s: Will't please you sit and look at her? I said


s: Strangers like you that pictured countenance,


s: The depth and passion of its earnest glance,


s: But to myself they turned (since none puts by


s: the curtain I have drawn for you, but I)


s: And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,


s: How such a glance came there; so, not the first


s: Are you to turn and ask thus.  Sir, 'twas not


s: Her husband's presence only, called that spot


s: Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps


s: Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint


s: Half-flush that dies along her throat"; such stuff


s: Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough


s: For calling up that spot of joy. She had


s: A heart--how shall I say--too soon made glad,


s: Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er


s: She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.


s: Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,


s: The dropping of the daylight in the West,


s: The bough of cherries some officious fool


s: Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule


s: She rode with round the terrace--all and each


s: Would draw from her alike the approving speech,


s: Or blush, at least. She thanked men--good! but thanked


s: Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked


s: My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name


s: With anybody's gift.  Who'd stoop to blame


s: This sort of trifling?  Even had you skill


s: In speech (which I have not) to make your will


s: Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this


s: Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,


s: Or there exceed the mark"--and if she let


s: Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,


s: E'en that would be some stooping; and I choose


s: Never to stoop.  Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,


s: Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without


s: Much the same smile?  This grew; I gave commands;


s: Then all smiles stopped together.  There she stands


s: As if alive.  Will't please you rise?  We'll meet


s: The Count your master's known munificence


s: Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed


s: At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go


s: Together down, sir.  Notice Neptune, though,


s: Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!


s: "My Last Duchess" puts in the mouth of a Duke of Ferrara,


s: a typical husband and art patron of the Renaissance, a


s: description of his last wife, whose happy nature and universal


s: kindliness were a perpetual affront to his exacting


s: self-predominance, and whose suppression, by his command,


s: has made the vacancy he is now, in his interview


s: with the envoy for a new match, taking precaution to fill


s: All points to one, he must have schemed!


s: To please themselves; 'twas all their deed;


s: My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped


s: A word, and straight the play had stopped.


s: Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun--


s: Theirs down; 'twas time I should present


s: The victor's crown, but... there, 'twill last


s: And all stayed.  "Bring no crowns, I say!"


s: In blood men's verdict there.  North, South,


s: The while!  His foot... my memory leaves


s: Was finished, prone lay the false knight,


s: Say, hast thou lied?"  And, "I have lied


s: What safe my heart holds, though no word


s: His sword (that dripped by me and swung)


s: I vexed them.  Gauthier's dwelling-place


s: Great brow; tho' when his brother's black


s: Full eye shows scorn, it... Gismond here?


s: "Count Gismond: Aix in Provence" illustrates, in the person


s: of the woman who relates to a friend an episode of her


s: own life, the power of innate purity to raise up for


s: her a defender when caught in the toils woven by


s: the unsuspected envy and hypocrisy of her cousins


s: and Count Gauthier, who attempt to bring dishonor


s: upon her, on her birthday, with the seeming intention


s: of honoring her. Her faith that the trial by combat


s: between Gauthier and Gismond must end in Gismond's


s: victory and her vindication reflects most truly, as Arthur


s: Symons has pointed out, the medieval atmosphere of


s: Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done;


s: Were praising God, the Pope's great way.


s: Might praise him, that great way, and die!"


s: Lived there, and played the craftsman well;


s: Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell


s: "Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped--


s: "The Boy and the Angel."  An imaginary legend illustrating


s: the worth of humble, human love to God, who missed in


s: the praise of the Pope, Theocrite, and of the Angel


s: Gabriel, the precious human quality in the song of the


s: And he lay, would not moan, would not curse,


s: "Were the object less mean, would he stand


s: Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth:


s: No: I could not but smile through my chafe:


s: 'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain


s: Round his creep-hole, with never a break


s: Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast


s: Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed!


s: "Instans Tyrannus" is a despot's confession of one of his


s: own experiences which showed him the inviolability of the


s: weakest man who is in the right and who can call the


s: spiritual force of good to his aid against the utmost violence


s: or cunning.--"Instans Tyrannus," or the threatening tyrant,


s: suggested by Horace, third Ode in Book III:


s: aside by the heat of the populace nor the brow of the


s: Comes to find, God knows what friends!--


s: "Mesmerism."  With a continuous tension of will, whose


s: unbroken concentration impregnates the very structure of


s: the poem, a mesmerist describes the processes of the act


s: by which he summons shape and soul of the woman he


s: desires; and then reverent perception of the sacredness


s: of the soul awes him from trespassing upon another's


s: "Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets:


s: Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen


s: And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost


s: With the dame he professed to adore most.


s: Which led where the eye scarce dared follow


s: Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.


s: And bade him make sport and at once stir


s: Across it, and dropped there a firework,


s: And fled: one's heart's beating redoubled;


s: A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled,


s: By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter;


s: Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot


s: (Whose experience of nature's but narrow


s: And whose faculties move in no small mist


s: I should study that brute to describe you


s: One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy


s: The barrier, they reached and they rested


s: On space that might stand him in best stead:


s: For who knew, he thought, what the amazement,


s: The eruption of clatter and blaze meant,


s: Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered,


s: And you saw by the flash on his forehead,


s: By the hope in those eyes wide and steady,


s: "How he stands!" quoth the King: "we may well swear,


s: (No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhere


s: Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold,


s: Their first would too pleasantly purloin


s: Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!


s: Walked straight to the glove--while the lion


s: Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on


s: The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,


s: And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir--


s: So should I!"--cried the King--"'twas mere vanity


s: Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing


s: From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing.


s: In her brow's undisturbed self-possession


s: Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment,


s: To what "speeches like gold" were reducible,


s: Felt the smoke in her face was but proper;


s: And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?


s: If she wished not the rash deed's recalment?


s: For my love--what De Lorge would not dare!


s: With my scorn--what De Lorge could compare!


s: He would brave when my lip formed a breath,


s: From the poor slave whose club or bare hands


s: Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands,


s: By no shame, should he shrink, overawed,


s: That his rude boys might laugh at the gift


s: --To the page who last leaped o'er the fence


s: Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.


s: Really meant, while the power was yet mine,


s: Will the pain pass so soon, do you know?"


s: The youth stepped with, forward to serve her)


s: --He'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turn


s: If you whispered "Friend, what you'd get, first earn!"


s: Her shame from the Court, and they married,


s: For De Lorge, he made women with men vie,


s: Those in wonder and praise, these in envy;


s: And in short stood so plain a head taller.


s: That he wooed and won... how do you call her?


s: To the King's love, who loved her a week well.


s: His wife, from her chamber, those straying


s: While the King took the closet to chat in,--


s: But of course this adventure came pat in.


s: How bringing a glove brought such glory,


s: But the wife smiled--"His nerves are grown firmer:


s: Mine he brings now and utters no murmur."


s: "The Glove" gives a transcript from Court life, in Paris,


s: under Francis I.  In making Ronsard the mouthpiece for


s: a deeper observation of the meaning of the incident he is


s: supposed to witness and describe than Marot and the rest


s: saw, characteristic differences between these two poets of


s: the time are brought out, the genuineness of courtly love


s: and chivalry is tested, and to the original story of the glove


s: is added a new view of the lady's character; a sketch of


s: her humbler and truer lover, and their happiness; and a


s: pendent scene showing the courtier De Lorges, having


s: won a beauty for his wife, in the ignominious position of


s: assisting the king to enjoy her favors and of submitting to


s: pleasantries upon his discomfiture.  The original story as


s: told by Poullain de St. Croix in his Essais Historiques sur


s: Paris ran thus: "One day whilst Francis I amused himself


s: with looking at a combat between his lions, a lady,


s: having let her glove drop, said to De Lorges, 'If you


s: would have me believe that you love me as much as you


s: swear you do, go and bring back my glove.'  De Lorges


s: went down, picked up the glove from amidst the ferocious


s: beasts, returned, and threw it in the lady's face; and in


s: spite of all her advances and cajoleries would never look


s: at her again.''  Schiller running across this anecdote of


s: St. Croix, in 1797, as he writes Goethe, wrote a poem


s: on it which adds nothing to the story. Leigh Hunt's


s: 'The Glove and the Lions' adds some traits.  It characterizes


s: the lady as shallow and vain, with smiles and


s: eyes which always seem'd the same.''  She calculates


s: since "king, ladies, lovers, all look on," that "the occasion


s: is divine" to drop her glove and "prove his love,


s: then look at him and smile"; and after De Lorges has


s: returned and thrown the glove, "but not with love, right


s: in the lady's face,'' Hunt makes the king rise and swear


s: "rightly done!  No love, quoth he, but vanity, sets love


s: a task like that!'' This is the material Browning worked


s: on; he makes use of this speech of the king's, but remodels


s: the lady's character wholly, and gives her an appreciative


s: lover, and also a keen-eyed young poet to tell her


s: story afresh and to reveal through his criticism the narrowness


s: to human nature were both characteristic of Peter Ronsard


s: most erudite and original of French medieval poets.


s: His nature and verse were simpler than Ronsard's,


s: and he belonged more peculiarly to his own day.


