencies of dawn. 
 
 Nor would I hear 
 
 With thee, superb and clear 
 
 The indomitable laughter of the race; 
 
 Nor would I face 
 
 Clean truth, with her cold agates of the well, 
 
 Nor with thee trace 
 
 Her footprints passing upward to the snows, 
 
 But sought a phantom rose 
 
 And islands where the ghostly siren sings; 
 
 Nor would I dwell 
 
 Where star-forsaking wings 
 
 On mortal thresholds hide their mystery, 
 
 Nor watch with thee 
 
 The light of heaven cast on common things. 
 
 But now in dreams of day I see thee stand 
 
 A grey, great sentry on the encompassed wall 
 
 That fronts the Night forever, in thy hand 
 
 A consecrated spear 
 
 To test the dragons of man's ancient fear 
 
 From secret gulfs that crawl — 
 
 A captain of that choral band 
 
 Whose reverend faces, anxious of the Dark, 
 
 Yet undismayed 
 
 By rain of ruined worlds against the night, 
 
 Turned evermore to hark 
 
 The music of God's silence, and were stayed 
 
 By something other than the reason's light. 
 
 Page Sixty-eight 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 And I have seen thee as 
 
 An eagle, strong to pass 
 
 Where tempest-shapen clouds go to and fro 
 
 And winds and noons have birth, 
 
 But whose regard is on the lands below 
 
 And wingless things of earth. 
 
 And yet not thine for long 
 
 The feigned passion of the nightingale, 
 
 Nor shards of haliotis, nor the song 
 
 Of cymballed fountains hidden in the dale, 
 
 Nor gardens where the feet of Fragrance steal: 
 
 'Twas thine the laying-on to feel 
 
 Of tragic hands imperious and cold, 
 
 That, grasping, led thee from the dreams of old, 
 
 Making thee voyager 
 
 Of seas within the cosmic solitude, 
 
 Whose moons the long-familiar stars occlude — 
 
 Whose living sunsets stir 
 
 With visions of the timelessness we crave. 
 
 And thou didst ride a wave 
 
 That gathered solemn music to its breast, 
 
 And, breaking, shook our strand with thought's unrest, 
 
 Till men far inland heard its mighty call 
 
 Where the young mornings vault the world's blue wall. 
 
 Nature hath lonely voices at her heart 
 
 And some thou heardst, for at thine own 
 
 Were chords beyond all Art 
 
 That stir but to the eternal undertone. 
 
 But not necessitous to thee 
 
 The dreams that were when Arcady began 
 
 Or Paphos soared in iris from the sea; 
 
 For thou couldst guess 
 
 The rainbows hidden in the frustrate slime, 
 
 And saw'st in crownless Man 
 
 A Titan scourged through Time 
 
 With pains and raptures of his loneliness. 
 
 And thou wast wanderer 
 
 In that dim House that is the human heart, 
 
 Where thou didst roam apart, 
 
 Seeing what pillars were 
 
 Between its deep foundations and the sun, 
 
 What halls of dream undone, 
 
 What seraphs hold compassionate their wings 
 
 Before the youth and bitterness of things 
 
 Ere all see clear 
 
 The gain in loss, the triumph in the tear. 
 
 Page Sixty -nine 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Time's whitest loves lie radiant in thy song, 
 
 Like starlight on an ocean, for thine own 
 
 iWas as a deathless lily grown 
 
 In Paradise — ethereal and strong. 
 
 And to thine eyes 
 
 Earth had no earth that held not haughty dust, 
 
 And seeds of future harvestings in trust, 
 
 And hidden azures of eventual skies. 
 
 Yet hadst thou sharper strains, 
 
 Even as the Power determines us with pains, 
 
 And, seeing harvests, saw'st as well the chaff, 
 
 And, seeing Beauty, saw'st her shames no less, 
 
 Loosing the sweet, 
 
 High thunder of thy Jovian laugh 
 
 On souls purblind in their self-righteousness. 
 
 O vision wide and keen! 
 
 Which knew, untaught, that pains to joyance are 
 
 As night unto the star 
 
 That on the effacing dawn must burn unseen. 
 
 And thou didst know what meat 
 
 Was torn to give us milk, 
 
 What countless worms made possible the silk 
 
 That robes the mind, what plan 
 
 Drew as a bubble from old infamies 
 
 And fen-pools of the past 
 
 The shy and many-colored soul of man. 
 
 Yea! thou hast seen the lees 
 
 In that rich cup we lift against the day, 
 
 Seen the man-child at his disastrous play — 
 
 His shafts without a mark, 
 
 Hiis fountains flowing downward to the dark, 
 
 His maiming and his bars, 
 
 Then turned to see 
 
 His vatic shadow cast athwart the stars, 
 
 And his strange challenge to infinity. 
 
 But who am I to speak, 
 
 Far down the mountain, of its altar-peak, 
 
 Or cross on feeble wings, 
 
 Adventurous, the oceans in thy mind? 
 
 We of a wider day's bewilderings 
 
 For very light seem blind, 
 
 And fearful of the gods our hands have formed. 
 
 Some lift their eyes and seem 
 
 To see at last the lofty human scheme 
 
 Fading and toppling as a sunset stormed 
 
 Page Seventy 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By wind and evening, with the stars in doubt. 
 
 And some cry, On to Brotherhood! And some, 
 
 (Their Dream's high music dumb) 
 
 Nay! let us hide in roses all our chains, 
 
 Tho' all the lamps go out! 
 
 Let us accept our lords! 
 
 Time's tensions move not save to subtler pains! 
 
 And over all the Silence is as swords 
 
 Wherefore be near us in our day of choice, 
 
 Lest Hell's red choirs rejoice; 
 
 And may our counsels be 
 
 More wise, more kindly, for the thought of thee; 
 
 And may our deeds attest 
 
 Thy covenant of fame 
 
 To men of after-years that see thy name 
 
 Held like a flower by Honor to her breast. 
 
 Thy station in our hearts long since was won — 
 
 Safe from the jealous years — 
 
 Thou of whose love, thou of whose thews and tears 
 
 We rest most certain when the day is done 
 
 And formless shadows close upon the sun! 
 
 Thou wast a star ere death's long night shut down, 
 
 And for thy brows the crown 
 
 Was graven ere the birth-pangs, and thy bed 
 
 Is now of hallowed marble, and a fane 
 
 Among the mightier dead : 
 
 More blameless than thine own what soul hath stood! 
 
 Dost thou lie deaf until another Reign, 
 
 Or hear as music o'er thy head 
 
 The ceaseless trumpets of the war for Good ? 
 
 Ah, thou! ah, thou! 
 
 Stills God thy question now? 
 
 Published with permission of the author. 
 
 A FAREWELL 
 
 A Translation 
 By Henry Trantham 
 
 Not a fretful tear shall fall for thee in parting, 
 
 Now that thou hast made thy race; 
 For such a song of triumph hast thou left us 
 
 As one who goes to greet a loving master face to face. 
 
 Page Seventy-one 
 
H O M AGE TO 
 
 TO BROWNING THE MUSIC-MASTER 
 
 By Robert Haven Schauffler 
 
 O I once was a lad 
 
 Of a single thought, 
 
 Melody-mad, 
 
 With ears for naught 
 
 But the miracles Bach and Beethoven wrought, 
 
 When suddenly you — 
 
 Out of the blue — 
 
 With the crabbed old master Galuppi, dropped, 
 
 And grim-eyed Hugues 
 
 Of the mountainous fugues, 
 
 And the rampired walls of the marvelous Abt, — 
 
 To fashion me straight from Tone's far strand 
 
 A way to a humaner, dearer shore, — 
 
 A bridge to poetry-land. 
 
 Then to my soul I swore: 
 
 'If poets may win such store 
 
 Of music's own highland air, 
 
 Yet abide in the common round, 
 
 Transmuting man's dusty ground 
 
 To gems for the world to wear, — 
 
 Theirs, too, is a precious art, 
 
 Is a thing that I fain would share, — 
 
 A thing that is near to my heart! 
 
 Thus were a young soul's ears unstopped 
 
 By Galuppi and Hugues and the marvelous Abt, 
 
 Who bridged a way for ignorant feet, 
 
 And parted wide for wondering eyes 
 
 The port of a second paradise; 
 
 Showing how right it is, and meet 
 
 That a Shubert's voice may never repeat 
 
 What a Shakespeare's lips once solemnize; — 
 
 That music waxes where poesy wanes, 
 
 And, with thirsty lips to poesy's veins, 
 
 Grows by her want, by her wasting, gains. 
 
 For the protean art is this, and this! 
 The rainbow shimmer of love's young bliss, 
 A gesture despairing, a dream-like whim, 
 The down on the plumes of the cherubim, 
 
 Page Seventy-two 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 The body of Ariel, lissome and fresh, 
 
 Too subtle for poesy's golden mesh, 
 
 An exquisite, evanescent shape 
 
 That 'breaks through language' to escape 
 
 To the bourne of that country, brighter, vaster, 
 
 Where now you are singing, dear Music-Master. 
 
 Published with the permission of the author. 
 
 "NOTHING BUT A POET"* 
 
 By W. C. Gannett 
 
 "Nothing but a poet," — so he said, and wondered 
 At the sole persistence of his years. 
 
 Laughing world, you'll know it, now that, silence-sun- 
 dered, 
 He is in the welcome of his peers. 
 
 What said Milton to him, what said Keats and Shakspere? 
 
 Oh, to see the smile on Dante's face! 
 
 Catch the great Greek "Chaire", hear the "bronze throat" 
 
 hail him, 
 "Browning's come among us, — give him place!" 
 
 "Nothing but a poet," — singing songs of soul-growth, 
 Splendor in the pain-throb, rise in fall, 
 "Saul the failure" in us re-creating kingly, — 
 Songs one surge of morning ; — that was all ! 
 
 Camberwell Venice 
 
 May 7, 1812 December 12, 1889 
 
 *Written for the Browning Memorial Meeting in Recital 
 Hall, Auditorium Building, Chicago, Feb. 27, 1890 
 
 Page Seventy-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 THE SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE 
 
 By Neeta Marquis 
 
 Coined from the treasure of a woman's heart, 
 
 For him whose love had crowned her with delight, 
 
 Uplifting her by force of its pure might 
 
 From solitary ways, where Joy, apart 
 
 From her pale sister Sorrow, was not known ; — 
 
 Rare aureate words graved with the High Queen's face, 
 
 Still current in true-love's exchanging place, 
 
 And with much using but the brighter grown ! 
 
 O poetry of life! O blessed quill 
 
 That fixed such golden thoughts! Their messages, 
 
 Imbued with passion delicate and strong, 
 
 Are love's most lovely fashioning in song, 
 
 Conveying through the spirit's finer thrill 
 
 The pressure of her human lips on his. 
 
 "CHILDE ROLAND" 
 
 By Humphreys Park 
 
 You set the slug-horn to your lips and blew, 
 
 And after — what came after? Did it fade, 
 
 The round squat turret, and some deeper shade 
 
 Of evening drench to blackness the curst view? 
 
 Or did some sinister strange thing, some rue 
 
 Of shape unspeakable, come forth, that made 
 
 You fetch quick breath, and grasp the loose-slung blade, 
 
 And pray at last your soul prove not untrue? 
 
 That there was fight there, taunting face to face, 
 Hell's hatred matched against one proud soul's scorn, 
 We guess, but not how went the fight's disgrace 
 Yet, to our fancy is the wonder borne 
 That you came forth unscathed, and left the place 
 A-ring with the shrill mocking of your horn. 
 
 From Appletons. 
 Page Seventy-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Theo Stone 
 
 Oh England, mother of that flame-crowned race, 
 
 High priests of song, who nurtured on thy breast 
 
 Live on Immortal, — Browning with the rest, 
 
 Proud of thine ownership lift up thy face 
 
 His birthday on Time's shining page to trace, 
 
 Whose song, like thunder of the heavens, has pressed 
 
 Magnificently onward East and West 
 
 Till in Fame's citadel it has found place. 
 
 Fitting his advent to the world of men 
 
 The nightingales should chorus near and far 
 
 Who into Epics sang them back again, 
 
 Enrapturing springs that ages cannot mar; 
 
 And set thy heavens to music, with a pen 
 
 Dipt in the flooding splendor of a star. 
 
 TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Mabel Barnett Gates 
 
 Thou poet lover of humanity, 
 
 Cause us to see through thy illumined sight 
 
 The heart of e'en the lowest of our kind 
 
 And with a pitying smile, like God, forgiveness find. 
 
 Inspire us with the glory of a soul 
 
 Of one of God's highest. May we respond 
 
 With aspiration high and noble longing 
 
 To thoughts exalted that to our hearts come thronging. 
 
 May we, through thy heart's truest alchemy, 
 
 Transmute each base thing into gold so bright 
 
 That evil fades in the effulgent glow 
 
 And naught but good endures through centuries slow. 
 
 May thy clear vision reveal to our dull sense 
 Ultimate Truth and Beauty that are our goal. 
 
 Page Seventy-five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 THE GIRL WITH THE BLUE EYES 
 
 To Aliss Sarah LeMoyne Cowell, to Whom Broivning 
 Gave This Name. 
 
 By Anna Catherine Markham 
 
 Venice and Browning, youth and you — 
 
 You with his sister's and his mother's name, 
 
 And he took note of that vivid blue 
 
 Alive in your eyes, that noon-sky flame, 
 
 Like the turquoise blaze — the azure royal, 
 
 Quick in the drift-wood fire aglow; 
 
 And put report of that sapphire shining, 
 
 Nemophila, gentian, lupin, ablow, 
 
 Off (who knows) with spoils of far and near — 
 
 Your eyes, and Evelyn's red young mouth, 
 
 Yes, and Fifine's rose-petal ear, 
 
 And the spirit-brow of her in the South — 
 
 All heaped in some magical, secret place, 
 
 Trick and turn, and light and shade, — 
 
 Memories hoarded and brooded to build 
 
 Those myriad-mooded, wild-word women he made.. 
 
 BROWNING AND SHELLEY 
 By E. D. W.* 
 
 Strong poet soul, thou yearnest to thy friend 
 
 That other poet soul elect by thee 
 
 For worship in that deep affinity 
 
 Wherein two human natures seek to blend, 
 
 And set their opposite forces to one end. 
 
 It had been surely good for earth if he, 
 
 While dwelling in that flesh thou ne'er didst see, 
 
 Had in his need had help thy strength could lend, 
 
 (Help better far than that wild deaf "west wind" 
 
 Whereto in loneliness went out his cry 
 
 That meant a seeking for his God unknown — ) 
 
 Good will it be for heaven when thou shalt find 
 
 Thy Shelley there, — and two souls, drawing nigh, 
 
 Perfect together things each wrought alone. 
 
 August, 1872. 
 
 *E. D. W. (Elizabeth Dickinson West) is noiv 
 Mrs. Edward Dowden of Dublin. 
 
 Page Seventy-six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Frances Whitmarsh Wile 
 
 You bid me pledge a poet in the fruitage of the vine: 
 I give you one whose music is the vigor of your wine, 
 The charging blast of bugles when the standards are 
 
 unfurled, 
 The air from hill-tops bearing a new life along the world ; 
 Whose lyric lilts of passion are the breath of roses blown, 
 Whose gospel recreates the heart wherein its light hath 
 
 shone. 
 
 His men and women, summoned from the mists of long 
 
 ago, 
 Lay bare before our vision heights and deeps of joy and 
 
 woe: 
 Abt Vogler builds his palace, and young Pippa, passing, 
 
 sings, 
 Euripides is chanting, and the harp of David rings: 
 Where lost ones lie in Paris on Setebos' magic isle, 
 He sees, through death and darkness, Love's illuminating 
 
 smile. 
 
 One thread binds all the dramas and the stories that are 
 told, 
 
 One thread is always throbbing through the music mani- 
 fold: 
 
 The Soul of Man aspiring, and the striving to attain,, 
 
 The failure proving triumph, and the growth that comes 
 by pain; 
 
 Supreme and crucial moments that are earth's divining 
 wand, 
 
 The finite's deathless yearning toward the Infinite beyond. 
 
 No sigh of resignation and no wailing of despair, 
 
 But splendid affirmation of the worth of life is there. 
 
 He breasts the fate that baffles while he pours in eager 
 
 strains 
 His faith the Love shall conquer, that the Lord forever 
 
 reigns. 
 To the man of full assurance, of a jubilance divine, 
 To the Master, Robert Browning, do I pledge this cup 
 
 of mine. 
 
 Page Seventy-seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 By Aubrey de Vere 
 
 Mourn, Italy, with England mourn, for both 
 He sang with song's discriminating love, 
 Thy towers that flash the wooded crag above; 
 Thy trellised vineyard's purple overgrowth ; 
 Thy matin balm ; thy noontide's pleasing sloth ; 
 Thy convent bell, dim lake, and homeward dove ; 
 Thine evening star, that through the bowered alcove 
 Silvers the white flight of the circling moth. 
 He sang thy best and worst — false love, fierce war, 
 Renaissance craft, child graces, saintly art. 
 Old pomps from "Casa Guidi Windows" seen. 
 There dwelt he happy; there that minstrel queen, 
 Who shared his poet crown but gladdened more 
 To hold, unshared, her poet's manly heart. 
 
