$
ģ
ģ
}
}
}}
ſae
$
|
§§§
©
{v
}
}
Ė
&
į
！
№
§§
！·
§
}
ſae
$$$$$$$$$
§ğ¿ķ
- …}：
∞|×
%
ae
§§ğ
ģi
¿
·！ķ
·}}$§§§§
§§
§§
šķ！
§§
ſae.
§§
§§
ſae
ſae
§§
};§§·
§
§
#º
º
§§§
ķ
Ķ
§§
Ķ
§§§§
ķ
§j
ſae
！
}
º:
- ¿¿?ģ
####$%$§$%
·######
ķ
{
§§§§§
ķ
####}};
ķ
ſ.
ᤤ
#
ķ§§
§§ķ¿
§§。
·§
ģ
∞
§§
ſ.$ſ;
ſae
§§§
į
ğ}}
§
}
}}
{{}
。
}}
ģ
ģ
}}
{
}$
№
Ř
}
}}
§
*
§§§
¿####
ğ
ķ
§
}}
§§
######ģţķ
ģšķķ$
¿
¿ģ
#######
ģšķ{
šķ
№
§§};&
§§#####
¡§§
{¿
∞
！：
§%
ķ
§§
ſ
§§
§:
};
§§§
§§§§§
ſaeģ
§ſºi
ſae:
};
∞
§§
Ë
ſae
ģ;

■■■■■■ &&¿ĒĒĒĒĒĒĒĒĖĘĘ
ÎÏÏĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪİIĮĮĶĒ£
-.-.-.-..-… … --~~~ ~~------ - -.• • • • ----~~~~~*~*******
iſſ
}
}
}
|
ſm -
º
ºr sººn a wºº exts
º
mm mm.
º:
īīīīīīīīīīīīĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪŕ%ſ%ſīÈīĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪ
ſº
º: gº
º
līIII
Bº:
º
sº
ÎÎÏÏĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪſā
º
tºº-ºº:
*** Mºº
#3
º:
§§ #
----&--~~~~，~~~~|------*-**** … ！！！！！！！！！！
№wºrºſº，?（Fºtº！！！！！！！:，：№№Fºſſae
§§§§§·§§
！*®-
，ſººſ-
Ģae
ſaeae
¿§§§
∞∞∞§.§§*
ſae
×


88.8
Tºšć
K55
*
a 22.75
_s=""
cº"
ROBERT BROWNING:
CH/AEAP POET OF THE A.G.E.
AN ESSAY
ADDRESSED PRIMARILY to Beginners in the Study of
BROWNING's Poems.
BY
WILLIAM G. KINGSLAND.
§ombon
5*. W. 5*AA V/S & SOAV,
KING WILLIAM STREET, STRA.V.D.
1887.
28,
TO ROBERT BROWNING.
O strong-soul’d singer of high themes and wide—
Thrice noble in thy work and life alike—
Thy genius glides upon a sea, whose tide
Heaves with a pain and passion infinite l—
Men's hearts laid bare beneath thy Žižying touch ,
Strong words that comfort all o'erwearied much ,
Thoughts whose calm cadence moulds our spirit-life,
Gives strength to bravely bear amid world-strife :
And one large Hope, full oró’d as summer sun,
That souls shall surely meet when LIFE is won /
So 7 ound thy heart our grateful thanks entwine;—
Men are the better for these songs of thine !
4t eve thy muse doth o'er us mellower swell,
Strong with the strength of life lived long and well /
W. G. K.
December 21, 1886.
ROBERT BROWNING.
T the ripe age of seventy-five years
Robert Browning is still working among
us; and those readers of poetry who have,
for many a year past, derived both pleasure
and instruction from the long and unique
series of his works, earnestly hope and desire
that the evening of his life may be as fair and
beautiful as was its morning ; and the day may
be even yet far distant when we may look for
the last and most ripened fruit of his mind.
Speaking recently to the Browning Society,
Canon Farrar remarked that the poet had
given us “not only a book but a literature;”
and it is this very fulness that makes it difficult
to say much about his work in a short essay.
But then it is, at the same time, this very fulness
that should make him popular, for he thus appeals
to many and diverse orders of mind. Now it.
must be premised that of all modern poets
Robert Browning is emphatically the poet of
6 Robert Browning.
Faith and of Hope—the truly religious poet.

Yet, withal, he is a man of the world, with a large
knowledge of men and things, and with an alto-
gether wonderful insight into human nature.
Looking at the varied aspect of his work, he is
the greatest searcher of human hearts, and the
greatest poet that has appeared among us, since
Shakespeare. Great, indeed, is the range of his
genius, and universal the sources of his inspiration.
Popes, monks, Saints, kings, queens, children,
villains, throng his canvas, and from one and all
some deep human experience is evolved. In
“Pippa Passes”—perhaps the most beautiful, as
it is probably the most easily comprehended of
his dramas—he gives us a sweet picture of Pippa,
a little factory girl, who, moving anear to souls
soiled by evil in her one day's holiday, sings her
little snatches of song like the lark at heaven's
gate, awaking dead conscience and remorse in
hard, bad hearts, and instancing once more the
power of the old-world words, “out of the mouths
of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected
praise; ” and the burden of whose song, as she
descends like a child-angel into the light of a
new morning, with the spring-world bathed in
the glory and gold of a blessed sunrise, is
“The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn ;
Morning's at seven ;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled,
A’obert Browning. 7
The lark’s on the wing ;
The snail’s on the thorn ;
God’s in His heaven—
All 's right with the world.”
As we have said, the range of Mr. Browning's
genius is unique. He is undoubtedly the most
catholic, large-hearted, and tolerant mind of the
nineteenth century; and, as Dr. Furnivall so
rightly and justly insists, the “strongest poet” of
the age. Are you fond of thought cast in a
dramatic mould Then you can take your
choice amid half a dozen of the most ripe and
essentially human dramas of the Victorian age
—dramas that reach even the “high-water mark”
of the great dramatists of the Elizabethan
age — from “Strafford ” to “Luria.” Does
Art appeal to you? Then you have Some

of the rarest teaching on painting and sculpture
that has yet been given to the world—from “Old
Pictures in Florence " to “ Fra Lippo,” and
“Andrea del Sarto.” Do you love to peer into

the recesses of the human heart, and probe to
*** - ""-" ºr fºº-ºº. ...— .
* * * * * *
the utmost motive and conscience PTThen must
you go to Browning, and the “Ring and the
Book” and the “Dramatic Idylls” will furnish
you with an ever-widening series of studies on
conscience and mental analysis. Does music

speak to you? Here you will find the most
perfect poems and ripest thought on music to be
8 Robert Browning.