s: leanings which occasioned his imprisonment twice, and put


s: him in need of the protection Francis and his sister gave


s: him.  Among his works were sixty-five epistles addressed


s: to grandees, attesting his courtiership, and the paraphrase


s: of forty-nine of the Psalms to which Ronsard alludes.


s: if evil be anticipated, don't wait till it seizes you, but


s: dare to assure yourself and then forestall it as the lady did.


s: That he slaughters you with savage looks


s: He does himself though,--and if some vein


s: Were to snap tonight in this heavy brain,


s: Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand


s: Till I found him, come from his foreign land


s: With, worse than fever throbs and shoots,


s: --Yes, rather would see him than not see,


s: Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint


s: And my style infirm and its figures faint,


s: All the critics say, and more blame yet,


s: This garret, crowned with love's best crown,


s: There may be heaven; there must be hell;


s: Meantime, there is our earth here--well!


s: "Time's Revenges."  An author soliloquizes in his garret


s: over the fact that he possesses a friend who loves him and


s: would do anything in his power to serve him, but for


s: whom he cares almost nothing.  At the same time he


s: himself loves a woman to such distraction that he counts


s: himself crowned with love's best crown while sacrificing


s: his soul, his body, his peace, and his fame in brooding on


s: his love, while she could calmly decree that he should


s: roast at a slow fire if it would compass her frivolously


s: ambitious designs.  Thus his indifference to his friend is


s: avenged by the indifference the lady shows toward him.


s: a symbol of the highest attainments in poesy, his (the


s: speaker's) reverence for which is so great that he would


s: rather put his cheek under his lady's foot than that poetry


s: should suffer any indignity at his hands; yet in spite of


s: all the possibilities open to him through his enthusiasm for


s: poetry, he prefers wasting his entire energies upon one


s: Her blood-hounds thro' the country-side,


s: Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked


s: Bright creeping thro' the moss they love:


s: --How long it seems since Charles was lost!


s: Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed


s: With little bells that cheer their task,


s: To help, I knew.  When these had passed,


s: She picked my glove up while she stripped


s: Which, when 'twas told her, could not fail


s: In which she walked thus far, and stood,


s: And kneeling whisper, Whence comes peace?


s: Charles proved false, what shall now convince


s: In blood thro' these two hands.  And next,


s: Charles, perjured traitor, for his part,


s: --Ah, there, what should I wish? For fast


s: "The Italian in England."  An Italian patriot who has taken


s: part in an unsuccessful revolt against Austrian  dominance,


s: reflects upon the incidents of his escape and flight from


s: Italy to the end that if he ever should have a thought


s: beyond the welfare of Italy, he would wish first for the


s: discomfiture of his enemies and then to go and see once


s: more the noble woman who at the risk of her own life


s: helped him to escape.  Though there is no exact historical


s: incident upon which this poem is founded, it has a


s: historical background.  The Charles referred to (lines 8,


s: the younger branch of the house of Savoy.  His having


s: played with the patriot in his youth, as the poem says, is


s: quite possible, for Charles was brought up as a simple


s: citizen in a public school, and one of his chief friends was


s: Alberta Nota, a writer of liberal principles, whom he


s: made his secretary.  As indicated in the poem, Charles


s: at first declared himself in sympathy, though in a somewhat


s: lukewarm manner, with the rising led by Santa Rosa against


s: Austrian domination in 1823, and upon the abdication of


s: Victor Emanuel he became regent of Turin.  But when


s: the king Charles Felix issued a denunciation against the


s: new government, Charles Albert succumbed to the king's


s: threats and left his friends in the lurch.  Later the Austrians


s: marched into the country, Santa Rosa was forced


s: to retreat from Turin, and, with his friends, he who might


s: well have been the very patriot of the poem was obliged


s: and determined enemy of Italian independence.


s: lauds, for the three last days in Holy Week.  Fifteen


s: lighted candles are placed on a triangular stand, and at the


s: conclusion of each psalm one is put out till a single candle


s: is left at the top of the triangle.  The extinction of the


s: other candles is said to figure the growing darkness of the


s: world at the time of the Crucifixion.  The last candle


s: (which is not extinguished, but hidden behind the altar


s: for a few moments) represents Christ, over whom Death


s: I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco.


s: Time for rain! for your long hot dry Autumn


s: The white skin of each grape on the bunches,


s: Those creatures you make such account of,


s: Pomegranates were chapping and splitting


s: And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone,


s: On the path, or straight out of the rockside,


s: Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower


s: For the prize were great butterflies fighting,


s: So, I guessed, ere I got up this morning,


s: By the quick rustle-down of the quail-nets


s: And look thro' the twisted dead vine-twigs,


s: Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net-poles,


s: Your priest and his brother tugged at them,


s: Fierce the black water frothed o'er the blind-rock.


s: With pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit;


s: And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner


s: The string and its brass coin suspended,


s: Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards


s: In the vat, halfway up in our houseside,


s: While your brother all bare-legged is dancing


s: Since still when he seems all but master,


s: And eyes shut against the rain's driving;


s: Of the orchard's black mould, the love-apple


s: All the young ones are kneeling and filling


s: Tempted out by this first rainy weather,--


s: As to-night will be proved to my sorrow,


s: We shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen,


s: And gourds fried in great purple slices,


s: Meantime, see the grape bunch they've brought you:


s: This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball


s: Like an onion, each smoother and whiter;


s: From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,


s: And end with the prickly-pear's red flesh


s: The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth.


s: Hark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olives


s: Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them,


s: How the old twisted olive trunks shudder,


s: Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees


s: For here comes the whole of the tempest!


s: Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture


s: Their fruit-balls, black, glossy and luscious,--


s: But my mule picked his sure sober path out,


s: From the plain, where the woods could scarce follow;


s: Our way, the woods wondered, and left us,


s: Though the wild path grew wilder each instant,


s: 'Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones


s: Of some monster which climbed there to die


s: Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed


s: So loves the salt rock's face to seaward,


s: To the stone where they root and bear berries,


s: Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets


s: Was above me, and round me the mountains,


s: Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!


s: For, ever some new head and breast of them


s: And, before they escape you surprise them.


s: How the soft plains they look on, lean over


s: --Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine crouches,


s: E'en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut:


s: So, I turned to the sea; and there slumbered


s: Tho' the small one, just launched in the wave,


s: Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts


s: Shall we sail round and round them, close over


s: Then scramble from splinter to splinter,


s: On the largest, the strange square black turret


s: While the other, thro' locks of curled wire,


s: Shines the hog, come to share in the windfall


s: Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening.


s: As you'll hear in the off-hand discourse


s: The Dominican brother, these three weeks,


s: All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar


s: But the great masterpiece is the scaffold


s: All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers


s: Will strike us up something that's brisk


s: Thro' the plain, while in gallant procession


s: All round the glad church lie old bottles


s: Which will be, when the Image re-enters,


s: On the plain will the trumpets join chorus,


s: --If 'twere proper, Scirocco should vanish


s: "The Italian in England."  An Italian patriot who has taken


s: part in an unsuccessful revolt against Austrian  dominance,


s: reflects upon the incidents of his escape and flight from


s: Italy to the end that if he ever should have a thought


s: beyond the welfare of Italy, he would wish first for the


s: discomfiture of his enemies and then to go and see once


s: more the noble woman who at the risk of her own life


s: helped him to escape.  Though there is no exact historical


s: incident upon which this poem is founded, it has a


s: historical background.  The Charles referred to (lines 8,


s: the younger branch of the house of Savoy.  His having


s: played with the patriot in his youth, as the poem says, is


s: quite possible, for Charles was brought up as a simple


s: citizen in a public school, and one of his chief friends was


s: Alberta Nota, a writer of liberal principles, whom he


s: made his secretary.  As indicated in the poem, Charles


s: at first declared himself in sympathy, though in a somewhat


s: lukewarm manner, with the rising led by Santa Rosa against


s: Austrian domination in 1823, and upon the abdication of


s: Victor Emanuel he became regent of Turin.  But when


s: the king Charles Felix issued a denunciation against the


s: new government, Charles Albert succumbed to the king's


s: threats and left his friends in the lurch.  Later the Austrians


s: marched into the country, Santa Rosa was forced


s: to retreat from Turin, and, with his friends, he who might


s: well have been the very patriot of the poem was obliged


s: and determined enemy of Italian independence.


s: lauds, for the three last days in Holy Week.  Fifteen


s: lighted candles are placed on a triangular stand, and at the


s: conclusion of each psalm one is put out till a single candle


s: is left at the top of the triangle.  The extinction of the


s: other candles is said to figure the growing darkness of the


s: world at the time of the Crucifixion.  The last candle


s: (which is not extinguished, but hidden behind the altar


s: for a few moments) represents Christ, over whom Death


s: I send my heart up to thee, all my heart


s: For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;


s: Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space


s: May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.


s: Which if the Three should hear you call,


s: And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue,


s: The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe.


s: Thy... Scatter the vision for ever! And now


s: I lure thee above where the destinies bar


s: Than my pale one announce there is withering away


s: Some... Scatter the vision forever!  And now,


s: An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust


s: Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?


s: Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you!


s: Your perfect self, from 'neath your feet


s: They trail me, these three godless knaves,


s: Past every church that saints and saves,


s: Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow-deep,


s: As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep,


s: Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame or steel,


s: Or poison doubtless; but from water--feel!