 From the Dedication of 
 
 THE WANDERER 
 
 By Owen Meredith 
 
 24. 
 "And, citing all he said or sung 
 With praise reserved for bards like him, 
 Spake of that friend who dwells among 
 The Apennine, and there hath strung 
 A harp of Anakim; 
 
 25. 
 "Than whom a mightier master never 
 Touch'd the deep chords of hidden things; 
 Nor error did from truth dissever 
 With keener glance; nor made endeavour 
 To rise on bolder wings 
 
 26. 
 "In those high regions of the soul 
 Where Thought itself grows dim with awe." 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 2, p. 146. 
 Page Seventy-eight 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 THE TIME AND THE PLACE 
 
 By Bliss Carman 
 
 "Never the time and the place 
 And the loved one all together!" 
 Ah, Browning, that does to tell! 
 But I have an eagle feather 
 Hid in my waistcoat too. 
 
 Yes, once in the wild June weather, 
 In God's own North befell 
 The joy not time shall undo 
 Nor the storm of years efface. 
 
 Ah, Master Browning, you hear? 
 
 If over the time and the place 
 
 With aught of thy mood concur, 
 
 Far off in my golden year, 
 
 The solstice of my prime, 
 
 Youth done, age not begun, 
 
 The moment that soul is ripe 
 
 For the little touch of rhyme, 
 
 Then hearken! If there but stir 
 
 One breath of the Spirit of earth 
 
 Through me his frail reed pipe, 
 
 (As the hermit-thrush 
 
 Rehearses the scene when the joy of the world 
 
 had birth, 
 So sure, so fine, 
 Disturbing the hush,) 
 You shall hearken, and hear 
 Take rapture and sense and form in one perfect 
 
 line 
 A golden lyric of Her! 
 
 From The Month, January, 1 897. 
 
 IN A COPY OF "AGAMEMNON LA SAISIAZ 
 AND DRAMATIC IDYLS" 
 
 By B. P. Shillaber (Mrs. Partington) 
 
 A merry Christmas I send with this, 
 Though it seems absurdity crowning 
 To wish for cachinatory bliss 
 Over the works of Browning. 
 
 From The Brownings and America, p. 44. 
 
 Page Seventy-nine 
 
ROBERT BROWN4NG 
 
 ^C 
 
 V 
 
 BROWNING SOCIETY 
 
 By George Jay Smith 
 
 Says the wise old maxim, a man is known 
 By his company; then of a poet 
 As truly we say that his creatures alone, 
 That are born of his soul, can show it. 
 
 Touched by this stone, how much pure gold 
 Spring forth from the dross, and shimmers? 
 In poems today as in those of old, 
 All is not gold that glimmers! 
 
 Can a man create, can he bring to birth 
 Live humans, hearts a-beating, 
 As Shakspere gave to this gray dull earth 
 Orlando and Rosalind meeting? — 
 
 Or as Meredith summoned for our delight 
 Young Richard and Lucy — Diana — 
 The knowing of whom feeds the soul with the white 
 And sweet of a heaven-sent manna? 
 
 Many sing of nature, and some 
 
 Of art: but few are the singers 
 
 Who picture us human life. . . . such come 
 
 To the world as the manna-bringers. 
 
 How secure in the rank of these he stays 
 Whom the dear British public would none of — 
 That "Robert Browning, maker of plays" — 
 What a high small group he's one of! 
 
 For tried by the test of humanness, 
 And of art that's divinely creative, 
 How clear he emerges above the press 
 Of singers less strong, less native! 
 
 There was scanned by his mind the roll of the race 
 In the shining vista of history, 
 And all that he touched re-lives in its place, 
 Revealed, and pluckt of its mystery. 
 
 He ranged through Greece, Arabia, Rome, 
 Read the rich romance of the ages 
 That rise to the Renaissance, and the tome 
 Of his own Day's crowded pages. 
 
 Page Eighty 
 
ROBERX BROWNING 
 
 And all that life of his fcllowmen, 
 As light many-hued through a prism, 
 Passed through his soul and glowed again, 
 Renewed in the poet's chrism. 
 
 He let speak Adam and Lilith and Eve, 
 Voiced Solomon's, Sheba's, yearning, 
 Made the song of David's harp relieve 
 The lone king Saul of his burning: 
 
 He entered the heart of Euripides, 
 Englished the Aeschylan drama, 
 Apologized Aristophanes, — 
 Unrolled the Greek panorama: 
 
 Gave us Ferishtah, the Persian wise, 
 Rabbi Ben Ezra, and Cleon, 
 Let old Paracelsus our blindness advise 
 How past earth's mists we may see on : 
 
 Told the tale of the Piper, or Herve Riel, 
 Of Lippo, of ill-starred Porphyria, 
 Of the Bishop who ordered his tomb so well — 
 Fit story for "Jocoseria" : 
 
 Delved to the depths of Caliban's mire, 
 Heard Sludge the medium's droning, 
 Let light Galuppi re-tune his lyre, 
 Abt Vogler his organ's toning: • 
 
 Parleyed with Dodington, Christopher Smart, 
 And Clive, the empire-builder, 
 Made Blougram bare his episcopal heart, 
 Sordello our brains bewilder: 
 
 But O, how he rose to our keenest demand — 
 The test of art highest-human — 
 By proving that he could understand, 
 Reveal, create for us, woman — 
 
 How shine in a galaxy rich of scope, 
 Enshrined in our memorabilia, 
 Pippa, and Colombe, and Evelyn Hope, 
 And the passionate proud Pompilia, 
 
 That sad smiling Duchess we know as "My Last",. 
 And she whom James Lee wedded, 
 Sweet Mildred Tre^ham whom death seized fast, 
 And that Countess whom Gismond besteaded. 
 
 Page Eighty-oni 
 
 S 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 But enough! What need call the roll of more names! 
 They are part of our lives, our being. 
 And Robert Browning our heart acclaims 
 As the maker, the poet, true-seeing. 
 
 The scope of the human was his to reveal, 
 Whether base or of noblest station ; 
 How men and women live, think, feel. 
 He tells — that is true creation! 
 
 If a man is known by his company, then — 
 The maxim admits no dubiety — 
 These creatures of Browning's, women and men, 
 Form the real Browning Societv! 
 
 CALIBAN IN THE COAL MINES 
 
 By Louis Untermeyer 
 
 God, we don't like to complain, 
 We know that the mines are no lark, 
 But — there's the pools from the rain, 
 But — there's the cold and the dark. 
 
 God, you don't know what it is, 
 You, in Your well-lighted sky, 
 Watching a meteor whizz — 
 Warm, with the sun always by. 
 
 God, if You had but the moon 
 Stuck in Your cap for a lamp, 
 Even You'd tire of it soon 
 Down in the dark and the damps . 
 
 Nothing but blackness above, 
 
 And nothing that moves but the cars — 
 
 God, in return for our love, 
 
 Fling us a handful of stars! 
 
 Published with permission of author. 
 
 Page Eighty-two 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 TO MRS. THOMAS B. STOWELL AND 
 MRS. SIDNEY J. PARSONS 
 
 From the Browning Department of Ebell, 1914-1918 
 
 By Blanche Coles 
 
 Through four delightful years, with tender care, 
 
 Your labors have wrought out a friendship ring 
 
 Of purest gold, bestudded 'round with rare 
 
 Pearls of thought from the eternal spring 
 
 Our poet found. The circle now is done; 
 
 The gold is left in its intrinsic worth — 
 
 For all the dross of common thought is gone — 
 
 And lo! the forged, flashing truth flames forth: 
 
 Our need to hold eternal things was great, 
 
 And in our strait a loving God has given — 
 
 While maelstroms lure the world to gloom and hate — 
 
 This golden link to bind us fast to heaven. 
 
 So now we proffer parting words 'mid tears, 
 And may their spirit gladden coming years. 
 
 SORDELLO 
 
 By Sanda Enos 
 
 Within the sea of Poesy doth lie 
 
 An isle that sheerly doth uplift a brow 
 
 As rough and uninviting, I avow, 
 
 As any mariner has chanced to spy. 
 
 With such forbidding looks it greets the eye 
 
 That many who the waves for pleasure plough, 
 
 For smiling lands beyond, keep straight the prow 
 
 And with indifferent glances pass it by. 
 
 'Tis called Sordello. If you boldly thread 
 Its thickets, well you will rewarded be; 
 For many an emerald glade you will behold, 
 And many a crystal stream with sands of gold, 
 And you will hear from strange birds overhead 
 Full many a burst of deathless melody. 
 
 From Broivning Society Papers, Part 8, p. 147; in the 
 Current, Chicago, February 20, 1886. 
 
 Page Eighty-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 "JOCOSERIA" 
 
 By Richard Watson Gilder 
 
 Men grow old before their time, 
 With the journey half before them: 
 In languid rhyme 
 They deplore them. 
 
 Life up-gathers carks and cares, 
 So goodbye to maid and lover! 
 Find three gray hairs, 
 And cry, "All's over!" 
 
 Look at Browning! How he keeps 
 In the seventies still a heart 
 That never sleeps, — 
 Still an art 
 
 Full of youth's own grit and power, 
 Thoughts we deemed to boys belonging, — 
 The Springtime's flower 
 Love-and-longing. 
 
 Published with the kind permission of the Century 
 Company and of Houghton Mifflin Company. 
 
 DJABAL'S SONG 
 
 By Charlotte Porter 
 
 And am I not Hakeem, though man? 
 
 Needs it a God to plot and plan 
 
 And pour his heart and brain and soul 
 
 Through lonely patient scheming years, intent 
 
 By small slow conquests to control 
 
 And bring to birth, at last, the purpose meant? 
 
 Is it no marvel earth-like stuff 
 
 Compacts a sun night's blackness to rebuff? 
 
 A man who leads is miracle enough! 
 
 Taken from — Lips of Music, p. 115; published with the 
 permission of the author. 
 
 Page Eighty-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 AT FANO 
 
 To Robert Browning 
 
 By Rennell Rodd 
 
 Dearly honored, great dead poet, still as living speak 
 
 to me! 
 This is Fano, world-forgotten little Fano by the sea: 
 
 I have come to see that angel which Guercino dreamed 
 
 and drew, 
 Since whate'er you loved and honored I would hold in 
 
 honor too. 
 
 Like some sea-bird's nest the township clusters in its 
 
 rampart wall, — 
 Such a twilight on the byways, such an autumn over all: 
 
 Gloomy streets with silent portals, all the pulse of life 
 
 they hide, 
 Throbbing toward that one piazza where it centres into 
 
 pride ; 
 
 House and palace, as their wont is in these Adriatic ports, 
 Turn their backs on darkling alleys and their faces on 
 the courts, 
 
 Courts beyond each tunnelled entrance, where through 
 
 vaulted arches seen 
 Glimpses flash of dancing sunlight, jets of fountain, 
 glint of green. — 
 
 Here I found him, ever watchful for the work of love 
 
 to do, 
 That white-winged one whose great glory you interpreted 
 
 so true; 
 
 Still he folds the little fingers of that kneeling child tot 
 
 prayer, 
 On the grave which tells the story why it needs the 
 
 angel's care; 
 
 Still above the forehead's glory arch the great wings 
 
 wide unfurled 
 As alert to shield and succor all the orphans of the world,,. 
 
 Page Eighty- five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Yet hath he but little honor in his home at Fano there 
 O'er the cold neglected altar in the chapel blanched and 
 bare ; 
 
 Few come here to read his message in the little nest of 
 
 towers, — 
 Few that worship where he watches, none that deck his 
 
 shrine with flowers. 
 
 Thence I passed out on the ramparts, high above the 
 
 olive trees, 
 Skirting roofs and shadowy belfries, overlooking evening 
 
 seas. 
 
 Into such a rose of sunset, such a tender twilight hue 
 Where the orange sails came homeward on the Adriatic 
 blue; 
 
 Oh, my poet, had you seen it, you had found the word 
 
 to fit 
 That sweet world of peace at even with God's love 
 
 unfolding it! 
 
 There across the rose of sunset, through the perfect hush 
 
 of things 
 Stole a gentle rhythmic motion that might be the beat 
 
 of wings. — 
 
 Art thou free at last, dear angel, art thou free to fly 
 
 above, 
 Leave that little one to slumber, quit the duty which is 
 
 love, 
 
 Through the chiming Ave Mary spread those bird wings 
 
 white as snow, 
 Whether starwards, whether sunwards, be the way their 
 
 angels go? 
 
 One more service yet, dear angel, find him there beyond 
 
 the blue, 
 Tell him how I loved the message he interpreted so true! 
 
 From Volume 40 of the "Critic." Published with the 
 permission of the editor. 
 
 Page Eighty-six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 BROWNING AT ASOLO 
 
 By Robert Underwood Johnson 
 
 This is the loggia Browning loved, 
 
 High on the flank of the friendly town ; 
 
 These are the hills that his keen eye roved, 
 
 The green like a cataract leaping down 
 
 To the plain that his pen gave new renown. 
 
 There to the West what a range of blue! — 
 
 The very background Titian drew 
 
 To his peerless Loves. O tranquil scene! 
 
 Who than thy poet fondlier knew 
 
 The peaks and the shore and the lore between? 
 
 See! yonder's his Venice, — the valiant Spire, 
 Highest one of the perfect three, 
 Guarding the others; the Palace Choir, 
 The Temple flashing with opal fire, — 
 Bubble and foam of the sunlit sea. 
 
 Yesterday he was part of it all, — 
 
 Sat here, discerning cloud from snow 
 
 In the flush of the Alpine afterglow, 
 
 Or mused on the vineyard whose wine-stirred '*ow 
 
 Meets in leafy bacchanal. 
 
 Listen a moment — how oft did he! — 
 
 To the bells from Fontalto's distant tower 
 
 Leading the evening in ah, me! 
 
 Here breathes the whole soul of Italy, 
 
 As one rose breathes with the breath of the bower. 
 
 Sighs were meant for an hour like this 
 When joy is keen as a thrust of pain. 
 Do you wonder the poet's heart would miss 
 This touch of rapture in Nature's kiss, 
 And dream of Asolo over again? 
 
 "Part of it yesterday" we moan? 
 
 Nay, he is part of it now, no fear, 
 
 What most we love we are that alone. 
 
 His body lies under the minster stone, 
 
 But the love of the warm heart lingers here. 
 
 By permission from "Italian Rhapsody and Other Poems 
 of Italy'' published by the author, New York : 347 
 Madison Ave. 
 
 Page Eighty-seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ON THE BRONZE CLASPED HANDS OF 
 
 ROBERT AND ELIZABETH BARRETT 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Ruth Baldwin Chenery 
 
 O, Poet-hands, so closely clasping there 
 
 In that mute, shining bronze, that shall outlast 
 
 Great centuries to be and, holding fast, 
 
 Reveal to stranger eyes a love more fair, 
 
 More even-weighted for each heart to share. 
 
 Than any classic poet of the past 
 
 Has sung to us, in mood however vast, 
 
 Teach then, as now, clasped hands, that love is prayer. 
 
 And when this bronze in farther ages still, 
 
 Lies ruined, low, shattered in golden dust, 
 
 Then shall the love it storied forth so long, 
 
 Smiling at Death and Time, move to fulfil 
 
 Its spacious task, moulding in joyous trust 
 
 Sublimer purpose in sublimer song. 
 
 From — At Vesper Time, ^.51, ivith permission of author. 
 
 CLASPED HANDS 
 
 By Anne Cleveland Cheney 
 
 Hush ! Let us dream awhile now, leaning near 
 This wonder of two hands laid each in each, 
 Enduringly, beyond mutation's reach, 
 As king and queen lie carven on one bier. 
 Thou fragile hand, thou strong — each deathless dear, 
 E'en all those living songs, that quickening speech, 
 Have not more potency to thrill and teach, 
 Than this ineffably sweet emblem here. 
 
 So clasped forever, that the world may know 
 Such union was, may nevermore forget; 
 And lovers come as to a shrine and sigh, 
 'So did their faith endure!' and softlier go; 
 And poets kneel before these two palms met, 
 To shrive themselves and pass more purely by. 
 
 Poet Lore, Winter Number, Vol. ij, No. 4. Page No. 
 102, and published with permission of editors. 
 
 Page Eighty-eight 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 LEADERSHIP IN SONG 
 
 By Wallace W. Lovejoy 
 Whom as leader shall we name 
 Worthy of the highest fame? 
 Dante Virgil took as guide; 
 They made the journey side by side. 
 They would the world-of-souls explore, 
 The guide had been that way before. 
 Ye who would like journey make 
 A great-souled poet needs must take. 
 