found in the whole range of poetic literature,
culminating in the raptivision of “Abt Vogler.”
Lastly—are you moved by the religious question-
ings of the age? Are you profoundly touched
by religious thought 2 Then here is your poet
ready to hand; and in “Saul,” onward to the
“Death in the Desert” and “Ferishtah's Fancies,”
you will find the ripened wisdom of a religious
teacher whose teachings transcend theology, and
the key-note of whose belief is.
*-i-º-º-º- *-
I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ,
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee
All questions in the earth and out of it,
And has so far advanced thee to be wise.
“Death 27, the Desarſ.”
In truth, this poet is pre-eminently the religious
poet—healthy, manly, brave; with a hope like
Jacob's ladder, reaching from earth to the highest
heaven. To our poet, Hope is visible the whole
world round. He walks one day through Paris
streets and steps into the Morgue, where the
corpses of suicides were wont to be ranged for
the public gaze. And there, sure enough, lay
three specimens of humanity,
Poor men, God made, and all for that
The reverence struck me ; o'er each head
Religiously was hung its hat,
Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,
...”
Robert Browning. 9
Sacred from touch : each had his berth,
His bounds, his proper place of rest,
Who last night tenanted on earth
Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast—
Unless the plain asphalte seemed best.
Then he proceeds to analyse their life by their
physical appearance, reading thus the Secret of
each heart, and the reason they flung away
their life as a thing of no moment:—
How did it happen, my poor boy P
You wanted to be Buonaparte
And have the Tuileries for toy,
And could not, so it broke your heart 2
You, old one by his side, I judge,
Were, red as blood, a socialist,
A leveller Does the Empire grudge
You've gained what no Republic missed ?
Be quiet, and unclench your fist
And this—why, he was red in vain,
Or black--poor fellow that is blue !
What fancy was it, turned your brain P
Oh, women were the prize for you !
Money gets women, cards and dice
Get money, and ill-luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
Cool squirt of water o'er your bust,
The right thing to extinguish lust
Note the indignant burst of these last lines 1
Browning has only contempt for mere sensuous-
ness—as, indeed, what else could such a man

wº---- ******-** -...A. ºr .
have 2 So, gazing on these corpses, thinking of
IO Robert Browning.
the sin and wretchedness that lured a human Soul
to a self-sought death, he utters that trenchant
and wonderful line,
“I thought, and think their sin 's atoned.”
Then follows that strong, pregnant verse, in
which he expresses his belief that evil is not
eternal; that so long as God lives there is hope;
and that the awful dogma of eternal torment is
alien to the character of the Maker—who could
on no account destroy His own handiwork:—
“It’s wiser being good than bad ;
It's safer being meek than fierce :
It’s fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can’t end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.”
But it cannot be too strongly insisted on that
Browning is, first and foremost, a poet. So rich
are the long and illustrious series of his writings
in mere mental wealth, that many critics have al-
together ignored the poetry—have, indeed, denied
to him the designation of “poet,” considering
him merely as a writer of dialectics in verse.
Indeed, amid the many papers that have been
written on the varied aspects of his work, I have
often wondered at the absence of a paper treating
Robert Browning. I I
on Mr. Browning “as a poet.” And among
lovers of the poet, it sometimes appears as
if, in gathering up all the philosophy and
teaching to be found in his work, they are apt
to overlook the poetic fancy. Now comes the
question, What is a poet?, What do we mean
when we caſſa man a “chief singer,” when we
claim for him the title of poet 2 Primarily, he
must be all that I claim Mr. Browning to be—
he must be a teacher; he must have a message
to deliver, a doctrine to propound; and he must
assuredly be a thinker. But still all this would
not constitute him a poet. There is an undefin-
able something else wanting. He must combine
with all these qualities the rare power of giving


*...**
utterance to his thoughts in words that shaji
thriſſ the imagination ; his lines must be rainbow-
coloured, as it were; they must be blended
with a fancy, wedded to a music, that shall
sing themselves into the mind of the reader. His
most Tweighty thoughts must be painted in
colours that glow with life and warmth; and
his sentences so many pieces of pure jewellery.
Now I hold that Browning has this superb and
unique gift to a larger extent than any of his
contemporaries. He could not help becoming a
“singer”—his words naturally form themselves
into musical rhythm ; his strong sentences are
coloured with beauty, and throb with life like a
Summer morning.

