My journeyings were brought to Jericho: Thus I resume. Who studious in our art Shall count a little labour unrepaid? I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone On many a flinty furlong of this land. Also, the country-side is all on fire With rumours of a marching hitherward: Some say Vespasian deg. cometh, some, his son. deg.28 A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear: Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls: 30 I cried and threw my staff and he was gone. Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, And once a town declared me for a spy deg.; deg.33 But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, Since this poor covert where I pass the night, This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence A man with plague-sores at the third degree Runs till he drops down dead. deg. Thou laughest here! deg.38 'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip 40 And share with thee whatever Jewry yields. A viscid choler is observable In tertians, I was nearly bold to say; And falling-sickness hath a happier cure deg. deg.44 Than our school wots of: there's a spider here Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back; Take five and drop them deg. ... but who knows his mind, deg.48 The Syrian run-a-gate I trust this to? His service payeth me a sublimate 50 Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye. Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn, There set in order my experiences, Gather what most deserves, and give thee all— Or I might add, Judaea's gum-tragacanth Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained, Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry. In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy: Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar— 60 But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.

Yet stay! my Syrian blinketh gratefully, Protested his devotion is my price— Suppose I write, what harms not, tho' he steal? I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, deg. deg.65 What set me off a-writing first of all. An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang! For, be it this town's barrenness—or else The man had something in the look of him— His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth. 70 So, pardon if—(lest presently I lose, In the great press of novelty at hand, The care and pains this somehow stole from me) I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind. Almost in sight—for, wilt thou have the truth? The very man is gone from me but now, Whose ailment is the subject of discourse. Thus then, and let thy better wit help all!

'Tis but a case of mania: subinduced By epilepsy, at the turning-point 80 Of trance prolonged unduly some three days When, by the exhibition of some drug Or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know, The evil thing, out-breaking all at once, Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,— But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide, Making a clear house of it too suddenly, The first conceit that entered might inscribe Whatever it was minded on the wall 90 So plainly at that vantage, as it were, (First come, first served) that nothing subsequent Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls The just-returned and new-established soul Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart That henceforth she will read or these or none. And first—the man's own firm conviction rests That he was dead (in fact they buried him) —That he was dead and then restored to life By a Nazarene physician of his tribe: 100 —'Sayeth, the same bade "Rise," and he did rise, "Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry. Not so this figment!—not, that such a fume, Instead of giving way to time and health, Should eat itself into the life of life. As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all! For see, how he takes up the after-life, The man—it is one Lazarus, a Jew, Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age, The body's habit wholly laudable, 110 As much, indeed, beyond the common health. As he were made and put aside to show. Think, could we penetrate by any drug And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, 120 Now sharply, now with sorrow,—told the case,— He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool. And that's a sample how his years must go.

Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, Should find a treasure,—can he use the same With straitened habits and with tastes starved small, And take at once to his impoverished brain The sudden element that changes things, 130 That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand, And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust? Is he not such an one as moves to mirth— Warily parsimonious, when no need, Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times? All prudent counsel as to what befits The golden mean, is lost on such an one: The man's fantastic will is the man's law. So here—we call the treasure knowledge, say, Increased beyond the fleshly faculty— 140 Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven: The man is witless of the size, the sum, The value in proportion of all things, Or whether it be little or be much. Discourse to him of prodigious armaments Assembled to besiege his city now, And of the passing of a mule with gourds— 'Tis one! Then take it on the other side, Speak of some trifling fact,—he will gaze rapt 150 With stupor at its very littleness, (Far as I see) as if in that indeed He caught prodigious import, whole results. And so will turn to us the bystanders In ever the same stupor (note this point) That we too see not with his opened eyes. Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, Preposterously, at cross purposes. Should his child sicken unto death,—why, look For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, 160 Or pretermission of the daily craft! While a word, gesture, glance from that same child At play or in the school or laid asleep, Will startle him to an agony of fear, Exasperation, just as like. Demand The reason why—"'tis but a word," object— "A gesture"—he regards thee as our lord Who lived there in the pyramid alone, Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young We both would unadvisedly recite 170 Some charm's beginning, from that book of his, deg. deg.171 Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst All into stars, as suns grown old are wont. Thou and the child have each a veil alike Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match Over a mine of Greek fire, deg. did ye know! deg.177 He holds on firmly to some thread of life (It is the life to lead perforcedly) Which runs across some vast distracting orb 180 Of glory on either side that meagre thread, Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet— The spiritual life around the earthly life: The law of that is known to him as this, His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. So is the man perplext with impulses Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, Proclaiming what is right and wrong across, And not along, this black thread thro' the blaze— "It should be" balked by "here it cannot be." 190 And oft the man's soul springs into his face As if he saw again and heard again His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise. Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within Admonishes: then back he sinks at once To ashes, who was very fire before, In sedulous recurrence to his trade Whereby he earneth him the daily bread; And studiously the humbler for that pride, Professedly the faultier that he knows 200 God's secret, while he holds the thread of life. Indeed the especial marking of the man Is prone submission to the heavenly will— Seeing it, what it is, and why it is. 'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last For that same death, which must restore his being To equilibrium, body loosening soul Divorced even now by premature full growth: He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live So long as God please, and just how God please. 210 He even seeketh not to please God more (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be, Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do: How can he give his neighbour the real ground, His own conviction? Ardent as he is— Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old "Be it as God please" reassureth him. I probed the sore as thy disciple should: 220 "How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march To stamp out like a little spark thy town, Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?" He merely looked with his large eyes on me, The man is apathetic, you deduce? Contrariwise, he loves both old and young, Able and weak, affects the very brutes And birds—how say I? flowers of the field— As a wise workman recognizes tools 230 In a master's workshop, loving what they make. Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: Only impatient, let him do his best, At ignorance and carelessness and sin— An indignation which is promptly curbed: As when in certain travel I have feigned To be an ignoramus in our art According to some preconceived design, And happed to hear the land's practitioners Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, 240 Prattle fantastically on disease, Its cause and cure—and I must hold my peace!

Thou wilt object—Why have I not ere this Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, Conferring with the frankness that befits? Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech Perished in a tumult many years ago, Accused—our learning's fate—of wizardry, Rebellion, to the setting up a rule 250 And creed prodigious as described to me. His death, which happened when the earthquake fell (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss To occult learning in our lord the sage Who lived there in the pyramid alone deg.), deg.255 Was wrought by the mad people—that's their wont! On vain recourse, as I conjecture it. To his tried virtue, for miraculous help— How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way! The other imputations must be lies: 260 But take one, tho' I loathe to give it thee, In mere respect for any good man's fame. (And after all, our patient Lazarus Is stark mad; should we count on what he says? Perhaps not: tho' in writing to a leech 'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.) This man so cured regards the curer, then, As—God forgive me! who but God Himself, Creator and sustainer of the world, deg. deg.269 That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile. 270 —'Sayeth that such an one was born, and lived, Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, Then died; with Lazarus by, for aught I know, And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat, And must have so avouched himself, in fact, In hearing of this very Lazarus Who saith—but why all this of what he saith? Why write of trivial matters, things of price Calling at every moment for remark? I noticed on the margin of a pool 280 Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!

Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, Which, now that I review it, needs must seem Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth! Nor I myself discern in what is writ Good cause for the peculiar interest And awe indeed this man has touched me with. Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus: 290 I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came A moon made like a face with certain spots Multiform, manifold, and menacing: Then a wind rose behind me. So we met In this old sleepy town at unaware, The man and I. I send thee what is writ. Regard it as a chance, a matter risked To this ambiguous Syrian: he may lose, Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. 300 Jerusalem's repose shall make amends For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine; Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!

The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too— So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here! Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself! Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine, But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 310 And thou must love me who have died for thee!" The madman saith He said so; it is strange.

* * * * *



SAUL

I

Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak. Kiss my cheek, wish me well!" Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek. And he, "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent, Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet, Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet. For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days, Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of praise, To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife, And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life. 10

II

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with his dew On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat Were now raging to torture the desert!"

III

Then I, as was meet, Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet, And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped; I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped; Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone, That extends to the second enclosure. I groped my way on Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I prayed, 20 And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice replied. At the first I saw naught but the blackness; but soon I descried A something more black than the blackness—the vast, the upright Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all. Then a sunbeam, that burst thro' the tent roof, showed Saul.

IV

He stood erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side; He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his pangs 30 And waiting his change, the king serpent all heavily hangs, Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come With the spring-time,—so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind and dumb.

V

Then I tuned my harp,—took off the lilies we twine round its chords Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide—those sunbeams like swords! And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one, So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done. They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed; And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star 40 Into eve and the blue far above us,—so, blue and so far!

VI

—Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate Till for boldness they fight one another: and then, what has weight To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house— There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse! God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.

VII

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand 50 And grow one in the sense of this world's life.—And then, the last song When the dead man is praised on his journey—"Bear, bear him along With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets!" Are balm-seeds not here To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier. "Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!"—And then, the glad chaunt Of the marriage,—first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.—And then, the great march Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch Naught can break; who shall harm them, our friends?—Then, the chorus intoned As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. 60 But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul groaned.

VIII

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart; And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered: and sparkles 'gan dart From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once with a start, All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart. So the head: but the body still moved not, still hung there erect. And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked, As I sang,—

IX

"Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste, Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, 70 The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold-dust divine, And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine, And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy! Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou didst guard 80 When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward? Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung The low song of the nearly departed, and hear her faint tongue Joining in while it could to the witness, 'Let one more attest, I have lived, seen God's hand thro' a lifetime, and all was for best!' Then they sung thro' their tears in strong triumph, not much, but the rest. And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence grew Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit strained true: And the friends of thy boyhood—that boyhood of wonder and hope, Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye's scope,— 90 Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is thine: And all gifts which the world offers singly, on one head combine! On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like the throe That, a-work in the rock, helps its labour and lets the gold go), High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them,—all Brought to blaze on the head of one creature—King Saul!"

X

And lo, with that leap of my spirit,—heart, hand, harp, and voice, Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice Saul's fame in the light it was made for——as when, dare I say, The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains thro' its array, 100 And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot—"Saul!" cried I, and stopped, And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung propped By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name. Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim, And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone, While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone A year's snow bound about for a breastplate,—leaves grasp of the sheet? Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet, And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your mountain of old, With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold: 110 Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest—all hail, there they are! —Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on his crest For their food in the ardours of summer. One long shudder thrilled. All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled At the King's self left standing before me, released and aware. What was gone, what remained? All to traverse 'twixt hope and despair. Death was past, life not come; so he waited. Awhile his right hand Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant, forthwith to remand 120 To their place what new objects should enter: 'twas Saul as before. I looked up, and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore, At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean—a sun's slow decline Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwine Base with base to knit strength more intensely: so, arm folded arm O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.

XI

What spell or what charm, (For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urge To sustain him where song had restored, him? Song filled to the verge His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields 130 Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty: beyond, on what fields Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye, And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by? He saith, "It is good:" still he drinks not: he lets me praise life, Gives assent, yet would die for his own part.

XII

Then fancies grew rife Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep Fed in silence—above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep; And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie 'Neath his ken, tho' I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and the sky: And I laughed—"Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks, 140 Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks, Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know! Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains, And the prudence that keeps what men strive for!" And now these old trains Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the string Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus—

XIII

"Yea, my King," I began—"thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute: In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit. 150 Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree,—how its stem trembled first Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely outburst The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, in turn Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: yet more was to learn, E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight, When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and branch. Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall staunch Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine. Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine! 160 By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy More indeed, than at first when, inconscious, the life of a boy. Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed thou hast done Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en as the sun Looking down on the earth, tho' clouds spoil him, tho' tempests efface, Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace The results of his past summer-prime,—so, each ray of thy will. Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill Thy whole people, the countless, with ardour, till they too give forth A like cheer to their sons: who in turn, fill the South and the North 170 With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the past! But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last. As the lion, when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height, So with man—so his power and his beauty forever take flight. No! Again a long draught of my soul-wine! Look forth o'er the years! Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer's! Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb—bid arise A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built to the skies, Let it mark where the great First King slumbers: whose fame would ye know? Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go 180 In great characters cut by the scribe,—Such was Saul, so he did; With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid,— For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend, In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend (See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record With the gold of the graver, Saul's story,—the statesman's great word. Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's a-wave With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds rave; So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art!" 190

XIV

And behold while I sang ... but O Thou who didst grant me that day, And before it not seldom had granted Thy help to essay. Carry on and complete an adventure,—my shield and my sword In that act where my soul was Thy servant, Thy word was my word,— Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as ever On the new stretch of heaven above me—till, mighty to save, Just one lift of Thy hand cleared that distance—God's throne from man's grave! Let me tell out my tale to its ending—my voice to my heart Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I took part, 200 As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep, And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep! For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron, upheaves The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron retrieves Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine.

XV

I say then,—my song While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and, ever more strong, Made a proffer of good to console him—he slowly resumed. His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes Of his turban, and see—the huge sweat that his countenance bathes, 210 He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of yore, And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before, He is Saul, ye remember in glory,—ere error had bent The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, tho' much spent Be the life and bearing that front you, the same, God did choose, To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose. So sank he along by the tent-prop, till, stayed by the pile Of his armour and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile, And sat out my singing,—one arm round the tent-prop, to raise His bent head, and the other hung slack—till I touched on the praise 220 I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there; And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 'ware That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees Which were thrust out each side around me, like oak roots which please To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: thro' my hair The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind power— All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower. 230 Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine— And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign? I yearned—"Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss, I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this; I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence. As this moment,—had love but the warrant, love's heart to dispense!"

