LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO

 
 THE BROWNINGS FOR 
 THE YOUNG
 
 THE BROWNINGS FOR 
 THE YOUNG 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 FREDERIC G. KENYON 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE 
 OXFORD 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1896 
 
 [A II rights reserved}
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. 
 At the BaUantync Press
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IN this little volume a selection from the best 
 poems of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Brown- 
 ing is offered to those who are, comparatively 
 speaking, beginners in the study and enjoyment 
 of poetry. It is a selection from the writings of 
 one who, in the opinion of many, is the greatest 
 poet of the Victorian age, and of one who, with- 
 out any question, is the greatest poetess in our 
 literature of this or any other age. And not 
 only are they thus associated in greatness ; they 
 also furnish the unique example of two great 
 writers linked to one another by the closest and 
 most sacred tie of all as husband and wife. 
 There is, therefore, a special appropriateness in 
 bringing together (I believe for the first time) a 
 selection from the poetry of each of them within 
 the cover of a single volume. The selection is 
 intended especially for young readers, who may 
 not yet have made acquaintance with these 
 poets in a more complete form ; but if it should 
 come into the hands of their elders, I would 
 bespeak the favour of all lovers of Robert or 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning for an undertaking, 
 the effect of which may be, it is hoped, to 
 increase the number of those who share their 
 devotion. 
 The two poets whose names are thus asso-
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 elated with one another for ever, dedicated 
 themselves to poetry from their very childhood. 
 At the age of twelve Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (as 
 she then was) had written an epic in four books 
 on the battle of Marathon, and by the same age 
 Robert Browning had produced an impassioned 
 ode to a young lady, fifteen years his senior, be- 
 sides much minor verse of various kinds. Both 
 of them were insatiate readers of poetry. With 
 both, it is interesting to observe, the prime 
 favourite of their childhood was Pope's transla- 
 tion of Homer ; and though in later days their 
 tastes and styles travelled far enough from Pope, 
 they retained to the end the love of Greek 
 literature which they had acquired thus early. 
 Elizabeth Barrett's first published volume of 
 poetry appeared in 1826, Robert Browning's in 
 1833 ; and the second publication of each of 
 them (Miss Barrett's "Seraphim," and Brown- 
 ing's " Paracelsus "), secured them honourable 
 prominence among the poets of the day. It 
 was not until 1846 that they met, but long before 
 that time they had known and admired each 
 other's poetry ; and the acquaintance thus 
 begun ripened rapidly into affection. They 
 were married in 1849 > an d their marriage was 
 followed by twelve years of perfect happiness, 
 to which the only drawback was the frail con- 
 dition of Mrs. Browning's health. For many 
 years before her marriage she had lived the life 
 of an invalid, confined to her room, with appar- 
 ently little prospect of ever regaining strength. 
 
 Marriage and removal to the warmer climate 
 of Italy brought about a marvellous improve-
 
 PREFACE Vll 
 
 ment, which lasted for several years ; but her 
 ardent and emotional spirit seemed to wear 
 out her delicate frame, and in 1861 her death 
 ended the earthly duration of this happy union. 
 How happy it was, and how deep and beauti- 
 ful their affection, may be learnt from the 
 husband's "One Word More" and "By the 
 Fireside," and from the wife's "Sonnets from 
 the Portuguese ; " but poems such as these do 
 not come within the scope of the present 
 selection. Robert Browning lived on until 
 1889, gaining continually that fuller recognition 
 as one of the leading poets of the day which 
 for many years (in spite of his first successes) 
 had been denied him ; until, at the time of 
 his death, full of years and honour, there was 
 but one other poet who was commonly named 
 in the same breath with him. It is useless 
 to argue the question of precedence between 
 Tennyson and Browning. They lie side by 
 side in our great Abbey ; and side by side 
 they represent the poetic achievements of the 
 reign of Victoria. 
 
 The poetic styles of the husband and wife 
 are as wide asunder as the poles, and it was 
 perhaps for this very reason that each so 
 heartily admired and prized the poetry of the 
 other. Among young readers, they appeal, 
 perhaps, to different audiences ; and if Robert 
 Browning's courage, manliness, and serene 
 hopefulness commend him especially to boys, 
 Mrs. Browning's passionate emotion and sym- 
 pathy with all that is true and good, especially 
 if it be down-trodden or in pain, should find
 
 Vlll PREFACE 
 
 acceptance at least as warmly among girls. 
 Both are commonly thought of as being too 
 difficult for the young to read Robert Browning 
 as being too intellectually subtle in thought 
 and obscure in expression, and his wife as 
 too emotional in tone and literary in allusions. 
 On this point the following selection must, how- 
 ever, speak for itself. I believe that it contains 
 nothing which boys and girls with some taste for 
 literature may not both understand and enjoy ; 
 but I have tried to make their path easier by 
 the addition of short introductions to most of 
 the poems, and occasional explanatory notes. I 
 have been anxious not to overlay the text with 
 commentary, and to leave the poetry, in the 
 main, to speak for itself ; but the mean between 
 too much and too little is hard to hit. 
 
 In making a selection for the young, I have 
 been compelled to exclude poems which, how- 
 ever simple and beautiful they may be, are yet 
 concerned with subjects in which they have not 
 yet learnt to feel an interest. On this ground 
 I have excluded all poems of which the main 
 theme is love. No one can feel more strongly 
 than I do that this rule shuts out much of the 
 finest poetry of both Robert and Elizabeth 
 Browning ; but I hope that those young readers 
 who are attracted by the poems here given, will 
 be encouraged in due season to make a fuller 
 acquaintance with both poets in their complete 
 works. I can testify to a love of Browning 
 which began at a very early age with the " Pied 
 Piper," and which has but grown and expanded 
 since that time ; and it is in the hope that many
 
 PREFACE IX 
 
 who begin their acquaintance with Browning in 
 the same simple way may push forward until 
 they have mastered that supreme achievement 
 of "The Ring and the Book," and that those 
 who start from the " Romaunt of the Page " 
 may learn in time to love the " Sonnets from 
 the Portuguese," that the present selection has 
 been made. It does not contain nearly all that 
 is good in the writings of these two great poets ; 
 but I believe it contains nothing that is not good, 
 nothing that does not present alike that truth 
 and that beauty which both set before them- 
 selves as the highest aim and achievement of 
 their art. 
 
 F. G. K. 
 
 December 1895. 
 
 A 2
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN .... 3 
 How THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM 
 
 GHENT TO Aix 15 
 
 CAVALIER TUNES 20 
 
 HERV RIEL 24 
 
 INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP ... 32 
 
 HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA ... 34 
 
 HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD 35 
 
 "DE GUSTIBUS " 37 
 
 "ALL SERVICE RANKS THE SAME WITH GOD" 39 
 
 "THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING" ... 40 
 
 THE BOY AND THE ANGEL .... 41 
 
 THE LOST LEADER 45 
 
 THE PATRIOT 48 
 
 THE TWINS 50 
 
 SlBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS . . . .52 
 
 A TALE 56 
 
 TRAY 62 
 
 PHEIDIPPIDES -65 
 
 ECHETLOS 74 
 
 MULEYKEH 77
 
 Xll CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE POPE AND THE NET 85 
 
 MUCKLE-MOUTH MEG 87 
 
 PROSPICE 90 
 
 A PISGAH SIGHT ....... 92 
 
 EVELYN HOPE 94 
 
 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL .... 97 
 
 EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO 104 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE .... log 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST . . 124 
 
 THE SEA-MEW 129 
 
 To FLUSH, MY DOG . . . . . .132 
 
 MY DOVES 138 
 
 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 142 
 
 LESSONS FROM THE GORSE .... 147 
 
 THE SLEEP 149 
 
 A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD .... 152 
 
 THE MOURNING MOTHER 154 
 
 A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 157 
 
 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE , . . .160 
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN .... 169 
 
 COWPER'S GRAVE ...... 177 
 
 WINE OF CYPRUS 182 
 
 THE DEAD PAN ....... 191
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 1812-1889
 
 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 
 A CHILD'S STORY 
 
 (WRITTEN FOR, AND INSCRIBED TO, 
 w. M. THE YOUNGER) 
 
 THIS story in verse was written to amuse Willie Macready. 
 son of the great actor of that name, and was originally 
 printed only to fill up a few blank pages at the end of a 
 volume of poems. It is founded on a German legend, 
 which tells how, in the fourteenth century, a certain 
 mysterious piper delivered the town of Hamelin from a 
 plague of rats, and afterwards, when the magistrates of 
 the town refused to pay him the sum which they had 
 promised, led away by his piping all the children of the 
 town. The event was said to have been commemorated 
 by a window in one of the churches. Similar legends 
 are found in other countries. It is a curious fact that 
 Robert Browning's father had begun a poem on the 
 same subject, but left off when he found that his son 
 had a version of it on hand. 
 
 I. 
 
 HAMELIN Town's in Brunswick, 
 
 By famous Hanover city ; 
 The river Weser, deep and wide, 
 Washes its wall on the southern side ; 
 A pleasanter spot you never spied ; 5 
 
 But, when begins my ditty, 
 Almost five hundred years ago, 
 To see the townsfolk suffer so 
 
 From vermin, was a pity. 
 
 3
 
 4 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 
 
 II. 
 
 Rats ! 10 
 
 They fought the dogs and killed the cats, 
 
 And bit the babies in the cradles, 
 And ate the cheeses out of the vats, 
 
 And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles, 
 Split open the kegs of salted sprats, 1 5 
 
 Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, 
 And even spoiled the women's chats 
 By drowning their speaking 
 With shrieking and squeaking 
 In fifty different sharps and flats. 20 
 
 ill. 
 At last the people in a body 
 
 To the Town Hall came flocking : 
 " 'Tis clear," cried they, " our Mayor's a noddy ; 
 
 " And as for our Corporation shocking 
 " To think we buy gowns lined with ermine 25 
 " For dolts that can't or won't determine 
 " What's best to rid us of our vermin ! 
 " You hope, because you're old and obese, 
 " To find in the furry civic robe ease ? 
 " Rouse up, sirs ! Give your brains a racking 
 " To find the remedy we're lacking, 31 
 
 " Or sure as fate, we'll send you packing ! " 
 At this the Mayor and Corporation 
 Quaked with a mighty consternation. 
 
 An hour they sat in council, 35 
 
 At length the Mayor broke silence : 
 
 " For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell, 
 " I wish I were a mile hence !
 
 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 5 
 
 " It's easy to bid one rack one's brain 
 
 " I'm sure my poor head aches again, 40 
 
 " I've scratched it so, and all in vain. 
 
 " Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap ! " 
 
 Just as he said this, what should hap 
 
 At the chamber door but a gentle tap ? 
 
 " Bless us," cried the Mayor, " what's that ? " 
 
 (With the Corporation as he sat, 46 
 
 Looking little though wondrous fat ; 
 
 Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister 
 
 Than a too-long-opened oyster, 
 
 Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous 
 
 For a plate of turtle green and glutinous) 5 1 
 
 " Only a scraping of shoes on the mat ? 
 
 " Anything like the sound of a rat 
 
 " Makes my heart go pit-a-pat ! " 
 
 v. 
 
 " Come in ! " the Mayor cried, looking bigger : 
 And in did come the strangest figure ! 56 
 
 His queer long coat from heel to head 
 Was half of yellow and half of red, 
 And he himself was tall and thin, 
 With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, 60 
 
 And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin, 
 No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, 
 But lips where smiles went out and in ; 
 There was no guessing his kith and kin : 
 And nobody could enough admire 65 
 
 The tall man and his quaint attire. 
 Quoth one : " It's as my great-grandsire, 
 " Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, 
 " Had walked this way from his painted tomb- 
 stone ! "
 
 6 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 
 
 VI. 
 
 He advanced to the council-table. 70 
 
 And, "Please your honours," said he, "I'm able, 
 " By means of a secret charm, to draw 
 
 " All creatures living beneath the sun, 
 
 " That creep or swim or fly or run, 
 " After me so as you never saw ! 75 
 
 " And I chiefly use my charm 
 " On creatures that do people harm, 
 " The mole and toad and newt and viper ; 
 " And people call me the Pied Piper." 
 (And here they noticed round his neck 80 
 
 A scarf of red and yellow stripe, 
 To match with his coat of the self-same 
 cheque ; 
 
 And at the scarf's end hung a pipe ; 
 And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying 
 As if impatient to be playing 85 
 
 Upon this pipe, as low it dangled 
 Over his vesture so old-fangled.) 
 " Yet," said he, " poor piper as I am, 
 " In Tartary I freed the Cham, 
 " Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats; 90 
 " I eased in Asia the Nizam 
 
 " Of a monstrous brood of vampyre-bats : 
 " And as for what your brain bewilders, 
 
 " If I can rid your town of rats 
 " Will you give me a thousand guilders ? " 95 
 " One? fifty thousand ! " was the exclamation 
 Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation. 
 
 89. The Cham : the Emperor of China. 
 
 91. The Nizam : the sovereign of a great Indian state. 
 
 95. Guilders: a coin equivalent to a florin.
 
 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 1 
 
 VII. 
 
 Into the street the Piper stept, 
 
 Smiling first a little smile, 
 As if he knew what magic slept 100 
 
 In his quiet pipe the while ; 
 Then, like a musical adept, 
 To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, 
 And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled, 
 Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled ; 
 And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, 106 
 You heard as if an army muttered ; 
 And the muttering grew to a grumbling ; 
 And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling ; 
 And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. 
 Great rats, small rats, lean rats,brawny rats, 1 1 1 
 Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, 
 Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, 
 
 Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, 
 Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, 115 
 
 Families by tens and dozens, 
 Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives 
 Followed the Piper for their lives. 
 From street to street he piped advancing, 
 And step for step they followed dancing, 120 
 Until they came to the river Weser, 
 
 Wherein all plunged and perished ! 
 Save one who, stout as Julius Cassar, 
 Swam across and lived to carry 
 
 (As he, the manuscript he cherished) 125 
 To Rat-land home his commentary : 
 
 125. While Julius Caesar was besieged in Alexandria, he once 
 escaped only by swimming ; and the story was that he held the 
 manuscript of his "Commentaries " above water with one hand, 
 while he swam with the other.
 
 8 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 
 
 Which was, " At the first shrill notes of the pipe, 
 '' I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, 
 " And putting apples, wondrous ripe, 
 " Into a cider-press's gripe : 130 
 
 " And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, 
 " And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, 
 " And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, 
 " And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks : 
 " And it seemed as if a voice 135 
 
 " (Sweeter far than by harp or bf psaltery 
 " Is breathed) called out, ' Oh rats, rejoice ! 
 
 " ' The world is grown to one vast drysaltery ! 
 "' So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, 
 " ' Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon ! ' 140 
 " And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon, 
 " All ready staved, like a great sun shone 
 " Glorious scarce an inch before me, 
 " Just as methought it said, ' Come, bore me ! ' 
 " I found the Weser rolling o'er me." 145 
 
 VIII. 
 
 You should have heard the Hamelin people 
 Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. 
 " Go," cried the Mayor, " and get long poles, 
 " Poke out the nests and block up the holes ! 
 " Consult with carpenters and builders, 1 50 
 " And leave in our town not even a trace 
 " Of the rats ! " when suddenly, up the face 
 Of the Piper perked in the market-place, 
 With a, " First, if you please, my thousand 
 guilders ! " 
 
 138. Drysaltery : provision-store. 
 
 139. Nuncheon: meal, luncheon,
 
 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 9 
 
 IX. 
 
 A thousand guilders ! The Mayor looked blue ; 
 So did the Corporation too. 156 
 
 For council dinners made rare havoc 
 With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock ; 
 And half the money would replenish 
 Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. 160 
 To pay this sum to a wandering fellow 
 With a gipsy coat of red and yellow ! 
 " Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing 
 
 wink, 
 
 " Our business was done at the river's brink ; 
 " We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, 165 
 " And what's dead can't come to life, I think. 
 " So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink 
 " From the duty of giving you something for 
 
 drink, 
 
 " And a matter of money to put in your poke ; 
 " But as for the guilders, what we spoke 170 
 " Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. 
 " Beside, our losses have made us thrifty. 
 " A thousand guilders ! Come, take fifty ! " 
 
 X. 
 
 The Piper's face fell, and he cried 
 
 " No trifling ! I can't wait, beside ! 175 
 
 " I've promised to visit by dinner-time 
 
 " Bagdat, and accept the prime 
 
 " Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he's rich in, 
 
 " For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, 
 
 179. Caliph : the title of the sovereign of Bagdad, once the 
 capital of the Mohammedan empire in the East ; familiar to 
 every reader of the "Arabian Nights."
 
 10 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN. 
 
 " Of a nest of scorpions no survivor : 180 
 
 " With him I proved no bargain-driver, 
 
 " With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver ! 
 
 " And folks who put me in a passion 
 
 " May find me pipe after another fashion." 
 
 XI. 
 
 " How?" cried the Mayor ; "d'ye think I brook 
 
 " Being worse treated than a Cook ? 186 
 
 " Insulted by a lazy ribald 
 
 " With idle pipe and vesture piebald ? 
 
 " You threaten us, fellow ? Do your worst, 
 
 " Blow your pipe there till you burst ! " 190 
 
 XII. 
 
 Once more he stept into the street 
 
 And to his lips again 
 
 Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane ; 
 And ere he blew three notes (such sweet 
 Soft notes as yet musician's cunning 195 
 
 Never gave the enraptured air) 
 There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling 
 Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling, 
 Smallfeetwerepattering, wooden shoesclattering, 
 Littlehandsclappingandlittletongues chattering, 
 And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is 
 scattering, 201 
 
 Out came the children running. 
 All the little boys and girls, 
 With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, 
 And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, 205 
 Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after 
 The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. 
 
 182. A stiver: a very small Dutch coin, used to mean "the 
 least little bit."
 
 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN II 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood 
 As if they were changed into blocks of wood, 
 Unable to move a step, or cry 210 
 
 To the children merrily skipping by, 
 Could only follow with the eye 
 That joyous crowd at the Piper's back. 
 But how the Mayor was on the rack, 
 And the wretched Council's bosoms beat, 215 
 As the Piper turned from the High Street 
 To where the Weser rolled its waters 
 Right in the way of their sons and daughters ! 
 However he turned from South to West, 
 And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, 
 And after him the children pressed ; 221 
 
 Great was the joy in every breast. 
 " He never can cross that mighty top ! 
 " He's forced to let the piping drop, 
 " And we shall see our children stop ! " 225 
 When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side, 
 A wondrous portal opened wide, 
 As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed ; 
 And the Piper advanced and the children fol- 
 lowed, 
 
 And when all were in to the very last, 230 
 
 The door in the mountain-side shut fast. 
 Did I say, all ? No ! One was lame, 
 
 And could not dance the whole of the way ; 
 And in after years, if you would blame 
 
 His sadness, he was used to say, 235 
 
 " It's dull in our town since my playmates 
 
 left! 
 " I can't forget that I'm bereft
 
 12 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 
 
 " Of all the pleasant sights they see, 
 " Which the Piper also promised me. 
 " For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, 240 
 " Joining the town and just at hand, 
 " Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew, 
 " And flowers put forth a fairer hue, 
 ' And everything was strange and new ; 
 " The sparrows were brighter than peacocks 
 here, 245 
 
 " And their dogs outran our fallow deer, 
 " And honey-bees had lost their stings, 
 " And horses were born with eagle's wings : 
 " And just as I became assured 
 " My lame foot would be speedily cured, 250 
 ' : The music stopped and I stood still, 
 " And found myself outside the hill, 
 " Left alone against my will, 
 " To go now limping as before, 
 " And never hear of that country more ! " 255 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Alas, alas for Hamelin ! 
 
 There came into many a burgher's pate 
 
 A text which says that heaven's gate 
 
 Opes to the rich at as easy rate 
 As the needle's eye takes a camel in ! 260 
 
 The Mayor sent East, West, North and South, 
 To offer the Piper, by word of mouth, 
 
 Wherever it was men's lot to find him, 
 Silver and gold to his heart's content, 
 If he'd only return the way he went, 265 
 
 And bring the children behind him. 
 But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavour,
 
 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 13 
 
 And Piper and dancers were gone for ever, 
 They made a decree that lawyers never 
 
 Should think their records dated duly 270 
 If, after the day of the month and year, 
 These words did not as well appear, 
 " And so long after what happened here 
 
 " On the Twenty-second of July, 
 " Thirteen hundred and seventy-six :" 275 
 
 And the better in memory to fix 
 The place of the children's last retreat, 
 They called it, the Pied Piper's Street 
 Where any one playing on pipe or tabor 
 Was sure for the future to lose his labour. 280 
 Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern 
 
 To shock with mirth a street so solemn ; 
 But opposite the place of the cavern 
 
 They wrote the story on a column, 
 And on the great church-window painted 285 
 The same, to make the world acquainted 
 How their children were stolen away, 
 And there it stands to this very day. 
 And I must not omit to say 
 That in Transylvania there's a tribe 290 
 
 Of alien people who ascribe 
 The outlandish ways and dress 
 On which their neighbours lay such stress. 
 To their fathers and mothers having risen 
 Out of some subterraneous prison 295 
 
 Into which they were trepanned 
 Long time ago in a mighty band 
 Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land, 
 But how or why, they don't understand. 
 
 206. Trepanned: decoyed.
 
 14 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 
 
 XV. 
 
 So, Willy, let me and you be wipers 300 
 
 Of scores out with all men especially pipers ! 
 And, whether they pipe us free from rats or 
 
 from mice, 
 If we've promised them aught, let us keep our 
 
 promise ! 
 
 300. Willy: Willie Macready, for whom the poem was 
 originally written.
 
 "HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS" 15 
 
 HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD 
 NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX 
 
 [16-.] 
 
 THE story of a desperate ride by three men, to carry 
 a message to the town of Aix in time to save it from 
 destruction. What the message was, or what was the 
 exact danger threatening Aix, we are not told ; and the 
 poem was not, in fact, based upon any historical event. 
 It was written during a voyage, when the poet had been 
 at sea "long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a 
 gallop on the back of a certain good horse, ' York,' then 
 in my stable at home." We can, however, imagine that 
 the condition of Aix was supposed to be something like 
 that of the town of Mitylene in Greek history. It had 
 revolted from Athens, and had been retaken, and the 
 Athenians sent off a ship with orders to the general 
 who had taken it that all the inhabitants should be put 
 to death ; but the next day they repented, and agreed 
 to spare the captives. A second ship was sent to stop 
 the massacre, and by great exertions arrived just in 
 time to save the town. Such a message we may sup- 
 pose to have been carried to Aix by the three riders in 
 this splendid galloping poem. A similar story of a ride 
 to the rescue is found in the fine poem of A. Lindsay 
 Gordon, the Australian poet, called " From the Wreck." 
 
 I. 
 
 I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; 
 I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all 
 three :
 
 l6 "HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS 
 
 " Good speed ! " cried the watch, as the gate- 
 bolts undrew ; 
 
 "Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping 
 through ; 
 
 Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to 
 rest, 5 
 
 And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 
 
 n. 
 
 Not a word to each other ; we kept the great 
 
 pace 
 Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing 
 
 our place ; 
 
 I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
 Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique 
 
 right, 10 
 
 Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the 
 
 bit, 
 Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 
 
 in. 
 
 'Twas moonset at starting ; but while we drew 
 
 near 
 Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned 
 
 clear ; 
 
 At Boom, a great yellow star came out to 
 
 see ; 1 5 
 
 At Duffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be ; 
 
 And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the 
 
 half-chime, 
 So, Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is 
 
 time ! " 
 
 10. Pique : the peak or fore-part of the saddle.
 
 FROM GHENT TO AIX " 17 
 
 IV. 
 
 At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, 
 And against him the cattle stood black every 
 one, 20 
 
 To stare thro' the mist at us galloping past, 
 And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, 
 With resolute shoulders, each butting away 
 The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray: 
 
 And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear 
 
 bent back 25 
 
 For my voice, and the other pricked out on his 
 
 track ; 
 And one eye's black intelligence, ever that 
 
 glance 
 O'er its white edge at me, his own master, 
 
 askance ! 
 And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye 
 
 and anon 
 His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 30 
 
 By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris, 
 
 " Stay spur ! 
 " Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in 
 
 her, 
 "We'll remember at Aix" for one heard the 
 
 quick wheeze 
 Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and stag- 
 
 gering knees,
 
 1 8 "HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS 
 
 And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the 
 
 flank, 35 
 
 As down on her haunches she shuddered and 
 sank. 
 
 VII. 
 
 So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
 Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ; 
 The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 
 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble 
 
 like chaff ; 40 
 
 Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, 
 And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in 
 
 sight ! " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " How they'll greet us ! " and all in a moment 
 
 his roan 
 
 Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; 
 And there was my Roland to bear the whole 
 
 weight 45 
 
 Of the news which alone could save Aix from 
 
 her fate, 
 With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the 
 
 brim, 
 And with circles of red for his eye-socket's rim. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let 
 fall, 
 
 Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and 
 all, 50 
 
 Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 
 
 Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse with- 
 out peer ;
 
 FROM GHENT TO AIX" 19 
 
 Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any 
 
 noise, bad or good, 
 Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and 
 
 stood. 
 
 X. 
 
 And all I remember is friends flocking round 55 
 
 As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the 
 ground ; 
 
 And no voice but was praising this Roland of 
 mine, 
 
 As I poured down his throat our last measure 
 of wine, 
 
 Which (the burgesses voted by common con- 
 sent) 
 
 Was no more than his due who brought good 
 news from Ghent. 60
 
 20 CAVALIER TUNES 
 
 CAVALIER TUNES 
 
 THESE are three songs supposed to be sung by the 
 Cavaliers or Royalists during the Civil War between 
 Charles I. and the Parliament. They are full of the 
 enthusiasm which impelled nearly all the country gentle- 
 men to fight for the King when the war broke out. 
 
 I. MARCHING ALONG 
 
 I. 
 
