 |
"But morning's laugh sets all the crags alight Above the baffled tempest: tree and tree Stir themselves from the stupor of the night And every strangled branch resumes its right To breathe, shakes loose dark's clinging dregs, waves free In dripping glory. Prone the runnels plunge, While earth, distent with moisture like a sponge, Smokes up, and leaves each plant its gem to see, Each grass-blade's glory-glitter. Had I known The torrent now turned river?—masterful Making its rush o'er tumbled ravage—stone And stub which barred the froths and foams: no bull Ever broke bounds in formidable sport More overwhelmingly, till lo, the spasm Sets him to dare that last mad leap: report Who may—his fortunes in the deathly chasm That swallows him in silence! Rather turn Whither, upon the upland, pedestalled Into the broad day-splendour, whom discern These eyes but thee, supreme one, rightly called Moon-maid in heaven above and, here below, Earth's huntress-queen? I note the garb succinct Saving from smirch that purity of snow From breast to knee—snow's self with just the tint Of the apple-blossom's heart-blush. Ah, the bow Slack-strung her fingers grasp, where, ivory-linked Horn curving blends with horn, a moonlike pair Which mimic the brow's crescent sparkling so— As if a star's live restless fragment winked Proud yet repugnant, captive in such hair! What hope along the hillside, what far bliss Lets the crisp hair-plaits fall so low they kiss Those lucid shoulders? Must a morn so blithe Needs have its sorrow when the twang and hiss Tell that from out thy sheaf one shaft makes writhe Its victim, thou unerring Artemis? Why did the chamois stand so fair a mark, Arrested by the novel shape he dreamed Was bred of liquid marble in the dark Depths of the mountain's womb which ever teemed With novel births of wonder? Not one spark Of pity in that steel-grey glance which gleamed At the poor hoof's protesting as it stamped Idly the granite? Let me glide unseen From thy proud presence: well may'st thou be queen Of all those strange and sudden deaths which damped So oft Love's torch and Hymen's taper lit For happy marriage till the maidens paled And perished on the temple-step, assailed By—what except to envy must man's wit Impute that sure implacable release Of life from warmth and joy? But death means peace."
32. ASOLANDO: FANCIES AND FACTS.
[Dated 1890, but published December 12, 1889. Poetical Works, 1889, Vol. XVII., pp. iv., 131.]
Asolando (a name taken from the invented verb Asolare, "to disport in the open air") was published on the day of Browning's death. He died in Venice, and his body was brought to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey on the last day of the year. The Abbey was invisible in the fog, and, inside, dim yellow fog filled all the roof, above the gas and the candles. The coffin, carried high, came into the church to the sound of processional music, and as one waited near the grave one saw the coffin and the wreaths on it, over the heads of the people, and heard, in Dr. Bridge's setting, the words: "He giveth his beloved sleep."
Reading Asolando once more, and remembering that coffin one had looked down upon in the Abbey, only then quite feeling that all was indeed over, it is perhaps natural that the book should come to seem almost consciously testamentary, as if certain things in it had been really meant for a final leave-taking. The Epilogue is a clear, brave looking-forward to death, as to an event now close at hand, and imagined as actually accomplished. It breaks through for once, as if at last the occasion demanded it, a reticence never thus broken through before, claiming, with a supreme self-confidence, calmly, as an acknowledged right, the "Well done" of the faithful servant at the end of the long day's labour. In Reverie, in Rephan, and in other poems, the teachings of a lifetime are enforced with a final emphasis, there is the same joyous readiness to "aspire yet never attain;" the same delight in the beauty and strangeness of life, in the "wild joy of living," in woman, in art, in scholarship; and in Rosny we have the vision of a hero dead on the field of victory, with the comment, "That is best."
To those who value Browning, not as the poet of metaphysics, but as the poet of life, his last book will be singularly welcome. Something like metaphysics we find, indeed, but humanised, made poetry, in the blank verse of Development, the lyrical verse of the Prologue, and the third of the Bad Dreams, with their subtle comments and surmises on the relations of art with nature, of nature with truth. But it is life itself, a final flame, perhaps mortally bright, that burns and shines in the youngest of Browning's books. The book will be not less welcome to those who feel that the finest poetic work is usually to be found in short pieces, and that even The Ring and the Book would scarcely be an equivalent for the fifty Men and Women of those two incomparable volumes of 1855. Nor is Asolando without a further attractiveness to those who demand in poetry a certain fleeting and evanescent grace.
"Car nous voulons la Nuance encor, Pas la Couleur, rien que la Nuance,"
as Paul Verlaine says, somewhat exclusively, in his poetical confession of faith. It is, indeed, la Nuance, the last fine shade, that Browning has captured and fixed for us in those lovely love-poems, Summum Bonum, Poetics, a Pearl, a Girl, and the others, so young-hearted, so joyous and buoyant; and in the woody piping of Flute Music, with an Accompaniment. Simple and eager in Dubiety, daintily, prettily pathetic in Humility, more intense in Speculative, in the fourteen lines called Now, the passion of the situation leaps like a cry from the heart, and one may say that the poem is, rather than renders, the very fever of the supreme moment, "the moment eternal."
"Now.
Out of your whole life give but a moment: All of your life that has gone before, All to come after it,—so you ignore, So you make perfect the present,—condense, In a rapture of rage, for perfection's endowment, Thought and feeling and soul and sense— Merged in a moment which gives me at last You around me for once, you beneath me, above me— Me—sure that despite of time future, time past,— This tick of our life-time's one moment you love me! How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet— The moment eternal—just that and no more— When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core, While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet!"