XVI

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more—no song more! outbroke—

XVII

"I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke; I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain And pronounced on the rest of his handwork—returned him again 240 His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I saw, Reported, as man may of God's work—all's love, yet all's law. Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked To perceive him has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked. Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare. Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care! Do I task any faculty highest, to image success? I but open my eyes,—and perfection, no more and no less, In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod. 250 And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew (With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too) The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all complete, As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to His feet. Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known, I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own, There's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink, I am fain to keep still in abeyance (I laugh as I think), Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst E'en the Giver in one gift.—Behold, I could love if I durst! 260 But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake God's own speed in the one way of love; I abstain for love's sake. —What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small, Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch; should the hundredth appal? In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all? Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, That I doubt His own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift? Here, the creature surpass the creator,—the end, what began? Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man, And dare doubt He alone shall not help him, who yet alone can? 270 Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power, To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul, Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole? And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest), These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best? Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height This perfection,—succeed with life's dayspring, death's minute of night? Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake, Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now,—and bid him awake 280 From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set Clear and safe in new light and new life,—a new harmony yet To be run and continued, and ended—who knows?—or endure! The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make sure; By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this.

XVIII

"I believe it! 'Tis Thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive; In the first is the last, in Thy will is my power to believe. All's one gift: Thou canst grant it, moreover, as prompt to my prayer, As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. 290 From Thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, Thy dread Sabaoth: I will?—the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loath To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair? This;—'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do! See the King—I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through. Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would—knowing which, I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak thro' me now! Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst Thou—so wilt Thou! 300 So shall crown Thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown— And Thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath, Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death! As Thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved! He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak, 'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek In the Godhead! I seek and I find it, O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee: a Man like to me, 310 Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!"

XIX

I know not too well how I found my way home in the night. There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right, Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware: I repressed, I got thro' them as hardly, as stragglingly there, As a runner beset by the populace famished for news— Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews; And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not, 320 For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest. Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth— Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth; In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills; In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe: 330 E'en the serpent that slid away silent—he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers; And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low. With their obstinate, all but hushed voices—"E'en so, it is so!"

* * * * *



ONE WORD MORE

TO E.B.B.

I

There they are, my fifty men and women Naming me the fifty poems finished! Take them, Love, the book and me together; Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.

II

Rafael deg. made a century of sonnets, deg.5 Made and wrote them in a certain volume Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil Else he only used to draw Madonnas; These, the world might view—but one, the volume. Who that one, deg. you ask? Your heart instructs you. deg.10 Did she live and love it all her lifetime? Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets, Die, and let it drop beside her pillow Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving— Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's?

III

You and I would rather read that volume (Taken to his beating bosom by it), Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 20 Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas— Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, Her, that visits Florence in a vision, Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre— Seen by us and all the world in circle.

IV

You and I will never read that volume. Guido Reni, deg. like his own eye's apple, deg.27 Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. Guido Reni dying, all Bologna Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!" 30 Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.

V

Dante deg. once prepared to paint an angel: deg.32 Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice." deg. deg.33 While he mused and traced it and retraced it (Peradventure with a pen corroded Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for, When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked, deg. deg.37 Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma, Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 40 Let the wretch go festering through Florence)— Dante, who loved well because he hated, Hated wickedness that hinders loving, Dante, standing, studying his angel,— In there broke the folk of his Inferno. deg. deg.45 Says he—"Certain people of importance" (Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) "Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet." Says the poet—"Then I stopped my painting."

VI

You and I would rather see that angel, 50 Painted by the tenderness of Dante, Would we not?—than read a fresh Inferno.

VII

You and I will never see that picture. While he mused on love and Beatrice, While he softened o'er his outlined angel, In they broke, those "people of importance": We and Bice deg. bear the loss forever. deg.57

VIII

What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture? This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not Once, and only once, and for one only, 60 (Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language Fit and fair and simple and sufficient— Using nature that's an art to others, Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature. Ay, of all the artists living, loving, None but would forego his proper dowry,— Does he paint? he fain would write a poem, Does he write? he fain would paint a picture,— Put to proof art alien to the artist's, Once, and only once, and for one only, 70 So to be the man and leave the artist, Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.

IX

Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement! He who smites the rock deg. and spreads the water, deg.74 Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, Even he, the minute makes immortal, Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute, Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing. While he smites, how can he but remember, So he smote before, in such a peril, 80 When they stood and mocked—"Shall smiting help us?" When they drank and sneered—"A stroke is easy!" When they wiped their mouths and went their journey, Throwing him for thanks—"But drought was pleasant." Thus old memories mar the actual triumph; Thus the doing savors of disrelish; Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat; O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate, Carelessness or consciousness—the gesture. For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 90 Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces, Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude— "How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us?" Guesses what is like to prove the sequel— "Egypt's flesh-pots deg.—nay, the drought was better." deg.95

X

Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant! Theirs, the Sinai-forhead's cloven brilliance, deg. deg.97 Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. Never dares the man put off the prophet.

XI

Did he love one face from out the thousands, 100 (Were she Jethro's daughter, deg. white and wifely, deg.101 Were she but the AEthiopian bondslave), He would envy yon dumb, patient camel, Keeping a reserve of scanty water Meant to save his own life in the desert; Ready in the desert to deliver (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) Hoard and life together for his mistress.

XII

I shall never, in the years remaining, Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues. 110 Make you music that should all-express me; So it seems; I stand on my attainment. This of verse alone, one life allows me; Verse and nothing else have I to give you; Other heights in other lives, God willing; All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love.

XIII

Yet a semblance of resource avails us— Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it. Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly, Lines I write the first time and the last time. 120 He who works in fresco steals a hair-brush, Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly, Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, Makes a strange art of an art familiar, Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets, He who blows through bronze may breathe through silver, Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. He who writes, may write for once as I do.

XIV

Love, you saw me gather men and women, Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy, 130 Enter each and all, and use their service, Speak from every mouth,—the speech, a poem. Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving: I am mine and yours—the rest be all men's, Karshish, deg. Cleon, deg. Norbert, deg. and the fifty. deg.136 Let me speak this once in my true person, Not as Lippo, deg. Roland, or Andrea, deg.138 Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence: Pray you, look on these my men and women, 140 Take and keep my fifty poems finished; Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also! Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.

XV

Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self! Here in London, yonder late in Florence, Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. Curving on a sky imbrued with color, Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth. Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, deg. deg.150 Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, Perfect till the nightingales applauded. Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished, Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs, Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.

XVI

What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), deg. deg.160 She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman,— Blank to Zoroaster deg. on his terrace, deg.163 Blind to Galileo deg. on his turret. deg.164 Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats deg.—him, even! deg.165 Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better! Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the ship it founders, 170 Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals? Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire, Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain? Moses, deg. Aaron, deg. Nadab, deg. and Abihu deg. deg.174 Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire. Like the bodied heaven in his clearness Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, When they ate and drank and saw God also!

XVII

What were seen? None knows, none ever will know. 180 Only this is sure—the sight were other, Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, Dying now impoverished here in London. God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her. deg. deg.186

XVIII

This I say of me, but think of you, Love! This to you—yourself my moon of poets! Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder, Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you! 190 There, in turn I stand with them and praise you— Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. But the best is when I glide from out them, Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, Come out on the other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, Where I hush and bless myself with silence.

XIX

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one song—and in my brain I sing it, 200 Drew one angel—borne, see, on my bosom!

* * * * *



NOTES

* * * * *

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN. (PAGE 1.)

The poem is based on an old myth found in many forms, all turning upon the attempt to cheat a magician out of his promised reward. See Brewer's Reader's Handbook, Baring-Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. There are Persian and Chinese analogues.

The eldest son of William Macready, the actor, was confined to the house by illness, and Browning wrote this jeu d'esprit to amuse the boy and to give him a subject for illustrative drawings.