 KENTISH Sir Byng stood for his King, 
 Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing : 
 And, pressing a troop unable to stoop 
 And see the rogues flourish and honest folk 
 
 droop, 
 
 Marched them along, fifty-score strong, 5 
 
 Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 
 
 II. 
 
 God for King Charles ! Pym and such carles 
 To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous 
 
 paries ! 
 
 Cavaliers, up ! Lips from the cup, 
 Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup 10 
 Till you're 
 CHORUS. Marching along, fifty-score strong. 
 
 Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ! 
 
 7. Pym : the great Parliamentary leader, John Pym.
 
 CAVALIER TUNES 21 
 
 III. 
 
 Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell 
 Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as 
 
 well! 
 
 England, good cheer ! Rupert is near ! 1 5 
 Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here 
 
 CHORUS. Marching along, fifty-score strong. 
 
 Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then, God for King Charles ! Pym and his 
 
 snarls 
 To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent 
 
 carles ! 20 
 
 Hold by the right, you double your might ; 
 So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight, 
 
 CHORUS. March we along, fifty-score strong, 
 
 Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song! 
 
 II. GIVE A ROUSE 
 
 King Charles, and who'll do him right now ? 
 King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now ? 
 Give a rouse : here's, in hell's despite now, 
 King Charles ! 
 
 13. Hampden: John Hampden, whose refusal to pay the tax 
 of ship-money was one of the chief events leading to the quarrel 
 between the King and Parliament. Hazelrig, Fiennes, and 
 Harry (Vane) were other Parliamentary leaders. 
 
 B
 
 22 CAVALIER TUNES 
 
 II. 
 
 Who gave me the goods that went since ? 5 
 Who raised me the house that sank once ? 
 Who helped me to gold I spent since ? 
 Who found me in wine you drank once ? 
 
 CHORUS. King Charles, and who' II do him right now f 
 King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now ? 
 Give a rouse : here's, in hell's despite now, 
 King Charles I 
 
 III. 
 
 To whom used my boy George quaff else, 
 By the old fool's side that begot him ? 
 For whom did he cheer and laugh else, 15 
 While Noll's damned troopers shot him ? 
 
 CHORUS. King Charles, and who' II do him rightnow ? 
 King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now ? 
 Give a rouse : here's, in hell ' s despite now, 
 King Charles! 
 
 III. BOOT AND SADDLE 
 
 Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 
 Rescue my castle before the hot day 
 Brightens to blue from its silvery grey, 
 
 CHORUS. Boot, saddle, to horse, and away I 
 
 16. Noll: Oliver Cromwell.
 
 CAVALIER TUNES 23 
 
 II. 
 
 Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say ; 5 
 Many's the friend there, will listen and pray 
 " God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay 
 CHORUS. "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away !" 
 
 III. 
 
 Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay, 
 
 Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' 
 
 array : 10 
 
 Who laughs, " Good fellows ere this, by my fay, 
 
 CHORUS. "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away /" 
 
 IV. 
 
 Who ? My wife Gertrude ; that, honest and gay, 
 
 Laughs when you talk of surrendering, " Nay ! 
 
 " I've better counsellors ; what counsel they? 15 
 
 CHORUS. "Boot, saddle, to Iwrse, and away I"
 
 24 HERV KIEL 
 
 HERVE KIEL 
 
 THIS spirited ballad, telling of the courage and skill of 
 a Breton sailor, whereby a remnant of the French fleet 
 was saved from destruction after the defeat of La Hogue 
 in 1692, was originally published by the poet in the 
 Corn/till Magazine in 1871. He received a hundred 
 guineas in payment for it, and sent the money as a con- 
 tribution to a fund then being raised for the relief of the 
 starving French after the siege of Paris. The story which 
 it tells is a true one, as has been proved by reference 
 to official records in Paris ; but it was quite unknown 
 until Browning chanced upon it, and gave immortality 
 by his verse to the brave sailor whom his own country 
 had forgotten. 
 
 I. 
 
 ON the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred 
 
 ninety-two, 
 Did the English fight the French, woe to 
 
 France ! 
 And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter 
 
 through the blue, 
 Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of 
 
 sharks pursue, 
 Came crowding ship on ship to Saint-Malo 
 
 on the Ranee, 5 
 
 With the English fleet in view. 
 
 5. The Ranee : the river which runs into the English Channel 
 at Saint-Malo, in Brittany.
 
 HERVE KIEL 25 
 
 II, 
 
 'Twas the squadron that .escaped, with the victor 
 
 in full chase ; 
 First and foremost of the drove, in his great 
 
 ship, Damfreville ; 
 Close on him fled, great and small, 
 Twenty-two good ships in all ; 10 
 
 And they signalled to the place 
 " Help the winners of a race ! 
 
 Get us guidance, give us harbour, take us 
 
 quick or, quicker still, 
 Here's the English can and will ! " 
 
 ill. 
 
 Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and 
 
 leapt on board ; 1 5 
 
 " Why, what hope or chance have ships like 
 
 these to pass ? " laughed they : 
 " Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the 
 
 passage scarred and scored, 
 Shall the Formidable here, with her twelve 
 
 and eighty guns, 
 Think to make the river-mouth by the single 
 
 narrow way, 
 
 Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of 
 twenty tons, 20 
 
 And with flow at full beside ? 
 Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide. 
 Reach the mooring ? Rather say, 
 While rock stands or water runs, 
 
 Not a ship will leave the bay ! " 25
 
 26 HERVE RIEL 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then was called a council straight. 
 
 Brief and bitter the debate : 
 
 <; Here's the English at our heels ; would you 
 
 have them take in tow 
 All that's left us of the fleet, linked together 
 
 stern and bow, 
 
 For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 30 
 
 Better run the ships aground ! " 
 
 (Ended Damfreville his speech). 
 " Not a minute more to wait ! 
 Let the Captains all and each 
 Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels 
 on the beach ! 35 
 
 France must undergo her fate. 
 
 v. 
 
 Give the word ! " But no such word 
 Was ever spoke or heard ; 
 
 For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck 
 
 amid all these 
 
 A Captain ? A Lieutenant ? A Mate first, 
 second, third ? 40 
 
 No such man of mark, and meet 
 With his betters to compete ! 
 But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville 
 
 for the fleet, 
 
 A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervd Kiel the 
 Croisickese. 
 
 44. Croisickese : native of Le Croisic, a village at the mouth 
 of the Loire, where this poem was written.
 
 HERVE RIEL 27 
 
 VI. 
 
 And " What mockery or malice have we here ? " 
 
 cries Herve Kiel : 45 
 
 " Are you mad, you Malouins ! Are you 
 
 cowards, fools, or rogues ? 
 Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took 
 
 the soundings, tell 
 On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every 
 
 swell 
 'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the 
 
 river disembogues ? 
 
 Are you bought by English gold? Is it love 
 the lying's for ? 50 
 
 Morn and eve, night and day, 
 Have I piloted your bay, 
 Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of 
 
 Solidor. 
 Burn the fleet and ruin France ? That were 
 
 worse than fifty Hogues ! 
 Sirs, they know I speak the truth ! Sirs, 
 believe me there's a way ! 55 
 
 Only let me lead the line, 
 
 Have the biggest ship to steer, 
 Get this Formidable clear, 
 Make the others follow mine, 
 And I lead them, most and least, by a passage 
 I know well, 60 
 
 Right to Solidor past Greve, 
 And there lay them safe and sound ; 
 
 46. Malouins : natives of St. Malo. 
 49. Disembogues ' enters the sea.
 
 28 HERV RIEL 
 
 And if one ship misbehave, 
 
 Keel so much as grate the ground, 
 Why, I've nothing but my life, here's my 
 head !" cries Hervd Kiel. 65 
 
 VII. 
 
 Not a minute more to wait. 
 " Steer us in, then, small and great ! 
 Take the helm, lead the line, save the 
 
 squadron ! " cried its chief. 
 Captains, give the sailor place ! 
 
 He is Admiral, in brief. 70 
 
 Still the north-wind, by God's grace. 
 See the noble fellow's face 
 As the big ship, with a bound, 
 Clears the entry like a hound, 
 Keeps the passage, as its inch of way were the 
 wide sea's profound ! 75 
 
 See, safe thro' shoal and rock, 
 How they follow in a flock, 
 Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that 
 
 grates the ground, 
 Not a spar that comes to grief ! 
 The peril, see, is past. 80 
 
 All are harboured to the last, 
 And just as Hervd Kiel hollas " Anchor ! " 
 
 sure as fate, 
 Up the English come, too late ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 So, the storm subsides to calm : 
 
 They see the green trees wave 85 
 
 On the heights o'erlooking Greve. 
 
 Hearts that bled are stanched with balm.
 
 HERV KIEL 29 
 
 " Just our rapture to enhance, 
 
 Let the English rake the bay, 
 Gnash their teeth and glare askance 90 
 
 As they cannonade away ! 
 Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the 
 
 Ranee ! " 
 How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's 
 
 countenance ! 
 Out burst all with one accord, 
 
 " This is Paradise for Hell ! 95 
 
 Let France, let France's King 
 Thank the man that did the thing ! " 
 What a shout, and all one word, 
 
 " nerve" Kiel ! " 
 
 As he stepped in front once more, 100 
 
 Not a symptom of surprise 
 In the frank blue Breton eyes, 
 Just the same man as before. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Then said Damfreville, " My friend, 
 
 I must speak out at the end, 105 
 
 Though I find the speaking hard. 
 Praise is deeper than the lips : 
 You have saved the King his ships. 
 
 You must name your own reward. 
 'Faith, our sun was near eclipse ! no 
 
 Demand whate'er you will, 
 France remains your debtor still. 
 Ask to heart's content and have ! or my name's 
 not Damfreville." 
 
 92. Rampired: fortified. 
 
 B 2
 
 30 HERVE" RIEL 
 
 X. 
 
 Then a beam of fun outbroke 
 
 On the bearded mouth that spoke, 115 
 
 As the honest heart laughed through 
 
 Those frank eyes of Breton blue : 
 
 " Since I needs must say my say, 
 
 Since on board the duty's done, 
 
 And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what 
 is it but a run? 120 
 
 Since 'tis ask and have, I may 
 
 Since the others go ashore 
 Come ! A good whole holiday ! 
 
 Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call 
 the Belle Aurore ! " 
 
 That he asked and that he got, nothing 
 more. 125 
 
 XL 
 
 Name and deed alike are lost : 
 Not a pillar nor a post 
 
 In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell ; 
 Not a head in white and black 
 On a single fishing-smack, 130 
 
 In memory of the man but for whom had gone 
 
 to wrack 
 
 All that France saved from the fight whence 
 England bore the bell. 
 
 Go to Paris : rank on rank 
 Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
 On the Louvre, face and flank ! 135 
 
 You shall look long enough ere you come to 
 Henre" Kiel. 
 
 135. The Louvre : the great museum and picture-gallery in 
 Paris.
 
 HERV^ KIEL 31 
 
 So, for better and -for worse, 
 Herve" Kiel, accept my verse ! 
 In my verse, Herve Kiel, do thou once more 
 Save the squadron, honour France, love thy 
 wife the Belle Aurora ! 140
 
 32 INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 
 
 INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH 
 CAMP 
 
 ANOTHER story of French courage, and again a true 
 one, though the real hero was not a boy, as he is here 
 represented, but a man. The storming of Ratisbon 
 took place during Napoleon's campaign against Austria 
 
 You know, we French stormed Ratisbon ; 
 
 A mile or so away, 
 On a little mound, Napoleon 
 
 Stood on our storming-day ; 
 With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 
 
 Legs wide, arms locked behind, 
 As if to balance the prone brow 
 
 Oppressive with its mind. 
 
 II. 
 
 Just as perhaps he mused '* My plans 
 
 " That soar, to earth may fall, 
 " Let once my army-leader Lannes 
 
 " Waver at yonder wall," 
 Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew 
 
 A rider, bound on bound 
 Full-galloping ; nor bridle drew 
 
 Until he reached the mound.
 
 INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 33 
 
 III. 
 
 Then off there flung in smiling joy, 
 
 And held himself erect 
 By just his horse's mane, a boy : 
 
 You hardly could suspect 20 
 
 (So tight he kept his lips compressed, 
 
 Scarce any blood came through) 
 You looked twice ere you saw his breast 
 
 Was all but shot in two. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Well," cried he, " Emperor, by God's grace 
 
 " We've got you Ratisbon ! 26 
 
 " The Marshal's in the market-place, 
 
 " And you'll be there anon 
 " To see your flag-bird flap his vans 
 
 " Where I, to heart's desire, 30 
 
 <: Perched him!" The chiefs eye flashed; 
 his plans 
 
 Soared up again like fire. 
 
 V. 
 
 The chief's eye flashed ; but presently 
 
 Softened itself, as sheathes 
 A film the mother-eagle's eye 35 
 
 When her bruised eaglet breathes ; 
 " You're wounded ! " " Nay," the soldier's 
 pride 
 
 Touched to the quick, he said : 
 " I'm killed, Sire ! " And his chief beside 
 
 Smiling the boy fell dead. 40
 
 34 HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA 
 
 HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM 
 THE SEA 
 
 THE poet, at sea off the southern coast of Spain, sees 
 at one moment the scenes of five great English victories : 
 Cape Saint Vincent, where Jervis and Nelson defeated 
 the Spanish fleet in 1797 ; Cadiz Bay, where Drake 
 "singed the King of Spain's beard" by burning the 
 store-ships prepared for the Armada in 1587, and where 
 Howard, Essex, and Raleigh destroyed the Spanish 
 fleet and stormed the town in 1596 ; Trafalgar, the scene 
 of Nelson's victory and death in 1805 ; and Gibraltar, 
 defended by Sir Hugh Elliot against the united fleets of 
 France and Spain in 1779-1782. Deeds such as these 
 have made it an honour to be an Englishman ; and it 
 is therefore the duty of every Englishman in return to 
 do what he can to keep England great. 
 
 NOBLY, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the 
 
 North-west died away ; 
 Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into 
 
 Cadiz Bay ; 
 Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face 
 
 Trafalgar lay ; 
 In the dimmest North-east distance dawned 
 
 Gibraltar grand and gray ; 
 " Here and here did England help me : how 
 
 can I help England ? " say. 5 
 
 Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to 
 
 praise and pray, 
 While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over 
 
 Africa.
 
 HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD 35 
 
 HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM 
 ABROAD 
 
 HERE, again, the poet is thinking of England from 
 abroad ; but this time it is not of England's glory, but 
 of her beauty ; of the charm of early spring in England, 
 and of the sights and sounds of country life, which he 
 observes so minutely and describes so beautifully. How 
 many people have noticed for themselves what he has 
 noticed about the song of the thrush ? 
 
 I. 
 
 OH, to be in England 
 Now that April's there, 
 And whoever wakes in England 
 Sees, some morning, unaware, 
 That the lowest boughs and the brushwood 
 sheaf 5 
 
 Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 
 While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 
 In England now ! 
 
 II. 
 
 And after April, when May follows, 
 
 And the whitethroat builds, and all the 
 
 swallows ! 10 
 
 Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the 
 
 hedge 
 
 Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 
 Blossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray's 
 
 edge
 
 36 HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD 
 
 That's the wise thrush ; he sings each song 
 twice over, 
 
 Lest you should think he never could re- 
 capture 1 5 
 
 The first fine careless rapture ! 
 
 And though the fields look rough with hoary 
 dew 
 
 All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 
 
 The buttercups, the little children's dower 
 
 Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower ! 20
 
 'DE GUSTIBUS " 37 
 
 "DE GUSTIBUS- 
 
 " DE gustibus non est disputandum " is a Latin proverb, 
 equivalent to our English saying, "There's no account- 
 ing for tastes." The proverb is illustrated by this pair 
 of poems, the first of which, like "Home-Thoughts, 
 from Abroad," expresses the love of English scenery, 
 while the second is in praise of Italy. They form a 
 companion pair of pictures of the characteristic scenery 
 of the two countries. 
 
 I. 
 YOUR ghost will walk, you lover of trees, 
 
 (If our loves remain) 
 
 In an English lane, 
 
 By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies. 
 Hark, those two in the hazel coppice 5 
 A boy and a girl, if the good fates please, 
 
 Making love, say, 
 
 The happier they ! 
 
 Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, 
 And let them pass, as they will too soon, 10 
 
 With the bean-flowers' boon, 
 
 And the blackbird's tune, 
 
 And May, and June ! 
 
 n. 
 
 What I love best in all the world 
 Is a castle, precipice-encurled, 15 
 
 In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. 
 Or look for me, old fellow of mine,
 
 38 "DE GUSTIBUS- 
 
 (If I get my head from out the mouth 
 O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, 
 And come again to the land of lands) 20 
 In a sea-side house to the farther South, 
 Where the baked cicala dies of drouth, 
 And one sharp tree 'tis a cypress stands, 
 By the many hundred years red-rusted, 
 Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted, 25 
 My sentinel to guard the sands 
 To the water's edge. For, what expands 
 Before the house, but the great opaque 
 Blue breadth of sea without a break ? 
 While, in the house, for ever crumbles 30 
 Some fragment of the frescoed walls, 
 From blisters where a scorpion sprawls. 
 A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles 
 Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons, 
 And says there's news to-day the king 35 
 Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing, 
 Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling : 
 She hopes they have not caught the felons. 
 Italy, my Italy ! 
 Queen Mary's saying serves for me 40 
 
 (When fortune's malice 
 
 Lost her Calais) 
 
 Open my heart and you will see 
 
 Graved inside of it, " Italy." 
 
 Such lovers old are I and she : 45 
 
 So it always was, so shall ever be ! 
 
 22. Cicala: an insect of the grasshopper kind, common in 
 Italy. 
 
 35-37. This refers to the misgovernment of Naples by the 
 oppressive Bourbon kings, which drove all patriotic Italians into 
 sympathy with those who made attempts on their lives.
 
 "ALL SERVICE RANKS WITH GOD" 39 
 
 "ALL SERVICE RANKS THE 
 SAME WITH GOD" 
 
 THIS song is taken from the play of " Pippa Passes." 
 It is sung by the little silk-weaving girl, Pippa, as she 
 sets out to enjoy her one day's holiday in all the year. 
 The whole play shows the truth of the song ; for a 
 chance song from little Pippa, as she passes by, proves 
 to be the turning-point in a great crisis in the life of each 
 of four persons the four whom Pippa, in her innocence, 
 regards as the greatest and happiest people in the world. 
 She is quite unconscious of what she has done ; she is 
 "God's puppet," and what seems an extremely small 
 event is in fact of trie greatest importance in each of 
 these four cases. 
 
 ALL service ranks the same with God : 
 
 If now, as formerly He trod 
 
 Paradise, His presence fills 
 
 Our earth, each only as God wills 
 
 Can work God's puppets, best and worst, 5 
 
 Are we ; there is no last nor first. 
 
 Say not " a small event ! " Why " small " 
 Costs it more pain that this, ye call 
 A " great event," should come to pass, 
 Than that ? Untwine me from the mass 10 
 Of deeds which make up life, one deed 
 Power shall fall short in or exceed ! 
 
 10-12. The meaning of these lines is that to God it is just as 
 easy to bring to pass what we call a great event as a small one. 
 In every deed His power is exactly equal to what is required.
 
 40 "THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING" 
 
 "THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING" 
 
 ANOTHER song from " Pippa Passes." As she sings it, 
 she is passing within hearing of two great but sinful 
 people, Sebald and Ottima, and this chance word of 
 hers, "God's in His heaven," startles them from the 
 enjoyment of their sin, and makes them loathe their 
 wickedness. 
 
 THE year's at the spring 
 
 And day's at the morn ; 
 
 Morning's at seven ; 
 
 The hill-side's dew-pearled ; 
 
 The lark's on the wing ; 5 
 
 The snail's on the thorn : 
 
 God's in His heaven 
 
 All's right with the world !
 
 THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 41 
 
 THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 
 
 THIS curious legend teaches that God values the praise 
 and thankfulness of His creatures, and that we cannot 
 tell in what state of life we can praise and please Him 
 best. The boy Theocrite praises God day and night ; 
 but he prays that he may become Pope, that he may 
 praise Him better. His prayer is granted ; he falls ill, 
 and is carried away by an angel to become a priest, and 
 at last Pope. But meanwhile God has missed the boy's 
 praise, in which He used to take delight ; so the angel 
 Gabriel descends to earth, takes Theocrite's place, and 
 praises God day and night. But God finds a difference 
 between an angel's praise, which is unmixed with doubt 
 or fear, and the human praise which He loved ; so 
 Gabriel flies to Rome, where Theocrite has just been 
 consecrated Pope. He tells Theocrite to go back to his 
 old home, and take up again the praise which God had 
 missed ; while he himself remains at Rome to play the 
 part of Pope till Theocrite dies, when the boy and the 
 angel go side by side to God. 
 
 MORNING, evening, noon and night, 
 " Praise God ! " sang Theocrite. 
 
 Then to his poor trade he turned, 
 Whereby the daily meal was earned. 
 
 Hard he laboured, long and well ; 5 
 
 O'er his work the boy's curls fell. 
 
 But ever, at each period, 
 
 He stopped and sang, "Praise God !"
 
 42 THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 
 
 Then back again his curls he threw, 
 
 And cheerful turned to work anew. 10 
 
 Said Blaise, the listening monk, " Well done ; 
 " I doubt not thou art heard, my son : 
 
 " As well as if thy voice to-day 
 
 " Were praising God, the Pope's great way. 
 
 " This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome 1 5 
 " Praises God from Peter's dome." 
 
 Said Theocrite, " Would God that I 
 
 " Might praise Him, that great way, and die !" 
 
 Night passed, day shone, 
 
 And Theocrite was gone. 20 
 
 With God a day endures alway, 
 A thousand years are but a day. 
 
 God said in heaven, " Nor day nor night 
 " Now brings the voice of My delight." 
 
 Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, 25 
 
 Spread his wings and sank to earth ; 
 
 Entered, in flesh, the empty cell, 
 
 Lived there, and played the craftsman well ; 
 
 And morning, evening, noon and night, 
 Praised God in place of Theocrite. 30 
 
 And from a boy, to youth he grew : 
 The man put off the stripling's hue :
 
 THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 43 
 
 The man matured and fell away 
 Into the season of decay : 
 
 And ever o'er the trade he bent, 35 
 
 And ever lived on earth content. 
 
 (He did God's will ; to him, all one 
 If on the earth or in the sun.) 
 
 God said, " A praise is in Mine ear ; 
 
 " There is no doubt in it, no fear : 40 
 
 " So sing old worlds, and so 
 
 " New worlds that from My footstool go. 
 
 " Clearer loves sound other ways : 
 " I miss My little human praise." 
 
 Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell 45 
 The flesh disguise, remained the cell. 
 
 'Twas Easter Day : he flew to Rome, 
 And paused above Saint Peter's dome. 
 
 In the tiring-room close by 
 
 The great outer gallery, 15 
 
 With his holy vestments dight, 
 Stood the new Pope, Theocrite : 
 
 And all his past career 
 Came back upon him clear, 
 
 Since when, a boy, he plied his trade, 55 
 Till on his life the sickness weighed ; 
 
 48. Saint Peter's Dame: the great cathedral of St. Peter's, 
 at Rome.
 
 44 THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 
 
 And in his cell, when death drew near, 
 An angel in a dream brought cheer : 
 
 And rising from the sickness drear 
 
 He grew a priest, and now stood here. 60 
 
 To the East with praise he turned, 
 And on his sight the angel burned. 
 
 " I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell 
 " And set thee here ; I did not well. 
 
 " Vainly I left my angel-sphere, 65 
 
 " Vain was thy dream of many a year. 
 
 " Thy voice's praise seemed weak ; it dropped 
 " Creation's chorus stopped ! 
 
 " Go back and praise again 
 
 " The early way, while I remain. 70 
 
 " With that weak voice of our disdain, 
 " Take up creation's pausing strain. 
 
 " Back to the cell and poor employ : 
 " Resume the craftsman and the boy ! " 
 
 Theocrite grew old at home ; 75 
 
 A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome. 
 
 One vanished as the other died : 
 They sought God side by side.
 
 THE LOST LEADER 45 
 
 THE LOST LEADER 
 
 THESE fine lines are supposed to be spoken by one of 
 a band of men who, though poor and humble in rank, 
 are striving for great and good objects in the world, 
 for truth and freedom and justice. The leader of this 
 band, the man whom they all trusted and reverenced, 
 has been bribed to leave it by the hope of the wealth 
 and empty honours which the other side can give him ; 
 and his followers grieve over their loss, and his fall. 
 The idea of the poem was suggested by the change 
 in the poet Wordsworth, when, after being enthusiasti- 
 cally in favour of liberty and progress in his youth, 
 he went over to the party which opposed all reform ; 
 but it does not pretend to represent accurately either 
 the character of Wordsworth's change of views, or the 
 motives which led him to it. Browning, as he himself 
 declared, would never have wished to charge his great 
 predecessor with any sordid or discreditable action. 
 
 I. 
 
 JUST for a handful of silver he left us, 
 
 Just for a riband to stick in his coat 
 Found the one gift of which Fortune bereft us, 
 
 Lost all the others she lets us devote ; 
 They, with the gold to give, doled him out 
 silver, 5 
 
 So much was theirs who so little allowed : 
 How all our copper had gone for his service ! 
 
 Rags were they purple, his heart had been 
 proud !
 
 46 THE LOST LEADER 
 
 We that had loved him so, followed him, 
 
 honoured him, 
 
 Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 10 
 Learned his great language, caught his clear 
 
 accents, 
 
 Made him our pattern to live and to die ! 
 Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, 
 Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch 
 
 from their graves ! 
 
 He alone breaks from the van and the free- 
 men, 15 
 He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! 
 
 n. 
 