s: Go find the bottom! Would you stay me?  There!


s: Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass


s: I flung away: since you have praised my hair,


s: 'Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.


s: That quick the round smooth cord of gold,


s: This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,


s: These objects, and, while day lasts, weave


s: And how your statues' hearts must swell!


s: Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair!


s: There's Zanze's vigilant taper; safe are we.


s: The lady with the colder breast than snow.


s: Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand


s: More than I touch yours when I step to land,


s: And lips to lips!  Yet once more, ere we part,


s: Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art!


s: It was ordained to be so, sweet!--and best


s: Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast.


s: Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards!  Care


s: My blood will hurt!  The Three, I do not scorn


s: To death, because they never lived: but I


s: Have lived indeed, and so--(yet one more kiss)--can die!


s: "In a Gondola" is a lyric dialogue between two Venetian


s: lovers who have stolen away in a gondola spite of "the


s: three"--"Himself'," perhaps a husband, and "Paul"


s: and "Gian," her brothers--whose vengeance discovers


s: them at the end, but not before their love and danger


s: have moved them to weave a series of lyrical fancies, and


s: led them to a climax of emotion which makes Life so


s: "The first stanza was written,'' writes Browning,


s: "to illustrate Maclise's picture, for which he was anxious


s: to get some line or two.  I had not seen it, but from


s: Forster's description, gave it to him in his room


s: impromptu.... When I did see it I thought the serenade


s: too jolly, somewhat, for the notion I got from Forster,


s: and I took up the subject in my own way.''


s: a Neapolitan painter, on account of his constantly being


s: goaded on in his work by his penurious and avaricious


s: called Castelfranco, because born there, 1478, died 1511.


s: but suggestive of the style of each of these artists.


s: "Ranolf and Amohia," full of descriptions of


s: And walked home thro' the merry weather,


s: For what's-his-name's, the new prose-poet


s: Who wrote the book there, on the shelf--


s: With no work done, but great works undone,


s: Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings,


s: In more to come!"  But who goes gleaning


s: Hedgeside chance-glades, while full-sheaved


s: Stand cornfields by him?  Pride, o'erweening


s: His cheeks' raised colour, soon to sink,


s: Feed, should not he, to heart's content?


s: Planned your great works, apart from progress,


s: Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child!


s: Where now a captive priestess, she alway


s: Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech


s: With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach


s: As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands


s: Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands


s: Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry


s: Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane


s: All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid


s: The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,


s: When all God's creatures crave their boon,


s: His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife!


s: Distinguished names!--but 'tis, somehow,


s: Still more distinguished, like the games


s: And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried,


s: I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,'


s: Our captain said, 'The 'long-shore thieves


s: "In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;


s: With great grass hat and kerchief black,


s: Look East, where whole new thousands are!


s: "Waring."  In recounting the sudden disappearance from


s: among his friends of a man proud and sensitive, who with


s: fine powers of intellect yet incurred somewhat of disdain


s: because of his failure to accomplish anything permanent,


s: expression is given to the deep regret experienced by his


s: friends now that he has left them, his absence having


s: brought them to a truer realization of his worth.  If only


s: Waring would come back, the speaker, at least, would


s: give him the sympathy and encouragement he craved


s: instead of playing with his sensibilities as he had done.


s: Conjectures are indulged in as to Waring's whereabouts.


s: The speaker prefers to think of him as back in London


s: preparing to astonish the world with some great masterpiece


s: in art, music, or literature.   Another speaker surprises all


s: by telling how he had seen the "last of Waring" in a


s: momentary meeting at Trieste, but the first speaker is


s: certain that the star of Waring is destined to rise again


s: Grove, Surrey, May 20, 1811), a friend of Browning's,


s: distinguished as a poet and as a Colonial statesman and


s: ruler. His first volume of poems was published in 1832.


s: Some verses of his in Blackwood's, 1837, attracted much


s: attention to him as a rising young poet.  In 1841 he


s: was called to the bar, and in 1841 went out to New


s: Zealand among the earliest settlers.  There he lived for


s: thirty years, filling several important official positions.


s: His unceremonious departure for New Zealand with no


s: leave-takings was the occasion of Browning's poem, which


s: is said by Mrs. Orr to give a lifelike sketch of Domett's


s: character.  His "star" did, however, rise again for his


s: English friends, for he returned to London in 1871.  The


s: year following saw the publication of his "Ranolf and


s: Amohia," a New Zealand poem, in the course of which


s: he characterizes Browning as "Subtlest Asserter of the


s: Soul in Song."  He met Browning again in London, and


s: was one of the vice-presidents of the London Browning


s: points out that in his Living Authors of England


s: Thomas Powell describes this incident, the "young author"


s: mentioned being himself: "We have a vivid


s: recollection of the last time we saw him.  It was at


s: an evening party, a few days before he sailed from


s: England; his intimate friend, Mr. Browning, was also


s: present.  It happened that the latter was introduced that


s: evening for the first time to a young author who had just


s: then appeared in the literary world.  This, consequently,


s: prevented the two friends from conversation, and they


s: parted from each other without the slightest idea on Mr.


s: Browning's part that he was seeing his old friend Domett


s: for the last time.  Some days after, when he found that


s: Domett had sailed, he expressed in strong terms to the


s: writer of this sketch the self-reproach he felt at having


s: preferred the conversation of a stranger to that of his


s: of part of a line in Virgil describing Polyphemus,


s: "Monstrum horrendum informe ingens," a monster horrid,


s: of adjectives humorously used by Browning to express


s: the inferiority of the writers he praised to Waring.


s: away to Taurus by Diana, when her father, Agamemnon,


s: was about to sacrifice her to obtain favorable winds for


s: born in Milan in 1492, went to Rome and was employed by


s: Raphael to paint the friezes in the Vatican.  He was murdered


s: of church music, operas, songs, and instrumental music.


s: celebrated songs.  "'From Rosie Bowers' is said to


s: have been set in his last sickness, at which time he seems


s: to have realized the poetical fable of the Swan and to have


s: sung more sweetly as he approached nearer his dissolution,


s: for it seems to us as if no one of his productions was


s: so elevated, so pleasing, so expressive, and throughout so


s: perfect as this" (Rees's Cyclopaedia, 1819).


s: especially for his Shakespearian parts (1716-1779).


s: who in 1769 began to issue in London a series of famous


s: letters which opposed the ministry in power, and denounced


s: several eminent persons with severe invective and pungent


s: Rowley into life:  the chief claim to celebrity of Thomas


s: Chatterton (1752-1770) is the real or pretended discovery


s: of poems said to have been written in the fifteenth century


s: by Thomas Rowley, a priest of Bristol, and found


s: in Radcliffe church, of which Chatterton's ancestors had


s: been sextons for many years.  They are now generally


s: "The Twins" versifies a story told by Martin Luther in


s: his "Table Talk," in which the saying, "Give and it


s: shall be given unto you," is quaintly personified by the


s: Latin words equivalent in meaning: Date, "Give," and


s: And seemed in the way of improvement yet,


s: When she crossed his path with her hunting noose


s: So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,


s: The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,


s: For see, my friend goes shaking and white;


s: I have turned, it appears, his day to night,


s: And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:


s: "Though I love her--that, he comprehends--


s: One should master one's passions (love, in chief)


s: With no mind to eat it, that's the worst!


s: Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?


s: 'Twas quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst


s: And I,--what I seem to my friend, you see:


s: What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:


s: What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?


s: 'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,


s: Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals


s: One likes to show the truth for the truth;


s: But suppose she says,--Never mind that youth!


s: And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays,


s: "A Light Woman" is the story of a dramatic situation brought


s: about by the speaker's intermeddling to save his less


s: sophisticated friend from a light woman's toils.  He


s: deflects her interest and wins her heart, and this is the


s: ironical outcome:  his friendly, dispassionate act makes him


s: seem to his friend a disloyal passion's slave; his scorn of


s: the light woman teaches him her genuineness, and proves


s: himself lighter than she; his futile assumption of the god


s: manoeuvring souls makes the whole story dramatically imply,


s: in a way dear to Browning's heart, the sacredness and worth


s: speaker's act as "friendly, dispassionate."   They fail to


s: take into account his supercilious attitude toward the man


s: he calls his friend, and he proves to be more self-serving--


s: and more self-deceiving--than they are willing to admit.


s: That is why it is a subject made to Browning's hand.--


s: Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,


s: Since this was written and needs must be--


s: --And this beside, if you will not blame,


s: Your leave for one more last ride with me.


s: With life or death in the balance: right!


s: Who knows but the world may end tonight?


s: Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too,


s: Till flesh must fade for heaven was here!--


s: Thus leant she and lingered--joy and fear!


s: Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll


s: Where had I been now if the worst befell?


s: This present of theirs with the hopeful past!


s: I hoped she would love me; here we ride.


s: What act proved all its thought had been?


s: They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.


s: And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.


s: 'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then,


s: Are you--poor, sick, old ere your time--


s: Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?


s: Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.


s: Whither life's flower is first discerned,


s: "The Last Ride Together."  The rapture of a rejected lover


s: in the one more last ride which he asks for and obtains,


s: discovers for him the all-sufficing glory of love in itself.