LINE 1. Hamelin. A town in Hanover, Prussia.

89. Cham, or Khan. The title of the rulers of Tartary.

91. Nizam. The title of the sovereign of Hyderabad, the principal state of India.

158. Claret, Moselle, etc. Names of wines.

179. Caliph. The title given to the successor of Mohammed, as head of the Moslem state, and defender of the faith. Century Dictionary.

TRAY. (PAGE 15.)

The poem tells in detail an actual incident, and was written as a protest against vivisection.

3. Sir Olaf. A conventional name in romances of mediaeval chivalry.

6. A satire upon Byronism. Manfred and Childe Harold are heroes of this type.

Note the abruptness and vigor of the style. Where does it seem effective? Where unduly harsh? Why does the poet welcome the third bard? What things does the poem satirize?



INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP. (PAGE 17.)

The incident is real, except that the actual hero was a man, not a boy.

1. Ratisbon (German Regensburg). A city in Austria, stormed by Napoleon in 1809.

11. Lannes. Duke of Montebello, a general in Napoleon's army.

20. This sentence is incomplete. The idea is begun anew in line 23.

What two ideals are contrasted in Napoleon and the boy? By what means is sympathy turned from one to the other? Show how rapidity and vividness are given to the story.



HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX. (PAGE 19.)

Browning thus explains the origin of the poem: "There is no sort of historical foundation about Good News from Ghent. I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse 'York,' then in my stable, at home." It would require a skilful imagination to create a set of circumstances which could give any other plausible reason for the ride to "save Aix from her fate."

14. Lokeren. Twelve miles from Ghent.

15. Boom. Sixteen miles from Lokeren.

16. Dueffeld. Twelve miles from Boom.

17. 19, 31, etc. Mecheln (Fr. Malines), Aershot, Hasselt, etc. The reader may trace the direction and length of the ride in any large atlas. Minute examinations of the route are, however, of no special value.

Note the rapidity of narration and the galloping movement of the verse; the time of starting, and the anxious attention to the time as the journey proceeds. How are we given a sense of the effort and distress of the horses? How do we see Roland gradually emerging as the hero? Where is the climax of the story? Note, especially, the power or beauty of lines 2, 5, 7, 15, 23, 25, 39, 40, 47, 51-53, 54-56.



HERVE RIEL. (PAGE 22.)

(Published in the Cornhill Magazine, 1871. Browning gave the L100 received for the poem to the fund for the relief of the people of Paris, who were starving after the siege of 1870.)

The cause of James II., who had been removed from the English throne in 1688, and succeeded by William and Mary, was taken up by the French. The story is strictly historical, except that Herve Riel asked a holiday for the rest of his life.

5. St. Malo on the Rance. On the northern coast of France, in Brittany. See any large atlas.

43. pressed. Forced to enter service in the navy.

44. Croisickese. A native of Croisic, in Brittany. Browning has used the legends of Croisic for poetic material in his Gold Hair of Pornic and in The Two Poets of Croisic.

46. Malouins. Inhabitants of St. Malo.

135. The Louvre. The great palace and art gallery of Paris.

Note the suggestion of the sea, and of eager hurry, in the movement of the verse. Compare the directness of the opening with that of the preceding poem: What is the advantage of such a beginning? How much is told of the hero? By what means is his heroism emphasized? How is Browning's departure from the legend a gain? Observe the abrupt energy of lines 39-40; the repetition, in 79-80; the picture of Herve Riel in stanzas viii and x.



PHEIDIPPIDES. (PAGE 30.)

The story is from Herodotus, told there in the third person. See Herodotus, VI., 105-106. The final incident and the reward asked by the runner are Browning's addition.

[Greek: Chairete, nikomen]. Rejoice, we conquer.

4. Zeus. The chief of the Greek gods (Roman Jupiter). Her of the aegis and spear. These were the emblems of Athena (Roman Minerva), the goddess of wisdom and of warfare.

5. Ye of the bow and the buskin. Apollo and Diana.

8. Pan. The god of nature, of the fields and their fruits.

9. Archons. Rulers. tettix, the grasshopper, whose image symbolized old age, and was worn by the senators of Athens. See the myth of Tithonus and Tennyson's poem of that name.

13. Persia attempted a conquest of Athens in 490 B.C. and was defeated by the Athenians in the famous battle of Marathon, under Miltiades.

18. To bring earth and water to an invading enemy was a symbol of submission.

19. Eretria. A city on the island of Eub[oe]a, twenty-nine miles north of Athens.

20. Hellas. The Greek name for Greece.

21. The Greeks of the various provinces long regarded themselves as of one blood and quality, superior to the outer barbarians.

32. Phoibos, or Ph[oe]bus. Apollo, god of the sun and the arts. Artemis (Roman Diana), goddess of the moon and patroness of hunting.

33. Olumpos. Olympus. A mountain of Greece which was the abode of Zeus and the other gods.

52. Parnes. A mountain on the ridge between Attica and B[oe]otia, now called Ozia.

62. Erebos. The lower world; the place of night and the dead.

80. Miltiades (?-489 B.C.). The Greek general who won the victory over the Persians at Marathon in 490 B.C.

106. Akropolis. The citadel of Athens, where stood the court of justice and the temple of the goddess Athene.

109. Fennel-field. The Greek name for fennel was [Greek: ho Marathon] (Marathon). Hence the prophetic significance of Pan's gift to the runner.

Compare the story in Herodotus (VI., 105-106) with Browning's more spirited and poetic version. Observe how the strong patriotism, the Greek love of nature, and the Greek reverence for the gods are brought to the fore. What imagery in the poem is especially effective? What is the claim of Pheidippides—as Browning presents him—to memory as a hero? What ideals are most prominent in the poem?



MY STAR. (PAGE 40.)

4. angled spar. The Iceland spar has the power of polarizing light and producing great richness and variety of color.

11. Saturn. The planet next beyond Jupiter; here chosen, perhaps, for its changing aspects. See an encyclopaedia or dictionary.

This dainty love lyric is said to have been written with Mrs. Browning in mind. It needs, however, no such narrow application for its interpretation. It is the simple declaration of the lover that the loved one reveals to him qualities of soul not revealed to others. Observe the "order of lyric progress" in speaking first of nature, then of the feelings.



EVELYN HOPE. (PAGE 41.)

The lover denies the evanescence of human love. He implies that in some future time the love will reappear and be rewarded. Browning's optimism lays hold sometimes of the present, sometimes of the future, for the fulfilment of its hope. Especially strong is his "sense of the continuity of life." "There shall never be one lost good," he makes Abt Vogler say. The charm of this poem is more, perhaps, in its tenderness of tone and purity of atmosphere than in its doctrine of optimism.



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. (PAGE 43.)

This poem was written in Rome in the winter of 1853-1854. The scene is the Roman Campagna. The verse has a softness and a melody unusual in Browning. Compare its structure with that of Holmes's The Last Leaf. Note the elements of pastoral peace and gentleness in the opening, and in the coloring of the scene. What two scenes are brought into contrast? Note how the scenes alternate throughout the poem, and how each scene is gradually developed according to the ordinary laws of description. What ideals are thus compared? What does the poem mean?