 We shall march prospering, not thro' his 
 
 presence ; 
 
 Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre ; 
 Deeds will be done, while he boasts his 
 
 quiescence, 
 
 Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade 
 
 aspire : 20 
 
 Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul 
 
 more, 
 One task more declined, one more footpath 
 
 untrod, 
 One more devils' -triumph and sorrow for 
 
 angels, 
 One wrong more to man, one more insult 
 
 to God ! 
 
 Life's night begins : let him never come back 
 to us ! 25 
 
 There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,
 
 THE LOST LEADER 47 
 
 Forced praise on our part the glimmer of 
 
 twilight, 
 
 Never glad confident morning again ! 
 Best fight on well, for we taught him strike 
 
 gallantly, 
 
 Menace our heart ere we master his 
 
 own ; 30 
 
 Then let him receive the new knowledge and 
 
 wait us, 
 Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne !
 
 48 THE PATRIOT 
 
 THE PATRIOT 
 
 AN OLD STORY 
 
 THIS is the "old story" of the fickleness of crowds. 
 The patriot has devoted himself to what he believes to 
 be his country's good, and at first the people are 
 enthusiastic in their devotion to him. But a year later 
 his efforts have ended in failure. He has been declared 
 a traitor, and condemned to death by the tyrannical 
 government ; and now the people turn round and pelt 
 him with stones as he goes to the scaffold, along the 
 road where formerly he passed in triumph and was 
 greeted with showers of roses. His comfort is, that as 
 he has not been rewarded in this world, he may be 
 rewarded in heaven. 
 
 I. 
 
 IT was roses, roses, all the way, 
 
 With myrtle mixed in my path like mad : 
 The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, 
 
 The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, 
 A year ago on this very day. 5 
 
 II. 
 
 The air broke into a mist with bells, 
 
 The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. 
 
 Had I said, " Good folk, mere noise repels 
 " But give me your sun from yonder skies ! " 
 
 They had answered, "And afterward, what 
 else?" 10
 
 THE PATRIOT 49 
 
 III. 
 
 Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun 
 To give it my loving friends to keep ! 
 
 Nought man could do, have I left undone : 
 And you see my harvest, what I reap 
 
 This very day, now a year is run. 1 5 
 
 IV. 
 
 There's nobody on the house-tops now 
 Just a palsied few at the windows set ; 
 
 For the best of the sight is, all allow, 
 At the Shambles' Gate or, better yet, 
 
 By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 20 
 
 I go in the rain, and, more than needs, 
 A rope cuts both my wrists behind ; 
 
 And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, 
 For they fling, whoever has a mind, 
 
 Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. 25 
 
 VI. 
 
 Thus I entered, and thus I go ! 
 
 In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. 
 " Paid by the world, what dost thou owe 
 
 " Me?" God might question ; now instead, 
 'Tis God shall repay : I am safer so. 30
 
 50 THE TWINS 
 
 THE TWINS 
 
 THIS poem was printed in a little pamphlet along with 
 a poem by Mrs. Browning, for sale at a bazaar in aid 
 of a Refuge for Young Destitute Girls. Its meaning 
 (expressed in a sort of parable which was used by Martin 
 Luther, the Reformer) is that charity and prosperity go 
 together : " Give, and it shall be given to you." 
 
 GRAND rough old Martin Luther 
 Bloomed fables flowers on furze, 
 
 The better the uncouther : 
 Do roses stick like burrs ? 
 
 II. 
 
 A beggar asked an alms 5 
 
 One day at an abbey-door, 
 Said Luther ; but, seized with qualms, 
 
 The Abbot replied. " We're poor ! 
 
 in. 
 
 " Poor, who had plenty once, 
 
 " When gifts fell thick as rain : 10 
 
 " But they give us nought, for the nonce, 
 
 " And how should we give again ? "
 
 THE TWINS 51 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then the beggar, " See your sins ! 
 
 " Of old, unless I err, 
 " Ye had brothers for inmates, twins, 1 5 
 
 " Date and Dabitur. 
 
 v. 
 
 " While Date was in good case 
 
 " Dabitur flourished too : 
 " For Dabitur's lenten face 
 
 " No wonder if Date rue. 20 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Would ye retrieve the one ? 
 
 " Try and make plump the other ! 
 " When Date's penance is done, 
 
 " Dabitur helps his brother. 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Only, beware relapse ! " 25 
 
 The Abbot hung his head. 
 This beggar might be perhaps 
 
 An angel, Luther said. 
 
 16. Date = "give" ; dabitur = "it shall be given (to you)."
 
 52 SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS 
 
 SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABUR- 
 GENSIS 
 
 THE story of a humorous revenge taken upon a dull and 
 pedantic book. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis is supposed 
 to be the name of its author, but it is, of course, an 
 imaginary one. 
 
 I. 
 
 PLAGUE take all your pedants, say I ! 
 
 He who wrote what I hold in my hand, 
 Centuries back was so good as to die, 
 
 Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land ; 
 This, that was a book in its time, 5 
 
 Printed on paper and bound in leather, 
 Last month in the white of a matin-prime 
 
 Just when the birds sang all together. 
 
 II. 
 
 Into the garden I brought it to read, 
 
 And under the arbute and laurustine 10 
 Read it, so help me grace in my need, 
 
 From title-page to closing line. 
 Chapter on chapter did I count, 
 
 As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge ; 
 Added up the mortal amount ; 1 5 
 
 And then proceeded to my revenge.
 
 SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS 53 
 
 III. 
 
 Vender's a plum-tree with a crevice 
 
 An owl would build in, were he but sage ; 
 For a lap of moss, like a fine pont-levis 
 
 In a castle of the Middle Age, 20 
 
 Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber ; 
 
 When he'd be private, there might he spend 
 Hours alone in his lady's chamber : 
 
 Into this crevice I dropped our friend. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Splash, went he, as under he ducked, 25 
 
 At the bottom, I knew, rain-drippings stag- 
 nate : 
 Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked 
 
 To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate ; 
 Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf, 
 
 Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis ; 30 
 Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf 
 
 Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais. 
 
 v. 
 
 Now, this morning, betwixt the moss 
 
 And gum that locked our friend in limbo. 
 A spider had spun his web across, 35 
 
 And sat in the midst with arms akimbo : 
 So, I took pity, for learning's sake, 
 
 And, de profundis, accentibus Icetis, 
 Cantate! quoth I, as I got a rake ; 
 
 And up I fished his delectable treatise. 40 
 
 19. Pont-levis : a drawbridge. 
 
 38. De profundis, &c. : " out of the depths sing yc joyfully.'' 
 
 C
 
 54 SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS 
 
 VI. 
 
 Here you have it, dry in the sun, 
 
 With all the binding all of a blister, 
 And great blue spots where the ink has run, 
 
 And reddish streaks that wink and glister 
 O'er the page so beautifully yellow : 45 
 
 Oh, well have the droppings played their 
 
 tricks ! 
 Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow ? 
 
 Here's one stuck in his chapter six ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 How did he like it when the live creatures 
 Tickled and toused and browsed him all 
 over, 50 
 
 And worm, slug, eft, with serious features, 
 
 Came in, each one, for his right of trover ? 
 When the water-beetle with great blind deaf 
 
 face 
 
 Made of her eggs the stately deposit, 
 And the newt borrowed just so much of the 
 preface 5 5 
 
 As tiled in the top of his black wife's closet ? 
 
 VIII. 
 
 All that life and fun and romping, 
 
 All that frisking and twisting and coupling, 
 While slowly our poor friend's leaves were 
 
 swamping 
 
 And clasps were cracking and covers sup- 
 pling ! 60 
 
 52. Right of trover: right to use what one has found.
 
 SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS 55 
 
 As if you had carried sour John Knox 
 
 To the play-house at Paris, Vienna, or Munich, 
 
 Fastened him into a front-row box, 
 And danced off the ballet with trousers and 
 tunic. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Come, old martyr ! What, torment enough is 
 it? 65 
 
 Back to my room shall you take your sweet 
 
 self. 
 Good-bye, mother-beetle ; husband-eft, sufficit / 
 
 See the snug niche I have made on my shelf ! 
 A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you, 
 
 Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay, 70 
 And with E. on each side, and F. right over you, 
 
 Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day ! 
 
 67. Sufficit: " that's enough !"
 
 $6 A TALE 
 
 A TALE 
 
 THIS pretty story is taken from a poem in the Greek 
 Anthology (ix. 584). The application which Browning 
 gives to it in the final stanzas is, of course, his own. It 
 was first written as the Epilogue to the volume contain- 
 ing La Saisiaz and T/te Two Poets of Croisic. 
 
 I. 
 
 What a pretty tale you told me 
 
 Once upon a time 
 
 Said you found it somewhere (scold 
 me !) 
 
 Was it prose or was it rhyme, 
 Greek or Latin ? Greek, you said, 
 While your shoulder propped my head. 
 
 II. 
 
 Anyhow there's no forgetting 
 
 This much if no more, 
 That a poet (pray, no petting !) 
 
 Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 10 
 
 Went where suchlike used to go, 
 Singing for a prize, you know.
 
 A TALE 57 
 
 III. 
 
 Well, he had to sing, nor merely , 
 
 Sing but play the lyre ; 
 Playing was important clearly 15 
 
 Quite as singing : I desire, 
 Sir, you keep the fact in mind 
 For a purpose that's behind. 
 
 IV. 
 
 There stood he, while deep attention 
 
 Held the judges round, 20 
 
 Judges able, I should mention, 
 To detect the slightest sound 
 
 Sung or played amiss : such ears 
 
 Had old judges, it appears ! 
 
 v. 
 
 None the less he sang out boldly, 25 
 
 Played in time and tune, 
 Till the judges, weighing coldly 
 
 Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon, 
 Sure to smile " In vain one tries 
 Picking faults out : take the prize ! " 30 
 
 VI. 
 
 When, a mischief! Were they seven 
 
 Strings the lyre possessed ? 
 Oh, and afterwards eleven, 
 
 Thank you ! Well, sir, who had guessed 
 Such ill luck in store ? it happed 35 
 
 One of those same seven strings snapped.
 
 58 A TALE 
 
 VII. 
 
 All was lost, then ! No ! a cricket 
 
 (What "cicada"? Pooh!) 
 Some mad thing that left its thicket 
 
 For mere love of music flew 40 
 
 With its little heart on fire, 
 Lighted on the crippled lyre. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 So that when (ah joy !) our singer 
 
 For his truant string 
 Feels with disconcerted finger, 45 
 
 What does cricket else but fling 
 Fiery heart forth, sound the note 
 Wanted by the throbbing throat ? 
 
 IX. 
 
 Ay and ever, to the ending, 
 
 Cricket chirps at need, 50 
 
 Executes the hand's intending, 
 
 Promptly, perfectly, indeed 
 Saves the singer from defeat 
 With her chirrup low and sweet. 
 
 x. 
 
 Till, at ending, all the judges 55 
 
 Cry with one assent 
 " Take the prize a prize who grudges 
 
 Such a voice and instrument ? 
 Why, we took your lyre for harp, 
 So it shrilled us forth F sharp ! " 60 
 
 38. Cicada : the Latin name for an insect of the cricket or 
 grasshopper kind.
 
 A TALE 59 
 
 XI. 
 
 Did the conqueror spurn the creature, 
 
 Once its service done ? 
 That's no such uncommon feature 
 
 In the case when Music's son 
 Finds his Lotte's power too spent 65 
 
 For aiding soul-development. 
 
 XII. 
 
 No ! This other, on returning 
 
 Homeward, prize in hand, 
 Satisfied his bosom's yearning : 
 
 (Sir, I hope you understand !) 70 
 
 Said " Some record there must be 
 Of this cricket's help to me ! " 
 
 XIII. 
 
 So, he made himself a statue : 
 
 Marble stood, life-size ; 
 On the lyre, he pointed at you 75 
 
 Perched his partner in the prize ; 
 Never more apart you found 
 Her, he throned, from him she crowned. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 That's the tale : its application ? 
 
 Somebody I know 80 
 
 65. Lotte : that is, the friend whose love and sympathy have 
 caused his success. Some poets have had such friends, and 
 have abandoned them when their company ceased to interest or 
 stimulate them. The reference here is to the great German 
 poet, Goethe.
 
 60 A TALE 
 
 Hopes one day for reputation 
 
 Through his poetry that's Oh, 
 All so learned and so wise, 
 And deserving of a prize ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 If he gains one, will some ticket, 85 
 
 When his statue's built. 
 Tell the gazer " 'Twas a cricket 
 
 Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt 
 Sweet and low, when strength usurped 
 Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped ? 90 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " For as victory was nighest, 
 
 While I sang and played, 
 With my lyre at lowest, highest, 
 
 Right alike, one string that made 
 ' Love ' sound soft was snapt in twain, 95 
 Never to be heard again, 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ' Had not a kind cricket fluttered, 
 
 Perched upon the place 
 Vacant left, and duly uttered 
 
 ' Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass 
 Asked the treble to atone 
 For its somewhat sombre drone." 
 
 55. Referring, of course, to the loss of his wife.
 
 A TALE 6! 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 But you don't know music ! Wherefore 
 
 Keep on casting pearls 
 To a poet? All I care for 105 
 
 Is to tell him that a girl's 
 " Love " comes aptly in when gruff 
 Grows his singing. (There, enough !) 
 
 106-8. Here is the " moral " of the whole poem : the death 
 of his wife took away the inspiration of his genius ; but the 
 friendship of a girl may in part supply the necessary encourage- 
 ment, and prevent his poetry growing too gruff and heavy. 
 
 C 2
 
 62 TRAY 
 
 TRAY 
 
 THIS poem was written at a time when the question of 
 vivisection, or the right of man to cut up living animals 
 for the purpose of scientific research, was being warmly 
 debated. Browning thought it both cowardly and cruel 
 on the part of man to 
 
 " Have no end of brutes 
 Cut up alive to guess what suits 
 My case and saves my toe from shoots,' 
 
 as he expresses it in another poem. In "Tray" he 
 represents himself as asking for a poem about a hero ; 
 and after rejecting two high-flown stories which are first 
 offered him, listens to the tale of a heroic rescue by a 
 dog, and of the self-satisfied comments of the human 
 bystanders, one of whom wants forthwith to cut up the 
 dog alive in order to see how his brain works. 
 
 SING me a hero ! Quench my thirst 
 Of souls, ye bards ! 
 
 Quoth Bard the first : 
 " Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don 
 His helm and eke his habergeon . . ." 
 Sir Olaf and his bard ! 5 
 
 "That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the 
 
 second) 
 
 " That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned 
 My hero to some steep, beneath 
 Which precipice smiled tempting death ..." 
 You too without your host have reckoned ! 10 
 
 4 Habergeon : coat of mail.
 
 TRAY 63 
 
 "A beggar-child" (let's hear this third !) 
 
 " Sat on a quay's edge : like a bird 
 
 Sang to herself at careless play, 
 
 And fell into the stream. ' Dismay ! 
 
 Help, you the stan ders-by !' None stirred. 15 
 
 " Bystanders reason, think of wives 
 
 And children ere they risk their lives. 
 
 Over the balustrade has bounced 
 
 A mere instinctive dog, and pounced 
 
 Plumb on the prize. ' How well he dives ! 20 
 
 " ' Up he comes with the child, see, tight 
 
 In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite 
 
 A depth of ten feet twelve, I bet ! 
 
 Good dog ! What, off again ? There's yet 
 
 Another child to save ? All right ! 25 
 
 " ' How strange we saw no other fall ! 
 
 It's instinct in the animal. 
 
 Good dog ! But he's a long while under : 
 
 If he got drowned I should not wonder 
 
 Strong current, that against the wall ! 30 
 
 " ' Here he comes, holds in mouth this time 
 What may the thing be? Well, that's 
 
 prime ! 
 
 Now, did you ever? Reason reigns 
 In man alone, since all Tray's pains 
 Have fished the child's doll from the slime ! ' 35
 
 64 TRAY 
 
 " And so, amid the laughter gay, 
 
 Trotted my hero off, old Tray, 
 
 Till somebody, prerogatived 
 
 With reason, reasoned : ' Why he dived, 
 
 His brain would show us, I should say. 40 
 
 " 'John, go and catch or, if needs be, 
 
 Purchase that animal for me ! 
 
 By vivisection, at expense 
 
 Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence, 
 
 How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see '" 45
 
 PHEIDIPPIDES 65 
 
 PHEIDIPPIDES 
 
 Xaipere, viKUftev 
 
 THIS is the story of the great runner who, when the 
 Persians invaded Attica, ran from Athens to Sparta to 
 call on the Spartans to help in the defence of Greece. 
 When the Spartans, not unwilling to see Athens de- 
 stroyed, made excuses and pretended delays, he ran 
 back to Athens in time to take part in the great battle of 
 Marathon. After the battle was won, he was called upon 
 to run to Athens with the news of the victory, and as he 
 burst into the market-place with the cry, Haipere, viKwfj.ev 
 (" Rejoice, we are victorious"), he dropped dead. The 
 god Pan, whom he had seen on his way back from 
 Sparta, had promised him a worthy reward ; and this 
 was in truth a worthy reward, to die in the moment of 
 victory, and at the summit of his glory. 
 
 FIRST I salute this soil of the blessed, river and 
 
 rock ! 
 Gods of my birthplace, daemons and heroes, 
 
 honour to all ! 
 Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, 
 
 co-equal in praise 
 Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the 
 
 aegis and spear ! 
 Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be 
 
 your peer, 5 
 
 2. Damons : supernatural beings, including those lower than 
 the gods. 
 
 4. Her of the cegis and sfear: Athene^ the patron-goddess of 
 Athens. The segis was her breastplate. 
 
 5. Ye of the bow and the buskin : Phoebus Apollo and Artemis.
 
 66 PHEIDIPPIDES 
 
 Now, henceforth and for ever, O latest to 
 
 whom I upraise 
 Hand and heart and voice ! For Athens, leave 
 
 pasture and flock ! 
 Present to help, potent to save, Pan patron I 
 
 call! 
 
 Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I 
 
 return ! 
 See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre 
 
 that speaks ! 10 
 
 Crowned with the myrtle, did you command 
 
 me, Athens and you, 
 " Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta 
 
 for aid ! 
 Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" 
 
 Your command I obeyed, 
 Ran and raced : like stubble, some field which 
 
 a fire runs through, 
 Was the space between city and city : two days, 
 
 two nights did I burn 15 
 
 Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and 
 
 up peaks. 
 
 Into their midst I broke : breath served but for 
 
 " Persia has come ! 
 Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water 
 
 and earth ; 
 Razed to the ground is Eretria but Athens, 
 
 shall Athens sink, 
 
 9. Archons: the chief magistrates of Athens. Tettix: the 
 grasshopper, worn as the national emblem of Athens. 
 
 15. The distance from Athens to Sparta is about 150 miles. 
 
 19. Eretria: one of the chief towns in the island of Eubcea, 
 off the coast of Attica.
 
 PHEIDIPPIDES 67 
 
 Drop into dust and die the flower of Hellas 
 
 utterly die, 20 
 
 Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the 
 
 stupid, the stander-by ? 
 Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you 
 
 stretch o'er destruction's brink ? 
 How, when ? No care for my limbs ! there's 
 
 lightning in all and some 
 Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips 
 
 give it birth ! " 
 
 O my Athens Sparta love thee ? Did Sparta 
 
 respond ? 25 
 
 Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, 
 
 mistrust, 
 Malice, each eye of her gave me its glitter of 
 
 gratified hate ! 
 Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for 
 
 excuses. I stood 
 Quivering, the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, 
 
 an inch from dry wood : 
 "Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still 
 
 they debate ? 30 
 
 Thunder, thou Zeus ! Athene", are Spartans a 
 
 quarry beyond 
 Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, 
 
 clang them 'Ye must' !" 
 
 No bolt launched from Olumpos ! Lo, their 
 
 answer at last ! 
 " Has Persia come, does Athens ask aid, may 
 
 Sparta befriend ? 
 Nowise precipitate judgment too weighty the 
 
 issue at stake ! 35
 
 68 PHEIDIPPIDES 
 
 Count we no time lost time which lags through 
 respect to the Gods ! 
 
 Ponder that precept of old, ' No warfare, what- 
 ever the odds 
 
 In your favour, so long as the moon, half-orbed, 
 is unable to take 
 
 Full-circle her state in the sky ! ' Already she 
 rounds to it fast : 
 
 Athens must wait, patient as we who judgment 
 suspend." 40 
 
 Athens, except for that sparkle, thy name, I 
 
 had mouldered to ash ! 
 That sent a blaze through my blood ; off, off 
 
 and away was I back, 
 Not one word to waste, one look to lose on 
 
 the false and the vile ! 
 Yet " O Gods of my land ! " I cried, as each 
 
 hillock and plain, 
 Wood and stream, I knew. I named, rushing 
 
 past them again, 45 
 
 " Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honours 
 
 we paid you erewhile ? 
 
 Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome liba- 
 tion ! Too rash 
 Love in its choice, paid you so largely service 
 
 so slack ! 
 
 " Oak and olive and bay, I bid you cease to 
 
 enwreathe 
 Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the 
 
 Persian's foot, 50 
 
 37. The Spartan answer was that they could not start on an 
 expedition until the moon was full. When the full moon came, 
 they set out, but only arrived after the battle was over.
 
 PHEIDIPPIDES 69 
 
 You that, our patrons were pledged, should 
 
 never adorn a slave ! 
 Rather I hail thee, Parnes, trust to thy wild 
 
 waste tract ! 
 Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain ! What 
 
 matter if slacked 
 My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag 
 
 and to cave 
 No deity deigns to drape with verdure ? at 
 
 least I can breathe, 55 
 
 Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie 
 
 from the mute ! " 
 
 Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Fames' ridge ; 
 
 Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, 
 sudden, a bar 
 
 Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, block- 
 ing the way. 
 
 Right ! for I minded the hollow to traverse, 
 the fissure across : 60 
 
 "Where I could enter, there I depart by ! 
 Night in the fosse ? 
 
 Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely 
 arise ! No bridge 
 
 Better ! " when ha ! what was it I came on, 
 of wonders that are ? 
 
 There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he majestical 
 
 Pan! 
 Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss 
 
 cushioned his hoof : 65 
 
 52. Parnes : the mountain range between Attica and 
 Bceotia. In the original story, told by Herodotus, it was on 
 Mount Parthenium, in Arcadia, that Pheidippides met the 
 god Pan ; not on Parnes, which did not lie on the direct route 
 between Athens and Sparta.
 
 70 PHEIDIPPIDES 
 
 All the great God was good in the eyes grave- 
 kindly the curl 
 
 Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a 
 mortal's awe, 
 
 As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs 
 grand I saw. 
 
 "Halt, Pheidippides ! " halt I did, my brain 
 of a whirl : 
 
 "Hither to me ! Why pale in my presence?" 
 he gracious began : 70 
 
 " How is it, Athens, only in Hellas, holds me 
 aloof? 
 
 "Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes 
 
 me no feast ! 
 Wherefore ? Than I what godship to Athens 
 
 more helpful of old ? 
 Ay, and still, and for ever her friend ! Test 
 
 Pan, trust me ! 
 Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to 
 
 scorn, have faith 75 
 
 In the temples and tombs ! Go, say to Athens, 
 
 ' The Goat-God saith : 
 When Persia so much as strews not the soil 
 
 is cast in the sea, 
 Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with 
 
 your most and least, 
 Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause 
 
 with the free and the bold ! ' 
 
 " Say Pan saith : ' Let this, foreshowing the 
 
 place, be the pledge ! ' " 80 
 
 (Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear 
 
 68. Pan is represented with the legs of a goat.
 
 PHEIDIPPIDES 71 
 
 Fennel I grasped it a-tremble with dew 
 
 whatever it bode) 
 " While, as for thee ..." But enough ! He 
 
 was gone. If I ran hitherto 
 Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no 
 
 longer, but flew. 
 Parnes to Athens earth no more, the air was 
 
 my road : 85 
 
 Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no 
 
 more on the razor's edge ! 
 Pan for Athens, Pan for me ! I too have a 
 
 guerdon rare ! 
 
 Then spoke Miltiades. " And thee, best runner 
 
 of Greece, 
 Whose limbs did duty indeed, what gift is 
 
 promised thyself? 
 Tell it us straightway, Athens the mother 
 
 demands of her son ! " 90 
 
 Rosily blushed the youth : he paused : but, 
 
 lifting at length 
 His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he 
 
 gathered the rest of his strength 
 Into the utterance "Pan spoke thus: 'For 
 
 what thou hast done 
 Count on a worthy reward ! Henceforth be 
 
 allowed thee release 
 From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in 
 
 praise or in pelf ! ' 95 
 
 86. On the razors edge : a Greek expression for a position of 
 great danger.
 
 72 PHEIDIPPIDES 
 
 " I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the 
 
 most to my mind ! 
 Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this 
 
 fennel may grow, 
 Pound Pan helping us Persia to dust, and, 
 
 under the deep, 
 Whelm her away for ever ; and then, no 
 
 Athens to save, 
 Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to 
 
 the brave, 100 
 
 Hie to my house and home : and when my 
 
 children shall creep 
 Close to my knees, recount how the God 
 
 was awful yet kind, 
 
 Promised their sire reward to the full re- 
 warding him so ! " 
 
 Unforeseeing one ! Yes, he fought on the 
 
 Marathon day : 
 So, when Persia was dust, all cried, " To 
 
 Akropolis ! 105 
 
 Run, Pheidippides, one race more ! the meed 
 
 is thy due ! 
 'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout !" He 
 
 flung down his shield, 
 Ran like fire once more : and the space 'twixt 
 
 the Fennel-field 
 And Athens was stubble again, a field which a 
 
 fire runs through, 
 
 105. Akropolis: the citadel of Athens. 
 
 108. The Fennel-field: the name Marathon means "fennel- 
 field."
 
 PHEIDIPPIDES 73 
 
 Till in he broke : " Rejoice, we conquer ! " Like 
 wine through clay, 110 
 
 Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died 
 the bliss ! 
 