 Browning, when I met with thee, 
 
 What to me was poesy? 
 
 Tingling rhymes and quaint conceits, 
 
 To be measured off by beats. 
 
 'Twas my terse and virile thought 
 
 That a better judgment taught. 
 
 And through the years since then to admit 
 
 A few with thee, enranked, to sit — 
 
 Whitman, Wordsworth, Meredith, 
 
 As masters of noetic pith. 
 
 Keats, and Shelley, — earlier born, 
 
 Who through darkness sang the dawn. 
 
 Their singing robes still on, they passed 
 
 To death; and with them, Byron, — last. 
 
 In love we name them from their youth 
 
 Still hold them to our hearts in ruth. 
 
 Though no singing voice awake, 
 No lofty dream the silence break, 
 Worship of the Muses cease, 
 Pandora's direful plagues increase, — 
 They still speak, the poet-dead. 
 Reverently their shrines we tread 
 And through the silence they draw nigh, 
 The ancient bards of prophecy. 
 And thy faith, taught from above, 
 Browning, — with thy 'Lyric Love', 
 Unveiled the Face that clearer grows — 
 Our universe that feels and knows. 
 
 Page Eighty-nine 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 TAKE HOME HER HEART 
 
 By H. D. Rawnsley 
 
 (A sonnet written on hearing that Robert Browning's 
 wish to be buried beside his ivife in Florence could not be 
 fulfilled, and that, instead, his body was being brought 
 home for sepulture in Westminster Abbey) 
 
 I 
 
 Take home the heart! her heart that cannot rest 
 For all Italia's southern-hearted ground, 
 Take home the heart that fire and fullness found 
 In that sure heart which still would be its guest. 
 Take home her heart! the heart that at its best 
 Was bettered by his singing whose strong sound 
 Was sweetened by her song, for she was crowned 
 Queen of a heart that was her King confessed. 
 
 Hearts such as these have never ceased their beating. 
 
 Hearts such as these by sympathy divine 
 
 In dust will palpitate harmonious measure, 
 
 And still I hear a spirit-voice entreating 
 
 Let Arno give the Thames her poet treasure, 
 
 One grave the mortal of immortals shrine! 
 
 II 
 
 From Rivo Alto's silent palace hall, 
 From San Michele's wilderness of flowers, 
 Comes one for rest beneath our Abbey towers 
 Whose song and soul shall never sleep at all : 
 The crown of Venice shines above the pall ; 
 A brighter crown thy tireless spirit dowers; 
 For thy strong heart the weakest heart empowers 
 To "strive and thrive" fare forward, though we fall. 
 
 Singer of resolute Right, with Might for squire, 
 Might for the morrow's battle, and the Must 
 Of Truth triumphant with our latest breath, 
 Lie here; for gentle Spenser can desire 
 No knightlier guest, nor Chaucer in his dust 
 A truer harp: Lie here — here comes no death. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 49; published 
 with permission of author. 
 
 Page Ninety 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 BROWNING'S SHRINE 
 
 By John Howard Jewett 
 
 Plain, cloth-bound volumes, fit for homely use — 
 Brown volumes, with their titles writ in gold, — 
 Grown sacred now, and hallowed ever more, 
 The seal of death new stamped across the name ! 
 
 These front me on the shelves where, side by side, 
 Great poets of the past assembled wait, 
 With grand Te Deums for the listening soul 
 Attuned to strains of beauty, love and truth ; 
 A symphony of throbbing human chords, — 
 Imprisoned once in clay — poured out in song, 
 And made perennial, for our starving need, 
 By swift informing spirit, clothed in speech. 
 That dies not with the breath. 
 
 Recruited ranks 
 Of grand, immortal names, salute your peer, 
 Who now has come to join the star-crowned choir! 
 'Tis Browning, latest from the battle's front, — 
 Released from earth to share your immortelles, — ■ 
 Who stands beside you, clad in brown and gold. 
 
 But yesterday, a living, loving friend, 
 Today a phantom, fleeing through the dark, 
 A poet of the past. 
 
 Nay! Nay! forgive 
 The impotence of rash, misleading words, 
 Which mock the ear and heart with false alarms. 
 Thou art not dead, can never die the death 
 Which locks mortality in voiceless tombs. 
 No past can claim thee — singer of all time; 
 No present set its seal upon thy worth. 
 The legions of the future, thronging past, 
 Shall halt to catch the harmonies divine, 
 And hear and know, the voice that dauntless sang 
 Of love, unblinded by the tears of earth; 
 Of hope, dispelling clouds of darkest gloom ; 
 Of faith, surviving microscopic tests, 
 Unshaken by the last analysis 
 Of problems old or new. 
 
 Page Ninety-one 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Oh, poet seer, 
 Who dared all ages' foibles to lay bare; 
 To probe the wounds of frail humanity, 
 With firmest touch of skill — yet loved his race; 
 Its heritage of darkness made his own, 
 To wrestle with, to conquer, or to share, 
 Uniting with life's stern philosophy 
 The brave, triumphant, steadfast song of cheer! 
 
 Strong, fearless, tender Browning! — Singing still. 
 The ages yet to come are thine to bless ; 
 Theirs, to uprear the shrine begun to-day. 
 
 From Boston Evening Transcript. 
 
 ANAEL'S SONG 
 
 By Charlotte Porter 
 
 I knew thy secret from the first, 
 
 When thy heart's fire upon me burst, 
 
 With music led me on and on 
 
 Through anguish, gropingly to prove the clew, 
 
 Till sight and soul in unison 
 
 Beheld the Secret from the first I knew. 
 
 No triumph with the God be mine! 
 
 Hakeem, in Djabal only, I divine — 
 
 Love — in that sin-shamed human breast of thine! 
 
 Taken from — Lips of Music, p. 116; published ivith the 
 per mission of the author. 
 
 Page Ninety-tzvo 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 TO ROBERT AND ELIZABETH BARRETT 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Marion Pelton Guild 
 
 O mated souls, that through the blissful deeps 
 Of heaven on heaven wing your ethereal way, 
 Know ye how Love on earthly shores to-day 
 For your true sake his feast in triumph keeps? 
 Know ye how all the world of lovers heaps 
 Its garlands on the living words that aye 
 The holy passion of your vows shall say 
 Till Song itself to gray oblivion creeps? 
 The alpha and omega of the heart; 
 The perfect scale, to its first note returning; 
 Each fond detail, each jot of life or art, 
 Touched with the fire upon the altar burning! 
 While Genius smiles, a happy prisoner, caught 
 In silver iterance of one sweet thought. 
 
 II. 
 
 Our modern Muse hath fever in her veins; 
 Her lips, alas! have known the tainted springs; 
 We turn afresh to where your fountain flings 
 Its crystal challenge to all droughts and stains. 
 Your white ideal, crowned with the truth, remains 
 Steadfast amid the shock of baser things; 
 Your love the golden seal of witness brings 
 To Nature's charter pure, whereto man strains. 
 Ah, if the mighty quests that now possess you 
 Permit one pause of earth-revealing sight, 
 Surely the blessing ye have wrought must bless you, 
 A keener glow inform the heavenly light, 
 Some finer echo of our praise must ring 
 In those infinitudes where Love is king! 
 
 From Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 86, pp. 420 and 421; pub- 
 lished with permission of editors. 
 
 Page Ninety-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 IN THE GARDEN OF THE VATICAN 
 Dedicated to the New York Browning Society 
 
 By Alice Harriman 
 
 The Guide Speaks 
 
 Here is the seat whereon His Holiness 
 Loves best to sit — here by this ilex tree. 
 
 Ofttimes I've watched the care-lines smooth away 
 Whilst he would watch the yellow-banded bees 
 Sipping the honey from some lily rare; 
 Or, heavy-legged with the dripping sweet, 
 Beat throbbingly their gauzy wings in homeward flight. 
 
 I've seen the flying shuttle of the loom we call 
 The mind, pass and repass o'er his features worn, 
 Carrying the threads of care, of pain, responsibility — 
 Seldom of peace. Ah, me! How glints it 'gainst the rest! — 
 And unbeknownst to him I've seen him weep. 
 
 I'm old, and hear not well. 
 Find peace? Does he find peace? God knows. 
 That comes when one rests full on God — when every 
 
 thought is prayer; 
 So he, as Vicar General of the World, should find 
 It as the bees find honey in each weed and flower. 
 
 Here! Draw you back. He comes. 
 Bend! Cross yourself! 
 
 (My idle clack will penance bring in the confessional!) 
 
 S-h-h! Now he's gone. And as I live, 
 He came to get that book you saw me with as you 
 passed by. 
 
 As I was telling you. His Holiness finds much 
 To grieve, within, without, the Vatican. 
 La! La! E'en yesterday I heard (repeat it not from me) 
 That many do deny infallibility! 
 
 But that is neither here nor there to me; 
 I know my place, nor fret myself of God or man. 
 
 Page Ninety-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 About that book? Yes, here's the matter full: 
 One day it fell, long, long ago, 
 For I am old, yet 'twas but yesterday it seems, 
 A gentle man, and grave, 
 
 Paced where you pace, questioned, as you, and sighed. 
 He spoke of Asolo (his very tones breathed love for Italy), 
 Of some Pope of the past — his name escapes me now — 
 And said the book he held was one he wrote. 
 
 It's name? I know not. Printed words are naught 
 to me. 
 
 And so I asked what he — no Catholic — had put 
 him down. 
 I know not how he spoke. 'Twas as an inward flame 
 Burst into speech as sunset clouds catch fire 
 From that swift falling ball; 
 
 And as he read my very soul was stirred with beauty, 
 Although the words meant naught to me — 
 
 I doubt me an' they do to anyone. 
 
 But, here's the strangest thing — I've pondered long 
 on it. 
 He left his book, and many times I've seen 
 His Holiness read and reread that book 
 (As did the one — God rest his soul — preceding him), 
 With frowning, brooding brow, until the page is worn. 
 
 Mayhap he reads to scorch the lie — if 'tis a lie, 
 With prayer and credo. You, with your largess 
 (God's blessing fall on your beneficence) 
 May know the rights of it — the words mean naught 
 to me. 
 
 (Although I use words as a man of parts, I pick 
 them up, 
 As yonder parrot, shrieking in the sun.) 
 
 Here's what the man said ; so — 
 
 "Correct the portrait by the living face, 
 Man's God, by God's God in the mind of man." 
 
 You see! 'Tis trash — mere words. 
 Yet why does he, His Holiness, 
 Reflect on these? 
 
 Published with permission. 
 
 Page Ninety-five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 A SEQUENCE OF SONNETS ON THE DEATH 
 OF ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Algernon Charles Swinburne 
 
 i. 
 
 The clearest eyes in all the world they read 
 With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true 
 Than burns and thrills in sunrise, when the dew 
 Flames, and absorbs the glory round it shed, 
 As they the light of ages quick and dead, 
 Closed now, forsake us: yet the shaft that slew 
 Can slay not one of all the works we knew, 
 Nor death discrown that many-laurelled head. 
 
 The works of words whose life seems lightning wrought, 
 
 And moulded of unconquerable thought, 
 
 And quickened with imperishable flame, 
 
 Stand fast and shine and smile, assured that nought 
 
 May fade of all their myriad-moulded frame, 
 
 Nor England's memory clasp not Browning's name. 
 
 December 13///, 1889. 
 
 II. 
 
 Death, what hast thou to do with one for whom 
 
 Time is not lord, but servant? What lea>t part 
 
 Of all the fire that fed his living heart, 
 
 Of all the light more keen than sundawn's bloom 
 
 That lit and led his spirit, strong as doom 
 
 And bright as hope, can aught thy breath may dart 
 
 Quench? Nay, thou knowest he knew thee what thou art, 
 
 A shadow born of terror's barren womb, 
 
 That brings not forth save shadows. What art thou, 
 
 To dream, albeit thou breathe upon his brow, 
 
 That power on him is given thee, — that thy breath 
 
 Can make him less than love acclaims him now, 
 
 And hears all time sound back the word it saith ? 
 
 What part has thou then in his glory, Death ? 
 
 in. 
 
 A graceless doom it seems that bids us grieve ; 
 Venice and winter, hand in deadly hand, 
 Have slain the lover of her lovely strand 
 And singer of a storm-bright Christmas eve. 
 
 Page Ninety-six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 A graceless guerdon we that loved receive 
 
 For all our love, from that the dearest land 
 
 Love worshipped ever. Blithe and soft and bland, 
 
 Too fair for storm to scathe or fire to cleave, 
 
 Shone on our dreams and memories evermore 
 
 The domes, the towers, the mountains and the shore 
 
 That gird or guard thee, Venice: cold and black 
 
 Seems now the face we loved as he of yore. 
 
 We have given thee love — no stint, no stay, no lack: 
 
 What gift, what gift is this thou hast given us back? 
 
 IV. 
 
 But he — to him, who knows what gift is thine, 
 Death? Hardly may we think or hope, when we 
 Pass likewise thither where tonight is he, 
 Beyond the irremeable outer seas that shine 
 And darken round such dreams as half divine 
 Some sunlit harbor in that starless sea 
 Where gleams no ship to windward or to lee, 
 To read with him the secret of thy shrine. 
 There too, as here, may song, delight and love, 
 The nightingale, the sea-bird, and the dove, 
 Fulfil with joy the splendor of the sky 
 Till all beneath wax bright as all above: 
 But none of all that search the heavens, and try 
 The sun, may match the sovereign eagle's eye. 
 
 December 14/ft. 
 v. 
 
 Among the wondrous ways of men and time 
 
 He went as one that ever found and sought 
 
 And bore in hand the lamplike spirit of thought 
 
 To illume with instance of its fire sublime 
 
 The dusk of many a cloudlike age and clime. 
 
 No spirit in shape of light and darkness wrought, 
 
 No faith, no fear, no dream, no rapture, nought 
 
 That blooms in wisdom, nought that burns in crime,. 
 
 No virtue girt and armed and helmed with light, 
 
 No love more lovely than the snows are white, 
 
 No serpent sleeping in some dead soul's tomb, 
 
 No song-bird singing from some live soul's height, 
 
 But he might hear, interpret, or illume 
 
 With sense invasive as the dawn of doom. 
 
 Page Ninety-seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 VI. 
 
 What secret thing of splendor or of shade 
 
 Surmised in all those wandering ways wherein 
 
 Man, led of love and life and death and sin, 
 
 Strays, climbs, or cowers, allured, absorbed, afraid, 
 
 Might not the strong and sunlike sense invade 
 
 Of that full soul that had for aim to win 
 
 Light, silent over time's dark toil and din, 
 
 Life, at whose touch death fades as dead things fade? 
 
 O spirit of man, what mystery moves in thee 
 
 That he might know not of in spirit, and see 
 
 The heart within the heart that seems to strive, 
 
 The life within the life that seems to be, 
 
 And hear, through all thy storms that whirl and drive, 
 
 The living sound of all men's souls alive? 
 
 VTI. 
 
 He held no dream worth waking: so he said, 
 
 He who stands now on death's triumphal steep, 
 
 Awakened out of life wherein we sleep 
 
 And dream of what he knows and sees, being dead. 
 
 But never death for him was dark or dread: 
 
 "Look forth" he bade the soul, and fear not. Weep, 
 
 All ye that trust not in his truth, and keep 
 
 Vain memory's vision of a vanished head 
 
 As all that lives of all that once was he 
 
 Save that which lightens from his word: but we, 
 
 Who, seeing the sunset-colored waters roll, 
 
 Yet know the sun subdued not of the sea, 
 
 Nor weep nor doubt that still the spirit is whole, 
 
 And life and death but shadows of the soul. 
 
 December i$th. 
 
 DEAD IN VENICE 
 
 By Arthur Symons 
 
 "Browning is dead": a nation's grief: 
 But I too have my right to mourn, 
 Being no otherwise forlorn 
 Than soldiers who have lost their chief. 
 
 I see the field he won: I see 
 page Ninety-eight 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 The alien hosts he put to rout; 
 But him I see no more: without 
 The victor what is victory? 
 
 But he had conquered : that is well ; 
 Well that the latest sound of all 
 Upon his dying ears to fall 
 Before the final silence fell, 
 
 Was triumph. 'Twas the hour to end, 
 
 The hour a kindly Fate (alas!), 
 
 Who would not let him overpass 
 
 Years that were still the strong man's friend, 
 
 Felicitously chose, ere yet 
 The winter darkened round his days; 
 And nought of pity mars our praise 
 Nor sorrow dares be quite regret. 
 
 Dead? But to me that cannot be — 
 Who loved him when a boy, nor still 
 Can read that name without a thrill 
 Which once was all-in-all to me; 
 
 Not dead, if dead means gone: death is 
 A consecration, and doth give 
 A surer life to those who live 
 Immortal in our memories. 
 
 And what is here or there? Vain show! 
 One life, a sleep between, he said, 
 Who now knows all things that the dead, 
 They who alone know all things, know. 
 