I 2 Robert Browning.
The plain truth is, however, Mr. Browning's
thoughts come so fast, they rise in such rich and
prodigal profusion, that they often hide the ex-
quisite play of fancy, the Sweet musical ripple
running beneath them. And so one sometimes
has to search deep for the jewel—to read and
re-read; and, unfortunately, this is just what
most modern readers cannot be persuaded to do.
Thereupon, they say, as was said from the begin-
ing, “We cannot understand this Browning—we
cannot find the golden nugget you tell us is
there, so we give it up.” Thus has our poet
been unpopular; thus has he been called obscure;
thus has he been said to be devoid of music.
Now, a very little patience on the reader's part
would have altered all this; and by a second or
third reading, he would not only have found
an unsurpassing vein of rich ore beneath, but
have speedily discovered that he was in an
altogether new country, the strange beauty of
which would have fascinated his mind and glad-
dened his heart.
Browning has been, and most truly, ranked
with Shakespeare in the quality of his genius.
He has all Shakespeare's catholicity—his breadth
of vision—his largeness of view—his wonderful
insight into human nature. At the same time,
it has always seemed to me that there is a great
deal in Browning akin to Shelley. It will be
Robert Browning. I3
readily conceded that Shelley has the greatest
Myric gift of all English poets—that is, as a
singer, he is our foremost poet. His poems
read like melodies heard in the twilight ; like
the music of the wind sweeping through the
forest trees; like the distant lullaby of the ocean
waves. Now I hold that Browning possesses
this wonderful gift in an almost equal degree
with Shelley; but that in deep spiritual truth
and mere mental power (as, for instance, in
“Saul’’), he rises immeasurably superior to
Shelley; towers far above even that mighty
genius; while, in truth, it is this very mental
wealth of his verse that at times causes an
apparent obscurity, and seems to overweigh the
music.
But the music is nevertheless there, and in
abundance. Take, for instance, these few gems
culled at random from “Sordello '' (a veritable
mine of poetic thought—or, as Carlyle would
say, “musical thought"; a poem which I may
well speak of, without exaggeration, as the richest
poem in the literature of our country):—
“That autumn eve was stilled :
A last remains of sunset dimly burned
O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned
By the wind back upon its bearer's hand
In one long flare of crimson ; as a brand,
The woods beneath lay black.”
14 Robert Browning.
“Dante, pacer of the shore
Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom,
Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume—
Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope
Into a darkness quieted by hope;
Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye
In gracious twilights where His chosen lie.”
“Shrinking Caryatides
Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh
Beneath her Maker's finger when the fresh
First pulse of life shot brightening the snow.”
“The breezy morning fresh
Above, and merry, all his waving mesh
Laughing with lucid dew-drops rainbow-edged.”
“Songs go up exulting, then dispread,
Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead
Like an escape of angels.”
“A footfall there
Suffices to upturn to the warm air
Half-germinating spices ; mere decay
Produces richer life.”
“Her head that’s sharp and perfect like a pear,
So close and smooth are laid the few fine locks
Coloured like honey oozed from topmost rocks
Sun-blanched the live-long summer.”
It must be understood, however, at the onset,
that to those who look on poetry simply as an
amusement, Mr. Browning has nothing to say.
The true poet is not an entertainer, not a substi-
tute for lawn tennis or bagatelle.” He is a seer,
* As bearing on this subject, and also to the remark
anent the poet's obscurity, I may quote from an interesting
Robert Browning. I5

bringing a veritable God's message to us. What
is it but this fact that gives the best poetry such
a Soothing and religious influence over our minds.
Hear Mrs. Browning in her “Aurora Leigh”:
“I write
Of the only truth-tellers now left to God,
The only speakers of essential truth, º
The only teachers who instruct mankind. . . .
And while your common men
Lay telegraphs, gauge railroads, reign, reap, dine,
And dust the flaunty carpets of the world
For kings to walk on, or our president,
The poet suddenly will catch them up
With his voice like a thunder, “This is soul,
This is life, this word is being said in heaven,
Here's God down on us ! what are you about?’”
Now this is what Browning does for us. He
reveals to us, far above the storm-clouds of this
lower world, the unsoiled blue of the heavens;
we can gaze with him upon the fair earth, upon
the Sunset sky, upon the human hearts to which
ours are knit in bonds of eternal love—and
letter addressed to myself by Mr. Browning so far back as
1868, wherein he says (inter alia): “I can have little
doubt that my writing has been, in the main, too hard for
many I should have been pleased to communicate with ;
but I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some of
my critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never
pretended to offer such literature as should be a sub-
stitute for a cigar or a game at dominoes to an idle man.”
I6 Robert Browning.
find the root and origin of all in an eternal
Father. Ever, as in the Seer's vision of old, do
the angels ascend and descend ; ever are the
heavens one with the earth—one in the wide
brotherhood of the race.
As I have said, Robert Browning is still living
and working among us, and therefore we can
but speak of his literary work—the story of his
life, apart from his “work,” being obviously a
sealed book to us. His first poem, “Pauline,”
was published in 1832, and though now finding
a place in the collected edition of his works, Mr.
Browning would not seem to attach much im-
portance to it. It nevertheless contains passages
of rare beauty, and read in the light of subsequent
events is prophetic of much.* The poet's first
acknowledged work, however, was “Paracelsus,”
and in it much of his highest teaching and most
“poetic” fancy will be found. It is a poem which,
once read, must be re-read and pondered over ;
is as fresh to-day as it must have been a fresh
revelation to the lovers of poetry fifty years
ago; and is to be read as much for its poetry as
* A facsimile reprint of the first edition of “Pauline” has
been edited, and recently brought out, for the Browning
..Society, by my friend Mr. Thos. J., Wise, to whom all
Browning students owe a debt of gratitude for this delight-
ful souvenir of their Master's genius.
Robert Browning. 17
for its wealth of thought. Take this passage for
example, and note the exuberance of the
imagery, and how the thought seems to come
quicker than the artist can find words in which
to clothe it :—
“Friends,” I would say, “I went far, far for them,
Past the high rocks the haunt of doves, the mounds
Of red earth from whose sides strange trees grow out,
Past tracts of milk-white minute blinding sand,
Till, by a mighty moon, I tremblingly
Gathered these magic herbs, berry and bud,
In haste, not pausing to reject the weeds,
But happy plucking them at any price.
To me, who have seen them bloom in their own soil,
They are scarce lovely : plait and wear them, you !
And guess, from what they are, the springs that fed
them,
The stars that sparkled o'er them, night by night.
The Snakes that travelled far to sip their dew "
Again, see the play of fancy—the poet-heart
—in such passages as these :—
“As one spring wind unbinds the mountain snow
And comforts violets in their hermitage.”
“Though dark and drear
Appears the world before us, we no less
Wake with our wrists and ankles jewelled still.”
“A light
Will struggle through these thronging words at last,
As in the angry and tumultuous West
A Soft star trembles through the drifting clouds.”
“God is the perfect poet,
Who in his person acts his own creations.”
B
I8 Robert Browning.
Here, again, is a truly magnificent passage
from the same poem—unequalled in its descrip-
tive and imaginative power, so far as my read-
ing extends, by any English poet—at least of
the modern school ; and concerning which I
remember (at a meeting of the Browning Society
some three years since), expressing my surprise
at not having noticed it adverted to in any re-
view of the poet's work that had at that time
come under my notice. It reveals to the utmost
the daring imagination and “fulness” of the
poet's vision ; and, remembering the then age
of the writer, is most marvellous in its realistic
force :-
“The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,
And the earth changes like a human face ;
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks,
Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds,
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask—
God joys therein. The wroth sea’s waves are edged
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate,
When, in the solitary waste, strange groups
Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like,
Staring together with their eyes on flame—
God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride.
Then all is still ; earth is a wintry clod :
But Spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost,
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;
Robert Browning. I9
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with
blooms
Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark
Soars up and up, Shivering for very joy ;
Afar the ocean sleeps ; white fishing-gulls
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets ; Savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plain—and God renews
His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all,
From life's minute beginnings, up at last
To man.”
Have those who so often decry the poetic
power of Browning ever read this passage 2 If
it is not poetry, if it is not imagination, and that
of the very highest order, I do not know what
is. Or, once more, take a further extract.
Paracelsus is dying, and he sees, all too late,
visions of a love which he forsook in the vain
pursuit of knowledge :—
“I seek her now—I kneel—I shriek—
I clasp her vesture—but she fades, still fades.
And she is gone ; sweet human love is gone !
'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels
Reveal themselves to you ; they sit all day
Beside you, and lie down at night by you
Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep—
And all at once they leave you, and you know them.”
Ah, is not this true, the world over. When
too late we say, “She was an angel and I knew
B 2
2C) Robert Browning.
it not.” Too often do we discover the incom-
parable love and goodness of our dear ones when
they have left us, when it is too late to clasp
their hands and say, “You have ever been God's
good angel to me, O faithful soul and true.”
Of all English poets, Browning may be said
to be the healthiest. There is nothing morbid in
his writing, nothing “that leaves a nasty taste
in one's mouth ; ” all is most vigorous, sustain-
ing, and life-giving. Of necessity, therefore, he
takes an intensely earnest view of Life and its
duties. To him this present life is not the play
time, but the apprenticeship of the Soul ; not the
place for rest, but for good, honest, hearty work.
Consequently, in Browning's view of life, there
can be no eventual failure; there may be,
and doubtless will be, often an apparent failure
—the soul may be “unmade " by folly, un.
manned by evil; but the nobler part of a man's
nature must finally triumph—so the soul will b
re-made in those “ other heights in other lives,'
which shall yet be a reality to every son o
Adam. If any man does fail in his pursuit afte
Truth, or Goodness, or Beauty, he is not finally
overcome ; it does not follow that Truth, or
Goodness, or Beauty do not exist; what it does
prove is, that the man has gained somewhat—
he has cºndeavoured; for, had he not attempted,