 So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the 
 
 word of salute 
 Is still " Rejoice ! " his word which brought 
 
 rejoicing indeed. 
 So is Pheidippides happy for ever, the noble 
 
 strong man 
 Who could race like a God, bear the face of a 
 
 God, whom a God loved so well ; 115 
 
 He saw the land saved he had helped to save, 
 
 and was suffered to tell 
 Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously 
 
 as he began, 
 So to end gloriously once to shout, thereafter 
 
 be mute : 
 " Athens is saved ! " Pheidippides dies in the 
 
 shout for his meed. 
 
 113. Rejoice: \a.ipt or x<"'p Te i the ordinary Greek form of 
 salutation.
 
 74 ECHETLOS 
 
 ECHETLOS 
 
 ANOTHER story of Marathon. It was said that, while the 
 fight was raging at its hottest, the figure as of a country- 
 man of great stature was seen in front of the Greek 
 ranks, armed only with a ploughshare, with which he 
 struck down the Persians on every side. When the 
 fight was over, he vanished ; and men said that one of 
 the gods had been fighting among them in the form of 
 the countryman. But as they did not know which of 
 the gods it might be, the oracle bade them call him 
 simply Echetlos, " the holder of the ploughshare." 
 
 HERE is a story shall stir you ! Stand up, 
 
 Greeks dead and gone, 
 Who breasted, beat Barbarians, stemmed Persia 
 
 rolling on, 
 Did the deed and saved the world, for the day 
 
 was Marathon ! 
 
 No man but did his manliest, kept rank and 
 fought away 
 
 In his tribe and file : up, back, out, down was 
 the spear-arm play : 5 
 
 Like a wind-whipt branchy wood, all spear- 
 arms a-swing that day ! 
 
 But one man kept no rank and his sole arm 
 
 plied no spear. 
 As a flashing came and went, and a form i' the 
 
 van, the rear, 
 Brightened the battle up, for he blazed now 
 
 there, now here.
 
 ECHETLOS 75 
 
 Nor helmed nor shielded, he ! but, a goat-skin 
 all his wear, 10 
 
 Like a tiller of the soil, with a clown's limbs 
 broad and bare, 
 
 Went he ploughing on and on : he pushed with 
 a ploughman's share. 
 
 Did the weak mid- line give way, as tunnies on 
 
 whom the shark 
 Precipitates his bulk? Did the right-wing halt 
 
 when, stark 
 On his heap of slain lay stretched Kallimachos 
 
 Polemarch ? 15 
 
 Did the steady phalanx falter ? To the rescue, 
 
 at the need, 
 The clown was ploughing Persia, clearing 
 
 Greek earth of weed, 
 As he routed though the Sakian and rooted up 
 
 the Mede. 
 
 But the deed done, battle won, nowhere to be 
 
 descried 
 On the meadow, by the stream, at the marsh, 
 
 look far and wide 20 
 
 From the foot of the mountain, no, to the last 
 
 blood-plashed seaside, 
 
 15. Polemarch: the polemarch (=" general") was the nomi- 
 nal commander-in-chief at Athens, and Kallimachos, in virtue 
 of his office, had given his casting-vote at the council of war 
 in favour of fighting. The actual commander on the day of 
 Marathon was, as is well known, Miltiades. 
 
 1 8. Sakian . . . Mede: two of the chief peoples in the 
 Persian empire.
 
 ?6 ECHETLOS 
 
 Not anywhere on view blazed the large limbs 
 
 thonged and brown, 
 Shearing and clearing still with the share before 
 
 which down 
 To the dust went Persia's pomp, as he ploughed 
 
 for Greece, that clown ! 
 
 How spake the Oracle ? " Care for no name at 
 all ! 25 
 
 Say but just this : ' We praise one helpful whom 
 we call 
 
 The Holder of the Ploughshare.' The great 
 deed ne'er grows small." 
 
 Not the great name ! Sing woe for the great 
 
 name, Miltiades 
 And its end at Paros isle ! Woe for Themis- 
 
 tokles 
 Satrap in Sardis court ! Name not the clown 
 
 like these ! 30 
 
 28-30. Refers to the discreditable endings of the careers of 
 both Miltiades and Themistocles, well-known to all readers of 
 Greek history. Miltiades, the victor at Marathon, died of a 
 wound received in an expedition against Paros, undertaken to 
 serve his private ends, having first been heavily fined for his dis- 
 creditable failure. Themistocles, the victor at Salamis, entered 
 into treasonable correspondence with Persia, fled thither when 
 it was found out, and eventually committed suicide while living 
 under the protection of the Persian king.
 
 MULYKEH 77 
 
 MUL&YKEH 
 
 AN Arabian story, telling how a poor man loved his 
 matchless mare so much that he preferred to let her be 
 carried off from him by his enemy, rather than regain 
 her at the expense of her being beaten in speed for the 
 first time in her life. 
 
 IF a stranger passed the tent of Hoseyn, he 
 
 cried "A churl's!" 
 Or haply "God help the man who has neither 
 
 salt nor bread ! " 
 "Nay," would a friend exclaim, "he needs 
 
 nor pity nor scorn 
 More than who spends small thought on the 
 
 shore-sand, picking pearls, 
 Holds but in light esteem the seed- sort, bears 
 
 instead 5 
 
 On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which 
 
 of night makes morn. 
 
 " What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of 
 Sinan ? 
 
 They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thou- 
 sand camels the due, 
 
 Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of 
 old. 
 
 ' God gave them, let them go ! But never since 
 time began, 10
 
 78 MULEYKEH 
 
 Muleykeh, peerless mare, owned master the 
 
 match of you, 
 And you are my prize, my Pearl : I laugh at 
 
 men's land and gold ! ' 
 
 " So in the pride of his soul laughs Hdseyn 
 and right, I say, 
 
 Do the ten steeds run a race of glory ? Out- 
 stripping all, 
 
 Ever Muleykeh stands first steed at the victor's 
 staff. 15 
 
 Who started, the owner's hope, gets shamed and 
 named, that day. 
 
 ' Silence,' or, last but one, is ' The Cuffed,' as we 
 use to call 
 
 Whom the paddock's lord thrusts forth. Right, 
 Hoseyn, I say, to laugh ! " 
 
 " Boasts he Muleykeh the Pearl ? " the stranger 
 
 replies : " Be sure 
 
 On him I waste nor scorn nor pity, but lavish both 
 On Duhl the son of Sheyb^n, who withers away 
 
 in heart 2 r 
 
 For envy of Hoseyn's luck. Such sickness 
 
 admits no cure. 
 A certain poet has sung, and sealed the same 
 
 with an oath, 
 ' For the vulgar flocks and herds ! The Pearl 
 
 is a prize apart.' " 
 
 Lo, Duhl the son of Sheybin comes riding to 
 Hoseyn's tent, 25 
 
 And he casts his saddle down, and enters and 
 "Peace! "bids he.
 
 MULEYKEH 79 
 
 " You are poor, I know the cause : my plenty 
 
 shall mend the wrong. 
 'Tis said of your Pearl the price of a hundred 
 
 camels spent 
 In her purchase were scarce ill paid : such 
 
 prudence is far from me 
 Who proffer a thousand. Speak ! Long parley 
 
 may last too long." 30 
 
 Said Hoseyn, " You feed young beasts a many, 
 
 of famous breed, 
 Slit-eared, unblemished, fat, true offspring of 
 
 Muzennem : 
 There stumbles no weak-eyed she in the line as 
 
 it climbs the hill. 
 But I love Muldykeh's face : her forefront 
 
 whitens indeed 
 Like a yellowish wave's cream-crest. Your 
 
 camels go gaze on them ! 35 
 
 Her fetlock is foam-splashed too. Myself am 
 
 the richer still." 
 
 A year goes by : lo, back to the tent again 
 rides Duhl. 
 
 " You are open-hearted, ay moist-handed, a 
 very prince. 
 
 Why should I speak of sale? Be the mare 
 your simple gift ! 
 
 My son is pined to death for her beauty : my 
 wife prompts ' Fool, 40 
 
 Beg for his sake the Pearl ! Be God the re- 
 warder, since 
 
 God pays debts seven for one : who squanders 
 on Him shows thrift.'"
 
 8o MULEYKEH 
 
 Said Hoseyn, " God gives each man one life, 
 
 like a lamp, then gives 
 That lamp due measure of oil : lamp lighted 
 
 hold high, wave wide 
 Its comfort for others to share ! once quench it, 
 
 what help is left ? 45 
 
 The oil of your lamp is your son : I shine while 
 
 Muleykeh lives. 
 Would I beg your son to cheer my dark if 
 
 Muleykeh died ? 
 It is life against life : what good avails to the 
 
 life-bereft?" 
 
 Another year, and hist ! What craft is it 
 
 Duhl designs ? 
 He alights not at the door of the tent as he did 
 
 last time, 50 
 
 But, creeping behind, he gropes his stealthy 
 
 way by the trench 
 Half-round till he finds the flap in the folding, 
 
 for night combines 
 With the robber and such is he : Duhl, 
 
 covetous up to crime, 
 Must wring from Hoseyn's grasp the Pearl, by 
 
 whatever the wrench. 
 
 " He was hunger-bitten, I heard : I tempted 
 
 with half my store, 55 
 
 And a gibe was all my thanks. Is he generous 
 
 like Spring dew ? 
 Account the fault to me who chaffered with 
 
 such an one ! 
 He has killed, to feast chance comers, the 
 
 creature he rode : nay, more
 
 MULEYKEH 8 1 
 
 For a couple of singing-girls his robe has he 
 
 torn in two : 
 I will beg ! Yet I nowise gained by the tale of 
 
 my wife and son. 60 
 
 " I swear by the Holy House, my head will I 
 
 never wash 
 Till I filch his Pearl away. Fair dealing I 
 
 tried, then guile, 
 And now I resort to force. He said we must 
 
 live or die : 
 Let him die, then, let me live ! Be bold but 
 
 not too rash ! 
 I have found me a peeping-place : breast, bury 
 
 your breathing while 65 
 
 I explore for myself! Now, breathe! He 
 
 deceived me not, the spy ! 
 
 " As he said there lies in peace Hoseyn how 
 
 happy ! Beside 
 Stands tethered the Pearl : thrice winds her 
 
 headstall about his wrist : 
 'Tis therefore he sleeps so sound the moon 
 
 through the roof reveals. 
 And, loose on his left, stands too that other, 
 
 known far and wide, 70 
 
 Buheyseh. her sister born : fleet is she, yet ever 
 
 missed 
 The winning tail's fire-flash a-stream past the 
 
 thunderous heels. 
 
 " No less she stands saddled and bridled, this 
 
 second, in case some thief ' 
 Should enter and seize and fly with the first, as 
 
 I mean to do.
 
 82 MULEYKEH 
 
 What then ? The Pearl is the Pearl : once 
 
 mount her we both escape. 1 ' 75 
 
 Through the skirt-fold in glides Duhl, so a 
 
 serpent disturbs no leaf 
 In a bush as he parts the twigs entwining a 
 
 nest : clean through, 
 He is noiselessly at his work : as he planned, 
 
 he performs the rape. 
 
 He has set the tent-door wide, has buckled the 
 
 girth, has clipped 
 The headstall away from the wrist he leaves 
 
 thrice bound as before, 80 
 
 He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the 
 
 desert like bolt from bow. 
 Up starts our plundered man : from his breast 
 
 though the heart be ripped, 
 Yet his mind has the mastery : behold, in a 
 
 minute more, 
 He is out and off and away on Buhdyseh, whose 
 
 worth we know ! 
 
 And Hoseyn his blood turns flame, he has 
 learned long since to ride, 85 
 
 And Buhe"yseh does her part, they gain they 
 are gaining fast 
 
 On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed-Ddrraj 
 to cross and quit, 
 
 And to reach the ridge El-Sabdn, no safety 
 till that be spied ! 
 
 And Buhe"yseh is, bound by bound, but a horse- 
 length off at last, 
 
 For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, 
 the touch of the bit. 9
 
 MULYKEH 83 
 
 She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider 
 
 the strange and queer : 
 Buheyseh is mad with hope beat sister she 
 
 shall and must, 
 Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, 
 
 she has to thank. 
 She is near now, nose by tail they are neck 
 
 by croup joy ! fear ! 
 What folly makes Hoseyn shout, " Dog Duhl, 
 
 Damned son of the Dust, 95 
 
 Touch the right ear and press with your foot 
 
 my Pearl's left flank ! " 
 
 And Duhl was wise at the word, and Mule"ykeh 
 as prompt perceived 
 
 Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear 
 him was to obey, 
 
 And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished for 
 evermore. 
 
 And Hoseyn looked one long last look as who, 
 all bereaved, 100 
 
 Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the 
 living may : 
 
 Then he turned Buhe"yseh's neck slow home- 
 ward, weeping sore. 
 
 And, lo, in the sunrise, still sat Hoseyn upon 
 the ground 
 
 Weeping : and neighbours came, the tribesmen 
 of Benu-Asad 
 
 In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they ques- 
 tioned him of his grief ; 105 
 
 And he told from first to last how, serpent-like, 
 Duhl had wound
 
 84 MULEYKEH 
 
 His way to the nest, and how Duhl rode like an 
 
 ape, so bad ! 
 And how Buheyseh did wonders, yet Pearl 
 
 remained with the thief. 
 
 And they jeered him, one and all: "Poor Hoseyn 
 
 is crazed past hope ! 
 How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in 
 
 fortune's spite ? no 
 
 To have simply held the tongue were a task 
 
 for a boy or girl, 
 And here were Muleykeh again, the eyed like 
 
 an antelope, 
 The child of his heart by day, the wife of his 
 
 breast by night ! " 
 " And the beaten in speed ! " wept Hoseyn : 
 
 " You never have loved my Pearl."
 
 THE POPE AND THE NET 85 
 
 THE POPE AND THE NET 
 
 AN imaginary story of how a Pope once got himself 
 elected ; showing how an appearance of humility may 
 be the best means of bringing about the most ambitious 
 designs. 
 
 WHAT, he on whom our voices unanimously 
 
 ran, 
 Made Pope at our last Conclave ? Full low his 
 
 life began : 
 His father earned the daily bread as just a 
 
 fisherman. 
 
 So much the more his boy minds book, gives 
 
 proof of mother-wit, 
 Becomes first Deacon, and then Priest, then 
 
 Bishop : see him sit 5 
 
 No less than Cardinal ere long, while no one 
 
 cries " Unfit ! " 
 
 But some one smirks, some other smiles, jogs 
 
 elbow and nods head : 
 Each winks at each: '"I-faith, a rise! Saint 
 
 Peter's net, instead 
 Of sword and keys, is come in vogue ! " You 
 
 think he blushes red ? 
 
 2. Conclave : the assembly of Cardinals by whom the Pope Is 
 elected. 
 
 I)
 
 86 THE POPE AND THE NET 
 
 Not he, of humble holy heart ! " Unworthy 
 me !" he sighs : 10 
 
 " From fisher's drudge to Church's prince it is 
 indeed a rise : 
 
 So, here's my way to keep the fact for ever in 
 my eyes ! " 
 
 And straightway in his palace-hall, where com- 
 monly is set 
 
 Some coat of arms, some portraiture ancestral, 
 lo, we met 
 
 His mean estate's reminder in his fisher-father's 
 net ! 15 
 
 Which step conciliates all and some, stops 
 cavil in a trice : 
 
 " The humble holy heart that holds of new- 
 born pride no spice ! 
 
 He's just the saint to choose for Pope ! " Each 
 adds " 'Tis my advice." 
 
 So, Pope he was : and when we flocked its 
 
 sacred slipper on 
 To kiss his foot, we lifted eyes, alack the thing 
 
 was gone 20 
 
 That guarantee of lowlihead, eclipsed that star 
 
 which shone ! 
 
 Each eyed his fellow, one and all kept silence. 
 
 I cried " Pish ! 
 I'll make me spokesman for the rest, express 
 
 the common wish. 
 Why, Father, is the net removed?" "Son, it 
 
 hath caught the fish."
 
 MUCKLE-MOUTH MEG 87 
 
 MUCKLE-MOUTH MEG 
 
 THIS story is founded on fact. In the last days of the 
 sixteenth century, when the inhabitants on either side 
 of the Scotch border still made war on one another 
 occasionally, a young William Scott of Harden was 
 captured while plundering the lands of Sir Gideon 
 Murray of Elibank, and was about to be hanged when 
 Lady Murray suggested that they had three unmarried 
 daughters, and that the culprit was heir to a good 
 estate. Accordingly he was allowed to escape the 
 gallows on condition of marrying the plainest of the 
 three ; and the marriage-contract, which was promptly 
 executed on the parchment of a drum, is still in exist- 
 ence. The couple thus strangely united were among 
 the ancestors of Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 FROWNED the Laird on the Lord : " So, red- 
 handed I catch thee ? 
 Death-doomed by our Law of the Border ! 
 We've a gallows outside and a chiel to despatch 
 
 thee : 
 Who trespasses hangs : all's in order." 
 
 He met frown with smile, did the young 
 
 English gallant : 5 
 
 Then the Laird's dame: "Nay, Husband, 
 
 I beg! 
 He's comely : be merciful ! Grace for the 
 
 callant 
 If he marries our Muckle-mouth Meg ! " 
 
 7. Callant : young fellow. 
 
 8. Muckle-mouth: i.e., large-mouthed.
 
 88 MUCKLE-MOUTH MEG 
 
 "No mile-wide-mouthed monster of yours do 
 
 I marry : 
 
 Grant rather the gallows !" laughed he. 10 
 ' : Foul fare kith and kin of you why do you 
 
 tarry?" 
 " To tame your fierce temper ! " quoth she. 
 
 " Shove him quick in the Hole, shut him fast 
 
 for a week : 
 
 Cold, darkness, and hunger work wonders : 
 Who lion-like roars now, mouse-fashion will 
 squeak, i 5 
 
 And ' it rains ' soon succeed to ' it thunders.' " 
 
 A week did he bide in the cold and the dark 
 Not hunger : for duly at morning 
 
 In flitted a lass, and a voice like a lark 
 Chirped " Muckle-mouth Meg still ye're 
 scorning ? 20 
 
 "Go hang, but here's parritch to hearten ye 
 
 first ! " 
 
 " Did Meg's muckle-mouth boast within some 
 Such music as yours, mine should match it or 
 
 burst : 
 No frog-jaws ! So tell folk, my Winsome ! " 
 
 Soon week came to end, and, from Hole's door 
 
 set wide, 25 
 
 Out he marched, and there waited the lassie : 
 
 " Yon gallows, or Muckle-mouth Meg for a 
 
 bride ! 
 Consider ! Sky's blue and turfs grassy : 
 
 21. Parritch: porridge.
 
 MUCKLE-MOUTH MEG 89 
 
 " Life's sweet : shall I say ye wed Muckle- 
 
 mouth Meg?" 
 
 " Not I," quoth the stout heart : " too eerie 
 The mouth that can swallow a bubblyjock's 
 egg : 31 
 
 Shall I let it munch mine ? Never, Dearie ! " 
 
 " Not Muckle-mouth Meg ? Wow, the obstinate 
 
 man ! 
 
 Perhaps he would rather wed me ! " 
 "Ay, would he with just for a dowry your 
 can !" 35 
 
 " I'm Muckle-mouth Meg," chirruped she. 
 
 " Then so so so so " as he kissed her 
 apace 
 
 " Will I widen thee out till thou turnest 
 From Margaret Minnikin-mou', by God's grace, 
 
 To Muckle-mouth Meg in good earnest ! " 40 
 
 30. Eerie: unnatural. 
 
 31. Bubblyjock : a. turkey. 
 
 39. Minnikin-mou' : tiny-mouthed.
 
 90 PROSPICE 
 
 PROSPICE 
 
 THE poem of a brave man face to face with death, who 
 will die fighting, with a sure hope of a blessed hereafter. 
 
 FEAR death ? to feel the fog in my throat, 
 
 The mist in my face, 
 When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 
 
 I am nearing the place, 
 The power of the night, the press of the storm, 
 
 The post of the foe ; 6 
 
 Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible 
 form, 
 
 Yet the strong man must go : 
 For the journey is done and the summit attained, 
 
 And the barriers fall, 10 
 
 Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be 
 gained, 
 
 The reward of it all. 
 I was ever a fighter, so one fight more, 
 
 The best and the last ! 
 
 I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and 
 forbore, 1 5 
 
 And bade me creep past. 
 
 No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my 
 peers 
 
 The heroes of old, 
 
 Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's 
 arrears 
 
 Of pain, darkness, and cold. 20
 
 PROSPICE 91 
 
 For sudden the worst turns the best to the 
 
 brave, 
 
 The black minute's at end, 
 And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that 
 
 rave, 
 
 Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
 Shall change, shall become first a peace out of 
 pain, 25 
 
 Then a light, then thy breast, 
 O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee 
 
 again, 
 And with God be the rest !
 
 92 A PISGAH SIGHT 
 
 A PISGAH SIGHT 
 
 THIS little poem expresses a vision of the freedom of the 
 soul when released from the body. It does not matter 
 what becomes of the body ; the soul is free now to rise 
 to "sunshine and love." The lines were written as 
 introduction to a longer poem in memory of a dead 
 friend. 
 
 I. 
 
 GOOD, to forgive ; 
 
 Best, to forget ! 
 
 Living, we fret ; 
 Dying, we live. 
 Fretless and free, 5 
 
 Soul, clap thy pinion ! 
 
 Earth have dominion, 
 Body, o'er thee ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Wander at will, 
 
 Day after day, 10 
 
 Wander away, 
 Wandering still 
 Soul that canst soar ! 
 
 Body may slumber : 
 
 Body shall cumber 15 
 
 Soul-flight no more.
 
 A PISGAH SIGHT 
 
 III. 
 
 93 
 
 Waft of soul's wing ! 
 
 What lies above ? 
 
 Sunshine and Love, 
 Skyblue and Spring ! 20 
 
 Body hides where ? 
 
 Ferns of all feather, 
 
 Mosses and heather, 
 Yours be the care ! 
 
 D 2
 
 94 EVELYN HOPE 
 
 EVELYN HOPE 
 
 ANOTHER study of death. A girl of sixteen is lying 
 dead, and the speaker declares that, though he was 
 three times as old as she, he has yet loved her all the 
 while. In this life his love has been fruitless ; he has 
 seemed to have nothing to do with her ; but the love 
 must have had a meaning, and in the life to come he 
 will claim her as his own. 
 
 BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead ! 
 
 Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
 That is her book-shelf, this her bed ; 
 
 She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, 
 Beginning to die too, in the glass ; 5 
 
 Little has yet been changed, I think : 
 The shutters are shut, no light may pass 
 
 Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink. 
 
 u. 
 
 Sixteen years old when she died ! 
 
 Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name ; 10 
 It was not her time to love ; beside, 
 
 Her life had many a hope and aim, 
 Duties enough and little cares, 
 
 And now was quiet, now astir, 
 Till God's hand beckoned unawares, 15 
 
 And the sweet white brow is all of her.
 
 EVELYN HOPE 95 
 
 III. 
 
 Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? 
 
 What, your soul was pure and true, 
 The good stars met in your horoscope, 
 
 Made you of spirit, fire, and dew 20 
 
 And, just because I was thrice as old 
 
 And our paths in the world diverged so wide, 
 Each was nought to each, must I be told ? 
 
 We were fellow mortals, nought beside ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 No, indeed ! for God above 25 
 
 Is great to grant, as mighty to make, 
 And creates the love to reward the love : 
 
 I claim you still, for my own love's sake ! 
 Delayed it may be for more lives yet, 
 
 Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few : 30 
 Much is to learn, much to forget 
 
 Ere the time be come for taking you. 
 
 v. 
 
 But the time will come, at last it will, 
 
 When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) 
 In the lower earth, in the years long still, 35 
 
 That body and soul so pure and gay ? 
 Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, 
 
 And your mouth of your own geranium's red 
 And what you would do with me, in fine, 
 
 In the new life come in the old one's stead. 40 
 
 19. Horoscope : a term of astrology, meaning the position of 
 the planets at the moment of a person's birth, from which it was 
 supposed that his fortune could be foretold.
 
 96 EVELYN HOPE 
 
 VI. 
 
 I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, 
 
 Given up myself so many times, 
 Gained me the gains of various men, 
 
 Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes ; 
 Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, 45 
 
 Either I missed or itself missed me : 
 And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope ! 
 
 What is the issue ? let us see ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 I loved you, Evelyn, all the while. 
 
 My heart seemed full as it could hold ? 50 
 There was place and to spare for the frank 
 
 young smile, 
 And the red young mouth, and the hair's 
 
 young gold. 
 
 So, hush, I will give you this leaf to keep : 
 See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand ! 
 There, that is our secret : go to sleep ! 55 
 
 You will wake, and remember, and under- 
 stand.
 
 97 
 
 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 
 
 SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF 
 LEARNING IN EUROPE 
 
 THIS poem is supposed to be chanted by a band of 
 young scholars as they carry their master's body up a 
 lofty mountain to bury it. It gives a vivid picture of 
 the enthusiasm for learning which was felt, especially 
 in Italy, in the fifteenth century, when the knowledge of 
 the Greek language and literature was coming back to 
 Western Europe, after having been lost for many cen- 
 turies. The "Grammarian," whose funeral is here 
 described, is a man who has devoted his whole life to 
 the study of learning. He refuses all suggestions that 
 it is time to leave off learning and enjoy what he has 
 learnt ; he goes on labouring incessantly at those small 
 points of grammar which form the foundation of all 
 sound knowledge of a language. His life has come to an 
 end, while his task is still unfinished ; but he has been 
 quite content to trust the result to God, knowing that 
 man has eternity to look to. It is a finer thing to aim 
 at a great result and miss by a little, than to aim at a 
 low result and succeed. So this man's life, though 
 apparently incomplete and a failure, has really been one 
 of noble aspirations, which will surely receive their ful 
 reward hereafter. 
 
 LET us begin and carry up this corpse, 
 
 Singing together. 
 Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes 
 
 Each in its tether 
 
 3. Crofts : small farms. Thorfes : villages.
 
 98 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 
 
 Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, 5 
 
 Cared-for till cock-crow : 
 Look out if yonder be not day again 
 
 Rimming the rock-row ! 
 