Here the whole situation is merged in the single cry, the joy, "unbodied" and "embodied," of any, of every lover; in several of the poems a more developed story is told or indicated. One of the finest pieces in the volume is the brief dramatic monologue called Inapprehensiveness, which condenses a whole tragedy into its thirty-two lines, in the succinct, suggestive manner of such poems as My Last Duchess. Only Heine, Browning, and George Meredith in Modern Love, each in his entirely individual way, have succeeded in dealing, in a tone of what I may call sympathetic irony, with the unheroic complications of modern life; so full of poetic matter really, but of matter so difficult to handle. The poem is a mere incident, such as happens every day: we are permitted to overhear a scrap of trivial conversation; but this very triviality does but deepen the effect of what we surmise, a dark obstruction, underneath the "babbling runnel" of light talk. A study not entirely dissimilar, though, as its name warns us, more difficult to grasp, is the fourth of the Bad Dreams: how fine, how impressive, in its dream-distorted picture of a man's remorse for the love he has despised or neglected till death, coming in, makes love and repentance alike too late! With these may be named that other electric little poem, Which? a study in love's casuistries, reminding one slightly of the finest of all Browning's studies in that kind, Adam, Lilith, and Eve.
It is in these small poems, dealing varyingly with various phases of love, that the finest, the rarest, work in the volume is to be found. Such a poem as Imperante Augusto natus est (strong, impressive, effective as it is) cannot but challenge comparison with what is incomparable, the dramatic monologues of Men and Women, and in particular with the Epistle of Karshish. In Beatrice Signorini we have one of the old studies in lovers' casuistries; and it is told with gusto, but is after all scarcely more than its last line claims for it: "The pretty incident I put in rhyme." In the Ponte dell' Angela, Venice, we find one of the old grotesques, but more loosely "hitched into rhyme" (it is his own word) than the better among those poems which it most resembles. But there is something not precisely similar to anything that had gone before in the dainty simplicity, the frank, beautiful fervour, of such lyrics as Summum Bonum, in which exquisite expression is given to the merely normal moods of ordinary affection. In most of Browning's love poems the emotion is complex, the situation more or less exceptional. It is to this that they owe their singular, penetrating quality of charm. But there is a charm of another kind, and a more generally appreciated one,
"that commonplace Perfection of honest grace,"
which lies in the expression of feelings common to everyone, feelings which everyone can without difficulty make or imagine his own. In the lyrics to which I am referring, Browning has spoken straight out, in just this simple, direct way, and with a delicate grace and smoothness of rhythm not always to be met with in his later work. Here is a poem called Speculative:
"Others may need new life in Heaven— Man, Nature, Art—made new, assume! Man with new mind old sense to leaven, Nature—new light to clear old gloom, Art that breaks bounds, gets soaring-room.
I shall pray: 'Fugitive as precious— Minutes which passed—return, remain! Let earth's old life once more enmesh us, You with old pleasure, me—old pain, So we but meet nor part again.'"
How hauntingly does that give voice to the instinctive, the universal feeling! the lover's intensity of desire for the loved and lost one, for herself, the "little human woman full of sin," for herself, unchanged, unglorified, as she was on earth, not as she may be in a vague heaven. To the lover in Summum Bonum all the delight of life has been granted; it lies in "the kiss of one girl," and that has been his. In the delicious little poem called Humility, the lover is content in being "proudly less," a thankful pensioner on the crumbs of love's feast, laid for another. In White Witchcraft love has outlived injury; in the first of the Bad Dreams it has survived even heart-break.
"Last night I saw you in my sleep: And how your charm of face was changed! I asked 'Some love, some faith you keep?' You answered, 'Faith gone, love estranged.'
Whereat I woke—a twofold bliss: Waking was one, but next there came This other: 'Though I felt, for this, My heart break, I loved on the same.'"
Not subtlety, but simplicity, a simplicity pungent as only Browning could make it, is the characteristic of most of the best work in this last volume of a poet preeminently subtle. This characteristic of simplicity is seen equally in the love-poems and in the poems of satire, in the ballads and in the narrative pieces, and notably in the story of The Pope and the Net, an anecdote in verse, told with the frank relish of the thing, and without the least attempt to tease a moral out of it.
There are other light ballads, as different in merit as Muckle-mouth Meg on the one hand and The Cardinal and the Dog and The Bean-Feast on the other, with snatches of moralising story, as cutting as Arcades Ambo, which is a last word written for love of beasts, and as stinging as The Lady and the Painter, which is a last word written for love of birds and of the beauty of nakedness. One among these poems, The Cardinal and the Dog, indistinguishable in style from the others, was written fifty years earlier. It is as if the poet, taking leave of that "British public" which had "loved him not," and to whose caprices he had never condescended, was, after all, anxious to "part friends." The result may be said, in a measure, to have been attained.