 But now That sleeps with closed eyes 
 In Venice underneath the day; 
 But now, but now, I can but lay 
 My wreath upon him where he lies. 
 
 From the Athaneum, Dec. 21, 1 889, p. 860; published 
 with kind permission of the editors and of the 
 authors. 
 
 Page Ninety-nine 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 PROSPEXIT 
 By Margaret J. Preston 
 
 I would hate that Death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, 
 And bade me creep past. 
 
 Browning's Prospice. 
 
 He watched for it — met it — and conquered! 
 
 With joy on his face, 
 
 He fronted the Fear. But the darkness 
 
 That shrouded the place 
 
 In mystery, failed to affright him; 
 
 For firmly and fast 
 
 He clung to his faith — that somewhither 
 
 Will triumph, at last, 
 
 God's ends in this earthly creation — 
 
 That Infinite Love, 
 
 Will lift the true soul that can trust Him, 
 
 All evils above! 
 
 Why fear then? That trust was his anchor; 
 
 Himself hath so said, 
 
 His life shall be only beginning, 
 
 When Death shall be dead! 
 
 Why should not the smile on his features 
 
 Betoken that he 
 
 Saw the "soul of his soul" through a radiance 
 
 None other might see? 
 
 Clasped hands with her — named her in rapture — 
 
 Reached forth, as if drawn 
 
 By fingers invisible — faltered 
 
 •One word — and was gone! 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 87*; in The 
 Critic, April 5, 1 890; in The Independent. 
 
 Page One Hundred 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 IN THE POET'S CORNER 
 
 By Katharine Lee Bates 
 
 Do they hold converse, keen as wine, 
 Under the pavement, they 
 Who make, in truth, the royal line 
 Of England, kings by right divine, 
 Crowned with the bay? 
 
 Yet one is lonely in that great, 
 Rejoicing fellowship, 
 — Lonely with Chaucer for a mate, 
 And Spenser, Dreamland's laureate, 
 He hears the drip 
 
 Of Florence dews upon a mound 
 That golden tides of spring 
 Mantle with bloom, the angel-sound 
 Of Nightingales that all around 
 Her silence sing. 
 
 From Boston Browning Society, 1909-1910, p. 13; pub- 
 lished with permission of the Society and of the 
 author. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By E. F. Bridell-Fox 
 
 Stand still, true poet that you are, 
 I know you; let me try and draw you. 
 Some night you'll fail us. When afar 
 You rise, remember one man saw you, 
 Knew you, and named a star. 
 
 The poet died last month, and now 
 The world which had been somewhat slow 
 In honouring his living brow, 
 Commands the palms. 
 
 Taken from an article by E. F. Bridell-Fox in The 
 Argosy, Number 291, February, 1890. 
 
 Page One Hundred One 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Florence Coates 
 
 "Never say of me that I am dead!" 
 
 Greathearted son of the Titan mother, Earth, 
 Fed at her breast, 
 
 He builded upward from the solid ground, 
 While listening ever fox the heavenly sound 
 Of higher voices, to his soul addressed. 
 
 The elemental mother, lending might 
 
 With vital breath, 
 
 Made him, with her instinctive courage, brave; 
 
 And the immortals to his spirit gave 
 
 Their deeper knowledge and their scorn of death. 
 
 So evermore with energy and joy, 
 
 He followed Truth: 
 
 Still for the message and the vision sought, 
 
 Still to the temple of her worship brought 
 
 The imagination of unaging youth; 
 
 And in its largeness ever, viewing life, 
 Perceived its goal 
 • To be beyond the bounds of space or time. 
 He strove to picture it in powerful rhyme; 
 But what he painted ever — was the soul! 
 
 Ay, 't was the soul that moved, delighted him, 
 
 Absorbed his care, 
 
 From early days in English Camberwell 
 
 To that far hour when tolled for him a knell, 
 
 Mournful across the deep, from Venice the all-fair. 
 
 Voiceless he sleeps, his giant task performed; 
 But in his stead, 
 
 Brave Caponsacchi, poignantly alive, 
 Pippa, beloved Pompilia, and Clive, 
 Forbid the world to think of him as dead ! 
 
 From Florence Coates Poems, Vol. U, pp. 66-67; pub- 
 lished with permission of the author. 
 
 Page One Hundred Two 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 DIVIDED 
 By Ursula Tannenforst 
 
 She sleeps near cypress-shadows blackly strown 
 
 Where white and tall the cross-crowned column stands; 
 
 All round her rest the dead from many lands; 
 
 Proud tombs that tower near some simple stone, 
 
 Nameless, and by a number marked alone; 
 
 Graves, graves, and flowers sown by loving hands 
 
 Crowded together, till the law commands 
 
 No more be buried. From their sunlit throne 
 
 Tie Apennines look o'er her as she lies 
 
 Where long ago their double tomb was made 
 
 That both might sleep beneath Italian skies. 
 
 Speak, "grateful Florence," let his dust be laid 
 
 By hers! From Venice, where he closed his eyes, 
 
 Bring Browning back, nor deem thy trust betrayed. 
 
 Venice, in English verse how oft have rung 
 
 The praises of the city of the sea! 
 
 Each poet brought his boon of love to thee; 
 
 Now noblest tribute take from laurels flung 
 
 O'er Browning's bier! By him thy song was sung, 
 
 And in thine arms he died. Rejoice, that he 
 
 Hath loved thee like a son, O Italy! 
 
 And watched prophetic while thy freedom sprung 
 
 From Apennines to ocean. Lo! complete 
 
 He hailed that vision, dawning ere she died, 
 
 His "lyric love," and graven on his heart 
 
 Was "Italy." O death, thy touch seems sweet, 
 
 So softly rounding, by the sea's fair bride, 
 
 That wondrous whole of life and love and art! 
 
 Divided! Earth to earth now lies at last 
 In sculptured aisle of England's abbey-shrine 
 The noblest son of Europe's poet-line 
 Since silence sank on Goethe's trumpet-blast. 
 Yet softly sighs a whisper, floating past, — 
 "Thine Italy adored, O love, grew mine, 
 With thee new life I won when loves divine 
 Called soul and song to freedom fresh and vast. 
 Fair is the Florence of our home the tread 
 Of pilgrims pauses near my peaceful mound, 
 And I had thought my grave held room for thee; 
 
 Page One Hundred Three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Yet England claims thee, where her poet-dead 
 Rest round thy tomb. Among the laurel-crowned 
 For love's sweet sake — not fame's — find room for me!" 
 
 Not for the love of thy fair place of rest, 
 
 Nor even for thy verse, whose "golden ring" 
 
 Thine England close to Italy doth bring, 
 
 Should yonder grave upon the hillside's crest 
 
 Hold thee 'neath Tuscan flowers longer pressed 
 
 While he who helped thy heart's best blossoming 
 
 Who soared beside thee on his own strong wing, 
 
 Lies far away. A sepulchre unblest! 
 
 Long like a dream of love before the lands 
 
 Ye stood in poet-union fitly bound 
 
 On some fair height, our common earth above, 
 
 'Twere shame did death divide those wedded hands! 
 
 Nay; bind Italian unto English ground 
 
 In golden union both of verse and love. 
 
 England and Florence linked in golden rhyme 
 
 Young Milton, when he "changed fair Thimes's stream 
 
 For lovely Arno," while the early gleam 
 
 Of poet-glory prophesied his prime. 
 
 England and Florence met in matchless chime 
 
 When, love inspired, she sang of freedom's dream, 
 
 And bade Aurora's tale the worth redeem 
 
 Of woman's minstrelsy, with voice sublime. 
 
 England, thy roll of poet-graves reads wrong 
 
 If Florence, filled with all her mighty dead, 
 
 Keeps England's daughter of a deathless song! 
 
 Unclose that tomb, and lay her laurelled head 
 
 By his; more dear to her the abbey's gloom 
 
 By him than Florence when her flowers bloom! 
 
 From Poet Lore, II, pp. 193 to 195; published with the 
 permission of the editor. 
 
 Page One Hundred Four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 THE REZZONICO PALACE 
 
 ("A Roberto Browning, rnorto in questo palazzo") 
 By Arthur Upson 
 
 Low stars and moonlight beauty disavow 
 That death has ever known her; but around 
 Her melancholy portals only sound 
 Of waters makes her music; and the brow 
 Of stately wall records the legend how 
 "Died in this palace" a poet Love once crowned. 
 Here the cold Angel that strong harp unbound: 
 How chill and silent seem her chambers now! 
 O World, if ever moon should wander here 
 Where builds my heart its palace for your song, 
 And find such tablet in the outer wall, 
 The poet dead, the chambers still and drear, 
 Let not its hollow beauty win the throng 
 To reverence, but let it perish all! 
 
 From "The City, a Poem Drama, and Other Poems"; 
 published with permission of Mrs. Arthur Upson- 
 
 THE IRIS-BRIDGE 
 By Helen Gray Cone 
 
 That morn when men to one another said 
 "Browning is dead in Venice," ere the thrill 
 Of the tidings touched us, lo! our eyes beheld 
 Strange portent flashed upon the winter sky. 
 From hill to hill the jewel-splendid span 
 
 Of the light rainbow leaped, transcendent joy, 
 
 The brave, bright, delicate bridge, frail as a flower, 
 
 Yet firm enough to bear the feet of Hope. 
 
 — "Browning is dead," they told us; but our thoughts 
 
 Followed along the aerial sun-built arch 
 
 The onward quest of that still ardent soul. 
 
 Could he be holden of death, who built indeed, 
 
 Flinging his lyric faith across the vast, 
 
 An iris-bridge for man while words endure? 
 
 From Boston Browning Society, 1909-1910, p. 17; pub- 
 lished with permission of the Society. 
 
 Page One Hundred Five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 SALVE 
 
 By Charlotte Pendleton 
 
 Browning Is Dead! Was is yesterday 
 
 Or a thousand misty years ago, 
 
 While ghoulish shadows, to and fro, 
 
 Flit o'er the lamp where the flame was housed, 
 
 And blink in the light of the rising day? 
 
 What matter, I say, friends, though my clay 
 
 Still lie in Italy all unhoused, 
 
 When the soul that informed it is away; 
 
 Browning Is Dead! 
 
 Though already the shadows gather between 
 And mystery shroud my mortal way, 
 For that other star with mine, serene, 
 Commingles once more in a deathless ray, 
 And our married souls, within the screen 
 Were kissing, as earth sighed yesterday, 
 
 Browning Is Dead! 
 
 From Poet Lore, Vol. i, p. 545; published with the per- 
 mission of the editor. 
 
 LETTERS OF ROBERT BROWNING AND 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT 
 
 By Rev. William Brunton 
 
 Oh, dear departed saints of highest song! 
 Behind the screen of time your love lay hid, 
 Its full unfoldment was in life forbid — 
 As doing such divine affection wrong, 
 But now we read, with interest deep and strong, 
 And lift from off the magic jar the lid, 
 And Lo! your spirit stands the clouds amid, 
 
 And speaks to us in some superior tongue! 
 Devotion such as yours is heavenly-wise, 
 
 And yet the possible of earth ye show; 
 Ye dwellers of the blue of summer skies, 
 
 Through you a finer love of love we know; 
 It is as if the angels moved with men, 
 And key of paradise is found again! 
 
 Page One Hundred Six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 LETTERS OF ROBERT BROWNING AND 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT 
 
 Anonymous 
 
 Forgive, sweet Lovers of this book, 
 
 The sad, who scan your story; 
 Forgive their wistful eyes that look .... 
 Forgive, sweet Lovers of this book, 
 Their knowledge where your fingers shook, 
 
 Their watching of your glory! 
 Forgive, sweet Lovers of this book, 
 
 The sad, who scan your story. 
 
 Accept, true Lovers, here enshrined, 
 
 The few who share your gladness 
 In touch of heart and soul and mind; 
 Accept true Lovers, here enshrined, 
 Their seeing of themselves defined, 
 
 Their growth to joy, from sadness .... 
 Accept, true Lovers here enshrined, 
 
 The few who share your gladness. 
 
 Condone, great Lovers — being dead, 
 
 The printing of these pages; 
 Nor shrink that we — we, too, have read; 
 Condone, great Lovers — being dead, 
 Our vision of the Gold you shed 
 
 For hearts in coming ages .... 
 Condone, great Lovers, being dead, 
 
 The printing of these pages. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Louise Chandler Moulton 
 
 That longed-for door stood open, and he passed 
 
 On through the star-sown fields of light, and stayed 
 
 Before its threshold, glad and unafraid. 
 
 Since all that Life and Death could do at last 
 
 Was over, and the hour so long forecast 
 
 Had brought his footsteps thither. Undismayed 
 
 He entered. Were his lips on her lips laid? 
 
 God knows. They met, and their new day was vast. 
 
 Page One Hundred Seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 THE POET'S HOME-GOING 
 By H. D. Rawnsley 
 
 "I shall soon depart for Venice on my way homeward." 
 Extract from a letter of Browning's written to a friend 
 a few weeks before his death. 
 
 His heart was where the summer ever shines, 
 
 He saw the English swallow eastward come, 
 
 And still among the olives and the vines, 
 
 Or underneath the dark sun-scented pines 
 
 Of Asola, he hummed his latest lines, 
 
 And bade his white-winged songs go flying home. 
 
 Then when the red sails round by Lido came 
 
 To rest, and idle now the gondolier 
 
 Beneath the Lion and those masts aflame, 
 
 Guessed fingers in the old Venetian game, 
 
 A dark boat neared. Death called the poet's name, 
 
 Then straight toward the sunset seemed to steer. 
 
 Another prow pushed quay-wards, wrought of gold, 
 Pure gold, and with the lily in her hand 
 The Maid, whose virgin arms did once enfold 
 The world's Salvation, leaned to bless the hold, 
 And smile on him whose music had extolled 
 The Lion and the Lily of the land. 
 
 Then up into the lordly Palace Hall 
 
 Bright angels passed to lead him to the shore, 
 
 And o'er his body did they lay for pall 
 
 Italia's love and England's loss, and all 
 
 Cried, "He whose spirit the Heaven from Earth doth call, 
 
 Freed men, and lo, is freed for evermore." 
 
 "Yea freed the most to find his being whole, 
 'The broken arc, in Heaven a perfect round' ; 
 Free with the freedom of that kindred soul 
 Whose love and life through all the under-roll 
 
 Page One Hundred Eight 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Of sorrowful dark, has kept him to the goal, 
 And free to utter his full self in sound." 
 
 Then with those angels silently he went, 
 Pushed from the steps, left Venice flaming bright 
 Above her sunset waters; backward bent 
 Towers shook, so swift astern the waves were sent 
 Domes danced, and still the harp's accompaniment 
 Came with his voice to call us toward the light. 
 
 And other voices called, for other prows 
 Pushed after, gorgeous, sweet for myrtle flowers, 
 With long-robed men therein, upon whose brows 
 Were caps of honour such as he who knows 
 Bellini's Doge can tell of, men of vows 
 By their tight lips, the men who built the towers. 
 
 Alas! they cried, "To what far island steers 
 
 The boat that bears our poet-soul away? 
 
 We built the city, but his glory rears 
 
 Anew the walls, eternal as the years ; 
 
 We took the sea to marriage, but he wears 
 
 The ring that weds our Venice. Let him stay!" 
 
 Then the stars paled, yet paled not that bright star, 
 But grew: the grey sea heaved from dusk to gold, 
 And sailing we were ware of hills afar — 
 The amethystine hills where angels are — 
 That rose from burnished calm no tempests mar 
 To skies of peace that never can grow old. 
 
 We neared the land, and multitudes foreknew 
 His coming, waved a forestry of palm. 
 The singer's face most like an angel grew, 
 Far off we saw what fires rekindled flew 
 Forth from his eyes, as near the vessel drew, 
 And o'er the waves to meet us came a psalm. 
 
 "O girder of Truth's sword upon men's thigh, 
 And looser of men's fear for mortal harm, 
 If but they leave their castles to the sky, 
 
 Page One Hundred Nine 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 And go forth dauntless when the foe draws nigh, 
 Thine was the clarion call to victory 
 Against the world's inevitable swarm!" 
 
 Then to the singer did they bring a crown, 
 And thoughts that long had struggled unto birth 
 Took form melodious, wonderful, full-grown, 
 And many souls come near to him half known, 
 Souls strong through loss and loving like his own, 
 Friends of his mind and making upon earth. 
 
 On either side to let him forward move 
 
 The gracious congregation did divide; 
 
 But those clear eyes that flashed for joy to prove 
 
 The bliss of recognition seemed to rove, 
 
 As looking for fulfilment of all love, 
 
 As yearning still, and still unsatisfied. 
 
 E'en as he gazed, with amaranth on her brow, 
 
 And all the long upgathered love of years, 
 
 Came one whose eyes from distance seemed to know 
 
 Her bliss his perfect glory; with such glow 
 
 Souls met and mingled, the sad Earth below 
 
 Felt the far joy in Heaven, and ceased from tears. 
 