 That's the appropriate country ; there, man's 
 thought. 
 
 Rarer, intenser, 10 
 
 Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, 
 
 Chafes in the censer. 
 
 Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and 
 crop : 
 
 Seek we sepulture 
 On a tall mountain, citied to the top, 1 5 
 
 Crowded with culture ! 
 All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels : 
 
 Clouds overcome it ; 
 No ! yonder sparkle is the citadel's 
 
 Circling its summit. 20 
 
 Thither our path lies ; wind we up the heights ; 
 
 Wait ye the warning ? 
 Our low life was the level's and the night's ; 
 
 He's for the morning. 
 Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 25 
 
 'Ware the beholders ! 
 This is our master, famous calm and dead, 
 
 Borne on our shoulders. 
 
 Sleep, crop and herd ! sleep, darkling thorpe 
 and croft, 
 
 Safe from the weather ! 30 
 
 He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, 
 Singing together, 
 
 8. Rimming the rock-row: that is, just showing behind the 
 rim of the rocks on the sky-line.
 
 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 99 
 
 He was a man born with thy face and throat, 
 
 Lyric Apollo ! 
 
 Long he lived nameless : how should spring 
 take note 35 
 
 Winter would follow ? 
 Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone ! 
 
 Cramped and diminished, 
 Moaned he, " New measures, other feet anon ! 
 
 " My dance is finished ?" 40 
 
 No, that's the world's way : (keep the mountain- 
 side, 
 
 Make for the city !) 
 He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride 
 
 Over men's pity ; 
 Left play for work, and grappled with the world 
 
 Bent on escaping : 46 
 
 " What's in the scroll," quoth he, " thou keepest 
 furled? 
 
 " Show me their shaping, 
 
 " Theirs who most studied man, the bard and 
 sage, 
 
 " Give ! " So, he gowned him, 50 
 Straight got by heart that book to its last 
 page: 
 
 Learned, we found him. 
 Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, 
 
 Accents uncertain : 
 " Time to taste life," another would have said, 
 
 " Up with the curtain ! " 56 
 
 40. Notice Browning's way of expressing a negative by a 
 question. This passage means, "When he found his youth 
 departing, did he mourn that his career was finished ? No, he 
 only set himself to work more seriously." A similar use of a 
 question occurs in lines 57 and 140.
 
 ioo A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 
 
 This man said rather, " Actual life comes next ? 
 
 " Patience a moment ! 
 " Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, 
 
 " Still there's the comment. 60 
 
 " Let me know all ! Prate not of most or least, 
 
 " Painful or easy ! 
 " Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, 
 
 " Ay, nor feel queasy." 
 Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, 65 
 
 When he had learned it, 
 When he had gathered all books had to give ! 
 
 Sooner, he spurned it. 
 Image the whole, then execute the parts 
 
 Fancy the fabric 70 
 
 Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from 
 quartz, 
 
 Ere mortar dab brick ! 
 
 (Here's the town-gate reached : there's the 
 market-place 
 
 Gaping before us.) 
 Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace 75 
 
 (Hearten our chorus !) 
 That before living he'd learn how to live 
 
 No end to learning : 
 Earn the means first God surely will contrive 
 
 Use for our earning. 80 
 
 Others mistrust and say, " But time escapes : 
 
 " Live now or never ! " 
 
 He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs 
 and apes ! 
 
 " Man has Forever." 
 
 64. Queasy : sick
 
 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 101 
 
 Back to his book then : deeper drooped his head : 
 
 Calculus racked him : 86 
 
 Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead : 
 
 Tussis attacked him. 
 " Now, master, take a little rest ! " not he ! 
 
 (Caution redoubled, 90 
 
 Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly !) 
 
 Not a whit troubled 
 Back to his studies, fresher than at first, 
 
 Fierce as a dragon 
 He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) 95 
 
 Sucked at the flagon. 
 Oh, if we draw a circle premature, 
 
 Heedless of far gain, 
 Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure 
 
 Bad is our bargain ! 100 
 
 Was it not great ? did not he throw on God, 
 
 (He loves the burthen) 
 God's task to make the heavenly period 
 
 Perfect the earthen ? 
 Did not he magnify the mind, show clear 105 
 
 Just what it all meant ? 
 He would not discount life, as fools do here, 
 
 Paid by instalment. 
 He ventured neck or nothing heaven's success 
 
 Found, or earth's failure : no 
 
 86. Calculus : the Latin name of a disease. 
 
 83. Tussis: cough. 
 
 95. Soul-hydroptic : hydroptic means afflicted with a disease 
 which produces a consuming thirst ; so the whole phrase here 
 means " consumed with a sacred thirst in his soul," namely, the 
 thirst for learning. 
 
 107, 108. That is, he would not anticipate the full enjoyment 
 of life hereafter by an imperfect enjoyment of it now, before he 
 had learnt its full use and meaning.
 
 102 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 
 
 ' Wilt thou trust death or not ?" He answered 
 "Yes: 
 
 " Hence with life's pale lure ! " 
 That low man seeks a little thing to do, 
 
 Sees it and does it : 
 This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
 
 Dies ere he knows it. 116 
 
 That low man goes on adding one to one, 
 
 His hundred's soon hit : 
 This high man, aiming at a million, 
 
 Misses an unit. 120 
 
 That, has the world here should he need the 
 next, 
 
 Let the world mind him ! 
 This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed 
 
 Seeking shall find him. 
 
 So, with the throttling hands of death at 
 strife, 
 
 Ground he at grammar ; 126 
 
 Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were 
 rife : 
 
 While he could stammer 
 He settled Hotfs business let it be ! 
 
 Properly based Oun 130 
 
 Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, 
 
 Dead from the waist down. 
 Well, here's the platform, here's the proper 
 place : 
 
 Hail to your purlieus, 
 All ye highfliers of the feathered race, 135 
 
 Swallows and curlews ! 
 
 129-131. Hoti Oun De : Greek particles, meaning respec- 
 tively " that" (or "because"), "therefore," " towards." 
 134. Purlieus: regions.
 
 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 103 
 
 Here's the top-peak ; the multitude below 
 
 Live, for they can, there : 
 This man decided not to Live but Know 
 
 Bury this man there ? 140 
 
 Here here's his place, where meteors shoot, 
 clouds form, 
 
 Lightnings are loosened, 
 
 Stars come and go ! Let joy break with the 
 storm, 
 
 Peace let the dew send ! 
 Lofty designs must close in like effects : 145 
 
 Loftily lying, 
 Leave him still loftier than the world suspects, 
 
 Living and dying.
 
 104 EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO 
 
 EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO 
 
 THESE lines are the last published by Robert Browning. 
 The volume of which they are the conclusion appeared 
 on the day on which he died ; though he himself re- 
 ceived an advance copy of it shortly before his death, 
 and heard that the first reviews gave it a very favourable 
 reception. The third stanza describes, as well as any- 
 thing he ever wrote, his constant bearing in life his 
 courage, his hopefulness, his perseverance. The poem 
 looks forward, too, to a continuance of useful work after 
 death. He does not wish to be pitied, as if death were 
 a prison which ended all activity. His whole life on 
 earth has shown that his sympathies are not with the 
 helpless and hopeless, that he has been always brave 
 and hopeful, and he is prepared to greet with a cheer 
 the unseen life which is to come. No fitter or more 
 characteristic words could have been chosen to end the 
 message of Robert Browning to mankind. 
 
 AT the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, 
 
 When you set your fancies free, 
 Will they pass to where by death, fools think, 
 
 imprisoned, 
 
 Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you 
 loved so, 
 
 Pity me ? 5 
 
 Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken ! 
 
 What had I on earth to do 
 With the slothful, with the mawkish, the un- 
 manly ? 
 
 Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel 
 Being who? 10
 
 EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO 105 
 
 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. 15 
 
 No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 
 
 Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
 Bid him forward, breast and back as either 
 
 should be, 
 
 "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed, fight on, 
 fare ever 
 
 " There as here ! " 20
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT 
 BROWNING 
 
 1809-1861
 
 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 THE story of a lady who followed her husband to the 
 wars in the disguise of a page, and died when he (not 
 guessing who she was) declared that he would never 
 love a wife who so demeaned herself. 
 
 I. 
 A KNIGHT of gallant deeds 
 
 And a young page at his side, 
 From the holy war in Palestine 
 
 Did slow and thoughtful ride, 
 As each were a palmer and told for beads 5 
 
 The dews of the eventide. 
 
 II. 
 " O young page," said the knight, 
 
 " A noble page art thou ! 
 Thou fearest not to steep in blood 
 
 The curls upon thy brow ; 10 
 
 And once in the tent, and twice in the fight, 
 
 Didst ward me a mortal blow." 
 
 in. 
 " O brave knight," said the page, 
 
 " Or ere we hither came, 
 We talked in tent, we talked in field, 1 5 
 
 Of the bloody battle-game ; 
 But here, below this greenwood bough, 
 
 I cannot speak the same. 
 
 5. Palmer : a pilgrim to the Holy Land. Beads : the beads 
 of a rosary, used for counting prayers. 
 109
 
 10 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Our troop is far behind, 
 
 The woodland calm is new ; 20 
 
 Our steeds, with slow grass-muffled hoofs, 
 
 Tread deep the shadows through ; 
 And, in my mind, some blessing kind 
 
 Is dropping with the dew. 
 
 " The woodland calm is pure 25 
 
 I cannot choose but have 
 A thought from these, o' the beechen-trees, 
 
 Which in our England wave, 
 And of the little finches fine 
 Which sang there while in Palestine 30 
 
 The warrior-hilt we drave. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Methinks, a moment gone, 
 
 I heard my mother pray ! 
 I heard, sir knight, the prayer for me 
 
 Wherein she passed away ; 35 
 
 And I know the heavens are leaning down 
 
 To hear what I shall say." 
 
 vn. 
 
 The page spake calm and high, 
 
 As of no mean degree ; 
 Perhaps he felt in Nature's broad 40 
 
 Full heart, his own was free : 
 And the knight looked up to his lifted eye, 
 
 Then answered smilingly
 
 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE III 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " Sir page, I pray your grace .' 
 
 Certes, I meant not so 45 
 
 To cross your pastoral mood, sir page, 
 
 With the crook of the battle-bow ; 
 But a knight may speak of a lady's face, 
 I ween, in any mood or place, 
 
 If the grasses die or grow. 50 
 
 IX. 
 
 And this I meant to say 
 
 My lady's face shall shine 
 As ladies' faces use, to greet 
 
 My page from Palestine ; 
 Or, speak she fair or prank she gay, 55 
 
 She is no lady of mine. 
 
 x. 
 
 " And this I meant to fear 
 
 Her bower may suit thee ill ; 
 For, sooth, in that same field and tent, 
 
 Thy talk was somewhat still : 60 
 
 And fitter thy hand for my knightly spear 
 
 Than thy tongue for my lady's will ! " 
 
 XI. 
 
 Slowly and thankfully 
 
 The young page bowed his head ; 
 His large eyes seemed to muse a smile, 65 
 
 Until he blushed instead, 
 
 45. Certes : certainly. 
 
 55. Prank : dress herself up.
 
 112 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 And no lady in her bower, pardie, 
 
 Could blush more sudden red : 
 " Sir Knight, thy lady's bower to me 
 
 Is suited well," he said. 70 
 
 XII. 
 
 Beati, beati, mortui! 
 From the convent on the sea, 
 One mile off, or scarce so nigh, 
 Swells the dirge as clear and high 
 As if that, over brake and lea, 75 
 
 Bodily the wind did carry 
 The great altar of Saint Mary, 
 And the fifty tapers burning o'er it, 
 And the Lady Abbess dead before it, 
 And the chanting nuns whom yesterweek 80 
 Her voice did charge and bless, 
 Chanting steady, chanting meek, 
 Chanting with a solemn breath, 
 Because that they are thinking less 
 Upon the dead than upon death. 85 
 
 Beati, beati, mortui. f 
 Now the vision in the sound 
 Wheeleth on the wind around : 
 Now it sweepeth back, away 
 The uplands will not let it stay go 
 
 To dark the western sun : 
 Mortui / away at last, 
 Or ere the page's blush is past ! 
 And the knight heard all, and the page heard 
 none. 
 
 67. Pardie : an old Norman-French ejaculation ; literally, 
 "by God." 
 71. Beati, beati, mortui: "blessed, blessed are the dead."
 
 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 113 
 
 XIII. 
 
 "A boon, thou noble knight, 95 
 
 If ever I served thee ! 
 Though thou art a knight and I am a page 
 
 Now grant a boon to me ; 
 And tell me sooth, if dark or bright, 
 If little loved or loved aright ico 
 
 Be the face of thy ladye." 
 
 Gloomily looked the knight 
 "As a son thou hast served me, 
 
 And would to none I had granted boon 
 Except to only thee ! 105 
 
 For haply then I should love aright, 
 
 For then I should know if dark or bright 
 Were the face of my ladye. 
 
 XV. 
 
 " Yet it ill suits my knightly tongue 
 To grudge that granted boon, no 
 
 That heavy price from heart and life 
 I paid in silence down ; 
 
 The hand that claimed it, cleared in fine 
 
 My father's fame : I swear by mine, 
 That price was nobly won ! 115 
 
 XVI. 
 
 "Earl Walter was a brave old earl, 
 
 He was my father's friend ; 
 And while I rode the lists at court 
 
 And little guessed the end, 
 
 118. Rode the lists: took part in tournaments
 
 114 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 My noble father in his shroud 120 
 
 Against a slanderer lying loud, 
 He rose up to defend. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " Oh, calm below the marble grey 
 
 My father's dust was strown ! 
 Oh, meek above the marble grey 125 
 
 His image prayed alone ! 
 The slanderer lied : the wretch was brave 
 For, looking up the minster-nave, 
 He saw my father's knightly glaive 
 
 Was changed from steel to stone. 130 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 " Earl Walter's glaive was steel, 
 With a brave old hand to wear it, 
 
 And dashed the lie back in the mouth 
 
 Which lied against the godly truth 
 
 And against the knightly merit : 135 
 
 The slanderer, 'neath the avenger's heel, 
 
 Struck up the dagger in appeal 
 
 From stealthy lie to brutal force 
 
 And out upon the traitor's corse 
 
 Was yielded the true spirit. 140 
 
 XIX. 
 
 " I would mine hand had fought that fight 
 
 And justified my father ! 
 I would mine heart had caught that wound 
 
 And slept beside him rather ! 
 
 129. Glaive: sword.
 
 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 115 
 
 I think it were a better thing 145 
 
 Than murdered friend and marriage-ring 
 Forced on my life together. 
 
 XX. 
 
 " Wail shook Earl Walter's house ; 
 
 His true wife shed no tear ; 
 She lay upon her bed as mute 1 50 
 
 As the earl did on his bier : 
 Till ' Ride, ride fast,' she said at last, 
 
 ' And bring the avenged's son anear ! 
 Ride fast, ride free, as a dart can flee, 
 For white of blee with waiting for me 155 
 
 Is the corse in the next chambere.' 
 
 XXI. 
 
 " I came, I knelt beside her bed ; 
 
 Her calm was worse than strife : 
 ' My husband, for thy father dear, 
 Gave freely when thou wast not here 160 
 
 His own and eke my life. 
 A boon ! Of that sweet child we make 
 An orphan for thy father's sake, 
 
 Make thou, for ours, a wife.' 
 
 XXII. 
 
 " I said, ' My steed neighs in the court, 165 
 
 My bark rocks on the brine, 
 And the warrior's vow I am under now 
 
 To free the pilgrim's shrine ; 
 
 155. White of bice: white in appearance.
 
 Il6 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 But fetch the ring and fetch the priest 
 And call that daughter of thine, 170 
 
 And rule she wide from my castle on Nyde 
 While I am in Palestine.' 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 "In the dark chambere, if the bride was fair, 
 
 Ye wis, I could not see, 
 But the steed thrice neighed, and the priest 
 fast prayed, 175 
 
 And wedded fast were we. 
 Her mother smiled upon her bed 
 As at its side we knelt to wed, 
 
 And the bride rose from her knee 
 And kissed the smile of her mother dead, i So 
 
 Or ever she kissed me. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 " My page, my page, what grieves thee so, 
 That the tears run down thy face ? " 
 
 " Alas, alas ! mine own sister 
 Was in thy lady's case : 185 
 
 But she laid down the silks she wore 
 
 And followed him she wed before, 
 
 Disguised as his true servitor, 
 To the very battle-place." 
 
 XXV. 
 
 And wept the page, but laughed the knight, 
 A careless laugh laughed he : 191 
 
 " Well done it were for thy sister, 
 But not for my ladye !
 
 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 117 
 
 My love, so please you, shall requite 
 No woman, whether dark or bright, 195 
 
 Unwomaned if she be." 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 The page stopped weeping and smiled cold 
 
 " Your wisdom may declare 
 That womanhood is proved the best 
 By golden brooch and glossy vest 200 
 
 The mincing ladies wear ; 
 Yet is it proved, and was of old, 
 Anear as well, I dare to hold, 
 
 By truth, or by despair." 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 He smiled no more, he wept no more, 205 
 
 But passionate he spake 
 " Oh, womanly she prayed in tent, 
 
 When none beside did wake ! 
 Oh, womanly she paled in fight, 
 
 For one beloved's sake ! 210 
 
 And her little hand, defiled with blood, 
 Her tender tears of womanhood 
 
 Most woman-pure did make ! " 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 " Well done it were for thy sister, 
 
 Thou tellest well her tale ! 215 
 
 But for my lady, she shall pray 
 
 I' the kirk of Nydesdale. 
 Not dread for me but love for me 
 
 Shall make my lady pale ;
 
 Il8 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 No casque shall hide her woman's tear 
 It shall have room to trickle clear 221 
 
 Behind her woman's veil." 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 " But what if she mistook thy mind 
 
 And followed thee to strife, 
 Then kneeling did entreat thy love 225 
 
 As Paynims ask for life ? " 
 " I would forgive, and evermore 
 Would love her as my servitor, 
 
 But little as my wife. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 " Look up there is a small bright cloud 
 Alone amid the skies ! 231 
 
 So high, so pure, and so apart, 
 A woman's honour lies." 
 
 The page looked up the cloud was sheen 
 
 A sadder cloud did rush, I ween, 255 
 
 Betwixt it and his eyes. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Then dimly dropped his eyes away 
 
 From welkin unto hill 
 Ha 1 who rides there ? the page is 'ware, 
 
 Though the cry at his heart is still : 240 
 And the page seeth all and the knight seeth 
 
 none, 
 Though banner and spear do fleck the sun, 
 
 And the Saracens ride at will. 
 
 220. Casque '. helmet. 
 
 226. Paynims : heathen, especially the Saracens. 
 
 234. Sheen : bright. 338. Welkin : sky.
 
 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 1 19 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 He speaketh calm, he speaketh low, 
 " Ride fast, my master, ride, 245 
 
 Or ere within the broadening dark 
 The narrow shadows hide." 
 
 " Yea, fast, my page, I will do so, 
 And keep thou at my side." 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 " Now nay, now nay, ride on thy way, 250 
 
 Thy faithful page precede. 
 For I must loose on saddle-bow 
 My battle-casque that galls, I trow, 
 
 The shoulder of my steed ; 
 And I must pray, as I did vow, 255 
 
 For one in bitter need. 
 
 xxxiv. 
 
 " Ere night I shall be near to thee, 
 
 Now ride, my master, ride ! 
 Ere night, as parted spirits cleave 
 To mortals too beloved to leave, 260 
 
 I shall be at thy side." 
 The knight smiled free at the fantasy, 
 
 And down the dell did ride. 
 
 xxxv. 
 
 Had the knight looked up to the page's face, 
 No smile the word had won ; 265 
 
 Had the knight looked up to the page's face, 
 I ween he had never gone :
 
 120 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 Had the knight looked back to the page's geste, 
 
 I ween he had turned anon, 
 For dread was the woe in the face so young, 
 And wild was the silent geste that flung 271 
 Casque, sword to earth, as the boy down-sprung 
 
 And stood alone, alone. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 He clenched his hands as if to hold 
 
 His soul's great agony 275 
 
 " Have I renounced my womanhood, 
 For wifehood unto thee, 
 
 And is this the last, last look of thine 
 That ever I shall see ? 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 " Yet God thee save, and mayst thou have 
 A lady to thy mind, 281 
 
 More woman-proud and half as true 
 As one thou leav'st behind ! 
 
 And God me take with HIM to dwell 
 
 For Him I cannot love too well, 285 
 
 As I have loved my kind." 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 She looketh up, in earth's despair, 
 
 The hopeful heavens to seek ; 
 That little cloud still floateth there, 
 
 Whereof her loved did speak : 290 
 
 How bright the little cloud appears ! 
 Her eyelids fall upon the tears, 
 
 And the tears down either cheek. 
 
 268 Geste: gesture.
 
 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 121 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 The tramp of hoof, the flash of steel 
 The Paynims round her coming ! 295 
 
 The sound and sight have made her calm, 
 False page, but truthful woman ; 
 
 She stands amid them all unmoved : 
 
 A heart once broken by the loved 
 
 Is strong to meet the foeman. 300 
 
 XL. 
 " Ho, Christian page ! art keeping sheep, 
 
 From pouring wine-cups resting ? " 
 " I keep my master's noble name, 
 
 For warring, not for feasting ; 
 And if that here Sir Hubert were, 305 
 
 My master brave, my master dear, 
 
 Ye would not stay the questing." 
 
 XLI. 
 
 " Where is thy master, scornful page, 
 That we may slay or bind him ? "- 
 
 " Now search the lea and search the wood, 
 And see if ye can find him ! 311 
 
 Nathless, as hath been often tried, 
 
 Your Paynim heroes faster ride 
 Before him than behind him." 
 
 XLII. 
 
 "Give smoother answers, lying page, 315 
 
 Or perish in the lying ! " 
 " I trow that if the warrior brand 
 Beside my foot, were in my hand, 
 
 'Twere better at replying ! " 
 
 307. Stay the guesting': stop to ask the question.
 
 122 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 
 
 They cursed her deep, they smote her 
 low, 320 
 
 They cleft her golden ringlets through ; 
 The Loving is the Dying. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 She felt the scimitar gleam down, 
 
 And met it from beneath 
 With smile more bright in victory 325 
 
 Than any sword from sheath, 
 Which flashed across her lip serene, 
 Most like the spirit-light between 
 
 The darks of life and death. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Ingemisco, ingemisco ! 330 
 
 From the convent on the sea, 
 Now it sweepeth solemnly, 
 As over wood and over lea 
 Bodily the wind did carry 
 The great altar of St. Mary, 335 
 
 And the fifty tapers paling o'er it, 
 And the Lady Abbess stark before it, 
 And the weary nuns with hearts that 
 
 faintly 
 Beat along their voices saintly 
 
 IngemiscO) ingemisco! 340 
 
 Dirge for abbess laid in shroud 
 Sweepeth o'er the shroudless dead, 
 Page or lady, as we said, 
 
 330. Ingemisco: I bewail. 
 333. As: i.e., as if.
 
 THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 123 
 
 With the dews upon her head, 
 
 All as sad if not as loud. 345 
 
 Ingemisco, ingemisco ! 
 Is ever a lament begun 
 By any mourner under sun, 
 Which, ere it endeth, suits but one? 
 
 349. Here the lament which was begun for the abbess suits. 
 the page also.
 
 124 THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF THE 
 SWAN'S NEST 
 
 " So the dreams depart, 
 So the fading phantoms flee, 
 And the sharp reality 
 Now must act its part." 
 
 WESTWOOD'S Beads from a Rosary. 
 
 A GIRL'S day-dream as to what her lover will be like. 
 As the reward of his devotion, after he has done great 
 deeds for her, and as a sign of accepting his love, she 
 means to show him a certain swan's nest, which she 
 has found hidden among the rushes, and in which she 
 takes great delight. But she goes and finds the nest 
 deserted and destroyed ; and this seems to upset all the 
 story she has been imagining, and suggests that reality 
 seldom comes up to our expectations. We expect great 
 things when we are children, but we obtain very few of 
 them when we are grown up. 
 
 LITTLE Ellie sits alone 
 
 Mid the beeches of a meadow, 
 
 By a stream-side on the grass, 
 And the trees are showering down 
 Doubles of their leaves in shadow 
 On her shining hair and face.
 
 THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 125 
 
 II. 
 
 She has thrown her bonnet by, 
 And her feet she has been dipping 
 
 In the shallow water's flow : 
 Now she holds them nakedly 10 
 
 In her hands, all sleek and dripping, 
 While she rocketh to and fro. 
 
 in. 
 
 Little Ellie sits alone, 
 And the smile she softly uses 
 
 Fills the silence like a speech 1 5 
 
 While she thinks what shall be done, 
 And the sweetest pleasure chooses 
 For her future within reach. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Little Ellie in her smile 
 
 Chooses " I will have a lover 
 Riding on a steed of steeds : 
 He shall love me without guile, 
 And to him I will discover 
 
 The swan's nest among the reeds. 
 
 v. 
 
 " And the steed shall be red-roan, 25 
 
 And the lover shall be noble, 
 
 With an eye that takes the breath : 
 And the lute he plays upon 
 Shall strike ladies into trouble, 
 As his sword strikes men to death. 30 
 E 2
 
 126 THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 
 
 VI. 
 
 " And the steed it shall be shod 
 All in silver, housed in azure, 
 
 And the mane shall swim the wind ; 
 And the hoofs along the sod 
 
 Shall flash onward and keep measure, 
 Till the shepherds look behind. 36 
 
 VII. 
 
 " But my lover will not prize 
 All the glory that he rides in, 
 When he gazes in my face : 
 He will say, ' O Love, thine eyes 40 
 
 Build the shrine my soul abides in, 
 And I kneel here for thy grace ! ' 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " Then, ay, then he shall kneel low, 
 With the red-roan steed anear him 
 
 Which shall seem to understand, 45 
 Till I answer, ' Rise and go ! 
 