So far I wrote in 1889, when Browning was only just dead, and I went on, in words which I keep for their significance to-day, because time has already brought in its revenges, and Browning has conquered. That Browning, I said then, could ever become a popular poet, in the sense in which Tennyson is popular, must be seen by everyone to be an impossibility. His poetry is obviously written for his own pleasure, without reference to the tastes of the bulk of readers. The very titles of his poems, the barest outline of their prevailing subjects, can but terrify or bewilder an easy-going public, which prefers to take its verse somnolently, at the season of the day when the newspaper is too substantial, too exciting. To appreciate Browning you must read with your eyes wide open. His poetry is rarely obscure, but it is often hard. It deals by preference with hard matter, with "men and the ideas of men," with life and thought. Other poets before him have written with equally independent aims; but had Milton, had Wordsworth, a larger and more admiring audience in his own day? If the audience of Milton and of Wordsworth has widened, it would be the merest paradox to speak of either Milton or Wordsworth as a popular poet. By this time, every one at least knows them by name, though it would be a little unkind to consider too curiously how large a proportion of the people who know them by name have read many consecutive lines of Paradise Lost or The Excursion. But to be so generally known by name is something, and it has not yet fallen to the lot of Browning. "Browning is dead," said a friend of mine, a hunting man, to another hunting man, a friend of his. "Dear me, is he?" said the other doubtfully; "did he 'come out' your way?" By the time Browning has been dead as long as Wordsworth, I do not think anyone will be found to make these remarks. Death, not only from the Christian standpoint, is the necessary pathway to immortality. As it is, Browning's fame has been steadily increasing, at first slowly enough, latterly with even a certain rapidity. From the first he has had the exceptional admiration of those whose admiration is alone really significant, whose applause can alone be really grateful to a self-respecting writer. No poet of our day, no poet, perhaps, of any day, has been more secure in the admiring fellowship of his comrades in letters. And of all the poets of our day, it is he whose influence seems to be most vital at the moment, most pregnant for the future. For the time, he has also an actual sort of church of his own. The churches pass, with the passing away of the worshippers; but the spirit remains, and must remain if it has once been so vivid to men, if it has once been a refuge, a promise of strength, a gift of consolation. And there has been all this, over and above its supreme poetic quality, in the vast and various work, Shakesperean in breadth, Shakesperean in penetration, of the poet whose last words, the appropriate epilogue of a lifetime, were these:
"At the midnight, in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free, Will they pass to where—by death, fools think, imprisoned— Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, —Pity me?
Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel —Being—who?
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake.
No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Greet the unseen with a cheer! Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 'Strive and thrive!' cry 'Speed,—fight on, fare ever There as here!'"
APPENDIX
I
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT BROWNING
The following list of the published writings of Robert Browning, in the order of their publication, has been compiled mainly from Dr. Furnivall's very complete and serviceable Browning Bibliography, contained in the first part of the Browning Society's Papers (pp. 21-71). Volumes of "Selections" are not noticed in this list: there have been many in England, some in Germany, and in the Tauchnitz Collection, and a large number in America, where an edition of the complete works was first published, in seven volumes, by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston.
1. PAULINE: a Fragment of a Confession. London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street. 1833, pp. 71.
2. PARACELSUS. By Robert Browning. London. Published by Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange. MDCCCXXXV., pp. xi., 216.
3. Five Poems contributed to The Monthly Repository (edited by W.J. Fox), 1834-6; all signed "Z."—I. Sonnet ("Eyes, calm beside thee, Lady, couldst thou know!"), Vol. VIII., New Series, 1834, p. 712. Not reprinted. II. The King—(Vol. IX., New Series, pp. 707-8). Reprinted, with six fresh lines, and revised throughout, in Pippa Passes (1841), where it is Pippa's song in Part III.-III., IV. Porphyria and Johannes Agricola. (Vol. X., pp. 43-6.) Reprinted in Dramatic Lyrics (1842) under the title of Madhouse Cells.—V. Lines. (Vol. X., pp. 270-1.) Reprinted, revised, in Dramatis Personae (1864) as the first six stanzas of sec. VI. of James Lee.
4. STRAFFORD: an Historical Tragedy. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus." London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, Paternoster Row. 1837, pp. vi., 131.
5. SORDELLO. By Robert Browning. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXL., pp. iv., 253.
6. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. I.—PIPPA PASSES. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus." London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLI., pp. 16. (Price 6d., sewed.)
7. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. II.—KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus." London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLII., pp. 20. (Price 1s., sewed).
8. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. III.—DRAMATIC LYRICS. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus." London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLII., pp. 16, (Price 1s., sewed.)
Contents:—1. Cavalier Tunes: I. Marching Along; II. Give a Rouse; III. My Wife Gertrude [Boot and Saddle, 1863]. 2. Italy and France: I. Italy [My Last Duchess.—Ferrara, 1863]; II. France [Count Gismond.—Aix in Provence, 1863]. 3. Camp and Cloister: I. Camp (French) [Incident of the French Camp, 1863]; II. Cloister (Spanish) [Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 1863]. 4. In a Gondola. 5. Artemis Prologuizes. 6. Waring. 7. Queen Worship: I. Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli; II. Cristina. 8. Madhouse Cells: I. [Johannes Agricola, 1863]; II. [Porphyria's Lover, 1863]. 9. Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr. 10. The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
9. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. IV—THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES. A Tragedy in Five Acts. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus." London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLIII., pp. 19. (Price 1s., sewed.)
10. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. V.—A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. A Tragedy in Three Acts. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus." London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLIII., pp. 16. (Price 1s., sewed.)
11. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. VI.—COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY. A Play in Five Acts. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus." London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLIV., pp. 20. (Price 1s., sewed.)