 From the Browning Centenary, pp. 14 to 18; published 
 with permission of the author. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By A. Bennett 
 
 In the "quiet-coloured ending" of the golden afternoon, 
 Robed and crowned with flowers and moving to the 
 
 ripple's lulling tune 
 Did they bear the body of the Master o'er the grey lagoon. 
 
 At the prow there beamed an angel. Was it such Guer- 
 
 cino drew? 
 From the stern a lion's kingly front victorious rose to 
 
 view. 
 He with voice of angel, heart of lion, lay between the two. 
 
 Page One Hundred Ten 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 Followed him in tearful silence down the dim unpaven 
 way 
 
 "Certain people of importance," "men and women" such 
 as they 
 
 Live and love and laugh and weep undying in his death- 
 less lay. 
 
 Singer of her "dear dead women," he who drew her pale 
 
 decline, 
 Took the golden hair, embalmed it in his rich majestic 
 
 line, 
 Venice bore him on her bosom poured his latest anodyne. 
 
 Not as to the sombre English Abbey, there to join his 
 
 peers, 
 Let us dream of him, in pageant borne amid a nation's 
 
 tears — 
 Rather in the still Venetian twilight, led of gondoliers 
 
 Down the lanes of light and twinkling amber that the 
 
 sunset flings 
 O'er the city "where the Doges used to wed the sea with 
 
 rings, 
 iWhere St. Mark's is," — where died one of Poesy's su- 
 
 premest kings. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 67.* 
 
 Fulfilled, December 12, 1889 
 Oh, the blessed fruition 
 Of peace out of pain! 
 Of a light without darkness, 
 A clasping again! 
 Of a full soul's reunion 
 In Love's endless reign! 
 
 Sing, O Earth, with new joy 
 At this victory won! 
 For the faith that endured 
 'Till the setting of sun! 
 For the hope that shone clear 
 Through the mighty work done! 
 For the love that sought God 
 To guide love here begun! 
 Sing, O Earth, with new joy 
 For such victory won! 
 From The Brownings and America, p. 103 ; published 
 with permission. 
 
 Page One Hundred Eleven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 BROWNING 
 By Henrietta Huxley 
 
 This day within the Abbey, where of old 
 
 Our kings were sepulchred, a King of song 
 
 That, like his life, was truthful, pure and strong, — 
 
 Browning among his peers is laid to rest, 
 
 Borne to the grave by loving hearts, and stoled 
 
 In shining raiment that his genius wove. 
 
 No lingering sickness his: with swift surprise 
 
 Death flashed the Light Eternal in his eyes, 
 
 And blinded Life. So this way he was blest. 
 
 Perhaps in some far star he now has met 
 
 His rose of love, his ne'er forgotten wife. 
 
 And they again, as once, in spirit blent, 
 
 Look through the veil this day, and hear the fret 
 
 Of many feet; the swelling music spent 
 
 On mourning listeners. With voices low, 
 
 Chanting her hymn, the boys sing as they go 
 
 "He giveth his beloved sleep." What though 
 
 The perishable forms these two once wore, 
 
 In different lands lie sundered by the sea? 
 
 Their spirits smile, at this our fond regret. 
 
 "What matters anything since we have met?" 
 
 They radiant sing. "Together, oh what more 
 
 Can love long parted from the Eternal crave?" 
 
 And if there be no meeting past the grave, 
 
 If all is darkness, silence, still 'tis rest. 
 
 Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep, 
 
 For "God still giveth his beloved sleep," 
 
 And if an endless sleep He wills, so best! 
 
 From Broivning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 67.* 
 
 IN MEMORIAM— ROBERT BROWNING 
 By The Rev. John Owen 
 
 1. 
 
 Grim Harvester, Death, thou hast gathered in the curve 
 of thy sickle keen 
 
 A ripe shock of mellowest corn — fair fruitage for centu- 
 ries to glean; 
 
 But though golden and ripe for the reaper, we grudge 
 such a harvest of worth, 
 
 Page One Hundred Twelve 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 In its fullness of aureate splendour, should be lost to 
 man's vision on earth. 
 
 2. 
 
 In fruition of years and of glory hath passed to his rest 
 
 the Seer, 
 Whose inwardly-piercing vision through man's universe 
 
 ranged clear, 
 Whose oracles pregnant and strong — as a Hebrew 
 
 prophet's of old — 
 New glimpses of truth aye revealed to eyes gifted with 
 
 sense to behold. 
 
 3- 
 
 We mourn for the thinker whose thought disdained the 
 
 mean level of men, 
 Sounding down to hid depths of their being, soaring 
 
 upward beyond their ken, 
 Threading with insight unerring — a Seer-spirit's intuitive 
 
 force — 
 Each subtle and devious bye-path of man's life's labyryn- 
 
 thine course. 
 
 With lute still attuned and voiceful, the hand from its 
 
 strings that awoke 
 With masterly skill new beauties by each music-sensitive 
 
 stroke, 
 Lies numb'd in death, and the tongue whose tones were 
 
 so pure and strong 
 Is hushed, and will never more rapture our souls with its 
 
 magical song. 
 
 5- 
 A blank dreary stillness thus reigns where resonant 
 
 music — voiced 
 To man's deepest thought and his sorrow, bringing solace 
 
 or strength that rejoiced — 
 Lately gladdened our ears — and we, with the gathering 
 
 silence grown dumb 
 In voiceless sympathy wail our song-bereaved years to 
 
 come. 
 
 6. 
 
 Sons of the dead Prophet, we mourn the orphaning doom 
 we have met, 
 
 Page One Hundred Thirteen 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 We grieve that one Seer less remains to chide human 
 
 folly and fret, 
 That a Star of rare brilliance and guidance is gone from 
 
 our human sky, 
 And the dark of man's world has grown denser for every 
 
 discerning eye. 
 
 7- 
 
 Yet may we still warm in the sun, — though jts orb we, 
 
 with boding unrest, 
 Have watched in sunset glory sink in the gold clouds of 
 
 the West, — 
 Thoughts that the world may have chill'd in the depths 
 
 of its frozen night — 
 True feelings that Self may have blunted, as a flower is 
 
 stunted with blight. 
 
 8. 
 
 "Stored Sunshine" we hold in his writings, packed daintily 
 
 for our joy, 
 As men store the soul of the Lightning, and its force and 
 
 its radiance employ; 
 The sunlight condensed in his pages, that should make 
 
 men enlightened and free, 
 Will, long as our language is spoken, give strength to 
 
 our children to be. 
 
 9- 
 
 True, we who rejoiced in his presence, in the light of his 
 
 winsome smile, 
 We, of our sorrows and doubts whose word-witchery 
 
 served to beguile, 
 We, in the night of bereavement, must endure its lack 
 
 and its pain; 
 The sweet sentience of Love, death-smitten, on earth 
 
 revives never again. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 30. 
 
 Page One Hundred Fourteen 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 IDOL AFFECTIONS 
 Inscribed to Robert Brozvning 
 
 By Clara Bloomfield Moore 
 
 Our idols are our executioners. — Amiel. 
 God's care be God's. — Browning. 
 
 There is no day of all my years whereon 
 
 I could not darken every sunniest hour 
 
 With memories of my life that was, before 
 
 God drew our distant paths near and more near. 
 
 I know the Hand which broke before my face 
 
 The idols I had wrought from clay and clothed 
 
 In golden raiment, then within my heart 
 
 Installed, as on an altar-shrine, to fall 
 
 And crush me where I knelt, — more merciless 
 
 Than mediaeval priests who racked the saints, 
 
 Yet spared their tortured frames when strength waxed 
 
 low. 
 Ah, then I thought my heart a sepulchre, 
 Where only weeds and noisome things would dwell, 
 In which no ray could ever shine again! 
 Unto this place of graves thou didst not scorn 
 To come, dear friend, bringing a jewelled lamp 
 To hang above the empty shrine, and flash 
 Its beams where now for weeds lie flowers which 
 
 gained 
 Their birth and growth in gardens of the soul. 
 Like incense doth their perfume rise, by day 
 And night, to heaven, as rise my prayers to God 
 In thanks for such a matchless gift as thine, — 
 Renewed like amaranth blooms as seasons roll. 
 What can I do but trust the Hand which worked 
 Such marvels for me when I prayed for death? 
 "God's care be God's": I wait upon His will 
 To lift all shadows from my life that shines. 
 "God's care be God's": I'll leave to Him His task, 
 And, trusting in His love, forget to ask. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 109.* 
 
 Page One Hundred Fifteen 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By C. P. Cranch 
 
 Themes strong, verse blood-warm with the limbs and veins 
 
 Of life at full flush; yet as when one sees 
 
 Some unknown Grecian youth Praxiteles 
 
 Or Phidias raised from flesh on Attic plains 
 
 Into perennial marble, the coarse stains 
 
 Of corporal frailty cleansed by ministries 
 
 Of art divine from all impurities, 
 
 Till of crude fact the living soul remain, — 
 
 So with the touch of genius wrought this seer 
 
 Of passion and of truth, till heart and mind 
 
 Share in the vigor of the fleshly frame. 
 
 Though palpable to sense his forms appear, 
 
 In the soul's life transfigured and refined 
 
 The higher art that nature makes, they claim. 
 
 From "Browning Memorial," published with the permis- 
 sion of the Boston Browning Society. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 By Aubrey de Vere 
 
 i. 
 
 Gone from us! that strong singer of late days — 
 Sweet singer should be strong — who, tarrying here, 
 Chose still rough music for his themes austere, 
 Hard-headed, aye but tender-hearted lays, 
 Carefully careless, garden half, half maze. 
 His thoughts he sang, deep thoughts to thinkers dear, 
 Now flashing under gleam of smile or tear, 
 Now veiled in language like a breezy haze 
 Chance-pierced by sunbeams from the lake it covers. 
 He sang man's ways — not heights of sage or saint, 
 Not highways broad, not haunts endeared to lovers; 
 He sang life's byways, sang its angles quaint, 
 Its Runic lore inscribed on stave or stone; 
 Song's short-hand strain, — its key oft his alone. 
 
 II. 
 
 Shakespeare's old oak "gnarled and unwedgeable" 
 Yields not so sweet a wood to harp or lyre 
 
 Page One Hundred Sixteen 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 As tree of smoother grain ; and chorded shell 
 Is spanned by strings tenderer than iron wire. 
 What then? Stern tasks iron and oak require! 
 Iron deep-mined, hard oak from stormy fell: 
 Steel-armed the black ship breasts the ocean's swell, 
 Oak-ribbed laughs back the raging tempest's ire. 
 Old friend, thy song I deem a ship whose hold 
 Is stored with mental spoils of ampler price 
 Than Spain's huge galleons in her age of gold, 
 Or Indian carracks from the isles of spice. 
 Brave Argosy! cleave long the waves as now; 
 And all the sea-gods sing around thy prow! 
 
 From Macmillans Magazine, the Neu/ York Times, 
 Sunday, Feb. 16, 1890. 
 
 AT BROWNING'S GRAVE 
 By H. D. Rawnsley 
 
 yth May, 19 12 
 
 Come forth ye great immortals from your sleep, 
 And swell today our glad memorial throng, 
 Ye sowed the golden seed of thought, we reap 
 Your deathless fruit of song. 
 
 Come not as victors with a flash of swords, 
 Nor clad in war's impenetrable mail, 
 But crowned with laurels, armed with fiery words, 
 Whose music shall not fail. 
 
 Leave your fair halls of melody and psalm, 
 
 To join in honour to our spirit-guest 
 
 — The man who taught us Right must bear the 
 
 palm, 
 And Love in Heaven find rest. 
 
 Therefore to-day, in this most holy place, 
 Where still the harps that helped the ages ring, 
 We thank the Eternal Father for his grace, 
 Who bade the prophet sing. 
 
 From the Browning Centenary, p. 12; published with 
 permission of the author. 
 
 Page One Hundred Seventeen 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 Anonymous 
 
 No, not once more amid the funeral train, 
 With softened grief, do I desire to see, 
 A friend enshrined in that great canopy, 
 Of England's glory, or to hear the strain 
 Of honour surge around his senseless brain. 
 Too often have I joined the minstrelsy, 
 Which there emblazons on our history 
 An everlasting name: no, not again. 
 
 But as I note the hour, and mourn apart, 
 
 'Twill be to think there is another grave, 
 
 And greater tomb than that where they would save 
 
 And seal the laurels of a poet's art. 
 
 More deeply buried than in aisle or nave: 
 
 His resting place is in a nation's heart. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 51*; also in 
 St. James Gazette. 
 
 AT BROWNING'S GRAVE 
 
 By Alfred Forman 
 
 Ashes to ashes! Dust again to dust! 
 Once more the solemn words upon the ear 
 Are launched in love and worship. Let no tear 
 Betoken in us any lack of trust 
 
 That here a mighty life has found its just 
 And unbewailable and perfect end. 
 Here at thy grave, as Poet, Man, and Friend. 
 We hail thee blest, as all who know thee must. 
 
 Through piled and woven flowers our living heart 
 Yearns downward to thy dead one. Love and Pride 
 Contend in us which owns the greater part. 
 Farewell? We leave thee where thou dost abide, 
 In twofold aspect of thy life and art, 
 The greatest Englishman since Milton died. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 51*; also in 
 Court Circular. 
 
 Page One Hundred Eighteen 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 AT 29 DE VERE GARDENS 
 
 By F. T. Palgrave 
 
 28th December, 1889 
 
 Twilight and peace in the chamber; 
 Twilight of death and peace 
 For him who the strife, the long battle of lite, 
 Had fought out to the last release: 
 
 Dead in a dying City, 
 Through her silent water-ways sped 
 Toward the misty West, and the place of rest 
 And gray home of the mighty dead. 
 
 Now bathed in silence and twilight 
 Where with wisdom's roseate glow, 
 Quick lightnings of wit, the chamber was lit 
 So lately,— yet so long ago : 
 
 Where eyes that from youth ne'er looked on me 
 But the heart's bright message they bore,— 
 The welcoming lip, the hand's honest grip, 
 Were mine — mine now never more: — 
 
 There with amaranth cross, and bay-wreath, 
 Inane munus, I strove, 
 
 Knelt there and pray'd where they said he was laid,. 
 To do the last office of love; 
 
 Love reverent, grateful, deep, 
 
 For the treasure that only they, 
 
 The poets of Love, the wise from Above, 
 
 To the world in its deadness convey: 
 
 For he, Star-crested, Hope-armour'd, 
 Struck straight at a swelling tide; 
 In the valley of doubt, with clarion shout, 
 Chased coward and doubter aside. 
 
 Then the vanish'd Presence in brightness 
 
 Was felt once more in the room, _ 
 
 While the worn-out shred the great spirit had shed 
 
 Lay garnish'd and still for the tomb. 
 
 Page One Hundred Nineteen' 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Not there was the soul I had loved. 
 Where the mortal raiment was laid, — 
 Death's fast vanishing spoil, the lamp without oil 
 The blank sheath of the God-wrought blade, — 
 Bare walls of man's house, where no fire 
 On the central hearth-stone glows! — 
 Till silently round me a vapour of sound, 
 The music of memory, rose: — 
 
 And Blest are the dead in the Lord; 
 For they rest from their labours, I heard ; 
 With a Love is best! — and the life now at rest 
 Was summ'd in that one brief word. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 49.* 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By E. R. Chapman 
 
 Undaunted spirit, who didst help us best — 
 Best help the world — by being glad and strong, 
 Still proving gloriously that strength and song 
 Are not disjoined — not yet — take thou thy rest! 
 
 Rest well! Thy country clasps thee to her breast, 
 See, in her Abbey; thy disciples throng 
 To greet thee these historic aisles among, 
 Too true to thee to mourn — to weep too blest. 
 
 And thou, brave heart, grieve thou not overmuch 
 If in that distant Flower-city fair 
 Thy lyric love lies evermore alone. 
 
 Your souls are one; your disrobed spirits touch, 
 Re-wedded, glad — and England, for her share, 
 Crowned you long since upon a common throne. 
 
 From Browning- Society Papers, Part 12, p. 50.* 
 
 Page One Hundred Twenty 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 TO BROWNING 
 By Walter S. Bigelow 
 
 Stones of Venice! a heart has turned cold that had often 
 
 beat high, 
 Living over the lives of the men you have seen in their 
 
 prime ; 
 Whom it knew by the record brought down from an 
 
 earlier time; 
 Whom it loved with such love, that its ardour forbade 
 
 them to die. 
 
 From a lyre held so close that the heart's every passionate 
 
 beat 
 Drew a sigh or a song from its sensitive, sonorous strings, 
 Rose to heaven — like a bird with a message between her 
 
 white wings — 
 Blended strains of the present and past, in a music 
 
 complete. 
 