 For the world must love and fear him 
 Whom I gift with heart and hand.' 
 
 IX. 
 
 " Then he will arise so pale, 
 
 I shall feel my own lips tremble 50 
 
 With a. yes I must not say, 
 Nathless maiden-brave, ' Farewell,' 
 I will utter and dissemble 
 ' Light to-morrow with to-day ! ' 
 
 32. Housed in azure : covered with bright blue trappings, or 
 robes. 
 52. Nathless: nevertheless.
 
 THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 127 
 
 X. 
 
 " Then he'll ride among the hills 55 
 
 To the wide world past the river, 
 There to put away all wrong ; 
 To make straight distorted wills, 
 And to empty the broad quiver 
 Which the wicked bear along. 60 
 
 XI. 
 
 " Three times shall a young foot-page 
 Swim the stream and climb the mountain 
 
 And kneel down beside my feet 
 ' Lo, my master sends this gage, 
 
 Lady, for thy pity's counting ! 65 
 
 What wilt thou exchange for it ? ' 
 
 XII. 
 
 " And the first time I will send 
 A white rosebud for a guerdon, 
 
 And the second time, a glove ; 
 But the third time I may bend 70 
 
 From my pride, and answer ' Pardon 
 If he comes to take my love.' 
 
 XIII. 
 
 " Then the young foot-page will run, 
 Then my lover will ride faster, 
 
 Till he kneeleth at my knee : 7 5 
 
 ' I am a duke's eldest son, 
 
 Thousand serfs do call me master, 
 But, O Love, I love but thee ! ' 
 
 64. Gage : pledge, or sign of his love. 
 68. Guerdon; reward.
 
 128 THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 
 
 XIV. 
 
 " He will kiss me on the mouth 
 
 Then, and lead me as a lover 80 
 
 Through the crowds that praise his 
 
 deeds ; 
 
 And, when soul-tied by one troth, 
 Unto him I will discover 
 That swan's nest among the reeds." 
 
 xv. 
 
 Little Ellie, with her smile 85 
 
 Not yet ended, rose up gaily, 
 
 Tied the bonnet, donned the shoe. 
 And went homeward, round a mile, 
 Just to see, as she did daily, 
 
 What more eggs were with the two. 90 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Pushing through the elm-tree copse, 
 Winding up the stream, light-hearted, 
 
 Where the osier pathway leads, 
 Past the boughs she stoops and stops. 
 Lo, the wild swan had deserted, 95 
 
 And a rat had gnawed the reeds ! 
 
 xvn. 
 
 Ellie went home sad and slow. 
 If she found the lover ever, 
 
 With his red-roan steed of steeds, 
 Sooth I know not ; but I know 100 
 
 She could never show him never, 
 That swan's nest among the reeds !
 
 THE SEA-MEW 129 
 
 THE SEA-MEW 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO M. E. H. 
 
 THE story of a captive sea-bird, which pined away with 
 longing for its own free life on the sea and could not 
 live among human folk. 
 
 How joyously the young sea-mew 
 Lay dreaming on the waters blue 
 Whereon our little bark had thrown 
 A little shade, the only one, 
 But shadows ever man pursue. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Familiar with the waves and free 
 As if their own white foam were he, 
 His heart upon the heart of ocean 
 Lay learning all its mystic motion, 
 And throbbing to the throbbing sea. 
 
 in. 
 
 And such a brightness in his eye 
 As if the ocean and the sky 
 Within him had lit up and nurst 
 A soul God gave him not at first, 
 To comprehend their majesty.
 
 130 THE SEA-MEW 
 
 IV. 
 
 We were not cruel, yet did sunder 
 
 His white wing from the blue waves under, 
 
 And bound it, while his fearless eyes 
 
 Shone up to ours in calm surprise, 
 
 As deeming us some ocean wonder. 20 
 
 v. 
 
 We bore our ocean bird unto 
 
 A grassy place where he might view 
 
 The flowers that curtsey to the bees, 
 
 The waving of the tall green trees, 
 
 The falling of the silver dew. 25 
 
 VI. 
 
 But flowers of earth were pale to him 
 Who had seen the rainbow fishes swim ; 
 And when earth's dew around him lay 
 He thought of ocean's winged spray, 
 And his eye waxed sad and dim 30 
 
 VII. 
 
 The green trees round him only made 
 A prison with their darksome shade ; 
 And drooped his wing, and mourned he 
 For his own boundless glittering sea 
 Albeit he knew not they could fade. 35
 
 THE SEA-MEW 13! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Then One her gladsome face did bring, 
 Her gentle voice's murmuring, 
 In ocean's stead his heart to move 
 And teach him what was human love : 
 He thought it a strange, mournful thing. 
 
 IX. 
 
 He lay down in his grief to die, 41 
 
 (First looking to the sea-like sky 
 That hath no waves) because, alas ! 
 Our human touch did on him pass, 
 And, with our touch, our agony. 45
 
 132 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 
 
 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 
 
 LOVING friend, the gift of one 
 Who her own true faith has run 
 
 Through thy lower nature, 
 Be my benediction said 
 With my hand upon thy head, 5 
 
 Gentle fellow-creature ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Like a lady's ringlets brown, 
 Flow thy silken ears adown 
 
 Either side demurely 
 Of thy silver-suited breast 10 
 
 Shining out from all the rest 
 
 Of thy body purely. 
 
 in. 
 
 Darkly brown thy body is, 
 Till the sunshine striking this 
 
 Alchemize its dulness, 15 
 
 When the sleek curls manifold 
 Flash all over into gold 
 
 With a burnished fulness. 
 
 i. Flush, Mrs. Browning's dog, was given to her by Miss 
 Mitford, the authoress of "Our Village" and many other 
 stories and plays. 
 
 15. Alchemize its dulness; turn its dulness into brightness, 
 as the alchemists professed to turn any substance into gold.
 
 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 133 
 
 IV. 
 
 Underneath my stroking hand, 
 Startled eyes of hazel bland 20 
 
 Kindling, growing larger, 
 Up thou leapest with a spring, 
 Full of prank and curveting, 
 
 Leaping like a charger. 
 
 v. 
 
 Leap ! thy broad tail waves a light, 25 
 Leap ! thy slender feet are bright, 
 
 Canopied in fringes ; 
 Leap ! those tasselled ears of thine 
 Flicker strangely, fair and fine 
 
 Down their golden inches. . 30 
 
 VI. 
 
 Yet, my pretty, sportive friend, 
 Little is't to such an end 
 
 That I praise thy rareness ; 
 Other dogs may be thy peers 
 Haply in these drooping ears 35 
 
 And this glossy fairness. 
 
 VII. 
 
 But of thee it shall be said, 
 This dog watched beside a bed 
 
 Day and night unweary, 
 Watched within a curtained room 40 
 Where no sunbeam brake the gloom 
 
 Round the sick and dreary. 
 
 38-42. Mrs. Browning refers to her own sick-room. For many 
 years before her marriage she was an invalid, owing to an 
 accident as a girl.
 
 134 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Roses, gathered for a vase, 
 In that chamber died apace, 
 
 Beam and breeze resigning ; 45 
 
 This dog only, waited on, 
 Knowing that when light is gone 
 
 Love remains for shining. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Other dogs in thymy dew 
 Tracked the hares and followed through 
 
 Sunny moor or meadow ; 5 1 
 
 This dog only, crept and crept 
 Next a languid cheek that slept, 
 
 Sharing in the shadow. 
 
 x. 
 
 Other dogs of loyal cheer 55 
 
 Bounded at the whistle clear, 
 
 Up the woodside hieing ; 
 This dog only, watched in reach 
 Of a faintly uttered speech 
 
 Or a louder sighing. 60 
 
 XI. 
 
 And if one or two quick tears 
 Dropped upon his glossy ears 
 
 Or a sigh came double, 
 Up he sprang in eager haste, 
 Fawning, fondling, breathing fast, 65 
 
 In a tender trouble.
 
 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 135 
 
 XII. 
 
 And this dog was satisfied 
 
 If a pale thin hand would glide 
 
 Down his dewlaps sloping, 
 Which he pushed his nose within, 70 
 
 After, platforming his chin 
 
 On the palm left open. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 This dog, if a friendly voice 
 Call him now to blither choice 
 
 Than such chamber-keeping, 75 
 
 " Come out ! " praying from the door, 
 Presseth backward as before, 
 
 Up against me leaping. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Therefore to this dog will I, 
 
 Tenderly not scornfully, 80 
 
 Render praise and favour : 
 With my hand upon his head, 
 Is my benediction said 
 
 Therefore and for ever. 
 
 XV. 
 
 And because he loves me so, 85 
 
 Better than his kind will do 
 
 Often man or woman, 
 Give I back more love again 
 Than dogs often take of men, 
 
 Leaning from my Human. 90
 
 136 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Blessings on thee, dog of mine, 
 Pretty collars make thee fine, 
 
 Sugared milk make fat thee ! 
 Pleasures wag on in thy tail, 
 Hands of gentle motion fail 95 
 
 Nevermore, to pat thee ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Downy pillow take thy head, 
 Silken coverlid bestead, 
 
 Sunshine help thy sleeping ! 
 No fly's buzzing wake thee up, 100 
 No man break thy purple cup 
 
 Set for drinking deep in. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Whiskered cats arointed flee, 
 Sturdy stoppers keep from thee 
 
 Cologne distillations ; 105 
 
 Nuts lie in thy path for stones, 
 And thy feast-day macaroons 
 
 Turn to daily rations ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Mock I thee, in wishing weal ? 
 Tears are in my eyes to feel 110 
 
 Thou art made so straitly, 
 Blessing needs must straiten too, 
 Little canst thou joy or do, 
 
 Thou who lovest greatly. 
 
 103. Arointed: driven away.
 
 TO FLUSH, MY DOG 137 
 
 XX. 
 
 Yet be blessed to the height 1 1 5 
 
 Of all good and all delight 
 
 Pervious to thy nature ; 
 Only loved beyond that line, 
 With a love that answers thine, 
 
 Loving fellow-creature ! 1 20 
 
 117. Pennous : accessible, which thy nature can reach.
 
 138 MY DOVES 
 
 MY DOVES 
 
 IN the last poem Mrs. Browning addressed her pet dog ; 
 in this she writes about her tame doves. They have 
 come from a bright, sunny land to cold and noisy 
 London, yet still they sing as softly and musically as 
 ever, and seem to teach her to hope and sing in spite 
 of all the depression which surrounds her, and to love as 
 they do. 
 
 MY little doves have left a nest 
 
 Upon an Indian tree 
 Whose leaves fantastic take their rest 
 
 Or motion from the sea ; 
 For, ever there the sea-winds go 5 
 
 With sunlit paces to and fro. 
 
 The tropic flowers looked up to it, 
 The tropic stars looked down, 
 
 And there my little doves did sit 
 
 With feathers softly brown, 10 
 
 And glittering eyes that showed their right 
 
 To general Nature's deep delight. 
 
 And God them taught, at every close 
 
 Of murmuring waves beyond 
 And green leaves round, to interpose 1 5 
 
 Their choral voices fond, 
 Interpreting that love must be 
 The meaning of the earth and sea.
 
 MY DOVES 139 
 
 Fit ministers ! Of living loves 
 
 Theirs hath the calmest fashion, 20 
 
 Their living voice the likest moves 
 
 To lifeless intonation, 
 The lovely monotone of springs 
 And winds and such insensate things. 
 
 My little doves were ta'en away 25 
 
 From that glad nest of theirs 
 Across an ocean rolling grey 
 
 And tempest-clouded airs : 
 My little doves, who lately knew 
 The sky and wave by warmth and blue. 30 
 
 And now, within the city prison, 
 
 In mist and chillness pent, 
 With sudden upward look they listen 
 
 For sounds of past content, 
 For lapse of water, swell of breeze, 35 
 
 Or nut-fruit falling from the trees. 
 
 The stir without the glow of passion, 
 
 The triumph of the mart, 
 The gold and silver as they clash on 
 
 Man's cold metallic heart, 40 
 
 The roar of wheels, the cry for bread, 
 These only sounds are heard instead. 
 
 Yet still, as on my human hand 
 Their fearless heads they lean, 
 
 And almost seem to understand 45 
 
 What human musings mean, 
 
 (Their eyes with such a plaintive shine 
 
 Are fastened upwardly to mine !)
 
 140 MY DOVES 
 
 Soft falls their chant as on the nest 
 
 Beneath the sunny zone ; 50 
 
 For love that stirred it in their breast 
 Has not aweary grown, 
 
 And 'neath the city's shade can keep 
 
 The well of music clear and deep. 
 
 And love, that keeps the music, fills 55 
 
 With pastoral memories ; 
 All echoings from out the hills, 
 
 All droppings from the skies, 
 All flowings from the wave and wind, 
 Remembered in their chant, I find. 60 
 
 So teach ye me the wisest part, 
 
 My little doves ! to move 
 Along the city-ways with heart 
 
 Assured by holy love, 
 
 And vocal with such songs as own 65 
 
 A fountain to the world unknown. 
 
 'Twas hard to sing by Babel's stream 
 More hard, in Babel's street : 
 
 But if the soulless creatures deem 
 
 Their music not unmeet 70 
 
 For sunless walls let us begin, 
 
 Who wear immortal wings within ! 
 
 To me, fair memories belong 
 Of scenes that used to bless, 
 
 67. Babel's stream : this refers to Psalm cxxxvii. : ' ' By the 
 waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered 
 thee, O Zion. . . . How shall we sing the Lord's song in a 
 strange land ? "
 
 MY DOVES 141 
 
 For no regret, but present song 75 
 
 And lasting thankfulness, 
 And very soon to break away, 
 Like types, in purer things than they. 
 
 I will have hopes that cannot fade, 
 
 For flowers the valley yields ; 80 
 
 I will have humble thoughts instead 
 Of silent, dewy fields : 
 
 My spirit and my God shall be 
 
 My seaward hill, my boundless sea.
 
 142 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 
 
 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 
 
 IN this poem Mrs. Browning recalls her own childhood, 
 and especially her delight in the story of Troy, as told 
 by Homer. She had a garden bed dug out in the shape 
 of a man to represent Hector, and various flowers were 
 planted and arranged in it so as to stand for his hair, 
 his eyes, his helmet, his sword, his breastplate, and so 
 on ; and she used to dream over it till she almost fancied 
 that it was alive, and that Hector's spirit itself was in it. 
 But at the end she reminds herself that she must stop 
 dreaming about her childhood, and must be up and 
 doing the work which lies before her in life. 
 
 NINE years old ! The first of any 
 Seem the happiest years that come : 
 Yet when / was nine, I said 
 No such word ! I thought instead 
 
 That the Greeks had used as many 
 In besieging Ilium. 
 
 II. 
 
 Nine green years had scarcely brought me 
 To my childhood's haunted spring ; 
 I had life, like flowers and bees, 
 In betwixt the country trees, . 10 
 
 And the sun the pleasure taught me 
 Which he teacheth every thing. 
 
 6. Ilium : Troy, besieged by the Greeks under Agamemnon 
 and Achilles, and defended by Hector.
 
 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 143 
 
 III. 
 
 If the rain fell, there was sorrow : 
 Little head leant on the pane, 
 Little ringer drawing down it 15 
 
 The long trailing drops upon it, 
 
 And the " Rain, rain, come to-morrow," 
 Said for charm against the rain. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Such a charm was right Canidian, 
 
 Though you meet it with a jeer ! 20 
 
 If I said it long enough, 
 
 Then the rain hummed dimly off, 
 
 And the thrush with his pure Lydian 
 Was left only to the ear ; 
 
 v. 
 And the sun and I together 25 
 
 Went a-rushing out of doors : 
 
 We our tender spirits drew 
 
 Over hill and dale in view, 
 Glimmering hither, glimmering thither 
 
 In the footsteps of the showers. 30 
 
 VI. 
 
 Underneath the chestnuts dripping, 
 Through the grasses wet and fair, 
 Straight I sought my garden-ground 
 With the laurel on the mound, 
 
 And the pear-tree oversweeping 35 
 
 A side-shadow of green air. 
 
 19. Right Canidian : as successful as the charms of Canidia, 
 a celebrated Greek sorceress. 
 
 24. Lydian : a kind of Greek music.
 
 144 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 
 
 VII. 
 
 In the garden lay supinely 
 A huge giant wrought of spade ! 
 Arms and legs were stretched at length 
 In a passive giant strength, 40 
 
 The fine meadow turf, cut finely, 
 Round them laid and interlaid. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Call him Hector, son of Priam ! 
 
 Such his title and degree. 
 
 With my rake I smoothed his brow, 45 
 
 Both his cheeks I weeded through, 
 But a rhymer such as I am, 
 
 Scarce can sing his dignity. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Eyes of gentianellas azure, 
 
 Staring, winking at the skies : 50 
 
 Nose of gillyflowers and box ; 
 
 Scented grasses put for locks, 
 Which a little breeze at pleasure 
 
 Set a-waving round his eyes : 
 
 x. 
 
 Brazen helm of daffodillies, 55 
 
 With a glitter toward the light ; 
 Purple violets for the mouth, 
 Breathing perfumes west and south ; 
 
 And a sword of flashing lilies, 
 
 H olden ready for the fight : 60
 
 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 145 
 
 XI. 
 
 And a breastplate made of daisies, 
 
 Closely fitting, leaf on leaf ; 
 
 Periwinkles interlaced 
 
 Drawn for belt about the waist ; 
 While the brown bees, humming praises, 65 
 
 Shot their arrows round the chief. 
 
 XII. 
 
 And who knows (I sometimes wondered) 
 
 If the disembodied soul 
 
 Of old Hector, once of Troy, 
 
 Might not take a dreary joy 70 
 
 Here to enter if it thundered, 
 
 Rolling up the thunder-roll ? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Rolling this way from Troy-ruin, 
 
 In this body rude and rife 
 
 Just to enter, and take rest 75 
 
 'Neath the daisies of the breast 
 They, with tender roots, renewing 
 
 His heroic heart to life ? 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Who could know ? I sometimes started 
 At a motion or a sound ! So 
 
 Did his mouth speak naming Troy 
 With an OTOTOTOTOI ? 
 
 Did the pulse of the Strong-hearted 
 Make the daisies tremble round ? 
 
 82 OTOTOTOTOI : a Greek exclamation of sorrow.
 
 146 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN 
 
 XV. 
 
 It was hard to answer, often : 85 
 
 But the birds sang in the tree, 
 
 But the little birds sang bold 
 
 In the pear-tree green and old, 
 And my terror seemed to soften 
 
 Through the courage of their glee. 90 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Oh, the birds, the tree, the ruddy 
 
 And white blossoms sleek with rain ! 
 
 Oh, my garden rich with pansies ! 
 
 Oh, my childhood's bright romances ! 
 All revive, like Hector's body, 95 
 
 And I see them stir again. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 And despite life's changes, chances, 
 And despite the deathbell's toll, 
 They press on me in full seeming : 
 Help, some angel ! stay this dreaming ! 100 
 
 As the birds sang in the branches, 
 Sing God's patience through my soul ! 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 That no dreamer, no neglecter 
 
 Of the present's work unsped, 
 
 I may wake up and be doing, 105 
 
 Life's heroic ends pursuing, 
 Though my past is dead as Hector, 
 
 And though Hector is twice dead.
 
 LESSONS FROM THE GORSE 147 
 
 LESSONS FROM THE GORSE 
 
 " To win the secret of a weed's plain heart." LOWELL. 
 
 THE gorse, by its strength in living in rough places, 
 by its beauty at times when few flowers are to be seen, 
 and by its lowly growth, teaches us lessons of courage 
 and perseverance, of cheerfulness in adversity, and of 
 humility, for which we may well thank God with tears. 
 
 MOUNTAIN gorses, ever-golden, 
 Cankered not the whole year long ! 
 Do ye teach us to be strong, 
 Howsoever pricked and holden 
 Like your thorny blooms, and so 5 
 
 Trodden on by rain and snow, 
 Up the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where 
 ye grow ? 
 
 II. 
 
 Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms, 
 Do ye teach us to be glad 
 When no summer can be had, 10 
 
 Blooming in our inward bosoms ? 
 Ye, whom God preserveth still, 
 Set as lights upon a hill, 
 
 Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth 
 still !
 
 148 LESSONS FROM THE GORSE 
 
 III. 
 
 Mountain gorses, do ye teach us 15 
 
 From that academic chair 
 Canopied with azure air, 
 That the wisest word man reaches 
 Is the humblest he can speak ? 
 Ye, who live on mountain peak, 20 
 
 Yet live low along the ground, beside the 
 grasses meek ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Mountain gorses, since Linnaeus 
 Knelt beside you on the sod, 
 For your beauty thanking God, 
 For your teaching, ye should see us 25 
 Bowing in prostration new ! 
 Whence arisen, if one or two 
 Drops be on our cheeks O world, they are not 
 tears but dew. 
 
 22. Linnceus: the great Swedish botanist.
 
 THE SLEEP 
 
 THE SLEEP 
 
 " He giveth His beloved sleep." Psalm cxxvii. 
 
 A POEM of the time of Mrs. Browning's illness before 
 her marriage, when it seemed that rest was all she had 
 to hope for. The verse from the Psalms which she 
 quotes as its motto was one of her most favourite 
 passages in the Bible. The second, fifth, and sixth 
 stanzas of this poem were set to music by Dr. Bridge, 
 as a hymn to be sung at the funeral of Robert Browning 
 in Westminster Abbev. 
 
 OF all the thoughts of God that are 
 Borne inward into souls afar, 
 Along the Psalmist's music deep, 
 Now tell me if that any is, 
 For gift or grace, surpassing this : 
 "He giveth His beloved sleep"? 
 
 II. 
 
 What would we give to our beloved ? 
 
 The hero's heart to be unmoved, 
 
 The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep, 
 
 The patriot's voice to teach and rouse, 10 
 
 The monarch's crown to light the brows ? 
 
 He giveth His beloved sleep.
 
 150 THE SLEEP 
 
 III. 
 
 What do we give to our beloved ? 
 
 A little faith all undisproved, 
 
 A little dust to overweep, 15 
 
 And bitter memories to make 
 
 The whole earth blasted for our sake : 
 
 He giveth His beloved sleep. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Sleep soft, beloved ! " we sometimes say, 
 Who have no tune to charm away 20 
 
 Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep ; 
 But never doleful dream again 
 Shall break the happy slumber when 
 He giveth His beloved sleep. 
 
 v. 
 
 O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 25 
 
 O men, with wailing in your voices ! 
 
 O delved gold, the wailers heap ! 
 
 O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
 
 God strikes a silence through you all, 
 
 And giveth His beloved sleep. 30 
 
 VI. 
 
 His dews drop mutely on the hill, 
 
 His cloud above it saileth still, 
 
 Though on its slope men sow and reap : 
 
 More softly than the dew is shed, 
 
 Or cloud is floated overhead, 35 
 
 He giveth His beloved sleep.
 
 THE SLEEP 151 
 
 VII 
 
 Ay, men may wonder while they scan 
 
 A living, thinking, feeling man 
 
 Confirmed in such a rest to keep ; 
 
 But angels say, and through the word 40 
 
 I think their happy smile is heard 
 
 " He giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 For me, my heart that erst did go 
 
 Most like a tired child at a show, 
 
 That sees through tears the mummers leap, 
 
 Would now its wearied vision close, 46 
 
 Would childlike on His love repose 
 
 Who giveth His beloved sleep. 
 
 IX. 
 
 And friends, dear friends, when it shall be 
 That this low breath is gone from me, 50 
 And round my bier ye come to weep, 
 Let One, most loving of you all, 
 Say " Not a tear must o'er her fall ! 
 He giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 45. Mummers : actors or performers on a stage.
 
 152 A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD 
 
 A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD 
 
 THEY say that God lives very high ; 
 
 But if you look above the pines 
 You cannot see our God ; and why ? 
 
 II. 
 
 And if you dig down in the mines 
 
 You never see Him in the gold 5 
 
 Though from Him all that's glory shines. 
 
 III. 
 
 God is so good, He wears a fold 
 
 Of heaven and earth across His face 
 Like secrets kept, for love, untold. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But still I feel that His embrace 10 
 
 Slides down by thrills, through all things 
 
 made, 
 Through sight and sound of every place :
 
 A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD 153 
 
 V. 
 
 As if my tender mother laid 
 
 On my shut lips her kisses' pressure, 
 Half- waking me at night, and said 1 5 
 
 " Who kissed you through the dark, 
 dear guesser ? "
 
 154 THE MOURNING MOTHER 
 
 THE MOURNING MOTHER 
 
 (OF THE DEAD BLIND) 
 
 DOST thou weep, mourning mother, 
 
 For thy blind boy in grave ? 
 That no more with each other 
 
 Sweet counsel ye can have ? 
 That he, left dark by nature, 5 
 
 Can never more be led 
 By thee, maternal creature, 
 
 Along smooth paths instead ? 
 That thou canst no more show him 
 
 The sunshine, by the heat ; 10 
 
 The river's silver flowing, 
 
 By murmurs at his feet ? 
 The foliage by its coolness ; 
 
 The roses by their smell ; 
 And all creation's fulness, 1 5 
 
 By Love's invisible ? 
 Weepest thou to behold not 
 
 His meek blind eyes again, 
 Closed doorways which were folded, 
 
 And prayed against in vain 20 
 
 And under which, sat smiling 
 
 The child-mouth evermore, 
 As one who watcheth, wiling 
 
 The time by, at a door ?
 
 THE MOURNING MOTHER 1 55 
 
 And weepest thou to feel not 25 
 
 His clinging hand on thine 
 Which now, at dream-time, will not 
 
 Its cold touch disentwine ? 
 And weepest thou still ofter, 
 
 Oh, never more to mark 30 
 
 His low soft words, made softer 
 
 By speaking in the dark ? 
 Weep on, thou mourning mother ! 
 