12. Eight Poems contributed to Hood's Magazine, June 1844 to April 1845:—I. The Laboratory (Ancien Regime). (June 1844, Vol. I., No. vi., pp. 513-14). Reprinted in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845), as the first of two poems called "France and Spain."—II., III. Claret and Tokay (id. p. 525). Reprinted in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845).—IV., V. Garden Fancies: 1. The Flower's Name; 2. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis. (July 1844, Vol. II., No. vii., pp. 45-48.) Reprinted in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845).—VI. The Boy and the Angel. (August 1844, Vol. II., No. viii., pp. 140-2.) Reprinted, revised, and with five fresh couplets, in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845).—VII. The Tomb at St. Praxed's (Rome, 15—) (March 1845, Vol. III., No. iii., pp. 237-39). Reprinted in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)—VIII. The Flight of the Duchess. (April 1845, Vol. III., No. iv., pp. 313-18.) Part first only, sec. 1-9; reprinted, with the remainder added, in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845).
13. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. VII.—DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus." London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLV., pp. 24. (Price 2s., sewed.)
Contents:—1. How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. 2. Pictor Ignotus [Florence, 15—]. 3. Italy in England [The Italian in England, 1849]. 4. England in Italy, Piano di Sorrento [The Englishman in Italy, 1849]. 5. The Lost Leader. 6. The Lost Mistress. 7. Home Thoughts from Abroad. 8. The Tomb at St. Praxed's [The Bishop orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church, 1863]. 9. Garden Fancies: I. The Flower's Name; II Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis. 10. France and Spain: I. The Laboratory (Ancien Regime); II. The Confessional, 11. The Flight of the Duchess. 12. Earth's Immortalities. 13. Song. 14. The Boy and the Angel. 15. Night and Morning: I. Night [Meeting at Night, 1863], II. Morning [Parting at Morning, 1863], 16. Claret and Tokay [Nationality in Drinks, 1863]. 17. Saul. 18. Time's Revenges. 19. The Glove (Peter Ronsard loquitur).
14. BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: No. VIII. and last.—LURIA; and A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. By Robert Browning, Author of "Paracelsus." London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLVI., pp. 32. (Price 2s. 6d., sewed.)
15. POEMS. By Robert Browning. In two volumes. A new edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 186 Strand. 1849, pp. vii., 386; viii., 416. These two volumes contain Paracelsus and Bells and Pomegranates.
16. CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY. A Poem. By Robert Browning. London: Chapman and Hall, 186 Strand. 1850, pp. iv., 142.
17. Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley. With an INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, by Robert Browning. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1852, pp. vi., 165. (Introductory Essay, pp., 1-44.)
These so-called Letters of Shelley proved to be forgeries, and the volume was suppressed. Browning's essay has been reprinted by the Browning Society, and, later, by the Shelley Society. See No. 58 below. Its value to students of Shelley is in no way impaired by its chance connection with the forged letters, to which it barely alludes.
18. TWO POEMS. By Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. London: Chapman and Hall. 1854, pp. 16.
This pamphlet contains "A Plea for the Ragged Schools of London," by E. B. B., and "The Twins," by R. B. The two poems were printed by Miss Arabella Barrett, Mrs. Browning's sister, for a bazaar in aid of a "Refuge for Young Destitute Girls," one of the earliest of its kind, founded by her in 1854.
19. CLEON. By Robert Browning. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. 1855, pp. 23.
20. THE STATUE AND THE BUST. By Robert Browning. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. 1855, pp. 22.
21. MEN AND WOMEN. By Robert Browning. In two volumes. London: Chapman and Hall, 193 Piccadilly. 1855. Vol. I., pp. iv., 260; Vol. II., pp. iv., 241.
Vol. I. Contents:—1. Love among the Ruins. 2. A Lovers' Quarrel. 3. Evelyn Hope. 4. Up at a Villa—Down in the City (as distinguished by an Italian person of Quality). 5. A Woman's Last Word. 6. Fra Lippo Lippi. 7. A Toccata of Galuppi's. 8. By the Fire-side. 9. Any Wife to Any Husband. 10. An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician. 11. Mesmerism. 12. A Serenade at the Villa. 13. My Star. 14. Instans Tyrannus. 15. A Pretty Woman. 16. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." 17. Respectability. 18. A Light Woman. 19. The Statue and the Bust. 20. Love in a Life. 21. Life in a Love. 22. How it Strikes a Contemporary. 23. The Last Ride Together. 24. The Patriot—An Old Story. 25. Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha. 26. Bishop Blougram's Apology. 27. Memorabilia.
Vol. II. Contents:—1. Andrea del Sarto (Called the Faultless Painter). 2. Before. 3. After. 4. In Three Days. 5. In a Year. 6. Old Pictures in Florence. 7. In a Balcony. 8. Saul. 9. "De Gustibus." 10. Women and Roses. 11. Protus. 12. Holy-Cross Day. 13. The Guardian Angel: a Picture at Fano. 14. Cleon. 15. The Twins. 16. Popularity. 17. The Heretic's Tragedy: A Middle Age Interlude. 18. Two in the Campagna. 19. A Grammarian's Funeral. 20. One Way of Love. 21. Another Way of Love. 22. "Transcendentalism": a Poem in Twelve Books. 23. Misconceptions. 24. One Word More: To E. B. B.
22. Ben Karshook's Wisdom. (Five stanzas of four lines each, signed "Robert Browning," and dated "Rome, April 27, 1854")—The Keepsake. 1856. (Edited by Miss Power, and published by David Bogue, London.) P. 16.