 Faithful heart! that turned cold only now, at the touch 
 
 of that foe 
 Whom it feared not: whose coming it hailed, with a joy 
 
 undissembled : 
 Friend, not foe, who should bring it once more to her 
 
 breast; and it trembled, 
 Not with dread, but a yearning desire for the summons 
 
 to go. 
 
 From Broiuning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 126.* 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Michael Field 
 
 Slowly we disarray, 
 
 Our leaves grow few, 
 
 Few on the bough, and many on the sod: 
 
 Round him no ruining autumn tempest blew, 
 
 Gathered on genial day, 
 
 He fills, fresh as Apollo's bay, 
 
 The Hand of God. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, No. 10, p. 28,* 
 also Academy Dec. 21, 1 889. 
 
 Page One Hundred Twenty-one 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 An Acrostic Sonnet. In Memoriam 
 By Thomas Hutchinson 
 
 Robed in the beauty of a blameless life, 
 Our poet sleeps, whose name Time will revere; 
 Blest in the love of those he held most dear 
 Ere he was called to join his poet-wife. 
 Remembering aye God's will of good is rife, 
 The thought of death to him gave doubt nor fear, 
 But hope unending; wherefore sob or tear? — 
 Removed is he from earthly care and strife. 
 Of human hearts the workings well he knew, 
 Was conversant with their most secret throes, 
 Nor cared to sing his songs in minor keys; 
 In human hearts his message echoes true: — 
 Not pain, not sorrow comes at lifetime's close; 
 Great though the change, greater the after-peace. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 29.* 
 
 A SONNET ON BROWNING 
 Anonymous 
 
 Calm, O thou mighty heart, and cold, thou hand, 
 Calm calm and cold in the beloved clime 
 Amid whose magic rose the deathless rhyme, 
 Ringing like tocsin through our sleeping land. 
 O dear dead voice, thy half-divine command 
 Called forth creations durabler than time, 
 Life's epic pictures, earth's lyric mime, 
 God-singer whom but few may understand. 
 
 Oft caught thy firm keen eyes the fields of morn, 
 From the high silence of the Pisgah-peak 
 Whence flashed their glory on marchers far below ; 
 Now that for thee love's light of light is born, 
 O dear dead voice, if we could hear thee speak, 
 How thou wouldst tell what all are fain to know. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers , Part 12, p. 75.* 
 
 Page One Hundred Twenty-tuo 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 ON HEARING OF THE DEATH OF 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By H. J. Bulkeley 
 
 Dead ! But it is not possible. That mind, 
 That energy, that hope can never die. 
 Time to our music deaf, our beauty blind, 
 May kill all, all but thy vitality. 
 
 Can never die! Not while this England lasts, 
 Nor while our English tongue its force and fame 
 O'er all the world in widening circle casts, 
 Shall pale the lustre of thy peerless name. 
 
 O fighter brave, as in thy Prospice 
 Thou that last fight has fought, and to thy breast 
 Thy soul's soul thou hast clasped again. Ah! she 
 And thou — with God 'tis safe to leave the rest. 
 
 But we would crown thee here as well as there, 
 Crown thee and her together, king and queen. 
 Through all its aeons such a regal pair, 
 Beauteous and strong, the world has never seen. 
 
 And shall it ever see? — Her tenderness, 
 Her lofty passion, rush of winged words 
 Pregnant with love and life — And less and less 
 We need be taught the temper of thy sword's 
 
 Flashing and piercing; thou who man as men 
 To us presented in such varied throngs 
 Through all its common-places new and then 
 The world would wonder, as their proper songs 
 
 Sang all and each, but never one the same 
 Diverse in mood and character and time, 
 Diverse as pain from joy, as snow from flame; 
 But through them all still rang a subtle rhyme. 
 
 Subtle and strong and true, of mind and soul 
 And art and love and God. Here Cleon stands 
 Musing of art that would ensphere the whole; 
 And here Pompilia wrings those hopeless hands. 
 
 Page One Hundred Tiuenty-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Here an Apostle dying leaves to doubt 
 A noble mission. Here a Caliban 
 Reasons of God. Here with a stupid shout 
 Of thanks to Christ men burn their fellow man. 
 
 Here Martin Relph would" half conceal his sin, 
 Blurting it out. Here noble Luria dies 
 For trustless Florence; horse and rider win 
 Good news for Ghent; the gipsy duchess flies 
 
 Back to her liberty; unconscious paints 
 His life that famous master, or unknown 
 He fills the empty aisles with babes and Saints, 
 Who used his art for Art and God alone. 
 
 Here Paracelsus knows and sins, but loves 
 And dies. Here David's music draws the stars. 
 Sordello here his art to action moves, 
 And failing triumphs ; CHve his crowns and scars 
 
 Tops with one boyish deed; high Strafford falls; 
 The trodden Jew from scorn and hatred frees 
 His soaring faith; sweet Pippa, passing, calls 
 To souls; Balaustion chants Euripides. 
 
 Abt Vogler here may raise his walls of sound ; 
 The Arab lose his horse for love ; the sage, 
 Ferishtah, hint the truth; lo! one fierce bound, 
 False Gauthier grovels. So from page to page 
 
 Weaves the magician robes and thoughts for all, 
 And yet doth clothe himself in every mood; 
 As some great actor in a carnival 
 Puts on a warrior's helm, a friar's hood, 
 
 An angel's wreath, a demon's horns and head, 
 Is everyone in turn, and yet the eyes 
 Of her whose vision by her love is led 
 Sees him, her loved one, in each new disguise; 
 
 So did we love to see thee, many, one; 
 
 So didst thou teach that wide philosophy 
 
 In shapes as various as the hues that run 
 
 Through the great bow that blendeth earth and sky 
 
 Page One Hundred Twenty-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 In coloured harmony. So many voices, 
 
 And yet one mind that all informed and blest! 
 
 O poet, master, each of us rejoices, 
 
 Must still rejoice in all that good and best 
 
 Thou hast so generously poured out to teach us, 
 Our minds and souls; we learn and still are glad. 
 From that new life canst thou no longer reach us? 
 There sing without our praise? We are not sad. 
 
 We cannot be, for thou hast left for knowing, 
 For thinking, loving, all thy works and thee. 
 They praise thee best who best to God are showing 
 Them thou hast taught to know, to love, to be; 
 That in their souls some little seeds are growing, 
 In blessing showered from thou bounteous tree; 
 Some little sparks of keener fancy glowing, 
 Kindled at thy rich flame of poesy; 
 Some little streams of faith and freedom flowing 
 To pulse accordant with thy boundless sea. 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, pp. 68-70.* 
 
 THE BURIAL OF ROBERT BROWNING 
 By Michael Field 
 
 Upon St. Michael's Isle 
 
 They laid him for awhile 
 
 That he might feel the Ocean's full embrace, 
 
 And wedded be 
 
 To that wide sea — 
 
 The subject and the passion of his race. 
 
 As Thetis, from some lovely under-ground 
 
 Springing, she girds him round 
 
 With lapping sound 
 
 And silent space: 
 
 Then, on more honor bent, 
 
 She sues the firmament 
 
 And bids the hovering, western clouds combine 
 
 To spread their sabled amber on her lustrous brine. 
 
 It might not be 
 He should lie free 
 
 Page One Hundred Twenty-five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 For ever in the soft light of the sea, 
 
 For lo! one came, 
 
 Of step more slow than fame, 
 
 Stooped over him — we heard her breathe his name- 
 
 And, as the light drew back, 
 
 Bore him across the track 
 
 Of the subservient waves that dare not foil 
 
 That veiled, maternal figure of its spoil. 
 
 Ah! where will she put by 
 
 Her journeying majesty? 
 
 She hath left the lands of the air and sun; 
 
 She will take no rest till her course be run. 
 
 Follow her far, follow her fast, 
 
 Until at last, 
 
 Within a narrow transept led, 
 
 Lo! she unwraps her face to pall her dead. 
 
 'Tis England who has travelled far, 
 
 England who brings 
 
 Fresh splendor to her galaxy of Kings. 
 
 We kiss her feet, her hands, 
 
 Where eloquent she stands; 
 
 Nor dare to lead 
 
 A wailful choir about the poet dumb 
 
 Who is become 
 
 Part of the glory that her sons would bleed 
 
 To save from scar; 
 
 Yea, hers in every deed 
 
 As Runnymede, 
 
 Or Trafalgar. 
 
 From the London Spectator. 
 
 TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 By L. Ormiston Chant 
 
 Browning has left us; he went from us singing 
 
 Songs of the old world up into the new 
 
 Just a last lay to his lovers down-flinging 
 
 Lover of love, and the truest of true! 
 
 How we shall mourn for him, long for him, need him, 
 
 Miss the bright ring of his clarion note 
 
 Page One Hundred Twenty-six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 Piercing the frosts of the mists in the morning, 
 Miss the night-trill from the nightingale's throat. 
 iWhat have we lost ? Not the path where he led us 
 Over the moorlands of thought to the sea; 
 Not the steep climb up the crags, where he waited, 
 While we drew breath, and though panting, were free. 
 These he has left; but the sunshine he lent them 
 Died, when he died, with the light in his eyes. 
 What have we lost? Why the soul of the music; 
 Voice that gave tongue to the winds from the skies. 
 
 Browning has left us, he went from us singing; 
 Never a song more triumphant than his! 
 Like a great billow high-rising, and flinging 
 Thunder and psalm where the hurricane is, 
 So fell his voice on men's storms and uprisings, , 
 Sounding clear faith o'er doubt's turbulent wave. 
 Wise and so kind his deep thoughts for the doubters, 
 Leading them forth from the land of the grave. 
 Yet with a love, such a love, ringing through it, 
 Born of his grief in a desolate prime, 
 Bidding all love follow Love, and for ever 
 Pass to her beautiful presence, in time. 
 Now he has gone. His dear name in the heaven 
 Of the world's singers shines out like a star, 
 Great Poet, and Teacher; true lover, we follow 
 O'er valley and mountain, to seek thee afar! 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 66*; also in 
 The Women's Penny Paper, Dec. 21, 1889. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Elizabeth Porter Gould 
 
 — A peace out of pain, 
 
 Then a light, then thy breast. 
 
 O thou soul of my soul, I shall clasp thee again, 
 
 And with God be the rest! 
 
 Page One Hundred Twenty-seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 BROWNING 
 By Irene Elder Morton 
 
 He sits at last among his peers, 
 
 While we stand chilled with eyes grown dim 
 
 In looking over life's grey fields, 
 
 And feel the heart-light folded in. 
 
 O great soul! entered in to know 
 
 The fulness of the Central Life! 
 
 O giant leader of the race, 
 
 Who never with the world made strife, 
 
 But led it surely, grandly on, 
 Scaling clear heights with leap and bound, — 
 Then, beckoning with a strong man's hand, 
 He kept his way to higher ground! 
 
 No maudlin cry he gave the world, — 
 "Behold my grief, pity my pain;" 
 Strong as the breath of Alpine hills, 
 Sweet as the sound of summer rain, 
 
 The songs he gave us. Evermore 
 The deathless might of English speech 
 Shall sound their notes from shore to shore, 
 And to the coming nations teach 
 
 That it is nobler to endure, 
 And smother back the cry of pain — 
 Shall call us onward to the heights, 
 To press ahead and bear the strain. 
 
 He wore no caste-bound fetters here; 
 A man of men he proved his soul ; 
 The mighty pulse within his words 
 Beat full and free above control. 
 
 The illumined fringes of his thoughts 
 Have set the world's face after him, 
 As one would follow clear flute notes 
 Heard in cool aisles of forests dim. 
 
 With loving face of child and friend 
 
 Page f)r>r HurffrrJ Tiventy-e'isht 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 To look on as the last of earth, 
 God wrapt him in a robe of light, 
 And gave him strong immortal birth. 
 
 He looks again in the clear eyes 
 Of her, the love-dream of his youth, 
 The moonlit side of his great heart, 
 To whom he gave his manhood's truth. 
 
 Perfect conditions of new life 
 Are vibrant to his being there, — 
 Gone in to feel the wider thrill, 
 Gone in to breathe the purer air. 
 
 From A Treasury of Canadian Verse, edited by Theodore 
 H. Rand, p. 249 ; published with permission of 
 author. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 By Robert, Lord Houghton 
 
 Robert Browning, Died llth December, 1889 
 
 The tale of how you found the promised rest 
 
 Flashed fast from north to south, from sea to sea, 
 
 My father's friend, all friendliness to me, 
 
 Dear Scholar-Poet, — ever welcome guest: 
 
 And gone you are to seek your loved-one's breast, 
 
 Sped your free soul from Italy the free, 
 
 Soul never flinching from the dim To Be, 
 
 Nor doubting of the Good, — and thus, 'tis best. 
 
 'Tis best, — and I, six thousand miles away 
 
 From your and Nelson's Abbey* arched in gloom, 
 
 Hear through the surge that thunders on the bay 
 
 An echo of your verse's** roll and boom 
 
 That doubly sanctifies Trafalgar day, — 
 
 And waft this Afric leaf to reach your tomb. 
 
 Capetown, 1889. 
 
 * At the battle off Cape St. Vincent, "Nelson . . . gave 
 orders for boarding- ... it was done in an instant, he himself 
 leading the way. and exclaiming — 'Westminster Abbey, or vic- 
 tory!' "— Southey's "Life of Nelson." 
 
 ** "Home Thoughts from the Sea." 
 
 From Stray Verses 1 889-1 890; London, John Murray, 
 Albemarle St., 1891 
 
 Page One Hundred Twenty-nine 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 SONNET 
 
 By Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton 
 
 The Century was young — the month was May — 
 The spacious East was kindled with a light 
 That lent a sudden glory to the night, 
 And a new star began its upward way 
 Toward the high splendor of the perfect day. 
 With pure white flame, inexorably bright. 
 It reached the souls of men — no stain so slight 
 As to escape its all-revealing ray. 
 
 When countless voices cried "The Star has set!" 
 And through the lands there surged a sea of pain, 
 Was it Death's triumph — victory of Woe? 
 Nay! There are lights the sky may not forget; 
 When suns, and moons, and souls shall rise again, 
 In the New Life's wide East that star shall glow. 
 
 From The Broivnings and America, p. 38; published with 
 permission. 
 
 ■ TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By George Meredith 
 
 ! 'Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak, 
 
 And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier. 
 
 Our words are sobs, our cry of praise a tear: 
 
 We are the smitten mortal, we the weak. 
 
 We see a spirit on Earth's loftiest peak 
 
 Shine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear: 
 
 See a great Tree of Life that never sere 
 
 Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak. 
 
 Such ending is not Death: such living shows 
 
 What wide illumination brightness sheds 
 
 From one big heart, to conquer man's old foes: 
 
 The coward, and the tyrant, and the force 
 
 Of all those weedy monsters raising heads 
 
 When Song is murk from springs of turbid source." 
 
 From Browning Society Papers, Part 12, p. 27; also Pall 
 Mall Budget, Dec. 13, 1889. 
 
 -Page One Hundred Thirty 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT BROWNING 
 (1812-1889) 
 
 By 7ohn Savary 
 
 Last irony to last age of iron — blundered 
 
 Earthward falling not a meteor vain, 
 
 But a starry poet soul that wondered 
 
 How Jove's eagle fell, that late soared again! 
 
 Cloud-rapt and rushing onward in disdain, 
 
 Power along the far-shining track down thundered 
 
 Past me his long thoughts' heaven-laden train, 
 
 Jarring sense by weight and speed of packed brain 
 
 Which fruitage bore of ages grasped and plundered. 
 
 We ne'er shall see his equal or a second 
 
 He has gone from us, still condensing scorn 
 
 Of our language here for his too high-born 
 
 Thoughts: iEschylus and Shakespeare him have 
 
 beckoned. 
 And we hear as when Balaustion said 
 Unto a friend "Euripides is dead." 
 
 From Literary World, Jan. 4, 1890. 
 
 THE TWELFTH OF DECEMBER, 1889 
 
 By Richard Watson Gilder 
 
 On this day Browning died? 
 Say, rather: On the tide 
 
 That throbs against those glorious palace walls; 
 That rises — pauses — falls, 
 With melody, and myriad-tinted gleams; 
 On that enchanted tide, 
 
 Hlalf real, and half poured from lovely dreams, 
 A Soul of Beauty — a white, rhythmic flame — 
 Passed singing forth into the Eternal Beauty whence it 
 came. 
 
 From "Browning Memorial"; published zuith the permis- 
 sion of the Boston Browning Society. 
 
 Page One Hundred Thirty-one 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Frederic Breton 
 
 (Died at Venice 10 p. m., December 12, 1889) 
 
 The lamp is out! The house of clay- 
 Stands dark and tenantless to-day! 
 "To him and us, is't loss or gain ?" you say. 
 
 See! Yonder flashed a meteor bow! 
 An instant only, and, beyond the flow 
 Of salt lagoon, we saw the ocean glow. 
 