s: Soldiership, statesmanship, art are disproportionate in their


s: results; love can be its own reward, yes, heaven itself.


s: (Written for, and inscribed to, W. M. the Younger.)


s: They fought the dogs and killed the cats,


s: And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,


s: "'Tis clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy,


s: Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking


s: Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!"


s: "Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that?"


s: Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous


s: For a plate of turtle green and glutinous)


s: "Come in!" the Mayor cried, looking bigger:


s: Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone,


s: Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!"


s: And, "Please your honours," said he, "I'm able,


s: To match with his coat of the self-same cheque


s: And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying


s: Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;


s: "One? fifty thousand!"-was the exclamation


s: Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.


s: And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled


s: Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled;


s: And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,


s: And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;


s: And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.


s: Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,


s: Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,


s: From street to street he piped advancing,


s: And step for step they followed dancing,


s: Which was, "At the first shrill notes of the pipe,


s: And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,


s: And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,


s: And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks:


s: (Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery


s: Is breathed) called out, 'Oh rats, rejoice!


s: The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!


s: So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,


s: All ready staved, like a great sun shone


s: Just as methought it said 'Come, bore me!'


s: You should have heard the Hamelin people


s: Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.


s: "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles,


s: Poke out the nests and block up the holes!


s: Of the rats!"-when suddenly, up the face


s: Of the Piper perked in the market-place,


s: With a, "First, if you please, my thousand guilders!"


s: A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;


s: With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;


s: Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish.


s: "Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,


s: Our business was done at the river's brink;


s: And what's dead can't come to life, I think.


s: So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink


s: From the duty of giving you something for drink,


s: And a matter of money to put in your poke;


s: Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.


s: Beside, our losses have made us thrifty.


s: Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he's rich in,


s: For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen,


s: With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver!


s: May find me pipe after another fashion."


s: "How? cried the Mayor, "d'ye think I brook


s: Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;


s: There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling


s: Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling,


s: Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,


s: Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering,


s: And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering,


s: And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,


s: Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after


s: The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.


s: As if they were changed into blocks of wood,


s: As the Piper turned from the High Street


s: Right in the way of their sons and daughters!


s: And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,


s: When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side,


s: And the Piper advanced and the children followed,


s: The door in the mountain-side shut fast.


s: And could not dance the whole of the way;


s: "It's dull in our town since my playmates left!


s: For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,


s: Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew


s: The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,


s: And horses were born with eagles' wings:


s: The mayor sent East, West, North and South


s: But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavour,


s: And Piper and dancers were gone for ever,


s: If, after the day of the month and year,


s: The place of the children's last retreat,


s: They called it, the Pied Piper's Street--


s: Was sure for the future to lose his labour.


s: On which their neighbours lay such stress,


s: To their fathers and mothers having risen


s: Of scores out with all men--especially pipers!


s: And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice,


s: If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise!


s: "The Pied Piper of Hamelin."  This clever versification of


s: a well-known tale was written for the little son of the


s: actor William Macready.  According to Dr. Furnivall,


s: the version used directly by Browning is from "The


s: Man," by Nathaniel Wanley, published in 1578.  There


s: are, however, more incidents in common between the


s: poem and the version given by Verstigan in his "Restitution


s: of Decayed Intelligence" (1605).  There are many


s: other sources for the story, and it is not improbable that


s: Browning knew more than one version.  Tales similar to


s: it occur also in Persia and China.  For its kinship to


s: myths of the wind as a musician, and as a psychopomp or


s: leader of souls, see Baring-Gould, "Curious Myths of the


s: Middle Ages"; John Fiske, "Myths and Myth-makers";


s: I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;


s: So here's the tale from beginning to end,


s: For when you've passed the cornfield country,


s: Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed,


s: Of the mountain where, at a funeral pace,


s: That's one vast red drear burnt-up plain,


s: Branched through and through with many a vein


s: Look right, look left, look straight before--


s: Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea shore


s: I was born the day this present Duke was--


s: In the castle where the other Duke was--


s: And that's why the old Duke would rather


s: When the old Duke brought his infant out


s: To show the people, and while they passed


s: "And," quoth the Kaiser's courier," since


s: The Duke looked down and seemed to wince,


s: But he thought of wars o'er the world wide,


s: The row of crests and shields and banners


s: And "ay," said the Duke with a surly pride.


s: Where he breathed the breath of page and groom,


s: What he called stink, and they, perfume:


s: --They should have set him on red Berold


s: They should have got his cheek fresh tannage


s: Such a day as to-day in the merry sunshine!


s: Had they stuck on his fist a rough-foot merlin!


s: (Hark, the wind's on the heath at its game!


s: And turn in the wind, and dance like flame!)


s: Had they broached a white-beer cask from Berlin


s: --Or if you incline to prescribe mere wine


s: Put to his lips, when they saw him pine,


s: Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrel


s: And ropy with sweet--we shall not quarrel.


s: So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess


s: Was left with the infant in her clutches,


s: She being the daughter of God knows who:


s: And now was the time to revisit her tribe.


s: At the empty hall and extinguished fire,


s: Till after long years we had our desire,


s: And back came the Duke and his mother again.


s: You'd say, he despised our bluff old ways?


s: --Not he! For in Paris they told the elf


s: Our rough North land was the Land of Lays,


s: Could you taste of it yet as in its prime,


s: And see true castles, with proper towers,


s: So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it,


s: This Duke would fain know he was, without being it;


s: 'Twas not for the joy's self, but the joy of his showing it,


s: Nor for the pride's self, but the pride of our seeing it,


s: He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out,


s: The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn-out:


s: And chief in the chase his neck he perilled


s: With blood for bone, all speed, no strength;


s: --They should have set him on red Berold


s: With the red eye slow consuming in fire,


s: And the thin stiff ear like an abbey-spire!


s: Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard:


s: --Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling!


s: But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure,


s: My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger!


s: Too small, almost, for the life and gladness


s: Out of the bears' reach on the high trees


s: Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead,


s: Straight at the castle, that's best indeed


s: As for us, styled the "serfs and thralls,"


s: She as much thanked me as if she had said it,


s: Because I patted her horse while I led it;


s: Said, no bird flew past but she inquired


s: What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired--


s: And the green and grey bird on the field was the plover.


s: And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed


s: And as if his backbone were not jointed,


s: The Duke stepped rather aside than forward


s: And welcomed her with his grandest smile;


s: Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor'ward;


s: And up, like a weary yawn, with its pullies


s: Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis;


s: And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies,


s: For such things must begin some one day.


s: This is all a jest against God, who meant


s: And glad in his sight; therefore, glad I will be."


s: --For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife,


s: And she that could do it, great or small,


s: This in his station, and that in his office,


s: And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, at most,


s: To meet his eye, with the other trophies,


s: To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen,


s: At the proper place in the proper minute,


s: And it was amusing enough, each infraction


s: Of rule--(but for after-sadness that came)


s: To hear the consummate self-satisfaction


s: With which the young Duke and the old dame


s: And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame:


s: As though an artificer, after contriving


s: A wheel-work image as if it were living,


s: Should find with delight it could motion to strike him!


s: So found the Duke, and his mother like him:


s: With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause,


s: And kept off the old mother-cat's claws.


s: So, the little lady grew silent and thin,


s: And the Duke perceived that she was ailing,


s: And said in his heart, "'Tis done to spite me,


s: But I shall find in my power to right me!"


s: Don't swear, friend! The old one, many a year,


s: Is in hell, and the Duke's self... you shall hear.


s: Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning,


s: When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning,


s: A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice


s: That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice,


s: And another and another, and faster and faster


s: Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled:


s: Then it so chanced that the Duke our master


s: Asked himself what were the pleasures in season,


s: And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty,


s: Always provided, old books showed the way of it!


s: What meant old poets by their strictures?


s: And when old poets had said their say of it,


s: How taught old painters in their pictures?


s: Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels,


s: And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions:


s: Here was food for our various ambitions,


s: To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup


s: Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting your stirrup--


s: We of the household took thought and debated.


s: Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkin


s: And "ahs" while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk-hose;


s: What signified hats if they had no rims on,


s: Each slouching before and behind like the scallop,


s: Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson?


s: So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on't,


s: What with our Venerers, Prickers and Verderers,


s: Might hope for real hunters at length and not murderers,


s: And oh the Duke's tailor, he had a hot time on't!


s: Now you must know that when the first dizziness


s: Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided,


s: The Duke put this question, "The Duke's part provided,


s: Had not the Duchess some share in the business?"


s: For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses


s: Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses:


s: And, after much laying of heads together,


s: That he had discovered the lady's function;


s: "When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege,


s: Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet,


s: And with water to wash the hands of her liege


s: Now, my friend, if you had so little religion


s: And thrust her broad wings like a banner


s: And clipped her wings, and tied her beak,


s: If, when you decided to give her an airing,


s: You found she needed a little preparing?


s: --I say, should you be such a curmudgeon,


s: If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon?