This poem has never been reprinted by the author in any of his collected volumes, but is to be found in Furnivall's Browning Bibliography.
23. May and Death.—The Keepsake, 1857, p. 164. Reprinted, with some new readings, in Dramatis Personae (1864).
24. THE POETICAL WORKS of Robert Browning. Third edition. Vol. I., pp. x., 432. Lyrics, Romances, Men and Women. Vol. II., pp. 605. Tragedies and other Plays. Vol. III., pp. 465. Paracelsus, Christmas Eve and Easter Day, Sordello. London: Chapman and Hall, 193 Piccadilly. 1863.
There are no new poems in this edition, but the pieces originally published under the titles of Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Lyrics and Romances, and Men and Women, are redistributed. This arrangement has been preserved in all subsequent editions. The table of contents below will thus show the present position of the poems.
Vol. I, Contents—LYRICS:—1. Cavalier Tunes. 2. The Lost Leader. 3. "How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." 4. Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr. 5. Nationality in Drinks. 6. Garden Fancies.[62] 7. The Laboratory. 8. The Confessional. 9. Cristina. 10. The Lost Mistress. 11. Earth's Immortalities. 12. Meeting at Night. 13. Parting at Morning. 14. Song. 15. A Woman's Last Word. 16. Evelyn Hope. 17, Love among the Ruins. 18. A Lovers' Quarrel. 19. Up at a Villa—Down in the City. 20. A Toccata of Galuppi's. 21. Old Pictures in Florence, 22. "De Gustibus ——." 23. Home-Thoughts from Abroad. 24. Home-Thoughts from the Sea. 25. Saul. 26. My Star. 27. By the Fire-side. 28. Any Wife to Any Husband. 29. Two in the Campagna. 30. Misconceptions. 31. A Serenade at the Villa. 32. One Way of Love. 33. Another Way of Love. 34. A Pretty Woman. 35. Respectability. 36. Love in a Life. 37. Life in a Love. 38. In Three Days. 39. In a Year. 40. Women and Roses. 41. Before. 42. After. 43. The Guardian Angel. 44. Memorabilia. 45. Popularity. 46. Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha.
ROMANCES:—1. Incident of the French Camp. 2. The Patriot. 3. My Last Duchess. 4. Count Gismond. 5. The Boy and the Angel. 6. Instans Tyrannus. 7. Mesmerism. 8. The Glove. 9. Time's Revenges. 10. The Italian in England. 11. The Englishman in Italy. 12. In a Gondola. 13. Waring. 14. The Twins. 15. A Light Woman. 16. The Last Ride Together. 17. The Pied Piper of Hamelin. 18. The Flight of the Duchess. 19. A Grammarian's Funeral. 20. Johannes Agricola in Meditation. 21. The Heretic's Tragedy. 22. Holy-Cross Day. 23. Protus. 24. The Statue and the Bust. 25. Porphyria's Lover. 26. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came."
MEN AND WOMEN:—1. "Transcendentalism." 2. How it strikes a Contemporary. 3. Artemis Prologuizes. 4. An Epistle containing the strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician. 5. Pictor Ignotus. 6. Fra Lippo Lippi. 7. Andrea del Sarto. 8. The Bishop orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church. 9. Bishop Blougram's Apology. 10. Cleon. 11. Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli. 12. One Word More.
Vol. II. Contents—TRAGEDIES AND OTHER PLAYS:—1. Pippa Passes. 2. King Victor and King Charles. 3. The Return of the Druses. 4. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. 5. Colombe's Birthday. 6. Luria. 7. A Soul's Tragedy. 8. In a Balcony. 9. Strafford.
Vol. III. Contents:—1. Paracelsus, 2. Christmas Eve and Easter Day. 3. Sordello.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 62: The Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister is here included as No. III. In the edition of 1868 it follows under a separate heading. This is the only point of difference between the two editions.]
25. GOLD HAIR: A Legend of Pornic. By Robert Browning. (With imprint—London: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street and Charing Cross) 1864, pp. 15.
26. Prospice.—Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XIII., June 1864, p. 694.
27. DRAMATIS PERSONAE. By Robert Browning. London: Chapman and Hall, 193 Piccadilly. 1864, pp. vi., 250.
Contents:—1. James Lee [James Lee's Wife, 1868]. 2. Gold Hair: a Legend of Pornic. 3. The Worst of it. 4. Dis aliter visum; or, Le Byron de nos jours. 5. Too Late. 6. Abt Vogler. 7. Rabbi ben Ezra. 8. A Death in the Desert. 9. Caliban upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the Island. 10. Confessions. 11. May and Death. 12. Prospice. 13. Youth and Art. 14. A Face. 15. A Likeness. 16. Mr Sludge "The Medium." 17. Apparent Failure. 18. Epilogue.
28. Orpheus and Eurydice.—Catalogue of the Royal Academy, 1864, p. 13. No. 217. A picture by F. Leighton.
Printed as prose. It is reprinted in Poetical Works, 1868, where it is included in Dramatis Personae. The same volume contains a new stanza of eight lines, entitled "Deaf and Dumb: a Group by Woolner." This was written in 1862 for Woolner's partly-draped group of Constance and Arthur, the deaf and dumb children of Sir Thomas Fairbairn, which was exhibited in the International Exhibition of 1862.