 An instant only! Then the night 
 
 Seemed darker than before the light 
 
 That broke our blindness with its arrow flight. 
 
 The darker? — Yes! But we have learned 
 
 In vain, for what our spirit yearned 
 
 — The wider world, whereon that meteor burned? 
 
 A world outside our little woe 
 
 Kept wholesome by the ebb and flow 
 
 Of mighty tides! — Gain surely, this to know? 
 
 So stand we at the outer gate 
 
 Whence beamed a beacon light of late, 
 
 But now untenanted, dark, desolate. 
 
 Yes! House all darkness, but the road 
 
 Of life where shone that kind abode, 
 
 The brighter for the Pisgah sight bestowed! 
 
 For Meteor, Master, — both made plain, 
 
 Around a life of seeming bane, 
 
 God's reconciling ocean. — This our gain! 
 
 And his} — Yet greater, for away 
 
 From night, he sees in deathless day 
 
 His faith fulfilled — Love, Power, come full in play. 
 
 From The Academy, December 10, 1896. 
 Page One Hundred Thirty-two 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward 
 
 Nay, — let the soul go its own way upon 
 Its last desire; mine to the uttermost 
 Do ye fulfil. Thus shall it be. Obey. 
 Within the crypt where England calls her great 
 Greatest, and names her dearest yet more dear 
 Unto the prayers than to the pride of men, 
 Let Shakespeare, loving lightly, rest content. 
 Leave Milton, desolate in home and tomb. 
 Leave placid Wordsworth to his sylvan dream. 
 
 For me, I do aspire more highly than 
 The grandest lonely ghost in Westminster. 
 
 "Where the heart is, let the grave be, also." 
 
 "Soul of my soul !" I "show thee," and "die last." 
 
 Behold, I am awearied, and would sleep. 
 
 No place for me, where was no place for H**. 
 
 Poets and sages chosen of all time! 
 
 Ye to your glory go, — I to my wife. 
 
 From New York Independent. 
 
 AT KING'S CHAPEL 
 
 January 28 
 
 By Mrs. Annie E. Johnson 
 
 Awhile from the crowded street 
 Are stayed these hurrying feet, 
 In the chapel, stately and old. 
 Why gather today the throng? 
 A poet's heart is cold, 
 A glorious king of song. 
 
 Soft music, swelling clear, 
 Breaks the solemn silence here ; 
 In the softly shadowed light, 
 Glow roses, red and white; 
 
 Page One Hundred Thirty-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Lillies and laurel leaves 
 A delicate fragrance shed; 
 Here many a spirit grieves, 
 For Browning, dead. 
 
 To give him honor due, 
 Meet kindly hearts and true, 
 Those who have loved his song 
 So hopeful, glad and strong 
 (Read, haply, now through tears). 
 They love the generous thought, 
 To nobler action wrought, — 
 In this they are his peers. 
 
 Poet, whose laurelled head 
 Rests in the Abbey's gloom, 
 Where England's sacred dead 
 Lie grandly sepulchred, 
 And thou, whose simple tomb 
 Is 'neath Italian skies, 
 Where the white roses bloom — 
 Here by the western sea, 
 Our land, in its love for ye, 
 Is England , is Italy! 
 
 From the Boston Transcript. 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 By Alicia Van Buren 
 
 When Raphael heard the crowd applaud his art, 
 He smiled up-buoyed with pleasure; yet, I trow, 
 No laudatory phrase could thrill his heart 
 Like one short word from Angelo. 
 So Verdi, when the plaudits wax most loud, 
 Forgets the cheering and the wreaths that fall, 
 And looks where sits, amid the noisy crowd, 
 ""Rossini patient in his stall." 
 
 And Browning — let the world give praise or blame! 
 Two voices he could hear, and ever heard: 
 The voice of Landor, trumpeting his fame, 
 And hers, "half-angel and half-bird." 
 
 From the Boston Browning Society 1909-1910, p. 20; 
 published with permission of the Society. 
 
 Page One Hundred Thirty-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 Suggested by The Epilogue in " Asolando." 
 
 Xatpe, fACLKap ' ae fx.lv ov SaKpvcro/xcv, eh Ai'Sao 
 tov hoXi)(pv ^wiys i^avvaavra Bpoiiov ' 
 
 roiov yap Ovr'jcrKuyv IXi7res p.e\o<; av6pu>Troi(Tiv, 
 arjp.0. yemv if/v^rj^ ov ra<f>ov a.Kap.aTov ' 
 
 afAtjiOLV yap <jvv£/3r) /u.ta rjp.epa eh <^>aos i\6eiv, 
 to> p.ev ivl 6vr)Toh, col o virepovpaviov. 
 
 H. McL. I. 
 
 Athenaeum, December 21st, 1889. 
 
 A FAREWELL 
 
 A Translation By Henry Trantham 
 
 Not a fretful tear shall fall for thee in parting, 
 Now that thou hast made thy race; 
 For such a song of triumph hast thou left us 
 As one who goes to greet a living master 
 Face to Face. 
 
 TO ROBERT BROWNING 
 By Mrs. E. Dickinson West 
 
 True-hearted Seer, whose keen and steady eye 
 Keeping a view-point on an eminence 
 That reacheth Aither, o'er the world of sense, 
 Doth, as from prophet's watch-tower, thence descry 
 Proportions of the things of earth and sky, — 
 Tell us thy vision when our sight is bound 
 Where little swellings of the lower ground 
 Seem our life's only truths because they lie 
 Betwixt the soul and things whereof it saith 
 "This I believe" (which meaneth "this I let 
 Please vacant fancy in one day in seven.") — 
 — Strengthen thy brethren by thy strength of faith 
 And teach our human love in trust to set 
 Its continuity 'twixt Earth and Heaven. 
 
 Page One Hundred Thirty -five 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 By William Sharp 
 
 'One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, 
 Never doubted clouds would break, 
 Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 
 
 triumph: 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
 Sleep to wake.' 
 
 (Died at Palazzo Rezzonico, Venice, 12th December. 
 Interred in Westminster Abbey, 31st December.) 
 
 So, it is well: what need is there to mourn? 
 
 What of the darkness was there, of the dread, 
 
 Of all the pity of old age forlorn 
 
 When the swift mind and hand are though as dead? 
 
 Nothing: the change was his that comes to days 
 
 When, after long, rich, restful afternoons, 
 
 A sudden flush of glory fills the skies: 
 
 Thereafter is the peace of dream-fraught moons, 
 
 And then, oh! then for sure, in the eastern ways 
 
 At morn, once more Life's golden floods arise. 
 
 Ay, it is well: what better fate were his? 
 Why wish for him the twilight-greyness drear? 
 He hath not known the bitter thing it is 
 To halt, and doubt, grope blindly, tremble, fear: 
 The reverend snows above his forehead brought 
 No ominous hints of that which might not be, 
 No chill suggestion of the ephemeral soul: 
 Unto the very end 'twas his to see 
 Failure no drear climacteric, but wrought 
 To nobler issues, a victorious goal. 
 
 There where the long lagoons by day and night 
 
 Feel the swift journeying tides, in ebb and flow, 
 
 Move inward from the deep with sound and light 
 
 And splendour of the seas, or outward go 
 
 Resurgent from the city that doth rest 
 
 Upon the flood even as a swan asleep, 
 
 Or as a lily 'mid encircling streams, 
 
 Or as a flower a dusky maid doth keep, 
 
 An orient maid, upon her love-warm breast, 
 
 Thrilled with its inspiration through her dreams: — 
 
 There, in the city that he loved so well, 
 
 And with the sea-sound in his ears, the sound 
 
 Page One Hundred Thirty-six 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 Of healing waters in their miracle 
 Of changeless and regenerative round, 
 The strange and solemn silence that is death 
 Came o'er him. 'Mid the loved ones near 
 The deep suspense of the last torturing hope 
 Hung like a wounded bird, ere swift and sheer 
 It fall with the last frail exhausted breath 
 And feeble fluttering wings that cannot ope. 
 
 There death was his: within his golden prime, 
 
 Painless, serene, unvanquished, undismayed, 
 
 He fronted the dark lapse of mortal time 
 
 With eyes alit, through all the gathering shade, 
 
 With the strange light that clothes immortal things — 
 
 Beauty, and Truth, Faith, Hope, and Joy, and Peace, 
 
 The garnered harvest of our human years, 
 
 Fair dreams and hopes that triumphed o'er surcease, 
 
 The immaculate sweetness of all bygone Springs, 
 
 The rainbow-glory of transfigured tears. 
 
 Over him went the Powers, the Dreams, the Graces, 
 The invisible Dominations that we know 
 Despite the mystic veil that hides their faces, 
 The immortal faces that divinely glow: 
 Fair Hope was there to take him by the hand ; 
 White Aspirations smiled about his bed; 
 Desires and Dreams moved gently by his side; 
 Beauty stooped low, and shone upon the dead; 
 Joy spake not, for, from out the Deathless land, 
 She led God's loveliest gift, his long-lost Bride. 
 
 Oh, what a trivial mockery then was this, 
 
 The change we so involve with alien terror: 
 
 How lorn in light of that supernal bliss 
 
 The ruinous wrecking folly of our error! 
 
 Sweet beyond words the meeting that was there, 
 
 Sweet beyond words the deep-set yearning gaze, 
 
 Sweet, sweet the voice that long had silent been! 
 
 Ah, how his soul, beleaguered by no maze, 
 
 No glooms of Death, i' that Paradisal air 
 
 Knew all was well, since She was there, his Queen. 
 
 They are not gone, those Dreams, Fair Hopes, and Graces, 
 
 Those Powers and Dominations and Desires, 
 
 They are not passed, though veiled the immortal faces, 
 
 Page One Hundred Thirty-seven 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Though dimmed meanwhile their eyes' wild starry fires. 
 
 Meanwhile, it may be, on wan wings and slender, 
 
 Invisible to mortal gaze, they gleam 
 
 In solemn, sad, processional array 
 
 There where the sunshafts through stained windows 
 
 stream, 
 And flood the gloomful majesty with splendour, 
 And charm the aisles from out their brooding grey. 
 
 They are not gone: nor shall they ever vanish, 
 Those precious ministers of him, our Poet: 
 What madness would it be for one to banish, 
 To barter his inheritance, forego it, 
 For some phantasmal gift, some transient boon! 
 Thus would it be with us were we to turn 
 Indifferently aside, when they draw nigh, 
 To look with callous gaze, nor once discern 
 How swift they come and go, how all too soon 
 They evade for ever the unheeding eye. 
 
 They are not gone: for wheresoe'er there liveth 
 
 One hope his song inspired — whom they inspired — 
 
 Yea, wheresoever in one heart there breatheth 
 
 An aspiration by his ardour fired: 
 
 Where'er through him are souls made serfs to Beauty, 
 
 Where'er through him hearts stir with lofty aim, 
 
 Where'er through him men thrill with high endeavour, 
 
 There shall these ministers breathe low his name, 
 
 Linked to ideals of Love and Truth and Duty, 
 
 And all high things of mind and soul, for ever. 
 
 No carven stone, no monumental fane, 
 
 Can equal this: that he hath builded deep 
 
 A cenotaph beyond the assoiling reign 
 
 Of Her whose eyes are dusk with Night and Sleep, 
 
 Queenly Oblivion: no Pyramid, 
 
 No vast, gigantic Tomb, no Sepulchre 
 
 Made awful with imag'ries of doom, 
 
 Evade her hand who one day shall inter 
 
 Man's proudest monuments, as she hath hid 
 
 The immemorial past within her womb. 
 
 For he hath built his lasting monument 
 Within the hearts and in the minds of men: 
 The Powers of Life around its base have bent 
 
 Page One Hundred Thirty-eight 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 The Stream of Memory: our furthest ken 
 
 Beholds no reach, no limit to its rise: 
 
 It hath foundations sure; it shall not pass; 
 
 The ruin of Time upon it none shall see, 
 
 Till the last wind shall wither the last grass, 
 
 Nay, while man's Hopes, Fears, Dreams, and Agonies 
 
 Uplift his soul to Immortality. 
 
 From The Art Review, Vol. i, No. 2, pp. 33-34-35-36; 
 published with permission of the editors. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 {December 12th, 1889) 
 By George O'Byrne 
 
 To the princely son of Shakespeare, of fair Lyceum 
 
 renown, 
 Whose fealty to the Drama hath won the Thespian 
 
 crown, 
 Inscribed is my brief Epicede on one, whose transit hence 
 Hath struck the soul with sorrow, and 'waked sympathy 
 
 intense. 
 For, well 'tis known, his vision, by the process of the 
 
 Stage, 
 Is broadened, and his heart laments the lost bard of the 
 
 Age; 
 And with graciousness will listen to the elegy I quire, 
 Albeit sparse in genius, and tenderness, and fire. 
 
 I who erewhile sang of Byron, and of Burns, and of 
 
 Kirke White. 
 In the worn year's dusky waning mourn another bard 
 
 of light, 
 Lying cold, and mute, and dreamless, set by the Hours 
 
 free, 
 In a palace of the "Bride," and "glorious City in the 
 
 Sea." 
 
 Ah ! the bards, where'er their cradle, by prior right belong 
 To the rich haunts of the Muses in the sunny lands of 
 
 song, 
 That sparkle from the Apennines to past the .fSgean Sea, 
 
 Page One Hundred Thirty-nine 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Shrine the glories of Parnassus and the fames of Thessaly. 
 
 Where Art still claims her temples, though old worship- 
 pers are flown, 
 And to the wistful pilgrim Freedom crieth from the stone:. 
 Where gorgeous, silent sculptures speak an empire passed 
 
 away ; 
 And flash the gondolas along the tradeless, purple bay, 
 He sleeps in rigid calmness, the white-haired minstrel 
 
 prince, 
 Who won a world's idolatry — I reck not how long since. 
 Though her "Lion's Mouth" is sealed and her Doges 
 
 rule no more, 
 In Desolation beautiful she touches the heart's core; 
 For her genii wrought their marvels in the spell of eld 
 
 Argives, 
 Ere modern atom-counters span mere chrematistic lives: 
 And her trophies are not lessened because to-day there 
 
 sleeps 
 The grand bard, sumptuous Albion, with fallen Venice, 
 
 weeps. 
 
 While Science slays her thousands, battling in the van 
 
 of Truth; 
 And "Excelsior" — streamer waving, falls her Alp-aspiring 
 
 youth ; 
 While the weary world, half-hopeless, searches for each 
 
 dim abyss 
 To grasp a "golden compass," or hail new star of bliss: 
 When empirics and their myrmidons, with dynasties 
 
 conspire 
 To burn the prophet's life-scroll, and quench the Muse's 
 
 lyre, 
 We shall miss his notes of beauty, of strong solace, and 
 
 high hope, — 
 That message from the gods to us, without an envelope/ — 
 We shall miss his velvet finger on the pulse of hot emprise, 
 We shall miss his soothing anodynes in labour's agonies. 
 
 Who hence shall harp his music? shall weave fit anadem 
 
 To crown the scholars' temples, or intone their requiem? 
 
 For Bryant and sweet Longfellow sleep 'neath Columbia's 
 "Stars," 
 
 Where the palsied hand of Whittier his vernal "wood- 
 notes" mars; 
 
 Page One Hundred Forty 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 And Hugo (though I loved him not) has found his 
 
 monument, 
 And 'Martin' of 'Philosophy,' the weirdly sapient; 
 And good Eliza Cook warms not the breast with noble 
 
 thought ; 
 While Tennyson's most dulcet lute the "rift within" 
 
 hath caught. 
 In regal halls, Roumania's Queen alone thrills Sappho's 
 
 lyre ! — 
 What monarch stoops to acolyte the proscribed poets' 
 
 choir? 
 While Altar, Senate, Throne, and Camp deride each 
 
 other's voice 
 How may the Muses flourish, how can the Arts rejoice? 
 
 Who now shall urge explorer lone through sombre forests 
 
 proud, 
 O'er Arctic snows, and towering peaks that pinnacle the 
 
 cloud ? 
 And kindle poean for serried hosts, that, marching forth 
 
 in pain, 
 With hasty 'Pasch,' and bleeding feet, have reached the 
 
 Red Tide's plain? 
 And then, 'midst frenzied billows, shall point to safe 
 
 rock higher, 
 And proudly sound joy's timbrel across the 'Sea of Fire?' 
 And harking back to Miriam, my mind greets Browning's 
 
 bride, 
 The fair lip whisp'ring *'God is rest,' in long years by 
 
 his side. 
 The minstrel learned it was 'not good' for man alone 
 
 to dwell ; — 
 That 'the Voice which breathed o'er Eden' a changeless 
 
 truth doth tell. 
 With all the Muses' dowry, and the 'permit' of each 
 
 Grace, 
 The nuptials of a poet and poetess found place. 
 A tear for her, reposing 'midst Italia's deathless bowers 
 Of consecrated myrtle, in the "City of All Flowers!" 
 