s: Yet when the Duke to his lady signified,


s: Just a day before, as he judged most dignified,


s: In what a pleasure she was to participate,--


s: And, instead of leaping wide in flashes,


s: As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate,


s: And duly acknowledged the Duke's fore-thought,


s: But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught,


s: Of the weight by day and the watch by night,


s: And much wrong now that used to be right,


s: So, thanking him, declined the hunting--


s: Black-barred, cream-coated and pink eye-balled--


s: Well, I suppose here's the time to confess


s: That there ran half round our lady's chamber


s: A balcony none of the hardest to clamber;


s: And that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in waiting,


s: Stayed in call outside, what need of relating?


s: And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a fervent


s: Adorer of Jacynth of course was your servant;


s: And if she had the habit to peep through the casement,


s: And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence,


s: And then, with a smile that partook of the awful,


s: To learn what was held decorous and lawful;


s: And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct,


s: As her cheek quick whitened thro' all its quince-tinct.


s: Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once!


s: What meant she?--Who was she?--Her duty and station,


s: The wisdom of age and the folly of youth, at once,


s: Its decent regard and its fitting relation--


s: In brief, my friend, set all the devils in hell free


s: And turn them out to carouse in a belfry


s: And treat the priests to a fifty-part canon,


s: And then you may guess how that tongue of hers ran on!


s: And, licking her whiskers, out she passed;


s: And after her,--making (he hoped) a face


s: Stalked the Duke's self with the austere grace


s: From door to staircase--oh such a solemn


s: However, at sunrise our company mustered;


s: And here was the huntsman bidding unkennel,


s: And there 'neath his bonnet the pricker blustered,


s: With feather dank as a bough of wet fennel;


s: For the court-yard walls were filled with fog


s: You might have cut as an axe chops a log--


s: Like so much wool for colour and bulkiness;


s: And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness,


s: Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily


s: The sun ploughed the fog up and drove it asunder


s: This way and that from the valley under;


s: And, looking through the court-yard arch,


s: Down in the valley, what should meet him


s: No doubt with the annual gifts to greet him.


s: Now, in your land, Gipsies reach you, only


s: North they go, South they go, trooping or lonely


s: Catch they and keep now a trace here, a trace there,


s: That puts you in mind of a place here, a place there.


s: But with us, I believe they rise out of the ground,


s: With the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned:


s: Born, no doubt, like insects which breed on


s: The very fruit they are meant to feed on.


s: For the earth-not a use to which they don't turn it,


s: The ore that grows in the mountain's womb,


s: Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb,


s: They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it--


s: Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle


s: With side-bars never a brute can baffle;


s: Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards;


s: Or, if your colt's fore-foot inclines to curve inwards,


s: Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel


s: Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle


s: That keep a stout heart in the ram with their tinkle;


s: But the sand-they pinch and pound it like otters;


s: Commend me to Gipsy glass-makers and potters!


s: Glasses they'll blow you, crystal-clear,


s: Where just a faint cloud of rose shall appear,


s: As if in pure water you dropped and let die


s: And that other sort, their crowning pride,


s: With long white threads distinct inside,


s: Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots which dangle


s: Where the bold sword-lily cuts the clear waters,


s: And the cup-lily couches with all the white daughters:


s: Such are the works they put their hand to,


s: The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to.


s: And these made the troop, which our Duke saw sally


s: Toward his castle from out of the valley,


s: Men and women, like new-hatched spiders,


s: Come out with the morning to greet our riders.


s: And up they wound till they reached the ditch,


s: That I knew, as she hobbled from the group,


s: To let that same witch tell us our fortune.


s: And, sure as the autumn season came round,


s: She paid us a visit for profit or pastime,


s: And every time, as she swore, for the last time.


s: Up to the Duke till she touched his bridle,


s: As under its nose the old witch peered up


s: With her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holes


s: Such as they used to sing to their viols


s: And then, as of old, at the end of the humming


s: --A dog-whistle blowing the fiercest of trebles,


s: (Just a sea-shore stone holding a dozen fine pebbles)


s: Or a porcelain mouth-piece to screw on a pipe-end--


s: But this time, the Duke would scarcely vouchsafe


s: For the purse of sleek pine-martin pelt,


s: Ready to put what he gave in her pouch safe--


s: Till, either to quicken his apprehension,


s: To the new Duchess, the youthful beauty.


s: And its smirk returned with a novel meaning--


s: For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning;


s: If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow,


s: She, foolish today, would be wiser tomorrow;


s: As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double?


s: (If such it was, for they grow so hirsute


s: That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit)


s: He was contrasting, 'twas plain from his gesture,


s: The life of the lady so flower-like and delicate


s: With the loathsome squalor of this helicat.


s: I, in brief, was the man the Duke beckoned


s: From out of the throng, and while I drew near


s: He told the crone-as I since have reckoned


s: By the way he bent and spoke into her ear


s: And for all the crone's submissive attitude


s: I could see round her mouth the loose plaits tightening,


s: And her brow with assenting intelligence brightening


s: As though she engaged with hearty goodwill


s: And promised the lady a thorough frightening.


s: Of a purse, with the air of a man who imps


s: The wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hernshaw,


s: And yet shrank from all better diversion.


s: Then clapping heel to his horse, the mere curveter,


s: Horses and hounds swept, huntsman and servitor,


s: And back I turned and bade the crone follow.


s: And what makes me confident what's to be told you


s: Had all along been of this crone's devising,


s: Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you,


s: There was a novelty quick as surprising:


s: For first, she had shot up a full head in stature,


s: And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered,


s: And the ignoble mien was wholly altered,


s: And the face looked quite of another nature,


s: And the change reached too, whatever the change meant,


s: Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak's arrangement:


s: For where its tatters hung loose like sedges,


s: Gold coins were glittering on the edges,


s: Which proves the veil a Persian woman's:


s: And under her brow, like a snail's horns newly


s: Live and aware looked out of their places.


s: So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry


s: I told the command and produced my companion,


s: For since last night, by the same token,


s: They went in both to the presence together,


s: While I in the balcony watched the weather.


s: And now, what took place at the very first of all,


s: I cannot tell, as I never could learn it:


s: Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall


s: If she knew how she came to drop so soundly


s: As one of the boars my father would pin you


s: 'Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison,


s: To breathe the fresh air from the balcony,


s: To follow the hunt thro' the open country,


s: The hillocks, to a plain where's not one tree.


s: I pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain,


s: While in the midst, on the seat of state,


s: For, coiled at her feet like a child at ease,


s: And o'er them the lady's clasped hands met,


s: And her upturned face met the face of the crone


s: --Very like, by her hands' slow fanning,


s: As up and down like a gor-crow's flappers


s: They moved to measure, or bell-clappers.


s: Those hands and fingers with no flesh on?"


s: But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue,


s: At once I was stopped by the lady's expression:


s: From the crone's wide pair above unwinking,


s: --Life's pure fire received without shrinking,


s: Told you no single drop they were leaving,


s: --Life, that filling her, passed redundant


s: As her head thrown back showed the white throat curving;


s: And the very tresses shared in the pleasure,


s: I stopped short, more and more confounded,


s: As still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened,


s: Its wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped


s: From under the words it first had propped,


s: I trace them the vein and the other vein


s: Like the spots that snap and burst and flee,


s: One thick gold drop from the olive's coat


s: When the breast is bare and the arms are wide,


s: If that brow is true and those eyes are sure;


s: Of the prize he dug from its mountain tomb--


s: And the prize falls on its finder's heart;


s: With the thrill of the great deliverance,


s: And thou shalt know, those arms once curled


s: Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree--


s: They would do more than the world has done:


s: Shall some one deck thee, over and down,


s: Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland-crown,


s: Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves,


s: But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true,


s: For the good of us all, where the haters meet


s: Save the dry quick clap of the stork's bill,


s: For the air is still, and the water still,


s: When the blue breast of the dipping coot


s: Of the fragments of life's earlier feast,


s: As round eve's shades their framework roll,


s: But what? For here her voice changed like a bird's;


s: There grew more of the music and less of the words;


s: To paper and put you down every syllable


s: All I've forgotten as well as what lingers


s: In this old brain of mine that's but ill able


s: Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering


s: --More fault of those who had the hammering


s: And did it, not with hobnails but tintacks!


s: Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest,


s: The peace most deep and the charm completest,


s: And my sense returned, so strangely banished,


s: I knew the crone was bewitching my lady,


s: With Jacynth asleep; and but one spring made I


s: Down from the casement, round to the portal,


s: When the door opened, and more than mortal


s: Stood, with a face where to my mind centred


s: The Duchess: I stopped as if struck by palsy.


s: She was so different, happy and beautiful,


s: And that I had nothing to do, for the rest


s: But wait her commands, obey and be dutiful.


s: Not that, in fact, there was any commanding;


s: And the brow's height and the breast's expanding,


s: Such little signs should serve wild creatures


s: So that each knows what his friend requires,


s: In the old style; both her eyes had slunk


s: I remember patting while it carried her,


s: The day she arrived and the Duke married her.