 II. 
 
 But since to him when living, 
 
 Thou wast both sun and moon, 35 
 Look o'er his grave, surviving, 
 
 From a high sphere alone : 
 Sustain that exaltation, 
 
 Expand that tender light, 
 And hold in mother-passion 40 
 
 Thy Blessed in thy sight. 
 See how he went out straightway 
 
 From the dark world he knew, 
 No twilight in the gateway 
 
 To mediate 'twixt the two, 45 
 
 Into the sudden glory, 
 
 Out of the dark he trod, 
 Departing from before thee 
 
 At once to light and GOD ! 
 For the first face, beholding 50 
 
 The Christ's in its divine, 
 For the first place, the golden 
 
 And tideless hyaline, 
 
 53. Hyaline: the sea of glass, which St. John saw before the 
 throne of God.
 
 156 THE MOURNING MOTHER 
 
 With trees at lasting summer 
 
 That rock to songful sound, 55 
 
 While angels the new-comer 
 
 Wrap a still smile around. 
 Oh, in the blessed psalm now, 
 
 His happy voice he tries, 
 Spreading a thicker palm-bough, 60 
 
 Than others, o'er his eyes ! 
 Yet still, in all the singing, 
 
 Thinks haply of thy song 
 Which, in his life's first springing, 
 
 Sang to him all night long ; 65 
 
 And wishes it beside him, 
 
 With kissing lips that cool 
 And soft did overglide him, 
 
 To make the sweetness full. 
 Look up, O mourning mother ! 70 
 
 Thy blind boy walks in light : 
 Ye wait for one another 
 
 Before God's infinite. 
 But thou art now the darkest, 
 
 Thou mother left below 75 
 
 Thou, the sole blind, thou markest, 
 
 Content that it be so, . 
 Until ye two have meeting 
 
 Where Heaven's pearl-gate is, 
 And he shall lead thy feet in, 80 
 
 As once thou leddest his. 
 Wait on, thou mourning mother ! 
 
 60, 61. His eyes, unaccustomed to light, can even less than 
 others endure the glory of Heaven.
 
 A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 157 
 
 A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 
 
 PAN, the Greek god of nature and of natural music, is 
 represented as making a musical pipe out of a reed. To 
 make it he has to cut the reed to pieces, destroy its 
 beauty, and take out its pith ; but the music which he 
 produces from it, when it is finished, is beautiful. Just 
 so, says Mrs. Browning, to be made a poet a man must 
 suffer pain and loss, and must cease to be a man like 
 other men. 
 
 I. 
 
 WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan, 
 
 Down in the reeds by the river ? 
 Spreading ruin and scattering ban, 
 Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, 
 And breaking the golden lilies afloat 5 
 
 With the dragon-fly on the river. 
 
 n. 
 
 He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, 
 From the deep cool bed of the river : 
 
 The limpid water turbidly ran, 
 
 And the broken lilies a-dying lay, 10 
 
 And the dragon-fly had fled away, 
 Ere he brought it out of the river. 
 
 4. Pan is always represented as having the legs and feet of a 
 goat, and with a goat's horns. 
 
 F 2
 
 158 A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 
 
 III. 
 
 High on the shore sat the great god Pan 
 
 While turbidly flowed the river ; 
 And hacked and hewed as a great god can, 1 5 
 With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed, 
 Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed 
 
 To prove it fresh from the river. 
 
 IV. 
 
 He cut it short, did the great god Pan, 
 
 (How tall it stood in the river !) 20 
 
 Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, 
 
 Steadily from the outside ring, 
 
 And notched the poor dry empty thing 
 In holes, as he sat by the river. 
 
 v. 
 
 " This is the way," laughed the great god Pan 
 
 (Laughed while he sat by the river), 26 
 
 " The only way, since gods began 
 To make sweet music, they could succeed." 
 Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, 
 He blew in power by the river. 30 
 
 VI. 
 
 Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan ! 
 
 Piercing sweet by the river ! 
 Blinding sweet, O great god Pan ! 
 The sun on the hill forgot to die, 
 And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly 35 
 
 Came back to dream on the river.
 
 A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 159 
 
 VII. 
 
 Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, 
 
 To laugh as he sits by the river, 
 Making a poet out of a man : 
 The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, 40 
 For the reed which grows nevermore again 
 
 As a reed with the reeds in the river.
 
 160 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE 
 
 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE 
 
 "... discordance that can accord." 
 
 Romaunt of the Rose. 
 
 THE first part of this poem tells how a rose begged to 
 be allowed to flower before the others, in order that its 
 beauty might be the more seen and praised ; but when 
 its prayer was granted, it found that no notice was taken 
 of it, and it withered away in the cold and rain. A poet 
 sees it, and thinks that his lot is like the rose's ; poets 
 are in advance of their own time, and are neglected by 
 the world. But then he remembers that it is a high 
 privilege to be the first to receive some new revelation 
 from God, and that the poet should not be thinking of 
 the reward he may get from the world, but should look 
 up to God and try to please Him by prayers, and faith, 
 and hope, and thanksgiving. 
 
 A ROSE once grew within 
 
 A garden April-green, 
 In her loneness, in her loneness, 
 And the fairer for that oneness. 
 
 A white rose delicate 5 
 
 On a tall bough and straight : 
 Early comer, early comer, 
 Never waiting for the summer. 
 
 Her pretty gestes did win 
 
 South winds to let her in, 10 
 
 In her loneness, in her loneness, 
 All the fairer for that oneness. 
 
 9. Gestes: manners, gestures.
 
 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE l6l 
 
 " For if I wait," said she, 
 
 " Till time for roses be, 
 For the moss-rose and the musk-rose, 1 5 
 Maiden-blush and royal-dusk rose, 
 
 " What glory then for me 
 
 In such a company ? 
 Roses plenty, roses plenty, 
 And one nightingale for twenty ! 20 
 
 " Nay, let me in," said she, 
 
 " Before the rest are free, 
 In my loneness, in my loneness, 
 All the fairer for that oneness. 
 
 " For I would lonely stand 25 
 
 Uplifting my white hand, 
 On a mission, on a mission, 
 To declare the coming vision. 
 
 " Upon which lifted sign, 
 
 What worship will be mine ! 30 
 
 What addressing, what caressing, 
 And what thanks and praise and blessing! 
 
 " A windlike joy will rush 
 Through every tree and bush, 
 
 Bending softly in affection 3$ 
 
 And spontaneous benediction. 
 
 " Insects, that only may 
 
 Live in a sunbright ray, 
 To my whiteness, to my whiteness, 
 Shall be drawn as to a brightness, 40 
 
 28. The coming vision : the vision of the approaching summer.
 
 1 62 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE 
 
 "And every moth and bee 
 
 Approach me reverently, 
 Wheeling o'er me, wheeling o'er me, 
 Coronals of motioned glory. 
 
 " Three larks shall leave a cloud, 45 
 
 To my whiter beauty vowed, 
 Singing gladly all the noontide, 
 Never waiting for the suntide. 
 
 " Ten nightingales shall flee 
 
 Their woods for love of me, 50 
 
 Singing sadly all the suntide, 
 Never waiting for the noontide. 
 
 " I ween the very skies 
 
 Will look down with surprise, 
 
 When below on earth they see me 55 
 
 With my starry aspect dreamy. 
 
 " And earth will call her flowers 
 
 To hasten out of doors, 
 By their curtsies and sweet-smelling 
 To give grace to my foretelling." 60 
 
 So praying, did she win 
 
 South winds to let her in, 
 In her loneness, in her loneness, 
 And the fairer for that oneness. 
 
 But ah, alas for her ! 65 
 
 No thing did minister 
 To her praises, to her praises, 
 More than might unto a daisy's. 
 
 44 Coronals of motioned glory : in moving circles of glory.
 
 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE 163 
 
 No tree nor bush was seen 
 
 To boast a perfect green, 70 
 
 Scarcely having, scarcely having 
 One leaf broad enough for waving. 
 
 The little flies did crawl 
 
 Along the southern wall, 
 Faintly shifting, faintly shifting 75 
 
 Wings scarce long enough for lifting. 
 
 The lark, too high or low, 
 
 I ween, did miss her so, 
 With his nest down in the gorses, 
 And his song in the star-courses. 80 
 
 The nightingale did please 
 
 To loiter beyond seas : 
 Guess him in the Happy Islands, 
 Learning music from the silence ! 
 
 Only the bee, forsooth, 85 
 
 Came in the place of both, 
 Doing honour, doing honour 
 To the honey-dews upon her. 
 
 The skies looked coldly down 
 
 As on a royal crown ; 90 
 
 Then with drop for drop, at leisure, 
 They began to rain for pleasure. 
 
 Whereat the earth did seem 
 
 To waken from a dream, 
 Winter-frozen, winter-frozen, 95 
 
 Her unquiet eyes unclosing
 
 1 64 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE 
 
 Said to the Rose, " Ha, snow ! 
 
 And art thou fallen so ? 
 Thou, who wast enthroned stately 
 All along my mountains lately? 100 
 
 " Holla, thou world- wide snow ! 
 
 And art thou wasted so, 
 With a little bough to catch thee, 
 And a little bee to watch thee?" 
 
 Poor Rose, to be misknown ! 105 
 
 Would she had ne'er been blown, 
 In her loneness, in her loneness, 
 All the sadder for that oneness ! 
 
 Some word she tried to say, 
 
 Some no . . , ah, wellaway ! no 
 
 But the passion did o'ercome her, 
 And the fair frail leaves dropped from her. 
 
 Dropped from her fair and mute, 
 
 Close to a poet's foot, 
 
 Who beheld them, smiling slowly, 115 
 
 As at something sad yet holy, 
 
 Said " Verily and thus 
 
 It chances too with us 
 Poets, singing sweetest snatches 
 While that deaf men keep the watches : 
 
 " Vaunting to come before 121 
 
 Our own age evermore, 
 In a loneness, in a loneness, 
 And the nobler for that oneness.
 
 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE 165 
 
 " Holy in voice and heart, 125 
 
 To high ends, set apart : 
 All unmated, all unmated, 
 Just because so consecrated. 
 
 " But if alone we be, 
 
 Where is our empery ? 1 30 
 
 And if none can reach our stature, 
 Who can mete our lofty nature ? 
 
 " What bell will yield a tone, 
 
 Swung in the air alone ? 
 If no brazen clapper bringing, 135 
 
 Who can hear the chimed ringing ? 
 
 " What angel but would seem 
 
 To sensual eyes, ghost-dim ? 
 And without assimilation, 
 Vain is interpenetration. 140 
 
 "And thus, what can we do, 
 
 Poor rose and poet too, 
 Who both antedate our mission 
 In an unprepared season ? 
 
 " Drop, leaf ! be silent, song ! 145 
 
 Cold things we come among : 
 We must warm them, we must warm them, 
 Ere we ever hope to charm them. 
 
 130. Empery: empire. 132. Mete: measure. 
 
 139. The meaning is that it is useless for a superior being 
 to mix with men, if they cannot understand and appreciate 
 him. If an angel came among men, they would simply not 
 understand him ; and so, the poet thinks, it is with poets also. 
 
 143. Antedate: begin too early.
 
 1 66 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE 
 
 " Howbeit" (here his face 
 
 Lightened around the place, 150 
 
 So to mark the outward turning 
 Of its spirit's inward burning) 
 
 " Something it is, to hold 
 
 In God's worlds manifold, 
 First revealed to creature-duty, 155 
 
 Some new form of His mild Beauty. 
 
 " Whether that form respect 
 
 The sense or intellect, 
 Holy be, in mood or meadow, 
 The Chief Beauty's sign and shadow ! 160 
 
 " Holy, in me and thee, 
 
 Rose fallen from the tree, 
 Though the world stand dumb around us, 
 All unable to expound us. 
 
 " Though none us deign to bless, 165 
 
 Blessed are we, natheless ; 
 Blessed still and consecrated 
 In that, rose, we were created. 
 
 " Oh, shame to poet's lays 
 
 Sung for the dole of praise, 170 
 
 Hoarsely sung upon the highway 
 With that obolum da inihi ! 
 
 170. Dole : a gift, generally a small one, given in charity. 
 172. Obolum da mihi : "give me a penny." It is a shame to- 
 a poet if he only cares for the pay which he gets for his songs.
 
 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE 167 
 
 " Shame, shame to poet's soul 
 
 Pining for such a dole, 
 When Heaven-chosen to inherit 175 
 
 The high throne of a chief spirit ! 
 
 " Sit still upon your thrones, 
 
 O ye poetic ones ! 
 And if, sooth, the world decry you, 
 Let it pass unchallenged by you. 180 
 
 " Ye to yourselves suffice, 
 
 Without its flatteries. 
 Self-contentedly approve you 
 Unto HIM who sits above you, 
 
 " In prayers, that upward mount 185. 
 
 Like to a fair-sunned fount 
 Which, in gushing back upon you, 
 Hath an upper music won you, 
 
 " In faith, that still perceives 
 
 No rose can shed her leaves, 190 
 
 Far less, poet fall from mission, 
 With an unfulfilled fruition, 
 
 " In hope, that apprehends 
 
 An end beyond these ends, 
 And great uses rendered duly 195 
 
 By the meanest song sung truly, 
 
 183-188. The meaning is : Do not mind if the world neglect 
 you, but try to please God with prayers, which, while they 
 ascend to Him, will bring back a blessing to you from above.
 
 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE 
 
 " In thanks, for all the good 
 
 By poets understood, 
 For the sound of seraphs moving 
 Down the hidden depths of loving, 200 
 
 " For sights of things away 
 
 Through fissures of the clay, 
 Promised things which shall be given 
 And sung over, up in Heaven, 
 
 " For life, so lovely-vain, 205 
 
 For death, which breaks the chain, 
 For this sense of present sweetness, 
 And this yearning to completeness ! "
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 THIS stirring and pathetic poem was written to help 
 the movement for shortening the hours during which 
 children were allowed to work in mines and factories. 
 Mr. R. H. Home, a friend of Mrs. Browning's, and 
 himself a poet, had written an official report to Govern- 
 ment on the employment of children, and Mrs. Browning 
 has, in effect, put his report into her own passionate 
 verse. Her poem helped, to no small extent, to bring 
 about a great improvement in the conditions under 
 which children work. 
 
 I. 
 
 Do you hear the children weeping, O my 
 brothers, 
 
 Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
 They are leaning their young heads against 
 their mothers, 
 
 And that cannot stop their tears. 
 
 The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, 
 
 The young birds are chirping in the nest, 6 
 
 The young fawns are playing with the shadows, 
 
 The young flowers are blowing toward the 
 
 west 
 
 But the young, young children, O my brothers, 
 They are weeping bitterly ! 10 
 
 They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 
 In the country of the free.
 
 170 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 II. 
 
 Do you question the young children in the 
 sorrow 
 
 Why their tears are falling so ? 
 The old man may weep for his to-morrow 15 
 
 Which is lost in Long Ago ; 
 The old tree is leafless in the forest, 
 
 The old year is ending in the frost, 
 The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, 
 
 The old hope is hardest to be lost : 20 
 
 But the young, young children, O my brothers, 
 
 Do you ask them why they stand 
 Weeping sore before the bosoms of their 
 mothers, 
 
 In our happy Fatherland? 
 
 in. 
 
 They look up with their pale and sunken 
 faces, 25 
 
 And their looks are sad to see, 
 For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses 
 
 Down the cheeks of infancy ; 
 " Your old earth," they say, " is very dreary, 
 
 Our young feet," they say, " are very weak ; 
 Few paces have we taken, yet are weary 31 
 
 Our grave-rest is very far to seek : 
 Ask the aged why they weep, and not the 
 children, 
 
 For the outside earth is cold, 
 And we young ones stand without, in our be- 
 wildering, 35 
 And the graves are for the old."
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 171 
 
 IV. 
 
 " True," say the children, " it may happen 
 
 That we die before our time : 
 Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen 
 Like a snowball, in the rime. 40 
 
 We looked into the pit prepared to take her : 
 
 Was no room for any work in the close clay ! 
 From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake 
 
 her, 
 
 Crying, ' Get up, little Alice! it is day.' 44 
 If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, 
 With your ear down, little Alice never cries ; 
 Could we see her face, be sure we should not 
 
 know her, 
 
 For the smile has time for growing in her eyes : 
 And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in 
 The shroud by the kirk-chime. 50 
 
 It is good when it happens," say the children, 
 " That we die before our time." 
 
 v. 
 Alas, alas, the children ! they are seeking 
 
 Death in life, as best to have : 
 They are binding up their hearts away from 
 breaking, 55 
 
 With a cerement from the grave. 
 Go out, children, from the mine and from the city, 
 
 Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do ; 
 Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips 
 
 pretty, 
 
 Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them 
 through ! 60 
 
 56. Cerement : grave-cloth, used for wrapping the dead.
 
 172 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the 
 meadows 
 
 Like our weeds anear the mine ? 
 Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows, 
 
 From your pleasures fair and fine ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 " For oh," say the children, " we are weary, 65 
 
 And we cannot run or leap ; 
 If we cared for any meadows, it were merely 
 
 To drop down in them and sleep. 
 Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, 
 
 We fall upon our faces, trying to go ; 70 
 
 And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, 
 The reddest flower would look as pale as 
 
 snow. 
 For, all day, we drag our burden tiring 
 
 Through the coal-dark underground ; 
 Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron 75 
 
 In the factories, round and round. 
 
 Vll. 
 
 " For all day the wheels are droning, turning ; 
 
 Their wind comes in our faces, ,. 
 Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses 
 burning, 
 
 And the walls turn in their places : 80 
 Turns the sky in the high window, blank and 
 
 reeling, 
 Turns the long light that drops adown the 
 
 wall, 
 
 Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling : 
 All are turning, all the day, and we with all.
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 173 
 
 And all day the iron wheels are droning, 85 
 And sometimes we could pray, 
 
 ' O ye wheels ' (breaking out in a mad moaning), 
 ' Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Ay, be silent ! Let them hear each other 
 breathing 
 
 For a moment, mouth to mouth ! 90 
 Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh 
 wreathing 
 
 Of their tender human youth ! 
 Let them feel that this 'cold metallic motion 
 Is not all the life God fashions or reveals : 
 Let them prove their living souls against the 
 notion 95 
 
 That they live in you, or under you, O wheels .' 
 Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, 
 Grinding life down from its mark ; 
 And the children's souls, which God is calling 
 sunward, 
 
 Spin on blindly in the dark. 100 
 
 IX. 
 
 Now tell the poor young children. O my 
 brothers, 
 
 To look up to Him and pray ; 
 So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, 
 
 Will bless them another day. 
 They answer, "Who is God that He should 
 hear us, 105 
 
 While the rushing of the iron wheels is 
 stirred ?
 
 174 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us 
 
 Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. 
 And we hear not (for the wheels in their 
 resounding) 
 
 Strangers speaking at the door : no 
 Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him, 
 Hears our weeping any more ? 
 
 X. 
 
 " Two words, indeed, of praying we remember, 
 
 And at midnight's hour of harm, 
 ' Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, 
 
 We say softly for a charm. 116 
 
 We know no other words except ' Our Father,' 
 And we think that, in some pause of angels' 
 
 song, 
 God may pluck them with the silence sweet to 
 
 gather, 
 
 And hold both within His right hand which is 
 
 strong. 1 20 
 
 1 Our Father ! ' If He heard us, He would surely 
 
 (For they call Him good and mild) 
 Answer, smiling down the steep world very 
 purely, 
 
 ' Come and rest with Me, my child.' 
 
 XI. 
 
 " But, no ! " say the children, weeping faster, 
 
 "He is speechless as a stone : 126 
 
 And they tell us, of His image is the master 
 Who commands us to work on. 
 
 115, 116. " A fact," says Mrs. Browning in a note, " rendered 
 pathetically historical by Mr. Home's report of his Com- 
 mission."
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 175 
 
 Go to I" say the children, "up in Heaven, 
 Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we 
 find. 130 
 
 Do not mock us ; grief has made us unbe- 
 lieving : 
 We look up for God, but tears have made us 
 
 blind." 
 
 Do you hear the children weeping and dis- 
 proving, 
 
 O my brothers, what ye preach ? 
 For God's possible is taught by His world's 
 loving, 135 
 
 And the children doubt of each. 
 
 XII. 
 
 And well may the children weep before you ! 
 
 They are weary ere they run ; 
 They have never seen the sunshine, nor the 
 glory 
 
 Which is brighter than the sun. 140 
 
 They know the grief of man, without its wisdom ; 
 
 They sink in man's despair, without its 
 
 calm ; 
 Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom ; 
 
 Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm : 
 Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly 145 
 The harvest of its memories cannot 
 
 reap, 
 
 Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly. 
 Let them weep ! let them weep ! 
 
 135. That is, the children judge what God's love may be from 
 what they find the world's love is.
 
 176 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
 
 XIII. 
 
 They look up with their pale and sunken faces, 
 And their look is dread to see, 1 50 
 
 For they mind you of their angels in high 
 places, 
 
 With eyes turned on Deity. 
 " How long," they say, " how long, O cruel 
 
 nation, 
 
 Will you stand, to move the world, on a 
 child's heart, 154 
 
 Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation. 
 And tread onward to your throne amid the 
 
 mart? 
 Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, 
 
 And your purple shows your path ! 
 But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper 
 Than the strong man in his wrath." 160
 
 COWPERS GRAVE 177 
 
 COWPER'S GRAVE 
 
 THE poet Cowper, during a great part of his life, was 
 subject to fits of insanity, during which he believed 
 himself shut out from God's love and doomed to utter 
 destruction. These periods of terrible suffering and de- 
 pression overshadowed his whole life ; and the thought 
 of them, and of the rapture which must have followed 
 his awakening in the kingdom of heaven, prompted 
 this beautiful poem, written by Mrs. Browning after 
 visiting his grave. 
 
 I. 
 
 IT is a place where poets crowned may feel the 
 
 heart's decaying ; 
 It is a place where happy saints may weep amid 
 
 their praying ; 
 Yet let the grief and humbleness as low as 
 
 silence languish : 
 Earth surely now may give her calm to whom 
 
 she gave her anguish. 
 
 n. 
 
 O poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the 
 
 deathless singing ! 5 
 
 O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless 
 
 hand was clinging ! 
 O men, this man in brotherhood your weary 
 
 paths beguiling, 
 Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and 
 
 died while ye were smiling !
 
 178 COWPER'S GRAVE 
 
 in. 
 
 And now, what time ye all may read through 
 
 dimming tears his story, 
 How discord on the music fell and darkness on 
 
 the glory, 10 
 
 And how when, one by one, sweet sounds and 
 
 wandering lights departed, 
 He wore no less a loving face because so 
 
 broken-hearted, 
 
 IV. 
 
 He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high 
 
 vocation, 
 And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker 
 
 adoration ; 
 Nor ever shall he be, in praise, by wise or 
 
 good forsaken, 1 5 
 
 Named softly as the household name of one 
 
 whom God hath taken. 
 
 v. 
 
 With quiet sadness and no gloom I learn to 
 
 think upon him, 
 With meekness that is gratefulness to God 
 
 whose heaven hath won him, 
 Who suffered once the madness-cloud to His 
 
 own love to blind him, 
 But gently led the blind along where breath and 
 
 bird could find him ; 20
 
 COWPER'S GRAVE 179 
 
 VI. 
 
 And wrought within his shattered brain such 
 quick poetic senses 
 
 As hills have language for, and stars, harmo- 
 nious influences : 
 
 The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within 
 its number, 
 
 And silent shadows from the trees refreshed 
 him like a slumber. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Wild timid hares were drawn from woods to 
 share his home-caresses, 25 
 
 Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tender- 
 nesses : 
 
 The very world, by God's constraint, from 
 falsehood's ways removing, 
 
 Its women and its men became, beside him, 
 true and loving. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And though, in blindness, he remained un- 
 conscious of that guiding, 
 
 And things provided came without the sweet 
 sense of providing, 30 
 
 He testified this solemn truth, while phrenzy 
 desolated, 
 
 Nor man nor nature satisfies whom only God 
 created. 
 
 25. Cowper kept tame hares about his quiet home at Olney.
 
 i8o COWPER'S GRAVE 
 
 IX. 
 
 Like a sick child that knoweth not his mother 
 
 while she blesses 
 And drops upon his burning brow the coolness 
 
 of her kisses, 
 That turns his fevered eyes around " My 
 
 mother! where's my mother ?" 35 
 
 As if such tender words and deeds could come 
 
 from any other ! 
 
 x. 
 
 The fever gone, with leaps of heart he sees her 
 
 bending o'er him, 
 Her face all pale from watchful love, the un- 
 
 weary love she bore him ! 
 Thus woke the poet from the dream his life's 
 
 long fever gave him, 
 
 Beneath those deep pathetic Eyes which closed 
 in death to save him. 40 
 
 XI. 
 
 Thus ? oh, not thus ! no type of earth can image 
 
 that awaking, 
 Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs, 
 
 round him breaking, 
 Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from 
 
 body parted, 
 But felt those eyes alone, and knew "My 
 
 Saviour ! not deserted ! "
 
 COWPER'S GRAVE l8l 
 
 XII. 
 
 Deserted ! Who hath dreamt that when the cross 
 
 in darkness rested, 45 
 
 Upon the Victim's hidden face no love was 
 
 manifested ? 
 What frantic hands outstretched have e'er the 
 
 atoning drops averted? 
 What tears have washed them from the soul, 
 
 that one should be deserted ? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Deserted ! God could separate from His own 
 essence rather ; 
 
 And Adam's sins have swept between the 
 righteous Son and Father : 50 
 
 Yea, once Immanuel's orphaned cry His uni- 
 verse hath shaken 
 
 It went up single, echoless, " My God, I am 
 forsaken ! " 
 
 XIV. 
 
 It went up from the Holy's lips amid His lost 
 
 creation, 
 That, of the lost, no son should use those words 
 
 of desolation ! 
 That earth's worst phrenzies, marring hope, 
 
 should mar not hope's fruition, 55 
 
 And I, on Cowper's grave, should see his 
 
 rapture in a vision.
 