Robert Browning. 2 I
he could not have failed ; consequently, failure
but implies ultimate success. Perhaps the no-
blest ode we have on life and its duties is to be
found in Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” It is a
poem one should know by heart; it has lines in
it that chant themselves into our understanding ;
and its wise, weighty, and cheerful words should
-----, -, *-** --~~
be a comfort under all circumstances of life.
Much of Browning's theory of life is to be found
in this poem. Take this, for example:—
“Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go !
Be our joys three-parts pain
|Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; [throe
Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the
As it was better, youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Toward making, than repose on aught found made :
So, better, age, exempt
From strife, should know, than tempt
Further. Thou waitest age; wait death nor be afraid.
But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men
My times be in Thy hand 1
Perfect the cup as planned [same !”
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the
See, too, how he judges, in a “Toccata of
Galuppi's,” that courtly and worldly old Venetian
life, with its circle of pleasure and follies; its
22 Robert Browning.
y
flirtings and “kissings; ” its dilettante amuse-
ments. There was no room for serious work in
that round of life, and so the poet brings it to
the test of his crucible, and in vain searches for
soul among its vanities:—
“Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent
what Venice earned.
The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be
discerned.
“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom
and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly
were the crop :
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had
to stop.”
Taking the completed round of his work, from
“Paracelsus” to “Parleyings with Certain Peo-
ple of Importance in their Day”—the reade
will find that Mr. Browning is essentially opti
mistic. To him, life is a glad, sweet thing
so he, too, will be glad. He does not, as
did Byron, bemoan his condition, “open his
breast” to gain praise and pity; preach on the
vanity of life, and then endeavour to recruit
his faded energies by sensuous pleasure. No
life is indeed a serious and earnest piece o
business, yet it is a beautiful and joyous thing
withal—and to be enjoyed as the Giver meant
it to be. Look at the hearty robustness of these







Aobert Browning. 23
verses, and ponder well on the answer the poet
gives to each question, he asks:—
“Have you found your life distasteful ?
My life did and does Smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful ?
Mine I saved and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish P
When mine fail me, I’ll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish 2
My Sun sets to rise again.
“What, like you, he proved—your Pilgrim—
This our world, a wilderness;
Earth still gray and heaven still grim,
Not a hand there his might press,
Not a heart his own might throb to,
Men all rogues, and women—say,
Dolls which boys' heads duck and bob to,
Grown folks drop or throw away ?
“My experience being other,
How should I contribute verse
Worthy of your king and brother ?
Balaam-like I bless, not curse.
I find earth not gray but rosy,
Heaven not grim but fair of hue,
Do I stoop 2 I pluck a posy.
Do I stand and stare P All’s blue.”
He enjoys life, and his keen enjoyment of what
God has given to him, gives him a wider and
truer sympathy with all real Sorrow and suffering.
I have said that Browning is a religious poet
—that is, his mind is permeated by the Christian
24. Robert Browning.
story." It is a grand thing that a man like
Browning, with, perhaps, the most wonderful
intellect in the world, should be a man of sound
religious belief. At 73 years of age, he produces
“Ferishtah's Fancies,” in which he reiterates his
belief in God, in the efficacy of prayer, and in
immortality. He has no fear of death. Listen
to the noble music of a poem called “Prospice”
How heroic the stanzas, how grandly defiant,
and how firm the faith ! He is asked whether he
does not ſear death ; whether he would not
rather creep into the other world without the
physical dying, and he answers thus:—
Fear death 2–to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the Snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go :
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last !
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore
And bade me creep past.
No 1 let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Robert Browning. 25
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end, -
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a place out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul | I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest
Tennyson has written the poem of the “earnest
oubters,” and in the mournful though beautiful
“In Memoriam,” has pourtrayed a mind ever
oubting and battling with its doubts, and yet,
S it seems to me, never finally conquering them.
ut to Browning it has been given to write the
oem of the earnest believers. In reading “Abt
Vogler,” one's step gathers strength with the
strength of the verse; one's heart expands with
he glow of faith and the perfect serenity of the
Yoet's vision; and one is able to realise to the
ull the blessedness and joy of belief, and to
ºxclaim, “Thank God, I am a man, with all a
man's imperfection, and inclination to doubt, yet
ble to say with the poet—‘let doubt occasion still
more faith.’” It is this manly, strong teaching
that our age needs; and it is this that alone will
ave it from the pessimistic influences that seem
ver to encircle one's path. Take the following
from “Abt Vogler”—an old musician who,