MISCONCEPTIONS. (PAGE 47.)

11. Dalmatic. A robe worn by mediaeval kings on solemn occasions, and still worn by deacons at the mass in the Roman Catholic church.

The lyric order appears sharply developed here in the parallelism of the two stanzas. Point out this parallelism of idea. Does it fail at any point? Note the chivalrous absence of reproach by the lover. Observe the climax up to which each stanza leads, and the climax within the last line of each stanza.



NATURAL MAGIC. (PAGE 48.)

5. Nautch. An Indian dancing-girl, to whom Browning ascribes the skill of a magician.

The poem celebrates the transforming and life-giving power of affection. Note the abrupt and excited manner of utterance, and how the speaker begins in the midst of things. He has already told his story once, when the poem opens. Note also the parallelism of structure, as in Misconceptions, the climax in each stanza, and the echo in the last line of each. Tell the story in the common order of prose narrative.



APPARITIONS. (PAGE 49.)

Study the development of the idea in the same manner as in Misconceptions and Natural Magic. Note the felicity of imagery and diction.



A WALL. (PAGE 50.)

The clew to the meaning is to be sought in the last two stanzas. This is one of the best examples of Browning's "assertion of the soul in song."



CONFESSIONS. (PAGE 51.)

First construct the scene of the poem. What has the priest said? What is the sick man's answer? What evidence is there that his imagination is struggling to recall the old memory? What view of life does the priest offer, and he reject? Does Browning indicate his preference for either view, or tell the story impartially?



A WOMAN'S LAST WORD. (PAGE 53.)

What key to the situation in the first line? Who are the speaker and the one addressed? What mood and feeling are in control? Comment upon the condensation of the thought and the movement of the verse.



A PRETTY WOMAN. (PAGE 55.)

25-27. Compare Emerson's lines in The Rhodora:—

"If eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being."

To what things is the "Pretty Woman" compared? Of what use is she? How is she to be judged?



YOUTH AND ART. (PAGE 58.)

8. Gibson, John (1790-1866). A famous sculptor.

12. Grisi, Giulia. A celebrated singer (1811-1869).

18. In allusion to the asceticism of the Hindoo religious devotees.

58. bals-pares. Fancy-dress balls.

The poem is half-humorous, half-serious. The speaker, in her imaginary conversation, gives her own history and that of the man she thinks she might have loved. The story is on the "Maud Muller" motive, but with less of sentimentality. The setting suggests the life of art students in Paris, or in some Italian city. The poem is a plea for the freedom of the individuality of a soul against the restrictions imposed by conventional standards of value. Its touches of humor, of human nature, and its summary of two lives in brief, are admirably done. Its rhymes sometimes need the indulgence accorded to humorous writing.



A TALE. (PAGE 61.)

The source of the story is an epigram given in Mackail's Select Epigrams from Greek Anthology. It is one of the happiest pieces of Browning's lighter work.

65. Lotte, or Charlotte. A character in Goethe's Sorrows of Werther, said to be drawn from the heroine of one of Goethe's earlier love-affairs.

Who are the speaker and the one addressed? Whom does the cicada of the tale symbolize? Whom the singer helped by the cicada? What application is made of the story? What serious meanings and feelings underlie the tone of raillery? What things mark the light and humorous tone of the speaker? Point out the harmony between style and theme.

CAVALIER TUNES. (PAGE 67.)

Note the swinging, martial movement, and the energetic spirit in these lyrics. For an account of the history of the period, see Green's Short History of the English People, Chapter VIII, and Macaulay's History of England, Chapter I. For an account of the qualities of the Cavaliers, see Macaulay's Essay on Milton.

I. MARCHING ALONG

1. Kentish Sir Byng. The first of the family known to fame was George Byng, Viscount Torrington (1663-1733), who could not be the man meant here by Browning.

2. crop-headed. In allusion to the close-cropped hair of the Puritans. Long wigs were the fashion among the Cavaliers; hence the Puritans were nicknamed "Roundheads."

7. King Charles the First. Pym, John (1584-1643). Leader of the Parliament in its actions against King Charles and the Royalist party.

13. Hampden, John (1594-1643). One of the leaders of Parliament, known principally for his resistance to the illegal taxations of Charles I.

14. Hazelrig, Sir Arthur. One of the members of Parliament whom Charles tried to impeach. Fiennes, Nathaniel. One of the leading members of Parliament. young Harry. Son of Sir Henry Vane, and a member of the Puritan party.

15. Rupert. Prince of the Palatinate (1619-1682), and nephew of Charles I. He served in the King's army during the civil war.

23. Nottingham. "Charles I raised his standard here, in 1642, as the beginning of the civil war."—Century Dictionary.

II. GIVE A ROUSE

16. Noll was a contemptuous nickname for Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the Puritans.

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA. (PAGE 70.)

This poem is a companion piece to Home Thoughts, from Abroad. It is, however, distinctly inferior to it in clearness, vividness of feeling, and lyric sweetness.

3. Trafalgar, The scene of the famous victory of the English admiral, Nelson, over the French fleet in 1805.

4. Gibraltar. The famous rocky promontory at the entrance of the Mediterranean. It has been held as an English fort since 1704.

SUMMUM BONUM. (PAGE 71.)

This little poem, published in 1890, is one of the good examples of a love lyric written by an old man whose spirit is still youthful. There are some similar things by Tennyson, in Gareth and Lynette, and elsewhere in his later publications.

Note here the somewhat exaggerated art of the poem in the alliterations and in the multiple comparisons.

SONGS FROM PIPPA PASSES. (PAGE 73.)

The drama of Pippa Passes is a succession of scenes, each representing some crisis of human life, into which breaks, with beneficent influence, a song of the girl Felippa, or "Pippa," on her holiday from the silk-mills. She is unconscious of the influence she exerts. William Sharp says these songs "are as pathetically fresh and free as a thrush's song in a beleaguered city, and with the same unconsidered magic."

THE LOST LEADER. (PAGE 75.)

The desertion of the liberal cause by Wordsworth, Southey, and others, is the germinal idea of this poem. But Browning always strenuously insisted that the resemblance went no further; that The Lost Leader is no true portrait of Wordsworth, though he became poet-laureate. The Lost Leader is a purely ideal conception, developed by the process of idealization from an individual who serves as a "lay figure."

13. Shakespeare was more of an aristocrat, surely, than a democrat. Milton had championed the cause of liberty in prose and poetry, and had worked for it as Cromwell's Latin secretary.

14. Burns, Shelley. What poems can you cite of either poet to place him in this list?

Who is the speaker? What is the cause? Why does he not wish the "lost leader" to return? How does he judge him? What does he expect for his cause? What does he mean by lines 29-30? lines 31-32? Point out the climax in the second stanza.

APPARENT FAILURE. (PAGE 77.)

3. your Prince. Son of Napoleon III., born in March, 1856.

7. The Congress assembled to discuss Italy's unity and freedom. Gortschakoff represented Russia; Count Cavour, Italy; Buol, Austria. Austria had conquered Italy. See Browning's The Italian in England.