 'Twere meet, methinks, that minstrel souls (born in the 
 
 merry May) 
 Should wing their flight when Christmas floods the 
 
 world with hollied ray: 
 If lose we must their halo, let us yield it at the birth 
 
 Page One Hundred Forty-one 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 Of Light supreme, whose heaven is then reflected over 
 
 earth. 
 For we joy to paint them thridding a paradise of peace 
 While belfry chimes tell mortals of divinest harmonies, 
 And the chastened snow, like mercy, dropping gently on 
 
 their tombs, 
 Transforms the cypress o'er them to celestial nodding 
 
 plumes ; 
 When the 'Truce of God' is signalled from remotest 
 
 clime to clime 
 By the watchers of Eternity to sentinels of Time: 
 When, gathering by the ingle, in the effluence of love, 
 We anticipate re-union with remembered souls above, 
 Rehearsing golden lessons of immortal Sage and Child, 
 Made dearer by the Poet who late amidst us smiled. 
 
 * Elizabeth — "God is rest." 
 Nottingham, December, 1889. 
 
 TO THE POET 
 
 {A Sonnet) 
 
 By Riichior Hoashi 
 
 Take me, O Poet, to thy world of dream, 
 
 Where countless cherubs on their pinions white 
 
 Wander through stainless Virtue's silver light, 
 
 And bask in heavenly Love's auroral gleam; 
 
 Or where thou treadest the star-sprinkled stream 
 
 Of Galaxy, upon whose banks the bright 
 
 Amaranths blow! Soothed by the beauteous sight 
 
 And balmy air, our life's a dream, a dream 
 
 Is life. Strike up thy lyre, O Seer, O Bard, 
 
 Awake thy fancy's sweetest tune, for none 
 
 But thine may soothe my sorrow-laden heart! 
 
 Construct for me a rainbow bridge to span 
 
 The highest heaven, whence Truth's live fire shall dart 
 
 Into my frozen soul and make me man ! 
 
 Page One Hundred Forty-two 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 THY CROWN'S A STAR 
 
 Dedicated to Robert Browning 
 By Annis J. Scott 
 
 The pathway narrows as we wander down, 
 And leave the hillside, rugged, rough, and brown. 
 We look toward sunlit meadows, bright, and gay, 
 With flowers that catch the sunshine of the day. 
 
 Still farther on, a river runs so still, 
 We hear not, see not; yet we know its will 
 Is to be silent, till we reach its brink, 
 And into its soft shadows, gently sink. 
 
 Upon its banks, tall grass and rushes grow, 
 That sway, and nod, as gentle zephyrs blow. 
 Refreshed, we rise: flows on the river, slow, 
 Between its banks, where reeds, and rushes grow. 
 
 This valley green, with flowers so gay bedecked, 
 This river, cool, its current still unchecked, 
 Could never to the multitude be blest, 
 Did not yon mountains give the vale, their best. 
 
 From these great towers, glowing with their light, 
 Come streams of strength, and brilliancy, and might. 
 The valley, rich with their great wealth, was made, 
 And hills rejoiced to rest within their shade. 
 
 O mountain-peaks, that, reaching, pierce the dome; 
 O meadows, sweet, that blossom where we roam; 
 O river, flowing, ever, 'tween thy banks, 
 Let us, whose footsteps wander, give thee thanks. 
 
 We see beyond the river's farther side, 
 A Mountain, proud, where gods of thought abide: 
 With crown of silver, shining like a star, 
 Distinct, alone, 'mong many stars that are. 
 
 We heed not that the pathway narrows; now 
 
 We catch the glory shining from thy brow. 
 
 O Friend, and Seer, thou'st filled the meadow sweet, 
 
 With flowers fair, to soothe the wanderer's feet! 
 
 Thy feet have trod the narrow, narrow way; 
 Thy hills are left; and at the close of day, 
 Thou slipped into the stream ; it goes its way, 
 But thou arose. Thy crown's a star, today. 
 
 Page One Hundred Forty-three 
 
HOMAGE TO 
 
 ASPIRATION* 
 
 Dedicated to Robert Browning 
 By Alice Harriman 
 
 Oh, gallant little English lad, 
 You never knew the time, 
 When you did not intend to be 
 Most eminent in rhvme. 
 
 Immortal company you chose! 
 Endymion was your friend ; 
 And Shelley's sky-lark, every morn, 
 Was wont your heart to rend. 
 
 The poets of the English Lakes 
 Enticed, with beckoning hand, 
 To climb to hills whereon they stood; 
 To view the promised land, — 
 
 Range after range — Parnassian peaks, 
 Of purest poetry. 
 
 "I'll scale them all!" your spirit cried; 
 " 'Sky-treader' would I be!" 
 
 But somehow, on your natal day, 
 I see you, wistful, sad. 
 If it could be, oh, would you be, 
 Again a little lad? 
 
 *Browning's sister said he once told her he never knew 
 the time when he did not aspire to be eminent in rhyme. 
 — Gosse. 
 
 Page One Hundred Forty-four 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 THE MASTER SINGER 
 By Elizabeth Clendenning Ring 
 
 "Master!" the Singing Men acclaim thee, — pale 
 
 Before thy altar fires, 
 Like winds before the rain's grey flail, 
 
 To muted lyres, 
 
 Their voices rise and fall. 
 
 Thou moving down the starry ways, 
 
 With tread Olympian, 
 Whisp'ring some bold, symphonic phrase. 
 
 In thy perfected song, 
 
 To shades Elysian, 
 Dost smiling hear their hymns of praise. 
 
 Flute-clear behind the old grey wall, 
 Still echoes Pippa's dreamlit call, 
 And oft when down a dust-bleak street. 
 Her laughing song goes lilting, sweet, 
 Men stop to ponder the strange dream, 
 Awakened by her song serene. 
 
 Still Andrea mourns his tarnished dreams, 
 The dying Bishop plots and schemes, 
 
 To lie in blissful ecstasy, 
 
 'Neath matchless lapis lazuli. 
 Still, down a haunted Roman Street, 
 Pompilia hastes with bleeding feet, 
 
 Swift to her doom. 
 
 Sordello, Ezra, grave physicians, 
 Blougram and Sludge, inspired musicians, 
 Women divine and maids whose tresses 
 Lure men to death with mad caresses, 
 Each in his turn, upon thy stage, 
 Work out thy creed Immortal Sage. 
 
 That Love exalted, all persistent, 
 
 Shall reign, though Hate may mock and scheme, 
 
 That Righteousness, with note insistent, 
 
 Shall quench Wrong's brutal, sordid theme. 
 
 That Truth above the market place, 
 
 Where Falsehood flaunts her shameless grace, 
 
 Shall lift the glory of her face. 
 
 Page One Hundred Forty-five 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 ART AND POPULARITY 
 
 To R. Browning 
 
 C'No man having drunk old wine straightway desireth 
 new, for he saith the old is better"). 
 
 By E. D. W. (Elizabeth D. West Dowden) 
 
 Haply thy life were harmed if earth her fame 
 
 Had proffered ere years proved thou didst not need 
 
 Drink of applause Arts' daily force to feed; 
 
 Ere the ttoit/ttjs —God, — deep source whence came 
 
 Thy poet's impulse, bade thee first to claim 
 
 Reward like to His own — true artists' meed 
 
 Of joy that flows in essence of the deed, 
 
 Unreached by accident of laud or blame. 
 
 But now, since thou through long uncrowned days 
 
 Didst draw soul's strength from draughts of that old wine 
 
 Of gladness, which doth evermore sustain 
 
 All Nature's working, human or divine: 
 
 No fear for thee, lest thou that first good gain 
 
 Shouldst quit, to thirst for new wine of men's praise. 
 
 1892. 
 
 Printed ivith kind permission of Mrs. Edward Dowden. 
 
 Page One Hundred Forty-six 
 
"Or at times a modern volume, — Wordsworth's solemn- 
 thoughted idyl, 
 
 Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's enchanted reverie, — 
 
 Or from Browning some 'Pomegranate', which, if cut 
 deep down the middle, 
 
 Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined 
 humanity." 
 
 Lady Geraldine's Courtship. 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Anonymous — Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
 beth Barrett 107 
 
 Anonymous — Browning 118 
 
 Anonymous — A Sonnet on Browning „ 122 
 
 Bates, Katherine L. — In the Poet's Corner 101 
 
 Beatty, Pakenham — To Browning 58 
 
 Bennett, A. — Browning 110 
 
 Bennett, Sarah A. — What Comes to Perfection Per- 
 ishes 55 
 
 Bigelow, Walter S. — To Browning 121 
 
 Bowen, Robert A. — Browning _ 43 
 
 Breton, Frederic — Robert Browning 132 
 
 Bridell-Fox, E. F. — Robert Browning 101 
 
 Britton, J. J. — Browning at "The Cenci" 54 
 
 Browning, Elizabeth B. — Sonnets from the Portuguese.. 7 
 Browning, Elizabeth B. — From "Lady Geraldine's Court- 
 ship" 148 
 
 Brunton, Wm. — Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
 beth Barrett 106 
 
 Buchanan, Robert — Robert Browning 52 
 
 Bulkeley, H. J. — On Hearing of the Death of Robert 
 
 Browning 123 
 
 Burr, Amelia J. — Greatheart 24 
 
 Burton, Richard — Browning 26 
 
 Burton, Richard — The Camberwell Garden 41 
 
 Bynner, Witter — To Robert Browning 25 
 
 Carman, Bliss — The Two Bobbies 47 
 
 Carman, Bliss — In a Copy of Browning 64 
 
 Carman, Bliss — The Time and the Place 79 
 
 Cawein, Madison — Browning 40 
 
 Chant, L. Ormiston — To Robert Browning 126 
 
 Chapman, E. R. — Browning 120 
 
 Chenery, Ruth B. — A Greeting to Browning Lovers.... 56 
 Chenery, Ruth B. — Browning Said of "The Ring and 
 
 the Book" 63 
 
 Chenery, Ruth B. — Sonnet on Browning's Masterpiece 
 
 "The Ring and the Book" 67 
 
 Chenery, Ruth B. — On the Bronze Clasped Hands of 
 
 Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning 88 
 
 Cheney, Anne C — Clasped Hands 88 
 
 Clarke, 'Clement G. — To Browning 53 
 
 Clarke, Helen A. — To Robert Browning 45 
 
 Coates, Florence — Robert Browning 102 
 
 Coles, Blanche — To Mrs. Thomas B. Stowell and Mrs. 
 
 Sidney J. Parsons 83 
 
 Cone, Helen Gray — The Iris-Bridge 105 
 
 Cranch, C. P. — Robert Browning 116 
 
 Dawson, Miles M. — Browning _ 57 
 
 De Vere, Aubrey — Robert Browning 45 
 
 De Vere, Aubrey — Robert Browning 78 
 
 De Vere, Aubrey — Robert Browning _ 116 
 
 Domett, Alfred — Browning 22 
 
 Enos, Sanda — Sordello 83 
 
 Field, Michael — Robert Browning 121 
 
 Field, Michael — The Burial of Robert Browning 125 
 
 Forman, Alfred — Mountain-Birth 54 
 
 Forman, Alfred — At Browning's Grave -118 
 
 Gannett, W. C— "Nothing but a Poet" 73 
 
INDEX 
 
 Gates, Mabel B. — To Robert Browning 75 
 
 Gilder, Richard W. — "Jocoseria" 84 
 
 Gilder, Richard W — The Twelfth of December, 1889....131 
 
 Gosse, Edmund — To Robert Browning 60 
 
 Gould, Elizabeth P. — Robert Browning 127 
 
 Guild, Marion P. — To Robert and Elizabeth Barrett 
 
 Browning 93 
 
 Harriman, Alice — In the Garden of the Vatican 94 
 
 Harriman, Alice — Aspiration 144 
 
 Hoashi, Riichior — To the Poet 142 
 
 Houghton, Lord Robert — In Memoriam 129 
 
 Hughes, James L. — To a Browning Poem 55 
 
 Hutchinson, Thomas — Robert Browning 122 
 
 Huxley, Henrietta — Browning 112 
 
 I., H. McL.— Suggested by the Epilogue in "Asolando" 
 
 (Greek) 135 
 
 Jewett, John H. — Browning's Shrine 91 
 
 Johnson, R. U. — Browning at Asolo 87 
 
 Johnson, Annie E. — At King's Chapel 133 
 
 Kingsland, W. G. — Essay on Robert Browning, Decem- 
 ber, 1886 61 
 
 Laffan, Bertha — Robert Browning 61 
 
 Landor, Walter S. — To Robert Browning 22 
 
 Lee, Agnes — To Robert Browning 44 
 
 Lefferts, Sara T. — Browning 46 
 
 Le Gallienne — Browning 42 
 
 Levey, Sivori — The Women of Browning 66 
 
 Lovejoy, Wallace W. — Leadership in Song 89 
 
 MacKaye, Percy — Browning to Ben Ezra 28 
 
 MacKaye, Percy — Invocation 38 
 
 Mackey, Eric — To Robert Browning 53 
 
 Mann, Dorothea L. — Browning 49 
 
 Markham, Anne C— The Girl With the Blue Eyes..... 76 
 
 Markham, Edwin — Imagination 36 
 
 Markham, Edwin — To Browning 40 
 
 Marquis, Neeta — The Sonnets from the Portuguese 74 
 
 Medhurst, Francis — An Invocation 39 
 
 Meredith, Owen — The Wanderer 78 
 
 Meredith, George — To Robert Browning 130 
 
 Molineux, Marie Ada — Robert Browning 49 
 
 Moore, Mrs. Bloomfield — On the Heights 51 
 
 Moore, Clara B. — Idol Affections 115 
 
 Moore, Clara J. — Dedication of Poems to My Friend 
 
 Robert Browning 56 
 
 Morton, Irene E. — Browning 128 
 
 Moulton, Louise C. — Browning 107 
 
 Moulton, Louise C. — Sonnet 130 
 
 Noyes, Alfred — For the Centenary of Robert Browning.. 23 
 
 O'Byrne, George — Robert Browning 139 
 
 Oldham, J. B — The Poet's Way 52 
 
 Owen, John — In Memoriam — Robert Browning 112 
 
 Palgrave, F. T— At 29 De Vere Gardens 119 
 
 Park, Humphreys — "Childe Roland" 74 
 
 Peet, Jeanie — Browning 57 
 
 Pendleton, Charlotte— Salve 106 
 
 Phelps, C. E. D. — Browning 58 
 
 Phelps-Ward, E. Stuart— Robert Browning 133 
 
 Porter, Charlotte— A Birthday 42 
 
 Porter, Charlotte — In Praise of Browning 43 
 
 Porter, Charlotte — Djabal's Song 84 
 
INDEX 
 
 Porter, Charlotte— Anael's Song 92 
 
 Pound, Ezra— Mesmerism ° 
 
 Preston, Margaret J.— Prospexit . -- ™» 
 
 Rawnsley, H. D.-Take Home Her Heart »u 
 
 Rawnsley, H. D.-The Poet's Home-Going - 108 
 
 Rawnsley, H. D.— At Brownings Grave "« 
 
 Rice Cale Young-In Praise of Robert Browning 27 
 
 Ring, Elizabeth C— The Master Singer i|* 
 
 Rodd, Rennell— At. Fano - _ 
 
 Sawver Harriet A.— Robert Browning „. - ^ 
 
 Savary John-To the Memory of Robert Browning 131 
 
 Ichauffler, Robert H.-To Browning the Music-Master 72 
 
 Scott, Annis J.— Thy Crown's a Star "a 
 
 oi iarT1 William— Robert Browning -- --— ----•■»« 
 
 Shillaber; B P-In a Copy of "Agamemnon La Saisiaz ^ 
 
 and Dramatic Idyls" - ■■-■"-;" «0 
 
 qmith Georse Jay— Browning Society Till" 
 
 IterUng ° George-An Ode for the Centenary of the 
 
 Birth of Robert Browning ?5 
 
 of Robert Browning - - 9g 
 
 Symons Arthur— Dead in Venice 1Q3 
 
 Tannenforst, Ursula— Divided --■— ~" " 37 
 
 Teasdale, Sara-The Year's at the Spring J£ 
 
 Trantham, Henry-A Farewell -■— -""j-jj;^ ] 82 
 
 Van Buren, Alicia— Browning ■— -— ; 63 
 
 Van Dyke, Henry— Browning s Lineage 
 
 35Tk ttSZXJXSSzsnrss* 59 
 
 ing Some Poems Long V nre ^V- qh -_ llev .'.".. 76 
 
 West E. Dickinson— Browning and Shelley 
 
 West E. Dickinson-To Robert Browm^ —$* 
 
 West, E. Dickinson— Art and Popularity ^ 
 
 Whiton-Stone— Browning ■"■"■■"■""""."" ... 50 
 
 Widdemer, Margaret-Robert Browning 
 
 Wile Frances W.-Robrt Browning ^ 
 
 Woods, Mary A.-Robert Browning 
 
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