29. THE POETICAL WORKS of Robert Browning, M.A., Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 15 Waterloo Place. 1868. Vol. I., pp. viii., 310. Pauline—Paracelsus—Strafford. Vol. II., pp. iv., 287. Sordello—Pippa Passes. Vol. III., pp. iv., 305. King Victor and King Charles—Dramatic Lyrics—The Return of the Druses. Vol. IV., pp. iv., 321. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon—Colombe's Birthday—Dramatic Romances. Vol. V., pp. iv., 321. A Soul's Tragedy—Luria—Christmas Eve and Easter Day—Men and Women. Vol. VI., pp. iv., 233. In a Balcony—Dramatis Personae. This edition retains the redistribution of the minor poems in the edition of 1863, already mentioned.
30. THE RING AND THE BOOK. By Robert Browning, M.A., Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. In four volumes. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1868-9. Vol. I., pp. iv., 245; Vol. II., pp. iv., 251; Vol. III., pp. iv., 250; Vol. IV., pp. iv., 235.
31. Herve Riel—Cornhill Magazine, March 1871, pp. 257-60. Reprinted in Pacchiarotto, and other Poems (1876).
32. BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE: Including a Transcript from Euripides. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1871, pp. iv., 170.
33. PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU: SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1871, pp. iv., 148.
34. FIFINE AT THE FAIR. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1872, pp. xii., 171.
35. RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY: OR, TURF AND TOWERS. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1873, pp. iv., 282.
36. ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY: Including a Transcript from Euripides: Being the LAST ADVENTURE OF BALAUSTION. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1875, pp. viii., 366.
37. THE INN ALBUM. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1875, pp. iv., 211.
38. PACCHIAROTTO, and how he worked in Distemper: with other Poems. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1876, pp. viii., 241.
Contents:—1. Prologue. 2. Of Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in Distemper. 3. At the "Mermaid." 4. House. 5. Shop. 6. Pisgah-Sights (1, 2). 7. Fears and Scruples. 8. Natural Magic. 9. Magical Nature. 10. Bifurcation. 11. Numpholeptos. 12. Appearances. 13. St. Martin's Summer. 14. Herve Riel. 15. A Forgiveness. 16. Cenciaja. 17. Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial (a Reminiscence of A.D. 1676). 18. Epilogue.
39. THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS. Transcribed by Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1877, pp. xi. (Preface, v.-xi.), 148.
40. LA SAISIAZ: THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1878, pp. viii., 201.
Contents:—1. Prologue, 2. La Saisiaz (pp. 5-82). The Two Poets of Croisic (pp. 87-191). Epilogue.
41. Song. ("The Blind Man to the Maiden said")—The Hour will come. By Wilhelmine von Hillern. Translated from the German by Clara Bell. London, 1879, Vol. II., p. 174. Not reprinted.
42. "Oh, Love, Love": Translation from the Hippolytus of Euripides. (Eighteen lines, dated "Dec. 18, 1878"). Contributed to Prof. J.P. Mahaffy's Euripides ("Classical Writers." Macmillan, 1879). P. 116.
43. DRAMATIC IDYLS. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1879, pp. vi., 143.
Contents:—1. Martin Relph. 2. Pheidippides. 3. Halbert and Hob. 4. Ivan Ivanovitch. 5. Tray. 6. Ned Bratts.
44. DRAMATIC IDYLS. Second Series. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1880, pp. viii., 149.
Contents:—Prologue. 1. Echetlos. 2. Clive. 3. Muleykeh. 4. Pietro of Abano. 5. Doctor ——. 6. Pan and Luna. Epilogue.
45. Ten New Lines to "Epilogue."—Scribner's Century Magazine, November 1882, pp. 159-60. Lines written in an autograph album, October 14, 1880. Printed in the Century without Browning's consent. Reprinted in the first issue of the Browning Society's Papers, Part III., p. 48, but withdrawn from the second issue.
46. JOCOSERIA. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1883, pp. viii., 143.
Contents:—1. Wanting is—What? 2. Donald. 3. Solomon and Balkis. 4. Cristina and Monaldeschi. 5. Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli. 6. Adam, Lilith, and Eve. 7. Ixion. 8. Jochanan Hakkadosh. 9. Never the Time and the Place. 10. Pambo.
47. Sonnet on Goldoni (dated "Venice, Nov. 27, 1883").—Pall Mall Gazette, December 8, 1883, p. 2. Written for the Album of the Committee of the Goldoni Monument at Venice, and inserted on the first page. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part V. p. 98.*
48. Paraphrase from Horace.—Pall Mall Gazette, December 13, 1883, p. 6. Four lines, written impromptu for Mr. Felix Moscheles. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part V., p. 99.*
49. Helen's Tower: Sonnet (Dated "April 26, 1870").—Pall Mall Gazette, December 28, 1883, p. 2. Reprinted in Browning Society's Papers, Part V., p. 97.* Written for the Earl of Dufferin, who built a tower in memory of his mother, Helen, Countess of Gifford, on a rock on his estate, at Clandeboye, Ireland, and originally printed in the later copies of a privately printed pamphlet called Helen's Tower. Lord Tennyson's lines, written on the same occasion, appeared a little previously in The Leisure Hour.
50. The Divine Order, and other Sermons and Addresses. By the late Thomas Jones. Edited by Brynmor Jones, LL.B. With INTRODUCTION by Robert Browning. London: W. Isbister. 1884. The introduction is on pp. xi.-xiii.