 1 82 WINE OF CYPRUS 
 
 WINE OF CYPRUS 
 
 GIVEN TO ME BY H. S. BOYD, AUTHOR OF "SELECT 
 PASSAGES FROM THE GREEK FATHERS," &C., 
 
 TO WHOM THESE STANZAS ARE ADDRESSED 
 
 THIS poem was written in honour of a jar of Cyprus 
 wine, given to Mrs. Browning by Mr. H. S. Boyd, a 
 great friend of hers in her girlhood. It reminds her 
 of the days when he had taught her to read all the 
 great authors of Greece, and she recalls the happy 
 hours which they spent over them together. 
 
 I. 
 IF old Bacchus were the speaker, 
 
 He would tell you with a sigh 
 Of the Cyprus in this beaker 
 
 I am sipping like a fly, 
 Like a fly or gnat on Ida 5 
 
 At the hour of goblet-pledge, 
 By queen Juno brushed aside, a 
 
 Full white arm-sweep, from the edge. 
 
 ii. 
 Sooth, the drinking should be ampler 
 
 When the drink is so divine, 10 
 
 And some deep-mouthed Greek exemplar 
 
 Would become your Cyprus wine : 
 
 i. Bacchus : the god of the vine and of drinking. 
 5. Ida : a mountain near Troy, to which, according to Homer, 
 the gods often resorted.
 
 WINE OF CYPRUS 183 
 
 Cyclops' mouth might plunge aright in, 
 While his one eye overleered, 
 
 Nor too large were mouth of Titan 1 5 
 
 Drinking rivers down his beard. 
 
 ill. 
 Pan might dip his head so deep in, 
 
 That his ears alone pricked out, 
 Fauns around him pressing, leaping, 
 
 Each one pointing to his throat : 20 
 
 While the Naiads, like Bacchantes, 
 
 Wild, with urns thrown out to waste, 
 Cry, " O earth, that thou wouldst grant us 
 
 Springs to keep, of such a taste ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 But for me, I am not worthy 25 
 
 After gods and Greeks to drink, 
 And my lips are pale and earthy 
 
 To go bathing from this brink : 
 Since you heard them speak the last time, 
 
 They have faded from their blooms, 30 
 And the laughter of my pastime 
 
 Has learnt silence at the tombs. 
 
 v. 
 Ah, my friend ! the antique drinkers 
 
 Crowned the cup and crowned the brow. 
 Can I answer the old thinkers 35 
 
 In the forms they thought of, now ? 
 
 19. Fanns : the woodland creatures who attended Pan. 
 21. Naiads : spirits of the streams. Bacchantes : the wild 
 female followers of Bacchus. 
 
 34. The Greeks used to wear garlands of flowers at their feasts.
 
 184 WINE OF CYPRUS 
 
 Who will fetch from garden-closes 
 Some new garlands while I speak, 
 
 That the forehead, crowned with roses, 
 May strike scarlet down the cheek ? 40 
 
 VI. 
 
 Do not mock me ! with my mortal 
 
 Suits no wreath again, indeed ; 
 I am sad-voiced as the turtle 
 
 Which Anacreon used to feed : 
 Yet as that same bird demurely 45 
 
 Wet her beak in cup of his, 
 So, without a garland, surely 
 
 I may touch the brim of this. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Go, let others praise the Chian ! 
 
 This is soft as Muses' string, 50 
 
 This is tawny as Rhea's lion, 
 
 This is rapid as his spring, 
 Bright as Paphia's eyes e'er met us, 
 
 Light as ever trod her feet ; 
 And the brown bees of Hymettus 55 
 
 Make their honey not so sweet. 
 
 43. Turtle: turtle-dove. The Greek poet Anacreon has left 
 some verses addressed to a turtle-dove, alluded to in the next 
 lines. 
 
 49. Chian wine, from the island of Chios, was very famous. 
 
 51. Rhea, or Cybele 1 , the mother of the gods, whose chariot 
 was drawn by lions. 
 
 53. Paphia: Aphrodit, or Venus, one of whose favourite 
 homes was at Paphos, in Cyprus. 
 
 55. Hymettus: a mountain near Athens, famed for its 
 honey.
 
 WINE OF CYPRUS 185 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Very copious are my praises, 
 
 Though I sip it like a fly ! 
 Ah but, sipping, times and places 
 
 Change before me suddenly : 60 
 
 As Ulysses' old libation 
 
 Drew the ghosts from every part, 
 So your Cyprus wine, dear Grecian, 
 
 Stirs the Hades of my heart. 
 
 IX. 
 
 And I think of those long mornings 65 
 
 Which my thought goes far to seek, 
 When, betwixt the folio's turnings, 
 
 Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek : 
 Past the pane the mountain spreading, 
 
 Swept the sheep's-bell's tinkling noise 
 While a girlish voice was reading, 71 
 
 Somewhat low for ai's and ot's. 
 
 X. 
 
 Then, what golden hours were for us ! 
 
 While we sat together there, 
 How the white vests of the chorus 75 
 
 Seemed to wave up a live air ! 
 
 61. When Ulysses went to Hades, the region of the dead, he 
 poured wine into a trench that the ghosts might drink ; after 
 drinking they could speak to him. 
 
 72. ai's and ot's : Greek syllables, whose full sound is hardly 
 suited by a low voice. 
 
 75. Chorus', in all old Greek plays there was a group of 
 actors called the chorus, which, besides joining in the action of 
 the play, chanted songs in the intervals of the action.
 
 186 WINE OF CYPRUS 
 
 How the cothurns trod majestic 
 
 Down the deep iambic lines, 
 And the rolling anapaestic 
 
 Curled like vapour over shrines ! 80 
 
 XI. 
 
 Oh, our ^Eschylus, the thunderous, 
 
 How he drove the bolted breath 
 Through the cloud, to wedge it ponderous 
 
 In the gnarled oak beneath ! 
 Oh, our Sophocles, the royal, 85 
 
 Who was born to monarch's place, 
 And who made the whole world loyal 
 
 Less by kingly power than grace ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Our Euripides, the human, 
 
 With his droppings of warm tears, 90 
 And his touches of things common 
 
 Till they rose to touch the spheres ! 
 Our Theocritus, our Bion, 
 
 And our Pindar's shining goals ! 
 These were cup-bearers undying 95 
 
 Of the wine that's meant for souls. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And my Plato, the divine one, 
 
 If men know the gods aright 
 By their motions as they shine on 
 
 With a glorious trail of light ! 100 
 
 77. Cothurns : the high buskin or shoe worn by the actors 
 in tragedy to raise their stature. 
 
 78. Iambic : the name of a Greek metre, a short syllable fol- 
 lowed by a long one, resembling the metre of English blank verse. 
 
 79. Anapcestic: another Greek metre, two short syllables 
 followed by a long one.
 
 WINE OF CYPRUS 187 
 
 And your noble Christian bishops, 
 Who mouthed grandly the last Greek 
 
 Though the sponges on their hyssops 
 Were distent with wine too weak. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Yet, your Chrysostom, you praised him 
 
 As a liberal mouth of gold ; 106 
 
 And your Basil, you upraised him 
 
 To the height of speakers old : 
 And we both praised Heliodorus 
 
 For his secret of pure lies, no 
 
 Who forged first his linked stories 
 
 In the heat of ladies' eyes. 
 
 XV. 
 
 And we both praised your Synesius 
 
 For the fire shot up his odes, 
 Though the Church was scarce propitious 
 
 As he whistled dogs and gods. 116 
 
 And we both praised Nazianzen 
 
 For the fervid heat and speech : 
 
 103-4. That is, though the inspiration of their writings was 
 too weak to give them a place, as writers, beside the old classic 
 authors. 
 
 105. Chrysostom: John, Bishop of Constantinople (A.D. 347- 
 407), called Chrysostom (which means " golden-mouthed ") on 
 account of his eloquence ; it is to this that the next lirie alludes. 
 
 107. Rasil : Bishop of Caesarea (A. r>. 329-379). 
 
 109. Heliodorus : Bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, and author 
 of a romance called The Ethiopian History, which is the earliest 
 complete specimen of a romantic love-story. 
 
 113. Synesius: Bishop of Cyrene, well-known from Kingsley's 
 Hypatia, and excellent alike as a bishop and as a sportsman. 
 
 117. Nazianzen: Gregory Nazianzen, author of a tragedy on 
 the death of Christ, modelled upon Euripides. The " lyre hung 
 out of reach " is the style of the great Greek poets, whom he 
 tried to equal, without success.
 
 1 88 WINE OF CYPRUS 
 
 Only I eschewed his glancing 
 At the lyre hung out of reach. 1 20 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Do you mind that deed of At 
 
 Which you bound me to so fast, 
 Reading " De Virginitate," 
 
 From the first line to the last ? 
 How I said at ending, solemn 125 
 
 As I turned and looked at you, 
 That Saint Simeon on the column 
 
 Had had somewhat less to do ? 
 
 XVII. 
 
 For we sometimes gently wrangled, 
 
 Very gently, be it said, 130 
 
 Since our thoughts were disentangled 
 
 By no breaking of the thread ! 
 And I charged you with extortions 
 
 On the nobler fames of old 
 Ay, and sometimes thought your Persons 
 
 Stained the purple they would fold. 136 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 For the rest a mystic moaning 
 Kept Cassandra at the gate, 
 
 121. Ate: the Greek goddess of retribution or punishment. 
 
 123. De Virginitate : the title of a treatise attributed to St. 
 Basil. 
 
 127. Saint Simeon : surnamed Stylites, or " on the column," 
 from his living on the top of a column for thirty-six years. 
 There is a poem on him by Tennyson. 
 
 135. P 'arsons: Richard Porson was a great Cambridge 
 scholar. These lines mean that the editors of the classics some- 
 times injure, rather than benefit, the author whom they edit. 
 
 137-152. These stanzas refer to scenes in the greatest Greek 
 plays : yEschylus" Agamemnon and Prometheus Bound, Euri- 
 pides' Medea, and Sophocles' CEdipus Tyrannus.
 
 WINE OF CYPRUS 189 
 
 With wild eyes the vision shone in, 
 
 And wide nostrils scenting fate. 140 
 
 And Prometheus, bound in passion 
 By brute Force to the blind stone, 
 
 Showed us looks of invocation 
 Turned to ocean and the sun. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 And Medea we saw burning 145 
 
 At her nature's planted stake : 
 And proud (Edipus fate-scorning 
 
 While the cloud came on to break 
 While the cloud came on slow, slower, 
 
 Till he stood discrowned, resigned ! 150 
 But the reader's voice dropped lower 
 
 When the poet called him BLIND. 
 
 xx. 
 
 Ah, my gossip ! you were older, 
 
 And more learned, and a man ! 
 Yet that shadow, the enfolder 155 
 
 Of your quiet eyelids, ran 
 Both our spirits to one level ; 
 
 And I turned from hill and lea 
 And the summer-sun's green revel, 
 
 To your eyes that could not see. 1 60 
 
 XXI. 
 Now Christ bless you with the one light 
 
 Which goes shining night and day ! 
 May the flowers which grow in sunlight 
 
 Shed their fragrance in your way ! 
 
 152. Mr. H. S. Boyd, to whom this poem is addressed, was 
 blind. 
 
 G 2
 
 190 WINE OF CYPRUS 
 
 Is it not right to remember 165 
 
 All your kindness, friend of mine, 
 
 When we two sat in the chamber, 
 And the poets poured us wine ? 
 
 XXII. 
 
 So, to come back to the drinking 
 
 Of this Cyprus, it is well, 170 
 
 But those memories, to my thinking, 
 
 Make a better cenomel ; 
 And whoever be the speaker, 
 
 None can murmur with a sigh 
 That, in drinking from that beaker, 175 
 
 I am sipping like a fly. 
 
 172. (Enamel: a drink composed of wine and honey, after 
 the manner of the ancients.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 19 1 
 
 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 ' ' EXCITED by Schiller's Gotter Griechenlands, and partly 
 founded on a well-known tradition mentioned in a 
 treatise of Plutarch (De Oraculorum Dffectu), accord- 
 ing to which, at the hour of the Saviour's agony, a cry 
 of ' Great Pan is dead ! ' swept across the waves in the 
 hearing of certain mariners, and the oracles ceased. 
 
 " It is in all veneration to the memory of the deathless 
 Schiller that I oppose a doctrine still more dishonouring 
 to poetry than to Christianity. 
 
 "As Mr. Kenyon's graceful and harmonious paraphrase 
 of the German poem was the first occasion of the turning 
 of my thoughts in this direction, I take advantage of the 
 pretence to indulge my feelings (which overflow on other 
 grounds) by inscribing my lyric to that dear friend and 
 relative, with the earnestness of appreciating esteem as 
 well as of affectionate gratitude." (1844. ) 
 
 The above is the note in which Mrs. Browning herself 
 explained the foundation of her poem, and dedicated it 
 to her friend and cousin. Schiller's poem, to which she 
 refers, is a lament for the disappearance of the old Greek 
 gods, saying that poetry is the poorer for the loss of 
 them. Mrs. Browning tells again the ancient legend of 
 their disappearance at the coming of Christ, of their 
 losing all their strength before Him as false gods before 
 the true, and declares emphatically that poetry can do 
 no good by attempting to revive the belief in them. The 
 inspiration of all the best poetry must be found in truth, 
 not falsehood : " Truest Truth is fairest Beauty." 
 
 I. 
 
 GODS of Hellas, gods of Hellas, 
 Can ye listen in your silence ? 
 Can your mystic voices tell us 
 Where ye hide ? In floating islands,
 
 192 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 With a wind that evermore 5 
 
 Keeps you out of sight of shore ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 II 
 
 In what revels are ye sunken 
 In old ^Ethiopia ? 
 
 Have the Pygmies made you drunken, 10 
 Bathing in mandragora 
 Your divine pale lips that shiver 
 Like the lotus in the river ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 in. 
 
 Do ye sit there still in slumber, 1 5 
 
 In gigantic Alpine rows? 
 The black poppies out of number 
 Nodding, dripping from your brows 
 To the red lees of your wine, 
 And so kept alive and fine ? 20 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Or lie crushed your stagnant corses 
 
 Where the silver spheres roll on, 
 
 Stung to life by centric forces 
 
 Thrown like rays out from the sun? 25 
 
 While the smoke of your old altars 
 
 Is the shroud that round you welters ? 
 
 Great Pan is dead. 
 
 9. In Homer the gods are represented as going to feast with 
 the ^Ethiopians. 
 
 ii. Mandragora: a plant from which sleeping-draughts can 
 he made. 
 
 17. The poppy is another plant which produces sleep. The 
 poetess is asking the old gods whether they are asleep or dead.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 193 
 
 V. 
 
 "Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas," 
 
 Said the old Hellenic tongue, 30 
 
 Said the hero-oaths, as well as 
 
 Poets' songs the sweetest sung : 
 
 Have ye grown deaf in a day ? 
 
 Can ye speak not yea or nay, 
 
 Since Pan is dead? 35 
 
 VI. 
 
 Do ye leave your rivers flowing 
 
 All alone, O Naiades, 
 
 While your drenched locks dry slow in 
 
 This cold feeble sun and breeze ? 
 
 Not a word the Naiads say, 40 
 
 Though the rivers run for aye ; 
 
 For Pan is dead 
 
 VII. 
 
 From the gloaming of the oak-wood, 
 
 O ye Dryads, could ye flee ? 
 
 At the rushing thunderstroke, would 45 
 
 No sob tremble through the tree ? 
 
 Not a word the Dryads say, 
 
 Though the forests wave for aye : 
 
 For Pan is dead. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Have ye left the mountain places. 50 
 
 Oreads wild, for other tryst ? 
 Shall we see no sudden faces 
 Strike a glory through the mist ? 
 
 37. Naiades : the nymphs or spirits of the streams. 
 
 44. Dryads : the nymphs of the trees. 
 
 51. Oreads : the nymphs of the mountains.
 
 IQ4 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 Not a sound the silence thrills 
 Of the everlasting hills : 55 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead 
 
 IX. 
 
 O twelve gods of Plato's vision, 
 
 Crowned to starry wanderings, 
 
 With your chariots in procession 
 
 And your silver clash of wings ! 60 
 
 Very pale ye seem to rise, 
 
 Ghosts of Grecian deities, 
 
 Now Pan is dead. 
 
 x. 
 
 Jove, that right hand is unloaded 
 Whence the thunder did prevail, 65 
 
 While in idiocy of godhead 
 Thou art staring the stars pale ! 
 And thine eagle, blind and old, 
 Roughs his feathers in the cold. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 70 
 
 XI. 
 
 Where, O Juno, is the glory 
 Of thy regal look and tread ? 
 Will they lay, for evermore, thee 
 On thy dim, straight, golden bed ? 
 Will thy queendom all lie hid 
 Meekly under either lid ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 64. In this and the following stanzas each of the chief Greek 
 gods is addressed individually in turn.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 195 
 
 XII. 
 
 Ha, Apollo ! floats his golden 
 
 Hair all mist-like where he stands, 
 
 While the Muses hang enfolding 80 
 
 Knee and foot with faint wild hands ? 
 
 'Neath the clanging of thy bow, 
 
 Niobe looked lost as thou ! 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Shall the casque with its brown iron 85 
 Pallas' broad blue eyes eclipse, 
 And no hero take inspiring 
 From the god-Greek of her lips ? 
 'Neath her olive dost thou sit, 
 Mars the mighty, cursing it ? 90 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Bacchus, Bacchus ! on the panther 
 
 He swoons, bound with his own vines ; 
 
 And his Maenads slowly saunter, 
 
 Head aside, among the pines, 95 
 
 While they murmur dreamingly 
 
 " Evohe ! ah evohe ! 
 
 Ah, Pan is dead ! " 
 
 85. Casque : the helmet with which Pallas Athen6 is generally 
 represented in statues. The olive was sacred to her. 
 
 92. The car of Bacchus was drawn by panthers. The 
 Maenads were his attendants, and "evohe" (euoi) their cry 
 of triumph and delight.
 
 196 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 XV. 
 
 Neptune lies beside the trident, 
 
 Dull and senseless as a stone ; 100 
 
 And old Pluto deaf and silent 
 
 Is cast out into the sun : 
 
 Ceres smileth stern thereat, 
 
 " We all now are desolate 
 
 Now Pan is dead." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Aphrodite ! dead and driven 106 
 
 As thy native foam thou art ; 
 
 With the cestus long done heaving 
 
 On the w<|iite calm of thine heart ! 
 
 Ai Adonis ! at that shriek no 
 
 Not a tear runs down her cheek 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 And the Loves, we used to know from 
 
 One another, huddled lie, 
 
 Frore as taken in a snow-storm, 115 
 
 Close beside her tenderly ; 
 
 As if each had weakly tried 
 
 Once to kiss her as he died. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 108. Cestus: the girdle worn by Aphrodite, 
 no. Ai Adonis: the cry oflament for Adonis, the boy whom 
 Aphrodite loved. 
 115. Frore: frozen.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 197 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 What, and Hermes ? Time enthralleth 
 All thy cunning, Hermes, thus, 121 
 
 And the ivy blindly crawleth 
 Round thy brave caduceus ? 
 Hast thou no new message for us, 
 Full of thunder and Jove-glories ? 125 
 
 Nay, Pan is dead. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Crowned Cybele's great turret 
 
 Rocks and crumbles on her head ; 
 
 Roar the lions of her chariot 
 
 Toward the wilderness, unfed : 130 
 
 Scornful children are not mute, 
 
 " Mother, mother, walk afoot, 
 
 Since Pan is dead !" 
 
 XX. 
 
 In the fiery-hearted centre 
 
 Of the solemn universe, 135 
 
 Ancient Vesta, who could enter 
 
 To consume thee with this curse ? 
 
 Drop thy grey chin on thy knee, 
 
 O thou palsied Mystery ! 
 
 For Pan is dead. 140 
 
 123. Caduceus: the rod carried by Hermes, as the messenger 
 of the gods. 
 
 127. CybeU, " the mother of the gods," is represented with a 
 crown of towers on her head.
 
 1 98 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Gods, we vainly do adjure you, 
 
 Ye return nor voice nor sign ! 
 
 Not a votary could secure you 
 
 Even a grave for your Divine : 
 
 Not a grave, to show thereby 145 
 
 Here these grey old gods do lie, 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Even that Greece who took your wages 
 
 Calls the obolus outworn ; 
 
 And the hoarse, deep-throated ages 150 
 
 Laugh your godships unto scorn : 
 
 And the poets do disclaim you, 
 
 Or grow colder if they name you 
 
 And Pan is dead. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Gods bereaved, gods belated, 155 
 
 With your purples rent asunder ! 
 Gods discrowned and desecrated, 
 Disinherited of thunder ! 
 Now, the goats may climb and crop 
 The soft grass on Ida's top 160 
 
 Now Pan is dead. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Calm, of old, the bark went onward, 
 When a cry more loud than wind 
 Rose up, deepened, and swept sunward 
 From the piled Dark behind ; 165 
 
 149. Obolus '. a small Greek coin. 
 
 i 60. Ida '. in Homer the gods are represented as frequenting 
 Ida, the mountain near Troy.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 199 
 
 And the sun shrank and grew pale, 
 Breathed against by the great wail 
 " Pan, Pan is dead." 
 
 XXV. 
 
 And the rowers from the benches 
 
 Fell, each shuddering on his face, 170 
 
 While departing Influences 
 
 Struck a cold back through the place ; 
 
 And the shadow of the ship 
 
 Reeled along the passive deep 
 
 " Pan, Pan is dead." 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 And that dismal cry rose slowly 176 
 
 And sank slowly through the air, 
 Full of spirit's melancholy 
 And eternity's despair ! 
 And they heard the words it said 180 
 PAN is DEAD GREAT PAN is DEAD- 
 PAN, PAN is DEAD. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 'Twas the hour when One in Sion 
 Hung for love's sake on a cross ; 
 When His brow was chill with dying 185 
 And His soul was faint with loss ; 
 When His priestly blood dropped downward 
 And His kingly eyes looked throneward 
 Then, Pan was dead.
 
 200 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 By the love He stood alone in, 190 
 
 His sole Godhead rose complete, 
 And the false gods fell down moaning, 
 Each from off his golden seat ; 
 All the false gods with a cry 
 Rendered up their deity 195 
 
 Pan, Pan was dead. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Wailing wide across the islands, 
 
 They rent, vest-like, their Divine ; 
 
 And a darkness and a silence 
 
 Quenched the light of every shrine ; 200 
 
 And Dodona's oak swang lonely 
 
 Henceforth, to the tempest only : 
 
 Pan, Pan was dead. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Pythia staggered, feeling o'er her 
 
 Her lost god's forsaken look ; 205 
 
 Straight her eyeballs filmed with horror 
 
 And her crispy fillets shook, 
 
 And her lips gasped, through their foam, 
 
 For a word that did not come. 
 
 Pan, Pan was dead. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 O ye vain false gods of Hellas, 210 
 
 Ye are silent evermore ! 
 And I dash down this old chalice 
 Whence libations ran of yore. 
 
 201. Dodona : the seat of an ancient oracle in Greece. 
 204. Pythia : the priestess at Delphi, through whom oracles 
 were given to those who sought them.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 2OI 
 
 See, the wine crawls in the dust 215 
 
 Wormlike as your glories must, 
 
 Since Pan is dead. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Get to dust, as common mortals, 
 By a common doom and track ! 
 Let no Schiller from the portals 220 
 
 Of that Hades call you back, 
 Or instruct us to weep all 
 At your antique funeral. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 By your beauty, which confesses 225 
 
 Some chief Beauty conquering you, 
 By our grand heroic guesses 
 Through your falsehood at the True,' 
 We will weep not! earth shall roll 
 Heir to each god's aureole 230 
 
 And Pan is dead. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Earth outgrows the mythic fancies 
 
 Sung beside her in her youth, 
 
 And those debonair romances 
 
 Sound but dull beside the truth. 235 
 
 Phoebus' chariot-course is run : 
 
 Look up, poets, to the sun ! 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 230. Aureole: the golden circle shown in pictures round the 
 heads of gods and saints. 
 
 234. Debonair: graceful, well-mannered. 
 
 236. Phoebus, the god of the sun, is no longer believed in ; let 
 poets look to the sun itself instead.
 
 202 THE DEAD PAN 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Christ hath sent us down the angels ; 
 
 And the whole earth and the skies 240 
 
 Are illumed by altar-candles 
 
 Lit for blessed mysteries ; 
 
 And a Priest's hand through creation 
 
 Waveth calm and consecration : 
 
 And Pan is dead. 245 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Truth is fair : should we forego it ? 
 Can we sigh right for a wrong ? 
 God himself is the best Poet, 
 And the Real is His song. 
 Sing His truth out fair and full, 250 
 
 And secure His beautiful ! 
 
 Let Pan be dead ! 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Truth is large : our aspiration 
 Scarce embraces half we be. 
 Shame, to stand in His creation 255 
 
 And doubt truth's sufficiency ! 
 To think God's song unexcelling 
 The poor tales of our own telling 
 
 When Pan is dead ! 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 What is true and just and honest, 260 
 
 What is lovely, what is pure, 
 
 All of praise that hath admonisht, 
 
 All of virtue, shall endure ; 
 
 262. That hath admonisht: i c., that bath taught us useful 
 lessons.
 
 THE DEAD PAN 203 
 
 These are themes for poets' uses, 
 Stirring nobler than the Muses, 265 
 
 Ere Pan was dead. 
 
 ^ xxxix. 
 
 O brave poets, keep back nothing, 
 
 Nor mix falsehood with the whole ! 
 
 Look up Godward ; speak the truth in 270 
 
 Worthy song from earnest soul : 
 
 Hold, in high poetic duty, 
 
 Truest Truth the fairest Beauty ! 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 THE END 
 
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