12. Petrarch's Vaucluse. The fountain from which the Sorgue rises. The town of Vaucluse (Valclusa) was the home of the poet Petrarch (1304-1374).

14. debt. The obligation to visit a famous place.

39. Tuileries. The imperial palace in Paris.

43-44. What is meant? Death? Freedom?

46-47. In allusion to the game of rouge-et-noir. Criticise the taste shown here.

In what sense does the poet intend to "save" the building? Describe the scene that he recalls. What three types are the suicides? How does the poet know? Why does he deny the failure of their lives? Does he base his optimistic hope on reason or feeling? Note the climax in line's 55-57. State in your own words the meaning of the last six lines.

FEARS AND SCRUPLES. (PAGE 80.)

The problem of the religions doubter is here set forth by an analogy.

5. letters. The reference is of course to the Scriptures.

17 ff. In reference to sceptical criticism.

What are the "fears and scruples" held by the speaker? What proof does he desire to allay his doubts? Does he settle the doubt or put it aside? Where is his spirit of reverence best shown?

INSTANS TYRANNUS. (PAGE 82.)

"Instans Tyrannus", the threatening tyrant. The phrase is from Horace's Odes, Book III., iii., as is probably the idea of the poem. Gladstone translates the passage:—

"The just man in his purpose strong, No madding crowd can turn to wrong. The forceful tyrant's brow and word . . . . . . . His firm-set spirit cannot move."

There is novelty of conception in giving the situation from the tyrant's point of view. Compare also the seventh Ode of Horace in Book II.

44. gravamen. Latin for burden, difficulty, annoyance.

69. Just (as) my vengeance (was) complete.

What conception do you get of the tyrant? What is his motive? What things aggravate his hatred? How does he seek to "extinguish the man"? What baffles him at first? What defeats him finally? Is he deterred by physical or moral fear? By what means is the poem given vigor and clearness? Note the dramatic effect in the last stanza.

THE PATRIOT. (PAGE 85.)

At what point in his career does the speaker give his story? What have been his motives? How was he at first treated? What indicates that the change is not in him, but in the fickle mob? How does he view his downfall? In what thought lies his sense of triumph? How does his greatness of soul appear?

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL. (PAGE 87.)

24. "the voice of my delight". That is, the boy's simple praises.

What quality did the praise of the Pope and of the angel lack? What is the meaning of the legend?

MEMORABILIA. (PAGE 91.)

In Browning's early youth, while he was under the influence of Byron and Pope, he found, at a bookstall, a stray copy of Shelley's Daemon of the World. From this time on, Shelley's poetry was his ideal. The term "moulted feather" has peculiar significance from the fact that this was a poem which Shelley afterwards rejected.

How is childlike wonder expressed in the first two stanzas? How is the difference between the speaker and his friend indicated? Why does the name of Shelley mean so much more to one than to the other? In the figure that follows, what do the moor and the eagle's feather stand for?

WHY I AM A LIBERAL. (PAGE 92.)

Note the essential elements of sonnet structure in metre, rhyme, and number of lines. See the Introduction to Sharp's Sonnets of this Century. Compare the idea of the poem with that of The Lost Leader.

PROSPICE. (PAGE 93.)

Written shortly after the death of Mrs. Browning.

Note the vividness of the imagery, the swiftness of the movement, the rise to the climax, the change in spirit after the climax, and the note of courage and hope that informs this poem. Compare it with Tennyson's Crossing the Bar. What difference in spirit between the two?

EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO. (PAGE 94.)

Sharp's Life of Browning has the following passage: "Shortly before the great bell of San Marco struck ten, he turned and asked if any news had come concerning Asolando, published that day. His son read him a telegram from the publishers, telling how great the demand was, and how favorable were the advance articles in the leading papers. The dying poet turned and muttered, 'How gratifying!' When the last toll of St. Mark's had left a deeper stillness than before, those by the bedside saw a yet profounder silence on the face of him whom they loved."

What claim does Browning make for himself? Do you find this spirit in any of his poetry which you have read?

"DE GUSTIBUS—." (PAGE 96.)

Image the scene in the first stanza. Why are the poppies known by their flutter, rather than their color? Note the rhyme effect and climax in lines 11-13. What qualities predominate in the first scene? How does the second scene differ from it? What are the characteristic objects in the second? Has it more or less of the romantic, or of grandeur? Compare the human element introduced in each scene. Note the effectiveness of the epithets a-flutter, wind-grieved, baked, red-rusted, iron-spiked. Show how the poem explains its title.

THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. (PAGE 98.)

The setting of the story is Italy's struggle against Austria for her liberty, known as the Revolution of 1848.

8. Charles. Carlo Alberto, Prince of Carignano, of the house of Savoy.

19. Metternich (1773-1859). The Austrian diplomatist, and the enemy of Italian liberty.

25. Lombardy. See the Atlas.

76. =Tenebrae= = darkness. A religious service in the Roman Catholic church, commemorating the crucifixion.

MY LAST DUCHESS. (PAGE 105.)

Ferrara still preserves the mediaeval traditions and appearance in a marked degree. The Dukes of Ferrara were noted art patrons. Both Ariosto and Tasso were members of their household; but neither poet was fully appreciated by his master.

8. Fra Pandolf. An imaginary artist.

45-46. Professor Corson, in his Introduction to Browning, quotes an answer from the poet himself: "'Yes, I meant that the commands were that she should be put to death.' And then, after a pause, he added, with a characteristic dash of expression, as if the thought had just started in his mind, 'Or he might have had her shut up in a convent.'"

56. Claus of Innsbruck. An imaginary artist.

This poem is a fine example of Browning's skill in the use of dramatic monologue. (See Introduction.) The Duke is skilfully made to reveal his own character and motives, and those of the Duchess, and at the same time to indicate the actions of himself and his listener.

Construct in imagination the scene and the action of the poem. What has brought the Duke and the envoy together? What things indicate the Duke's pride? Was his jealousy due to pride or to affection? Does he prize the picture as a work of art or as a memory of the Duchess? What faults did he find in her? What character do these criticisms show her to have had? What did he wish her to he? Note the anti-climax in lines 25-28: what is the effect? What shows the Duke's difficulty in breaking his reserve on this matter? What motive has he for so doing? Where does the poet show skill in condensation, in character drawing, in vividness, in enlisting the reader's sympathy?

The Flight of the Duchess should be read as a development and variation of this theme.

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S. (PAGE 107.)

Ruskin gives this poem high praise: "Robert Browning is unerring in every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages.... I know no other piece of modern English prose or poetry in which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit—its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly all that I have said of the central Renaissance, in thirty pages of The Stones of Venice, put into as many lines; Browning's also being the antecedent work."

It is not, however, for its historical accuracy that a poem is mainly to be judged. The full and imaginative portrayal of a type, belonging not to one age only, but to human nature, is a greater achievement. And this achievement Browning has undoubtedly performed.

5. Old Gandolf. Evidently one of the Bishop's colleagues in holy orders, and like him in holiness.

31. onion-stone. See the dictionary for descriptions of this and other stones named in the poem.