s: And, do you know, though it's easy deceiving


s: Oneself in such matters, I can't help believing


s: And knew the poor devil so much beneath her


s: Would have been only too glad for her service


s: To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise,


s: But, unable to pay proper duty where owing


s: Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it:


s: His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting,


s: She stopped me, while his rug was shifting,


s: And, with a gesture kind but conclusive,


s: And a little shake of the head, refused me--


s: Yet when she was mounted, the Gipsy behind her,


s: I suppose with a voice of less steadiness


s: --Something to the effect that I was in readiness


s: Whenever God should please she needed me--


s: Then, do you know, her face looked down on me


s: And she felt in her bosom--mark, her bosom--


s: And, as a flower-tree drops its blossom,


s: Of silver, my friend, or gold that's worse,


s: So understood,--that a true heart so may gain


s: Such a reward,--I should have gone home again,


s: Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself!


s: Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment),


s: And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment.


s: And then-and then--to cut short--this is idle,


s: These are feelings it is not good to foster--


s: I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle,


s: And the palfrey bounded--and so we lost her.


s: When the liquor's out why clink the cannikin?


s: I did think to describe you the panic in


s: The redoubtable breast of our master the mannikin,


s: And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness,


s: How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-rib


s: Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib,


s: When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness


s: What they said and did with the lady away!


s: And to dance on, when we've lost the music,


s: Always made me--and no doubt makes you--sick.


s: Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern


s: As that sweet form disappeared through the postern,


s: She that kept it in constant good humour,


s: It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more.


s: But the world thought otherwise and went on,


s: And my head's one that its spite was spent on:


s: Thirty years are fled since that morning,


s: Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder:


s: That no one should touch on the story to wake it,


s: For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery,


s: So, they made no search and small inquiry--


s: And when fresh Gipsies have paid us a visit, I've


s: Notice the couple were never inquisitive,


s: But told them they're folks the Duke don't want here,


s: And bade them make haste and cross the frontier.


s: Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it,


s: And the old one was in the young one's stead,


s: And took, in her place, the household's head,


s: And a blessed time the household had of it!


s: And were I not, as a man may say, cautious


s: How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous,


s: Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess


s: Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness


s: Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse:


s: What a thing friendship is, world without end!


s: How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up


s: As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet,


s: And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit,


s: Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids--


s: Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids;


s: Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs,


s: Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts


s: Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees


s: Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease.


s: Jacynth, the Gipsy, Berold, and the rest of it,


s: For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before;


s: I always wanted to make a clean breast of it:


s: And now it is made-why, my heart's blood, that went trickle,


s: Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets,


s: Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle,


s: And genially floats me about the giblets.


s: I must see this fellow his sad life through--


s: And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall.


s: His fame, a chain he bound his son with;


s: Could I pay in a lump I should prefer it,


s: But there's no mine to blow up and get done with:


s: So, I must stay till the end of the chapter.


s: For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter,


s: Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on,


s: And breast in a hauberk, his heels he'll kick up,


s: And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust,


s: And its leathern sheath lie o'ergrown with a blue crust,


s: Then I shall scrape together my earnings;


s: For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes,


s: And our children all went the way of the roses:


s: It's a long lane that knows no turnings.


s: One needs but little tackle to travel in;


s: With which his boars my father pinned you?


s: And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently,


s: Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful,


s: I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly!


s: What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all;


s: Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:


s: When we mind labour, then only, we're too old--


s: What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?


s: And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees,


s: (Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil)


s: And arrive one day at the land of the Gipsies,


s: And find my lady, or hear the last news of her


s: His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop,


s: And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate,


s: And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent,


s: I shall drop in with--as if by accident--


s: "You never knew, then, how it all ended,


s: --And when that's told me, what's remaining?


s: This world's too hard for my explaining.


s: Who still preferred some slim four-year-old


s: And, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak wine,


s: Now up, now down, the world's one see-saw.


s: Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight,


s: Turn myself round and bid the world good night;


s: And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet blowing


s: Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)


s: To a world where will be no further throwing


s: Pearls before swine that can't value them.  Amen!


s: "The Flight of the Duchess."  A story of the triumph of a


s: free and loving life over a cold and conventional one.


s: The duke's huntsman frees his mind to his friend as to his


s: part in the escape of the gladsome, ardent young duchess


s: from the blighting yoke of a husband whose life consisted


s: in imitating defunct mediaeval customs.  An old gipsy is


s: the agency that awakens her to the joy and freedom of


s: love.  Her mystic chant and charm claim the duchess as


s: crone herself into an Eastern queen.  He helps them off,


s: and looks for no better future, when the duke's death releases


s: him, than to travel to the land of the gipsies and hear the last


s: The poem grew from the fancies aroused in the poet's


s: heart by the snatch of a woman's song he overheard when


s: a boy--"Following the Queen of the Gipsies, O!"


s: Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes


s: Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,


s: That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,


s: Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,


s: Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;


s: All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;


s: Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:


s: Our low life was the level's and the night's;


s: Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,


s: This is our master, famous calm and dead,


s: Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,


s: He was a man born with thy face and throat,


s: Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note


s: Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!


s: Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!


s: No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side,


s: He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride


s: Left play for work, and grappled with the world


s: "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled?


s: Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,


s: Straight got by heart that book to its last page:


s: Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,


s: "Time to taste life," another would have said,


s: This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?


s: Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,


s: Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,


s: Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,


s: When he had gathered all books had to give!


s: Image the whole, then execute the parts--


s: Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,


s: (Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place


s: That before living he'd learn how to live--


s: Earn the means first-God surely will contrive


s: Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes:


s: He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!


s: Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:


s: Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:


s: "Now, master, take a little rest!"--not he!


s: Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)


s: Back to his studies, fresher than at first,


s: He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)


s: Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure


s: Was it not great? did not he throw on God,


s: He would not discount life, as fools do here,


s: He ventured neck or nothing-heaven's success


s: "Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes:


s: That low man seeks a little thing to do,


s: This high man, with a great thing to pursue,


s: That, has the world here-should he need the next,


s: This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed


s: So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,


s: Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife:


s: He settled Hoti's business--let it be!--


s: Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,


s: Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:


s: All ye highfliers of the feathered race,


s: Here's the top-peak; the multitude below


s: Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,


s: Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,


s: Lofty designs must close in like effects:


s: Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects,


s: "A Grammarian's Funeral"  is an elegy of a typical pioneer


s: scholar of the Renaissance period, sung by the leader of


s: the chorus of disciples, and interspersed with parenthetical


s: directions to them, while they all bear the body of


s: their master to its appropriate burial-place on the highest


s: mountain-peak.  A humorous sense of disproportion in


s: the labors of devoted scholarship to its results heightens


s: their exaltation of the dead humanist's indomitable trust


s: wrote to the Editor of The News, London, Nov. 21,


s: the enclitic De--which, with all deference to Mr.


s: Browning, in point of fact, does not exist.'  No, not to


s: Mr. Browning, but pray defer to Herr Buttmann, whose


s: fifth list of 'enclitics' ends with the inseparable De,'--


s: or to Curtius, whose fifth list ends also with De (meaning


s: 'towards' and as a demonstrative appendage).


s: That this is not to be confounded with the accentuated


s: 'De, meaning but,' was the 'Doctrine' which the Grammarian


s: bequeathed to those capable of receiving it."


s: (It would seem to be a glimpse from the burning


s: as distorted by the refraction from Flemish brain to brain,


s: during the course of a couple of centuries.)


s: when that order was suppressed in 1312.]


s: Is the Lord we should look at, all at once:


s: Nor the shadow of turning, for the nonce.


s: Till, caught by Pope Clement, a-buzzing there,


s: But first they set divers tumbrils a-tilt,


s: Make a trench all round with the city muck;


s: Inside they pile log upon log, good store;


s: Reach a man's mid-thigh, no less, no more,--


s: For they mean he should roast in the sight of all.


s: We mean he should roast in the sight of all.


s: Good sappy bavins that kindle forthwith;


s: Billets that blaze substantial and slow;


s: Larch-heart that chars to a chalk-white glow:


s: Sing "Laudes" and bid clap-to the torch.


s: John of the Temple, whose fame so bragged,


s: How can he curse, if his mouth is gagged?


s: Or wriggle his neck, with a collar there?


s: Or heave his chest, which a band goes round?


s: Or threat with his fist, since his arms are spliced?


s: Or kick with his feet, now his legs are bound?


s: --Thinks John, I will call upon Jesus Christ.


s: To him, the Flesh meant silver and gold.


s: "I have roasted thee Turks, though men roast me!


s: "See thy servant, the plight wherein I am!


s: 'Tis John the mocker cries, "Save thou me!"


s: --Saith, it no more means what it proclaims,


s: Than a damsel's threat to her wanton bird?


s: --Saith, he knoweth but one thing--what he knows?


s: That God is good and the rest is breath;


s: Why else is the same styled Sharon's rose?


s: O, John shall yet find a rose, he saith!


s: Some, honied of taste like your leman's  tongue:


s: Some, bitter; for why? (roast gaily on!)


s: When Paul once reasoned of righteousness


s: And of temperance and of judgment to come,


s: John, snickering, crook'd his wicked thumb.


s: What cometh to John of the wicked thumb?


s: Lo,--petal on petal, fierce rays unclose;


s: Anther on anther, sharp spikes outstart;


s: And with blood for dew, the bosom boils;


s: So, as John called now, through the fire amain,


s: On the Name, he had cursed with, all his life--


s: To the Person, he bought and sold again--


s: For the Face, with his daily buffets rife--


s: And his voice, like a mad dog's choking bark,


s: At the steady whole of the Judge's face--


s: Died. Forth John's soul flared into the dark.