26 Robert Browning.
while extemporising on a musical instrument of
his own invention, has built up a mighty palace
of sound—wonderful, weird, beautiful. But
suddenly it all vanishes; and then, after the first
rude shock of the failure of his hopes and aspira-
tions is realised, he looks upward to the infinite
blue, where no failure will ever be writ, no “los
hope” ever be recorded, and exclaims :- -
Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable
Name P
Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands.
What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the
same 2
Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy powe
expands 2
There shall never be one lost good | What was, shall liv
as before ;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so muc
good more—
On the ºrth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a perfect
TOUIIlCl. -
To come now to another phase of Mr. Brown-
ing's art. In the poet's conception of life, Lov
Occupies a prominent place. No life is perfec
without love—but it must be a love that will
regenerate ; not the mere sensuous thing that is
falsely called love. The true love is the love
that influences for good another life; not th
love that kindles passion, but the love that in-













Robert Brozwning. - 27
spires nobleness, devoutness, faith—in a word,
soul-love. Without this, human life is incomplete;
with it, there is an ever-present joy and blessed-
ness. The mere love for the sake of gaining
love's reward—the winning of the loved one's
hand—is but a small matter. The true love is
the love for love's sake, and not for reward.
Listen to these wonderful lines from a fascinating
play called, “Colombe's Birthday,” written by
Browning seven and thirty years since. Valence,
a poor advocate of Cleves, has fallen in love with
the Duchess, to whom he has gone to present a
etition, and of course is socially far above him,
nd to be unapproached by him. This love having
een in the end discovered, it seems that the
uchess likewise has learned to love him. There-
upon his comrades are ready enough to taunt
im that, so far as he is concerned, love can have
ittle place in the matter; it is her ſand, not her
heart, he aspires to. But he proudly answers
them :—
“Who thought upon reward P And yet how much
Comes after—oh, what amplest recompense !
Is the knowledge of her naught 2 The memory naught 2
—Lady, should such an one have looked on you,
Ne'er wrong yourself so far as quote the world
And say, love cazz go 147trequited here A
You will have blessed him to his whole life's end—
Low passions hindered, baser cares kept back,
All goodness cherished, where you dwelt and dwell.”








28 - Robert Browning.
And the same idea also occurs in an earlier play,
“Strafford,” where Lady Carlisle exclaims:—
“Ah, have I spared
Strafford a pang, and shal! I seek reward
Beyond Zhat memory 3 Surely, too, some zºſay
Pſe is the better for may love.”
Then, too, see how noble Browning's view of
merely human love is in the little poem, “One
way of love.” The orthodox poet, with unre-
quited love, would have sobbed out his sorrows
in the world’s ear; would cultivate a sickly
aspect of hue, and bemoan his forlorn condition ;
would, in fact, go off into sentimental hysterics.
Not so the true poet, as typified by Browning;
the thing that would engender that feeling is not
love, but passion. Here is the higher ideal of
love—the one way of love—under like circum-
Stances :- -
“All June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves,
And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside P Alas !
Let them lie. Suppose they die P
The chance was they might take her eye.
How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute
To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music P So
Break the string ; fold music's wing :
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing !
Robert Browning. 29
My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion—heaven or hell ?
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well !
Lose who may—I still can Say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they !”
He is the better man for that love of his, although
nother has stepped in before him and obtained
he prize. Those who have gained life's prize of
ove, blest are they ; still, he too who has failed
as gained somewhat, for he has loved, and all
is life through he will be the nobler and happier
an for that one revelation of love. He will
have gained a greater than happiness, even (as
arlyle has it) blessedness. A truly noble way,
his, of “falling in love.”
Now as some of my readers may know little of
r. Browning's poetry, it will in nowise help
them to give a critical disquisition thereon. In
ieu of this I will analyse one or two of the leading
horter poems, and endeavour to prove to them
hat, with a little patience, Mr. Browning is
asily understandable. To beginners I would
dvise that they should obtain the two volumes
f “Selections,” where they will find some of the
oet's best and most characteristic work ; and
lso for the further reason that, in the study of
these poems, it is absolutely essential that the
student should “begin in the right class.” Doubt-






3O Fobert Browning.
less much of the feeling as to Browning's obscurit
arises from the fact that the reader began wher
he should have ended. He got hold, perhaps, o
some of the later poems, and all seemed con
fusion to his untutored ears. Now, the truth is,
that the mind of the reader has to be prepare
for the right apprehension of some of these late
poems, dealing in psychological and othe
matters. The beginner cannot expect to be
alive to all these things; he has yet to lear
that the poet makes a large demand upon th
intelligence of the reader, and that unless thi.
intelligence is brought into play, the poems wil
appear obscure and incomprehensible. Wher
once, however, he has learned to love these poems
to revel in their strong and vigorous lines, t
make them part and parcel of his own menta
nature, the obscurities will vanish, and he wil
wonder how it was he ever came to imagine the
obscure. Nay, having learned to love, and havin
grown into the meaning and mystery of Brown
ing's strong sentences, the reader will find ther
has been nothing like them since the dramas o
Shakespeare; that no English writerisat onces
vigorous, so bold, so healthy;...that the poe
stands alone and ünrivalled, as a great, strong
robust soul—whose verse eats into our very hear
and mind,
Take a “Woman's Last Word ”—a lyrical














Robert Browning. 3 I
em; one that will appeal especially to mothers,
nd who may well be asked whether, even in the
wide gallery of Shakespeare's women, they
ave ever found a woman so intensely human
nd womanly as this. Pity our poet has given
her no name—one would like to have known her
y Some special name. One can only say that
if it is true that a woman zwill have the last word,
would that her “last words” were always like
his creation of our poet's. There has been a
uarrel between a husband and wife; or perhaps
ut a misunderstanding—which said misunder-
standings are sometimes more serious than
ownright quarrels. Still, when quarrels do
arise, when a misunderstanding does occur, let
over and loved repeat slowly these words, and
ºhen, from the querulous tears of anger, will arise
..he many-coloured rainbow of love and hope —
“Let’s contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep :
All be as before, Love,
Only sleep !
What so wild as words are 2
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough !
See the creature stalking
While we speak
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek :









32 Robert Browning.
What so false as truth is,
False to thee P
Where the serpent's tooth is,
Shun the tree—
Where the apple reddens
Never pry—
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I.
Be a god and hold me
With a charm
Be a man and fold me
With thine arm
Teach me, only teach, Love
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought—
Meet, if thou require it,
Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands !
That shall be to-morrow,
Not to-night:
I must bury sorrow
Out of sight:
Must a little weep, Love
(Foolish me !)
And so fall asleep, Love,
Loved by thee.”
#; for pure and simple emotion,
for all those holy feelings that come right home
to the human heart, the poem entitled “Any


Robert Browning. 33
Wife to any Husband ” is incomparable and
unique. Here, too, the “wife” is nameless. Pity
that 'tis so ; for one would like to call her by
some right human name. But it is a poem made
of the right stuff. Let the student read it through
quietly and thoughtfully, once, twice, three times
—he will rise with a feeling of awe and reverence,
intensified by each successive reading, and will
claim for the poet who has done this for him not
merely the title of singer, but of teacher, consoler,
and friend. A true wife, whose whole life has
been wrapped up in the love of her husband, is
dying.. She knows that she is fading, that her
life is slowly ebbing away—that she must leave
him who was and is all and in all to her. And in
these last supreme moments she utters forth her
heart to him—who, too, has loved her right well,
and who is sobbing out his soul by her dying
bed. She tells him how sure she is of his love ;
she never had a doubt of that :-
“I have but to be by thee, and thy hand
Will never let mine go, nor heart withstand
The beating of my heart to reach its place.
When shall I look for thee and feel thee gone 2
When cry for the old comfort and find none?
Never, I know ! Thy soul is in thy face.”
Then, too, she feels that her human beauty is
fºding—her face is getting thinner, the lines of
fare and suffering are writing themselves on her
1 C
34 Robert Browning.
Once noble brow; and with all a woman's true
instinct she would have saved that for his
saće :—
“Oh, I should fade—'tis willed so I might I save,
Gladly I would, whatever beauty gave
Joy to thy sense, for what was precious too.
It is not to be granted. But the soul
Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole ;
Vainly the flesh fades ; soul makes all things new.”
Ah, but when she is gone, will he still love her,
on and on into the new life whither she has fled 2
No ; she knows he will not. He will marry
again. All those dear little pretty words and
tendernesses once uttered to her will be passed
on to another:--
“—Ah ! but the fresher faces ! “Is it true,' * ~ *
Thou'lt ask, ‘some eyes are beautiful and new
Some hair—how can one choose but grasp such
wealth 2
And if a man would press his lips to lips
Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup their slips
The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth
“It cannot change the love still kept for Her.’
N-
“So must I see, from where I sit and watch,
My own self sell myself, my hand attach
Its warrant to the very thefts from me—
Thy singleness of soul that made me proud,
Thy purity of heart I loved aloud,
Thy man’s-truth I was bold to bid God see :
Robert Browning. • . 35
“Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst
Away to the new faces—disentranced,
(Say it and think it) obdurate no more ;
Re-issue looks and words from the old mint,
Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print
Image and superscription once they bore l’
Still, for her as for all, true love is eternal and
unchangeable. It is only the outer shell that
can be given to another. The real essence of
man's own being—all that love means and is—
can be but given to one, and must and shall be
hers for ever, And thus will he come back to
her again in the land of Light and Love, when
earth's shadows shall be dissolved in the sunlight
of eternal beauty. -
“It all comes to the same thing at the end,
Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shalt be ;
Faithful or faithless : sealing up the sum -
Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come
Back to the heart's place here I keep for thee
“Only why should it be with stain at all P
Why must I, 'twixt the leaves of coronal,
Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow P
Why need the other women know so much,
And talk together, ‘Such the look and such
The smile he used to love with, then as now !”
“Might I die last and show thee | Should I find
Such hardship in the few years left behind,
If free to take and light my lamp and go
Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit,
Seeing thy face on those four sides of it
The better that they are so blank, I know !”
C 2 - • e "
* >
:
º
:
36 Robert Browning.
But, in spite of all, she sees, with the intuitive
and unerring vision of the dying, that he will,
after all that she can say, be faithless to her
memory—choosing one of the “fresher faces; ”
and so the poem closes with a last appeal on
her part—surely one of the most pathetic, simple,
yet withal beautiful poems in our English
literature.
Concerning pathos, however, it is Browning
who has given us the most pathetic creation in
the whole round of literature. In the “Ring and
the Book” we have a “child wife’ that reaches
heights of love and purity far beyond anything
we have elsewhere read, and who withal is real
flesh and blood. Little Pompilia is dying in the
hospital from wounds inflicted at the hands of
her husband ; and there she sobs out her last
words—words of thanks to the priest Capon-
sacchi who had tried to save her, and of thanks
to God who had kept her pure and white. They
say, forsooth, that Browning's words are without
form, rugged, devoid of music, and I know not
what, these wonderful critics, who would educate
the taste of the public down to their dead level.
Listen to this; it is the patient, pure, little child-
wife, Pompilia, who is speaking :-
Little Pompilia with the patient brow
And lamentable Smile on those poor lips.
A’obert Brozwning. 37
And tell me if any modern verse has gone more
direct to the heart than this. In her last
moments, with death all too visible before her,
she prattles of her little baby boy, in words which
show how deeply Browning can enter into the
heart of a woman —,
“O, how good God is that my babe was born,--
Better than born, baptised and hid away
Before this happened, saſe from being hurt |
That had been sin God could not well forgive ;
He was too young to smile and save himself.
My boy was born
Born all in love, with naught to spoil the bliss,
A whole long ſortnight : in a life like mine
A fortnight filled with bliss is long and much.
All women are not mothers of a boy,
Though they live twice the length of my long life.
There I lay, then, all my great fortnight long,
As if it would continue, broaden out
Happily more and more, and lead to heaven :
Christmas before me, was not that a chance?
I never realised God’s birth before—
How he grew likest God in being born.
This time I felt like Mary, had my babe
- Lying a little on my breast like hers.”
Then at the last, she dimly realises that here, in
the good priest who had done his best to save
her, she would have found one who, in happier
**
38 Robert Browning.
circumstances, might have loved her too—for
she, too, was hungry for human love —
“O lover of my life, O soldier-saint,
No work begun shall ever pause for death !
Love will be helpful to me more and more
I” the coming course, the new path I must tread,
My weak hand in thy strong hand, strong for that
Do not the dead wear flowers when dressed for God?
Say,+I am all in flowers from head to foot
Say,+not one flower of all he said and did
Might seem to flit unnoticed, fade unknown,
But dropped a seed has grown a balsam tree
Whereof the blossoming perfumes the place
At this supreme of moments He is a priest ;
He cannot marry therefore, which is right:
I think he would not marry if he could.
Marriage on earth seems such a counterſeit,
Mere imitation of the inimitable :
In heaven we have the real and true and sure.
'Tis there they neither marry nor are given
In marriage, but are as the angels: right,
Oh how right that is, how like Jesus Christ
To say that Marriage-making for the earth,
With gold so much,-birth, power, repute so much,
Or beauty, youth so much, in lack of these !
Be as the angels rather, who apart,
Know themselves into one, are found at length
Married, but marry never, no, nor give
In marriage; they are man and wife at once
When the true time is : here we have to wait
Not so long neither Could we by a wish
Have what we will and get the future now,
Robert Browning. 39
Would we wish ought done undone in the past?
So, let him wait God's instant men call years;
Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul,
Do out the duty Through such souls alone
God stooping shows sufficient of His light
For us i' the dark to rise by. And I rise.”
Andrea del Sarto is a poem dear and precious
to all readers of Browning. It is an “ imaginary
conversation "-with the latter all on one side.
There is nothing in the work of Walter Savage
Landor—great as he unquestionably is—which
approaches it. It is an altogether wonderful
picture; while some of the poet's highest teaching
is to be found in it. It is a twilight e, weird