51. Sonnet on Rawdon Brown. (Dated "November 28, 1883").—Century Magazine, "Bric-a-brac" column, February 1884. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part V., p. 132.* Written at Venice, on an apocryphal story relating to the late Mr Rawdon Brown, who "went to Venice for a short visit, with a definite object in view, and ended by staying forty years."
52. The Founder of the Feast: Sonnet. (Dated "April 5, 1884").—The World, April 16, 1884. Inscribed by Browning in the Album presented to Mr Arthur Chappell, director of the St. James's Hall Saturday and Monday Popular Concerts. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part VII., p. 18.*
53. The Names: Sonnet on Shakespeare. (Dated "March 12, 1884").—Shakespere Show Book, May 29, 1884, p. 1. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part V., p. 105.*
54. FERISHTAH'S FANCIES. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1884, pp. viii., 143. Each blank verse "Fancy" is followed by a short lyric.
Contents:—Prologue. Ferishtah's Fancies: 1. The Eagle. 2. The Melon-seller. 3. Shah Abbas. 4. The Family. 5. The Sun. 6. Mihrab Shah. 7. A Camel-Driver. 8. Two Camels 9. Cherries. 10. Plot-Culture, 11. A Pillar at Sebzevah. 12. A Bean Stripe: also Apple-Eating. Epilogue.
55. Why I am a Liberal: Sonnet.—Why I am a Liberal, edited by Andrew Reid. London: Cassell and Co. 1885. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part VII., p. 92.*
54. Spring Song.—The New Amphion; being the book of the Edinburgh University Union Fancy Fair. Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, University Press. 1886. The poem is on p. 1. Reprinted in Parleyings, p. 189.
55. Prefatory Note to Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1887. Three pages, unnumbered.
56. Memorial Lines, for Memorial of the Queen's Jubilee, in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. 1887. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part X., p. 234.*
57. PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY: to wit, Bernard de Mandeville, Daniel Bartoli, Christopher Smart, George Bubb Dodington, Francis Furini, Gerard de Lairesse, and Charles Avison. Introduced by a Dialogue between Apollo and the Fates, concluded by another between John Fust and his Friends. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 15 Waterloo Place. 1887, pp. viii., 268. (Poetical Works, 1889, Vol. XVI., pp. 93-275.)
Contents:—Apollo and the Fates—a Prologue. Parleyings: 1. With Bernard de Mandeville. 2. With Daniel Bartoli. 3. With Christopher Avison. 4. With George Bubb Dodington. 5. With Francis Furini. 6. With Gerard de Lairesse. 7. With Charles Avison. Fust and his Friends—an Epilogue.
58. An Essay on Percy Bysshe Shelley. By Robert Browning. Being a Reprint of the Introductory Essay prefixed to the volume of [25 spurious] Letters of Shelley, published by Edward Moxon in 1852. Edited by W. Tyas Harden. London: Published for the Shelley Society by Reeves and Turner, 196 Strand, 1888, pp. 27. See No. 17 above.
59. To Edward Fitzgerald. (Dated July 8, 1889).—The Athenaeum, No. 3,220, July 13, 1889, p. 64. Reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, Part XI., p. 347.*
60. Lines addressed to Levi Lincoln Thaxter. (Written in 1885).—Poet Lore, Vol. I., August 1889, p. 398.
61. THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place. 17 volumes. Vol. I.-XVI., 1889; Vol. XVII., 1894.
Vol. I. pp. viii., 289. Pauline—Sordello. Vol. II., pp. vi., 307. Paracelsus—Strafford. Vol. III., pp. vi., 255. Pippa Passes, King Victor and King Charles, The Return of the Druses, A Soul's Tragedy. Vol. IV., pp. vi., 305. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, Colombe's Birthday, Men and Women. Vol. V., pp. vi., 307. Dramatic Romances, Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day. Vol. VI., pp. vii., 289. Dramatic Lyrics, Luria. Vol. VII., pp. vi., 255. In a Balcony, Dramatis Personae. Vol. VIII., pp. 253. The Ring and the Book, Vol. I. Vol. IX., pp. 313. The Ring and the Book, Vol. II. Vol. X., pp. 279. The Ring and the Book, Vol. III. Vol. XI., pp. 343. Balaustion's Adventure, Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Fifine at the Fair. Vol. XII., pp. 311. Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, The Inn Album, Vol. XIII., pp. 357. Aristophanes' Apology, The Agamemnon of AEschylus. Vol. XIV., pp. vi., 279. Pacchiarotto and how he worked in Distemper, with other Poems. [La Saisiaz, the Two Poets of Croisic.] Vol. XV., pp. vi., 260. Dramatic Idyls, Jocoseria. Vol. XVI., pp. vi., 275. Ferishtah's Fancies. Parleyings with Certain People. General Index, pp. 277-85; Index to First Lines of Shorter Poems, pp. 287-92. Vol. XVII., pp. viii., 288. Asolando, Biographical and Historical Notes to the Poems. General Index, pp. 289-99; Index to First Lines of Shorter Poems, pp. 301-307. This edition contains Browning's final text of his poems.
62. ASOLANDO: FANCIES AND FACTS. By Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place. 1890, pp. viii., 157. (Poetical Works, 1894, Vol. XVII., pp. 1-131.)