s: God help all poor souls lost in the dark!


s: "The Heretic's Tragedy" is an Interlude imagined in the


s: manner of the Middle Ages, and typically representing


s: this period of human development in its quaint piety and


s: prejudice, its childish delight in cruelty, and its cumulative


s: legend-making during the course of two centuries as reflected


s: through the Flemish nature.  It is supposed to be


s: sung by an abbot, a choir-singer, and a chorus, in celebration


s: of the burning of Jacques du Bourg-Molay, last


s: Grand Master of the wealthy and powerful secular order


s: of Knights Templar, which came into rivalry with the


s: Church after the Crusades and was finally suppressed by


s: Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V, Molay's


s: burning at Paris in 1314 being a final scene in their


s: which the sub-dominant or chord on the fourth degree of


s: the scale precedes the tonic or chord on the first degree


s: of the scale.  The name arises from the modes used in


s: early church music called Plagal Modes, which were a


s: transposition of the authentic modes beginning on the


s: of Jacques or John being that the riches won piously


s: by the order during the Crusades, he had not scrupled to


s: sell again to Saladin, the Sultan, who is portrayed by


s: making up the service of the Church called Lauds.


s: according to custom, the Host, or Christ's flesh,


s: altogether the glory."-Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600.]


s: Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week.


s: Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime


s: Stand on a line ere you start for the church!


s: Hist! square shoulders, settle your thumbs


s: What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass,


s: To help and handle my lord's hour-glass!


s: His cheek hath laps like a fresh-singed swine.


s: Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch!


s: Look at the purse with the tassel and knob


s: And the gown with the angel and thingumbob!


s: Now you've his curtsey--and what comes next?


s: See to our converts--you doomed black dozen--


s: You five, that were thieves, deserve it fairly;


s: You seven, that were beggars, will live less sparely;


s: You took your turn and dipped in the hat,


s: Got fortune--and fortune gets you; mind that!


s: Give your first groan--compunction's at work


s: Here's a knife, clip quick--it's a sign of grace--


s: Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face.


s: I know a point where his text falls pat.


s: I'll tell him to-morrow, a word just now


s: I meddle no more with the worst of trades--


s: It's a-work, it's a-work, ah, woe is me!


s: It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed,


s: Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist;


s: It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds,


s: Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds:


s: Which gutted my purse would throttle my creed:


s: Men I helped to their sins help me to their God.


s: But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock,


s: And the rest sit silent and count the clock,


s: On these precious facts and truths sublime,


s: Let us fitly employ it, under our breath,


s: And spoke, "This world has been harsh and strange;


s: Something is wrong: there needeth change.


s: But what, or where? at the last or first?


s: The stranger-seed shall be joined to them:


s: To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave.


s: So the Prophet saith and his sons believe.


s: Shall carry and bring them to their place:


s: In the land of the Lord shall lead the same


s: Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame,


s: When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o'er


s: "God spoke, and gave us the word to keep,


s: 'Mid a faithless world, at watch and ward,


s: Till Christ at the end relieve our guard.


s: Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet.


s: "Thou! if thou wast He, who at mid-watch came,


s: By the starlight, naming a dubious name!


s: And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne--


s: "Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus.


s: But, the Judgment over,  join sides with us!


s: Thine too is the cause! and not more thine


s: Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine,


s: Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed!


s: Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed!


s: "We withstood Christ then? Be mindful how


s: Was our outrage sore? But the worst we spared,


s: To have called these--Christians, had we dared!


s: Let defiance to them pay mistrust of Thee,


s: "By the torture, prolonged from age to age,


s: By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace,


s: By the badge of shame, by the felon's place,


s: And the summons to Christian fellowship,--


s: Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew.


s: A trophy to bear, as we march, thy band,


s: "Holy-Cross Day" reflects the attitude of the corrupt mediaeval


s: preceding the poem gives the point of view of an imaginary


s: Bishop's Secretary, who congratulates himself upon


s: the good work the Church is doing in forcing its doctrine


s: this solicitude on the part of the Christians with hatred


s: and scorn, and that their conversions are in derision of


s: their would-be converters. The sarcasm of the speaker


s: reaches a pinnacle of bitterness when he accuses the


s: Christian bishops of being men he had helped to their sins


s: and who now help him to their God. From scorn toward


s: such followers of Christ, he passes, in the contemplation


s: of Rabbi Ben Ezra's death song, to a defence of Christ


s: against these followers who profess but do not act his


s: not accepting Christ, the tortures they now suffer will be


s: Holy-Cross Day is September 14. The discovery of the


s: true cross by Saint Helen inaugurated the festival, celebrated


s: both by Latins and Greeks as early as the fifth or


s: sixth century, under the title of the Exaltation of the


s: Cross and later in commemoration of the alleged miraculous


s: appearance of the Cross to Constantine in the sky


s: at midday.  Though the particular incidents of the poem


s: are not historical, it is a fact (see Milman's "History of the


s: to listen every week to a sermon from a Christian


s: writer and thinker, born in Toledo, near the end of the


s: Among these latter busts we count by scores,


s: Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest,


s: Loric and low-browed Gorgon on the breast,


s: One loves a baby face, with violets there,


s: As those were all the little locks could bear.


s: Queens by his cradle, proud and ministrant:


s: And if he quickened breath there, 'twould like fire


s: Pantingly through the dim vast realm transpire.


s: The world from its four corners, rose in war,


s: The captains ranged before him, one, his hand


s: Made baby points at, gained the chief command.


s: In shape, all said, in feature and in hue,


s: While young Greek sculptors, gazing on the child,


s: Became with old Greek sculpture reconciled.


s: And artists took grave counsel to impart


s: In one breath and one hand-sweep, all their art,


s: Since well beseems it, whoso mounts the throne,


s: For beauty, knowledge, strength, should stand alone,


s: And mortals love the letters of his name."


s: --Stop! Have you turned two pages?  Still the same.


s: New reign, same date.  The scribe goes on to say


s: How that same year, on such a month and day,


s: "John the Pannonian, groundedly believed


s: The Empire from its fate the year before,


s: Came, had a mind to take the crown, and wore


s: The same for six years (during which the Huns


s: Kept off their fingers from us), till his sons


s: Put something in his liquor"--and so forth.


s: Then a new reign.  Stay--"Take at its just worth"


s: As hearsay.  Some think, John let Protus live


s: And slip away.  'Tis said, he reached man's age


s: At some blind northern court; made, first a page,


s: Then tutor to the children; last, of use


s: He wrote the little tract 'On worming dogs,'


s: Is rumoured to have died a monk in Thrace,


s: Here's John the Smith's rough-hammered head.  Great eye,


s: Gross jaw and griped lips do what granite can


s: To give you the crown-grasper. What a man!


s: "Protus" sets in contrast the representations by artist and


s: annalist of the two busts and the two lives of Protus, the


s: baby emperor of Byzantium, born in the purple, gently


s: nurtured and cherished, yet fated to obscurity, and of John,


s: and save the empire with his harder hand.


s: There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well,


s: And a statue watches it from the square,


s: And this story of both do our townsmen tell.


s: Asked, "Who rides by with the royal air?"


s: The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased;


s: They saw how the blush of the bride increased--


s: They felt by its beats her heart expand--


s: Till he threw his head back--"Who is she?"


s: "A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day."


s: Carved like the heart of a coal-black tree,


s: The Duke grew straightway brave and wise.


s: The past was a sleep, and her life began.


s: Now, love so ordered for both their sakes,


s: In the pile which the mighty shadow makes.


s: Because of a crime which may God requite!


s: Through the first republic's murder there


s: The Duke (with the statue's face in the square)


s: At the bright approach of the bridal pair.


s: While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued--


s: Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor--


s: For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred,


s: If a word did pass, which I do not think,


s: That was the bridegroom.  At day's brink


s: That the door she had passed was shut on her


s: The world meanwhile, its noise and stir,


s: Through a certain window facing the East,


s: She could watch like a convent's chronicler.


s: Since passing the door might lead to a feast


s: And a feast might lead to so much beside,


s: Replied the tongue, while the heart replied--


s: "If I spend the night with that devil twice,


s: "'Tis only the coat of a page to borrow,


s: And I save my soul--but not to-morrow"--


s: (She checked herself and her eye grew dim)


s: She turned on her side and slept. Just so!


s: That night the Duke said, "Dear or cheap


s: As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove


s: He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call,


s: Your lady will think, this feast of ours,


s: Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?"


s: The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen


s: If she quits her palace twice this year,


s: Quoth the Duke, "A sage and a kindly fear.


s: And then to himself--"Which night shall bring


s: Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool--


s: Or I am the fool, and thou art the king!


s: "Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool--


s: For to-night the Envoy arrives from France


s: Whose heart I unlock with thyself my tool.


s: "I need thee still and might miss perchance.


s: One ray that broke from the ardent brow,


s: Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed.


s: And leave them then as it left them now.


s: With still fresh cause to wait one day more


s: And still, as love's brief morning wore,


s: With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh,


s: They found love not as it seemed before.


s: The rose would blow when the storm passed by.


s: Meantime they could profit in winter's dearth


s: By store of fruits that supplant the rose:


s: The world and its ways have a certain worth:


s: Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate


s: Where his lady watches behind the grate!