and shadowy, full of intense pathos and strange
beauty. The great painter is pleading with his
wife—pleading that she would return to him
some of the love that ſhe lavishes upon her; that
she would give to him the ºncenſive to work for
the sake of art and the glory=not for the mere
worldly gain. h, how different would his life
then be With his hand in hers, tenderly does
he plead with her:-
“I often am much wearier than you think,
This evening, more than usual : and it seems
As if—forgive me—should you let me sit
Here by the window, with your hand in mine,
And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
Both of one mind, as married people use,
Quietly, quietly, the evening through,
1 might get up to-morrow to my work,
4O Robert Browning.
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.
To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this
Your soft hand is a woman of itself. . o
—How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
Even to put the pearl there ! Oh, so sweet—
My face, my moon, my everybody's moon.”

Then he goes on to speak of the failure of his
work. He is called the “Fall/less” painter—
but on that very ground his work fails. Perfec-
tion cannot be attained in this life of limitation
—in heaven alone can it be reached or attained.
No man can say he has here, in this life, attained
to his ideal—for there is still an IdeaTbeyond the
ideal. Mark well these pregnant lines:—
Or what’s a heaven for All is silver grey,
“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Placid and perfect with my art : the worse !”

We—are not to be content with what we can
grasp=but reach after something beyond our
; or, in other words, we are not to be
content with this limited life and its cares; but
to strive after the eternal life=the only real life.
And he goes on with his quiet pathetic pleading
with the woman whom he loves but too well
(and who is even then thinking of another than
he):—
“But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow,
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
Robert Browning. 4 I
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
The fowler's pipe, and follows to the Snare–
Had you with these the same, but brought a mind
Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged
“God and the glory ! never care for gain.
The present by the future, what is that ?
Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo :
Rafael is waiting: up to God all three l’
I might have done it for you.”
And so the pathos of it goes on—right to our
very Soul, simple, yet dignified.