41. olive-frail. A crate, made of rushes, for packing olives.

42. lapis lazuli. A very beautiful and valuable blue stone.

46. Frascati. A town near Rome, celebrated for its villas.

56-62. Such mixture of Christian and Pagan elements was a common feature in Renaissance art and literature.

58. tripod. The triple-footed seat from which the priestesses of Apollo at Delphi delivered the oracles. thyrsus. A staff entwined with ivy and vines, and borne in the Bacchic processions.

77. Tully. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman orator, statesman, and philosopher.

79. Ulpian. A celebrated Roman jurist of the third century.

99. Elucescebat. Late Latin, from elucesco. The classical or Ciceronian form would be elucebat, from eluceo. Here appears the Bishop's love of good Latin.

108. Term. A pillar, widening toward the top, upon which is placed a figure or a bust.

Who are grouped about the Bishop's bed? What does he desire? Why? What tastes does he show? Point out evidences of his crimes, his suspicion, his sensual ideals, his artistic tastes, his canting hypocrisy, his confusion of the material and the immaterial, and the persistency of his passions and feelings. Note the subtlety with which these things are suggested, especially lines 18-19, 29-30, 33-44, 50-52, 59-62, 80-84, 122-125.

THE LABORATORY. (PAGE 113.)

This is a little masterpiece in its vividness and condensation. The passions of hate and jealousy have seldom been so well portrayed. The time and place are probably France and the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Berdoe has called attention in his Browning Cyclopaedia, to the number of fine antitheses in the second stanza.

Who are present in the scene? Who are to be the victims? Account for the speaker's patience in stanza iii. Point out the things that show the intensity of her hate. Does she display any other feeling than hate and jealousy?

HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD. (PAGE 115.)

Where is the speaker? What scene is in his imagination? Trace the growth in his mind of this scene: in color effects, in the kind of life introduced, in the intensity of the feeling, in the vividness with which he enters into it. What is the charm in lines 12-14?

UP AT A VILLA—DOWN IN THE CITY. (PAGE 116.)

4. Bacchus. The Roman god of wine, frequently invoked in the garnishment of Latin and Italian speech.

42. Pulcinello is the Italian for clown or puppet, and the prototype of the English Punch.

48, Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. Italy's first three great authors. See a biographical dictionary or encyclopaedia for their dates and their works.

St. Jerome (340-420.) One of the fathers of the Roman, church. He prepared the Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate.

48. the skirts of St. Paul has reached. Has done almost as well as St. Paul.

51. Our Lady. The image of the Virgin Mary. Observe our hero's taste and his religions solemnity.

52. seven swords, etc. Representing the seven "legendary sorrows" of the Virgin. See Berdoe's Browning Cyclopaedia, or Brewer's Reader's Handbook, or Dictionary of Phrase and Fable for the list.

UP AT A VILLA is one of the best humorous poems in the language. The hero's desires and sorrows are so naive, his tastes so gravely held, that he provokes our sympathy as well as our laughter. One of the charms of the poem is the way in which he is made to testify, in spite of himself, to the beauties of the country (as in lines 7-9, 19-20, 22-25, 32-33, 36) and to the monotony or clanging emptiness of the city (as in lines 12-14, 38-54). Compare lines 8 and 82 with the picture in De Gustibus.

A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S. (PAGE 122.)

Toccata. See an unabridged dictionary.

1. Galuppi. Baldassare Galuppi, Venice, 1706-1785, a celebrated musician and prolific composer.

6. St. Mark's. The famous cathedral of Venice. Doges ... rings. The Doge was chief magistrate of Venice. The annual ceremony of "wedding the Adriatic" by casting into it a gold ring was instituted in 1174, in commemoration of the victory of the Venetian fleet over Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor of Germany.

8. Shylock's bridge. By the Rialto. A house by the bridge, said to be Shylock's, is still pointed out to visitors.

18. clavichord. An instrument of the type of the piano.

19 ff. thirds, sixths, etc. For the musical terms see an unabridged dictionary or a musical dictionary.

30. Compare the lines in Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat:—

"For some we loved, the loveliest and the best That from his vintage rolling Time hath prest, Have drunk their cup a round or two before, And one by one crept silently to rest."

This is the characteristic note of poetic melancholy, found again and again from Virgil to Tennyson.

37-39. Is the ironical tone of these lines in harmony with the spirit of the rest of the poem?

What does Galuppi's music mean to Browning? What does it recall of the life in Venice? Is the lightness of tone in the music itself or in the poet's idea of Venice? What emotions are aroused? What causes the poet's sadness? Is the verse musical? Does it suit the ideas it conveys?

ABT VOGLER. (PAGE 126.)

George Joseph Vogler, known also as Abbe (or Abt) Vogler (1748-1816), was a German musician. He composed operas and other musical pieces, became famous as an organist, and invented an organ with pedals and several keyboards. Browning seems to have in mind the complex musical harmonies of which the instrument was capable. See lines 10, 13, 52, 55, and 84 of the poem. See also the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

3. Solomon. Legends about Solomon and his power over the spirits of earth and air are common in Jewish and Arabic literature.

9 ff. building. The idea of building by music is an old one. See the classical story of Amphion and the walls of Thebes, Coleridge's Kubla Khan, and Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, lines 272-274.

19. rampired. Furnished with ramparts.

23. The reference is to St. Peter's in Rome.

The musician's imagination takes fire from his playing, and his music seems like a glorious palace which he is building. The notes are conceived as spirits doing his bidding (stanzas i-iii). As he proceeds the images change, and heaven and earth seem to unite with him in his creative activity: light flashes forth, and heaven and earth draw nearer together. Now he sees the past, the beginnings of things, and the future; even the dead are back again in his presence. His imagination has anulled time and space. As he thinks of his art, it seems more glorious to him than painting and poetry: these work by laws that can be explained and followed, while music is a direct expression of the will, an act of higher creative power.

When the music ends he cannot be consoled by the thought that as good music will come again. So he turns to the one unchanging thing, "the ineffable Name." Thus he gains confidence to say, "there shall never be one lost good." All failure and all evil are but a prelude to the good that shall in the end prevail. So he returns in hope and patience to the C major, the common chord of life.

ART VOGLER is famous, not only for its confident optimism, but as an example of Browning's power of annexing a new domain—that of music—to poetry.

Where does the musician cease to speak of Solomon's building and begin to describe his own? Note, in stanza ii, how he speaks first of the "keys," and afterwards has in mind the notes; how he speaks of the bass notes as the foundation, and the upper notes as the structure. Where is the climax of his creative vision? What does he mean in line 40? Is he right in saying music is less subject to laws than poetry and painting? Why is he sad when his music ceases? Why does he turn to God for consolation? Follow carefully the argument in stanza ix. Is it convincing? What analogy does he find between music, and good and evil?

RABBI BEN EZRA. (PAGE 133.)

Abraham Ben Meir Ben Ezra, into whose mouth Browning puts the reflections in this poem, was born in Toledo, Spain, in 1090, and died about 1168. He was distinguished as philosopher, astronomer, physician, and poet. The ideas of the poem are drawn largely from the writings of Rabbi Ben Ezra. See Berdoe's Browning Cyclopaedia.