s: And she--she watched the square like a book


s: When the picture was reached the book was done,


s: And she turned from the picture at night to scheme


s: So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam


s: The glory dropped from their youth and love,


s: And both perceived they had dreamed a dream;


s: Which hovered as dreams do, still above:


s: Depart, and the silver thread that streaked


s: Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's tooth,


s: The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked,


s: Who fashions the clay no love will change


s: Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.'


s: "Where is the use of the lip's red charm,


s: The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow,


s: And the blood that blues the inside arm--


s: With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace,


s: (And, leaning out of a bright blue space,


s: And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch,


s: The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch


s: Will its record stay?"  And he bade them fetch


s: "Can the soul, the will, die out of a man


s: "In the very square I have crossed so oft:


s: "While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze--


s: To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb


s: So!  While these wait the trump of doom,


s: Burn upward each to his point of bliss--


s: He had burned his way thro' the world to this.


s: I hear you reproach, "But delay was best,


s: For their end was a crime."  Oh, a crime will do


s: Must a game be played for the sake of pelf


s: When your table's a hat, and your prize a dram.


s: Stake your counter as boldly every whit,


s: Do your best, whether winning or losing it,


s: If you choose to play!--is my principle.


s: For his life's set prize, be it what it will!


s: And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost


s: Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.


s: "The Statue and the Bust" creates the characters and the


s: situation, and dramatically represents a story which is based


s: on a Florentine tradition that Duke Ferdinand I placed


s: his equestrian statue in the Piazza dell' Annunziata so that


s: he might gaze forever towards the old Riccardi Palace,


s: where a lady he loved was imprisoned by her jealous husband.


s: The bride and her ducal lover are seen exchanging


s: their first looks, through which they perceive the genuineness


s: of their love; and the temporizing of each is presented,


s: through which, for the sake of petty conveniences,


s: they submit to be thwarted by the wary husband, and to


s: have the end they count supreme delayed until love and


s: youth have gone, and the best left them is the artificial


s: gaze interchanged by a bronze statue in the square and a


s: clay face at the window.  The closing stanzas point the


s: moral against the palsy of the will, whose strenuous exercise


s: Riccardi Palace, now the Palazzo Antinori, in the square


s: of the Annunziata, where the statue still stands.


s: another palace in the Via Larga where the duke (not the


s: lady) lived, and which is to-day known as the Riccardi


s: Palace.  Cooke's "Browning Guide Book" and Berdoe's


s: "Browning Cyclopaedia" both confuse the two, attributing


s: error to Browning in spite of his letter about it.  This


s: confusion was cleared up by Harriet Ford (Poet-lore, Dec.


s: the liberties of the Florentine republic by Cosimo dei


s: Medici and his grandson, Lorenzo, who lived in the then


s: Medici (now Riccardi) Palace, whose darkening of the


s: street with its bulk symbolizes the crime which took the


s: shaping the bisque known as Della Robbia ware which


s: was long one of the Florentine manufactures, and traces


s: of which, when Browning wrote, still adorned the outer


s: And kneeled and made the cheerless grate


s: And made her smooth white shoulder bare,


s: Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,


s: "Porphyria's Lover" relates how, by strangling Porphyria


s: with her own yellow hair, the lover seized and preserved


s: the moment of perfect love when, pure and good, Porphyria


s: left the world she could not forego for his sake,


s: and came to him, for once conquered by her love.  A


s: latent misgiving as to his action is intimated in the closing


s: Remarking upon the fact that Browning removed the


s: original title, "Madhouse Cells," which headed this poem,


s: and "Johannes Agricola in Meditation," Mrs. Orr says:


s: "Such a crime might be committed in a momentary


s: aberration, or even intense excitement of feeling.  It is


s: characterized here by a matter-of-fact simplicity, which is


s: its sign of madness.  The distinction, however, is subtle;


s: and we can easily guess why this and its companion poem


s: did not retain their title.  A madness which is fit for


s: dramatic treatment is not sufficiently removed from


s: My first thought was, he lied in every word,


s: On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford


s: Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored


s: Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.


s: What else should he be set for, with his staff?


s: What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare


s: All travellers who might find him posted there,


s: And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh


s: Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph


s: Into that ominous tract which, all agree


s: Hides the Dark Tower.  Yet acquiescingly


s: So much as gladness that some end might be.


s: For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,


s: What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope


s: With that obstreperous joy success would bring,


s: My heart made, finding failure in its scope.


s: Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end


s: The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,


s: And hears one bid the other go, draw breath


s: Freelier outside ("since all is o'er," he saith,


s: "And the blow fallen no grieving can amend");


s: While some discuss if near the other graves


s: Suits best for carrying the corpse away,


s: With care about the banners, scarves and staves:


s: And still the man hears all, and only craves


s: He may not shame such tender love and stay.


s: Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,


s: Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ


s: The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed


s: Their steps--that just to fail as they, seemed best,


s: And all the doubt was now--should I be fit?


s: So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,


s: That hateful cripple, out of his highway


s: Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim


s: Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.


s: Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,


s: Than, pausing to throw backward a last view


s: O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round:


s: Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.


s: I might go on; nought else remained to do.


s: Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:


s: For flowers-as well expect a cedar grove!


s: But cockle, spurge, according to their law


s: Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,


s: You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.


s: In some strange sort, were the land's portion.  "See


s: Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,


s: "It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:


s: 'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,


s: Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."


s: If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk


s: Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents


s: Were jealous else.  What made those holes and rents


s: In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk


s: All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk


s: Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.


s: As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair


s: In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud


s: Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.


s: One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,


s: Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!


s: Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,


s: With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,


s: And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;


s: Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;


s: I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.


s: As a man calls for wine before he fights,


s: I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,


s: Think first, fight afterwards--the soldier's art:


s: One taste of the old time sets all to rights.


s: Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face


s: Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold


s: That way he used.  Alas, one night's disgrace!


s: Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.


s: Giles then, the soul of honour--there he stands


s: Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.


s: What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.


s: Good-=but the scene shifts--faugh! what hangman hands


s: Pin to his breast a parchment?  His own bands


s: Read it.  Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!


s: Better this present than a past like that;


s: Back therefore to my darkening path again!


s: No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.


s: I asked: when something on the dismal flat


s: Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.


s: No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;


s: This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath


s: For the fiend's glowing hoof--to see the wrath


s: Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.


s: Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit


s: The river which had done them all the wrong,


s: Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.


s: Which, while I forded,--good saints, how I feared


s: Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek


s: For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!


s: --It may have been a water-rat I speared,


s: But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.


s: Glad was I when I reached the other bank.


s: Now for a better country.  Vain presage!


s: Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,


s: Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank


s: Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,


s: The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.


s: What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?


s: No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,


s: None out of it.  Mad brewage set to work


s: Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk


s: And more than that--a furlong on--why, there!


s: What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,


s: Or brake, not wheel--that harrow fit to reel


s: Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air


s: Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.


s: Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,


s: Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth


s: Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,


s: Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood


s: Changes and off he goes!) within a rood--


s: Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.


s: Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,


s: Now patches where some leanness of the soil's


s: Broke into moss or substances like boils;


s: Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him


s: Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim


s: Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.


s: Nought in the distance but the evening, nought


s: To point my footstep further! At the thought


s: A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,


s: Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned


s: That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.


s: 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place


s: All round to mountains--with such name to grace


s: Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.


s: How thus they had surprised me,--solve it, you!


s: How to get from them was no clearer case.


s: Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick


s: Of mischief happened to me, God knows when--


s: In a bad dream perhaps.   Here ended, then,


s: Progress this way.  When, in the very nick


s: Of giving up, one time more, came a click


s: As when a trap shuts--you're inside the den!


s: This was the place! those two hills on the right


s: Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;


s: While to the left, a tall scalped mountain... Dunce,


s: After a life spent training for the sight!


s: What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?


s: The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,


s: Built of brown stone, without a counterpart


s: In the whole world.  The tempest's mocking elf


s: Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf


s: He strikes on, only when the timbers start.


s: Not see? because of night perhaps?--why, day


s: Came back again for that! before it left,


s: The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:


s: The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,


s: Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,--


s: "Now stab and end the creature--to the heft!"


s: Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled


s: Increasing like a bell.  Names in my ears


s: How such a one was strong, and such was bold,


s: Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.


s: There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met


s: For one more picture! in a sheet of flame


s: I saw them and I knew them all.  And yet


s: Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,


s: And blew.  "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."


s: "Childe Roland" symbolizes the conquest of despair by fealty


s: to the ideal. Browning emphatically disclaimed any precise


s: allegorical intention in this poem.  He acknowledged


s: only an ideal purport in which the significance of the


s: whole, as suggesting a vision of life and the saving power


s: of constancy, had its due place.  Certain picturesque


s: materials which had made their impressions on the poet's


s: mind contributed towards the building up of this realistic


s: fantasy:  a tower he saw in the Carrara Mountains; a


s: painting which caught his eye later in Paris; the figure of


s: a horse in the tapestry in his own drawing-room--welded


s: together with the remembrance of the line cited from


s: King Lear, iii. 4, 187, which last, it should be remembered,


s: has a background of ballads and legend cycles


s: of which a man like Browning was not unaware.  For