Another delightful picture is that of Karshish,
the Arab physician, who, in the course of his
travels, comes to Bethany, from whence he writes .
to his teacher Ahib, giving an account of his
journeyings. Among the numberless strange
things that have befallen him is none other than
a meeting with “one Lazarus,” a Jew, sanguine,
proportioned, fifty years of age, whose strange
case was a sort of mania—“a trance prolonged
unduly some three days,”
“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 Nazarine physician of his tribe :
—'Sayeth, the same bade ‘Rise,’ and he did rise !”
Then follows a vivid description of how Lazarus
views the world after his three days' sleep :
“Whence has the man the balm that brightens all ?
This grown man eyes the world now like a child.
42 Robert Browning.
Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,
Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep,
To bear my inquisition. While they spoke,
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.
Now we have a picture of the life led by the
risen Lazarus—of the wonderful sense of God
in the man's soul :
“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.
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—
He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live
So long as God please, and just how God please.”
The thought then occurs to Karshish, that his
teacher Ahib will inquire why he did not seek
out the Sage—but he anticipates the question,
and says, “Alas, he perished in a tumult long
ago.” And then the physician bursts out into
a sort of righteous indignation at what he has
heard, and comes to the conclusion that this
Lazarus must be just stark mad :—
“This man so cured regards the Curer, then
As—God forgive me ! who but God himself,
Robert Browning. 43
Creator and sustainer of the world,
That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile—
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.”
Astonished at his own credulity in listening to
this Jew's tale, Karshish begs pardon of the
learned leech, his master, for dwelling on it at
such length ; but suddenly, at the close of his
letter, the whole truth seems to dawn on his
astonished soul. There must be something in it;
the story cannot be all a lie—and he exclaims:—
“The very God I think, Ahib ; 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 mayest conceive of mine :
“But love I gave thee, with myself to love,
‘And thou must love me who have died for thee!’
The madman saith. He said so : it is strange l’
Then we have, in these “Selections,” such
poems as “The Lost Leader,” “The Confes-
sional,” “Evelyn Hope”—a poem to be com-
mitted to memory, and kept in one's heart as
a sacred possession—“Home Thoughts from
Abroad,” “Waring,” “The Statue and the Bust,”
“The Boy and the Angel,” “Saul’—incompar-
ably the finest lyric of modern English poetry
— “The Guardian Angel,” “A Forgiveness,”
44 Robert Browning.
“The Death in the Desert,” “By the Fireside "
—Stanzas of which latter poem seem fragrant
with the memory of England's greatest poetess,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, — “A Lover's
Quarrel,” &c., &c., with all of which the be-
ginner can readily make himself acquainted,
and will easily understand.
Having got so far, the student will, I think, be
ready to acknowledge the wealth and power to
be found in the works of Robert Browning, and
I now leave him to wander at will in this newly-
discovered country. He can, if he prefers, leave
“Sordello” till the last—but he is by no means
to be deterred from giving it at least three read-
ings. But he can now take up “Christmas Eve
and Easter Day,” “Paracelsus,” “Red-Cotton
Nightcap Country,” “La Saissaz,” and the almost
innumerable works of our beloved Master.
Since Carlyle first wrote, no English poet has
come to us charged with a more earnest message
to his fellows than Robert Browning. To him,
work is not the all and in all of life—there is
work of the soul as of the body; and his
anathemas are hurled with no unsparing hand
against mere worldliness, and the “getting-on-
in-life " doctrines. Here is his rebuke to those
who live, in a double sense, in their shops, and
exist only to accumulate gain, having no finer
Robert Browning. 45
aspirations of the spirit to keep alive their inner
and higher life:—
“Because a man has shop to mind
In time and place, since flesh must live,
Needs spirit lack all life behind,
All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive,
All loves except what trade can give 2
I want to know a butcher paints,
A baker rhymes for his pursuit,'
Candlestick-maker much acquaints }
His soul with Song, or, haply mute,
Blows out his brains upon the flute
But—shop each day and all day long !
Friend, your good angel slept, your star
Suffered eclipse, fate did you wrong !
From where these sorts of treasures are,
There should our hearts be—Christ, how far !”
And now, in bringing this fragmentary essay to
a conclusion, I can only hope I have made some-
what clear the wealth of power and thought to
be found in the works of the “Chief Poet of
our Age,” Robert Browning. He is now to
England what Göethe evidently was to Ger-
many—our foremost poet and teacher. But, in
truth, he is more than this—for he is emphati-
cally the poet of the future. Dreadful things
are prophesied of the coming age—and the pes-
simists are holding high carnival over the down-
fall of the old creeds. But the foundations are
firm still—the English manhood is built upon
46 Robert Browning.
the rock, and not upon the sand. It is only the
building that is changing, not the foundations.
Faith is still alive—but tyranny is dead or
dying: religion is still doing her beneficent
work, as it has never been done before, but bigo-
try and intolerance are passing away; supersti-
tion is dead, but ist is alive, and the ge
is pregnant with a tolerant, large-hearted, all-
embracing Christianity, broad as the wide
waste waters of the moon-swayed Atlantic. Of
this new age Robert Browning will be the great
high-priest and poet, the inspired leader and
teacher. Carlyle tells us that some familiar
verses of Göethe's sound to him like the march-
ing song of humanity, but Browning has written
for us our “Marching Song,” and, in his poem of
the “Grammarian's Funeral,” he leads us up, step
by step, to the serene mountain heights. It is
an account of the burial of a learned man, who



loved learning for learning's sake, seeking pay-
ment, not from man, but God. As his friends
carry his body, for burial, up to the top of the

mountain crest, they chant these lines. To me,
their magnificent cadence echoes IIKE the echo of
angel-hosts marching along the battlements of
the heavens; their spirit burns within one's
heart; their music swells like the sounding song
of the world's Golden Age. In the busy street
and in the crowded mart, these words haunt the
A’obert Browning. 47
memory, lifting one up above all the cares and
turmoils of a distracted world, into that serener
atmosphere where human hearts ever beat in
unison with the heart of the great Father:—
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:
Wait ye the warning
Our low life was the level’s and the night's ;
He's for the morning.
This man said rather, “Actual life comes next?
Patience a moment
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
Still there’s the comment.”
Others mistrust and say, “But time escapes |
Live now or never !”
He said, “What's time 2 leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever.”
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it :
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred’s soon hit :
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That, has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him
Thus, throws himself on God, and unperplext
Seeking shall find Him

L O AV D O AW.
S. AND J. BRAWN, PRINTERS, 13, GATE STREET,
HIGH HOLBORN.
·#、。
§§§
Ř®
§§ſae
ș~~~~~*~ ºſ Ç
¿∞ √°.'， ：}}
**********¿
g-ºsº
:
º
º
tºº.
º
& º
º
:
§
º
ſº
º
|
3294.
|
Wi
№ae，
sº
sº
l,
§§
fº
UNIVERS!
---- №
|
CD
G)
Cſ).
|
|
§§
$.
¿
º
#
*
º
3;

¿
}
.*_*
ķiſ
*）:
§§§
ĢģĶ;
ță
¿?
¿
。č.¿§¿Èſ！}}
，¿ſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſ#¿}№§§}}-
ģ
·#%ſae¿§§
ſae;¿¿
¿
§§§§žģ
}; §§§§§ěģiſ§§#
。
§
§§
§ģ
š.
#.
º
3. - :
†: §
$
º: §
.#
§§§§§§
~§§§§§§§§§§§§§
*。。
}##šșé，ģ§§
§§§§§§§
¿¿
§.
ff
}}
*
£&###
;};ºſ
¿-§§};*&^%;、。§§§），
§¶√≠√¶√¶r√∞.ſaeſ§§
șł#！*ķ
ģ
§§
。ț¢
ģ§§§:
&&
¿??
ſae¿$};}*§#§§§§§§-§§&& &&
-ță
3… ！！！{& ·
&&&&&ffffffffffffff;&#ffff;&#№|№ſſae;
→§§§3¿
¿§§§§§
***,ģ§§ģĞğ*.
§§§§§§§
ģ
§§
Ķ
¿
§§
§
§§§§
ſae
ķģĞğ
ae
-~-|- ·-* ， .¿-
！ģ
§§§§§。
§§
----§§§§§§、
ță
{
§§¿
*
ſae
§§
¿
§§§ě.
¿
§§§§§§§§
#ffaeſ
§Ë
¿
§§
$$（'#';
§