1. Grow old along with me. Come, and let us talk of old age.

7-15. Not that. Connect "not that" of lines 7 and 10, and the "not for, etc.," of 13, with "Do I remonstrate" in line 15.

29. hold of. Are like, share the nature of.

39-41. Compare A Grammarian's Funeral.

117. be named. That is, known, or distinguished.

124. Was I (whom) the world arraigned. Browning frequently omits the relative.

139-144. Compare lines 36-41. Note here and elsewhere in this poem the frequent repetition, and variation of the same idea.

151. Potter's wheel. The figure of the Potter's wheel is frequent in Oriental literature. See Isaiah lxiv. 8, and Jeremiah xviii, 2-6; see also Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat, stanzas xxxvii, xxxviii, lxxxii-xc.

169-171. In the period of youth.

172-174. In old age.

What cares agitate youth? Why is it better so? Wherein does man partake of the nature of God? What plea is made for the "value and significance of flesh"? Show how Browning denies the doctrine of asceticism. What is meant by "the whole design," line 56? Why does Rabbi Ben Ezra pause at the threshold of old age? What has youth achieved? What advantage has old age? What are its pleasures? Its employments? Explain the figure in lines 91-5. By what are the man and his work to be judged? Compare the use of the figure of the Potter's wheel with that in the Old Testament. What has Browning added? Point out the element of optimism in the poem. How does its view of old age differ from the pagan view? See Browning's Cleon.

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL. (PAGE 143.)

The Grammarian is a type of the early scholars who gave to Europe the treasures of Greek thought by translating the manuscripts recovered after the fall of Constantinople. The time is therefore the Renaissance, the latter part of the fifteenth century, and the place probably Italy. The Grammarian was a scholar and thinker, not a mere student of grammar in the modern sense.

23. Our low life. Lacking the learning and high endeavor of their master.

45-46. the world bent on escaping. That is, the world of the past.

48. shaping, their mind and character.

97-98. Compare with lines 65-72, 77-84, and 103-4.

129-131. The Greek particles [Greek: oti, oun, and de.]

Describe the scene and action of the poem. Note the march-like and irregular movement of the verse: does it fit the theme? Why do they carry the Grammarian up from the plain? What was his work? What was his aim? What is the value of such work (1) in presenting an ideal of life, (2) in the history of culture? What circumstances in his life enhance his praise? Did he make any mistake? Does Browning think so? How does Browning defend him? What imagery in the poem seems especially effective? Are you reminded of anything in "Rabbi Ben Ezra"? Criticise the rhymes and metre.

ANDREA DEL SARTO. (PAGE 149.)

An Italian painter, of the Florentine school; born 1487, died 1531. His merits and defects as an artist are given in the poem. The crime to which he is here made to refer was the use, for building himself a house, of the money intrusted to him by the French king for the purchase of works of art. For an account of his life and work see the article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Vasari's Lives of the Painters.

15. =Fiesole= (pronounced Fe-[='a]-so-lě). A small Italian town near Florence.

119. Rafael. The great painter, Raphael (1483-1520).

130. Agnolo. Michael Angelo (1475-1584), one of Italy's greatest men: famous as sculptor, painter, architect, and poet.

150. Fontainebleau. A town southeast of Paris, formerly the residence of French kings, and still famous for its Renaissance architecture and for the landscapes around it.

241. scudi. The scudo is an Italian silver coin worth about one dollar.

262. Leonard. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), another of Italy's great men: artist, poet, musician, and scientist.

Construct the scene and action of the poem. How does the coloring harmonize with the artist's mood? Why is he weary? How does he think of his art: what merit has it? What does it lack? How does he explain this lack? What clew to it does his life afford? Is his art soulless because he has done wrong? Or, do the lack of soul in his painting, and the wrongdoing, and the infatuation with Lucrezia's beauty, all arise from the same thing,—the man's own nature? Does he appeal to your sympathy, or provoke your condemnation? Does he blame himself, or another, or circumstances?

What idea have you of Lucrezia? What does she think of Andrea? Of his art? What things does he desire of her?

What problems of life are here presented? Which is principal: the relation of man and woman, the need of soul for great work, or the interrelation between character and achievement? Or, is there something else for which the poem stands?

Can you cite any lines that embody the main idea of the poem? Does anything in it remind you of The Grammarian, or of Rabbi Ben Ezra?

CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS. (PAGE 161.)

Setebos was the god of Caliban's mother, the witch Sycorax, on Prospero's island.

Read Shakespeare's The Tempest. Observe especially all that is said by or about Caliban. Observe that Browning makes Caliban usually speak of himself in the third person, and prefixes an apostrophe to the initial verb, as in the first line.

Tylor's Primitive Culture and Early History of Mankind give interesting accounts of the religions of savages.

How is Caliban's savage nature indicated in the opening scene? What things does he think Setebos has made? From what motives? What limit to the power of Setebos? Why does Caliban imagine these limits? How does Setebos govern? Out of what materials does Caliban build his conceptions of his deity? Why does he fear him? How does he propitiate him? Why is he terrified at the end? Compare this passage with the latter part of the Book of Job. What, in general, is the meaning of the poem? Can you cite anything in the history of religions to parallel Caliban's theology?

"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME." (PAGE 174.)

When Browning was asked by Rev. Dr. J.W. Chadwick whether the central idea of this poem was constancy to an ideal,—"He that endureth to the end shall be saved,"—he answered, "Yes, just about that."

4-5. to afford suppression of. To suppress.

11. 'gin write. Write.

48. its estray. That is, Childe Roland himself.

66. my prisoners. Those who had met their death on the plain? Or, its imprisoned vegetation?

68. bents. A kind of grass.

70. as. As if.

91. Not it! Memory did not give hope and solace.

106. howlet. A small owl.

114. bespate. Spattered.

133. cirque. A circle or enclosure.

137. galley-slaves whom the Turk, etc.

140. engine. Machine.

143. Tophet. Hell.

160. Apollyon. The Devil.

Note the hero's mood of doubt and despair. At what point in his quest do we see him? What does he do after meeting the cripple? How does the landscape seem as he goes on? What moral quality does it seem to have? See lines 56-75. What new elements are introduced to add to the horror of the scene? What memories come to him of the failures of his friends? Was their disgrace in physical or moral failure? How does he come to find the Tower? Why does Browning represent it as a "dark tower"? Does his courage fail at the end of his quest? Or does he win the victory in finding the tower and blowing the challenge?

AN EPISTLE. (PAGE 183.)

The Arabs were among the earliest in the cultivation of mathematical and medical science. This fact, together with their monotheism, makes Karshish an appropriate character for the experience of the poem.

1-14. An ancient and oriental idea of the soul and its relation to the body.

15. Sage. Abib, to whom the letter is sent.

17. snake-stone. A stone used to cure snake-bites.

19. charms. Note here and elsewhere the mixture of science and superstition.

21-33. The poet has given local color to the journey.

28. Vespasian was appointed general-in-chief against the insurgent Jews in 67 A.D., and began the great siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The date of the poem and the length of time since Lazarus's return to life may thus be estimated.