Contents:—Prologue. 1. Rosny. 2. Dubiety. 3. Now. 4. Humility. 5. Poetics. 6. Summum Bonum. 7. A Pearl, a Girl. 8. Speculative. 9. White Witchcraft. 10. Bad Dreams (i.-iv.). 11. Inapprehensiveness. 12. Which? 13. The Cardinal and the Dog. 14. The Pope and the Net. 15. The Bean-Feast. 16. Muckle-mouth Meg. 17. Arcades Ambo. 18. The Lady and the Painter. 19. Ponte dell' Angelo, Venice. 20. Beatrice Signorini. 21. Flute-Music, with an Accompaniment. 22. "Imperante Augusto natus est—." 23. Development. 24. Rephan. 25. Reverie. Prologue.
63. THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING. With Portraits. In two volumes. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place, 1896. Vol. I., pp. viii., 784; Vol. II., pp. vii., 786.
The Editor's note, after p. viii., signed "Augustine Birrell," says: "All that has been done is to prefix (within square brackets) to some of the plays and poems a few lines explanatory of the characters and events depicted and described, and to explain in the margin of the volumes the meaning of such words as might, if left unexplained, momentarily arrest the understanding of the reader ... Mr. F.G. Kenyon has been kind enough to make the notes for 'The Ring and the Book,' but for the rest the editor alone is responsible." The text is that of the edition of 1889, 1894, but the arrangement is more strictly chronological. The notes are throughout unnecessary and to be regretted.
II.
REPRINT OF DISCARDED PREFACES TO THE FIRST EDITIONS OF SOME OF BROWNING'S WORKS
1. Preface to Paracelsus (1835).
"I am anxious that the reader should not, at the very outset,—mistaking my performance for one of a class with which it has nothing in common,—judge it by principles on which it has never been moulded, and subject it to a standard to which it was never meant to conform. I therefore anticipate his discovery, that it is an attempt, probably more novel than happy, to reverse the method usually adopted by writers, whose aim it is to set forth any phenomenon of the mind or the passions, by the operation of persons or events; and that, instead of having recourse to an external machinery of incidents to create and evolve the crisis I desire to produce, I have ventured to display somewhat minutely the mood itself in its rise and progress, and have suffered the agency by which it is influenced and determined, to be generally discernible in its effects alone, and subordinate throughout, if not altogether excluded; and this for a reason. I have endeavoured to write a poem, not a drama: the canons of the drama are well known, and I cannot but think that, inasmuch as they have immediate regard to stage representation, the peculiar advantages they hold out are really such, only so long as the purpose for which they were at first instituted is kept in view. I do not very well understand what is called a Dramatic Poem, wherein all those restrictions only submitted to on account of compensating good in the original scheme are scrupulously retained, as though for some special fitness in themselves,—and all new facilities placed at an author's disposal by the vehicle he selects, as pertinaciously rejected. It is certain, however, that a work like mine depends more immediately on the intelligence and sympathy of the reader for its success;—indeed, were my scenes stars, it must be his co-operating fancy which, supplying all chasms, shall connect the scattered lights into one constellation—a Lyre or a Crown. I trust for his indulgence towards a poem which had not been imagined six months ago, and that even should he think slightingly of the present (an experiment I am in no case likely to repeat) he will not be prejudiced against other productions which may follow in a more popular, and perhaps less difficult form.
15th March 1835."
2. Preface to Strafford (1837).
"I had for some time been engaged in a poem of a very different nature [Sordello] when induced to make the present attempt; and am not without apprehension that my eagerness to freshen a jaded mind by diverting it to the healthy natures of a grand epoch, may have operated unfavourably on the represented play, which is one of Action in Character, rather than Character in Action. To remedy this, in some degree, considerable curtailment will be necessary, and, in a few instances, the supplying details not required, I suppose, by the mere reader. While a trifling success would much gratify, failure will not wholly discourage me from another effort: experience is to come, and earnest endeavour may yet remove many disadvantages.
The portraits are, I think, faithful; and I am exceedingly fortunate in being able, in proof of this, to refer to the subtle and eloquent exposition of the characters of Eliot and Strafford, in the Lives of Eminent British Statesmen now in the course of publication in Lardner's Cyclopaedia, by a writer [John Forster] whom I am proud to call my friend; and whose biographies of Hampden, Pym, and Vane, will, I am sure, fitly illustrate the present year—the Second Centenary of the Trial concerning Ship-money. My Carlisle, however, is purely imaginary: I at first sketched her singular likeness roughly in, as suggested by Matthew and the memoir-writers—but it was too artificial, and the substituted outline is exclusively from Voiture and Waller.
The Italian boat-song in the last scene is from Redi's Bacco, long since naturalised in the joyous and delicate version of Leigh Hunt."
3. Preface to Sordello (not in first edition, but added in 1863). I reprint it, though still retained by the author, on account of its great importance as a piece of self-criticism or self-interpretation.
"To J. MILSAND, OF DIJON.
Dear Friend,—Let the next poem be introduced by your name, and so repay all trouble it ever cost me. I wrote it twenty-five years ago for only a few, counting even in these on somewhat more care about its subject than they really had. My own faults of expression were many; but with care for a man or book, such would be surmounted, and without it what avails the faultlessness of either? I blame nobody, least of all myself, who did my best then and since; for I lately gave time and pains to turn my work into what the many might,—instead of what the few must,—like: but after all, I imagined another thing at first, and therefore leave as I find it. The historical decoration was purposely of no more importance than a background requires; and my stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul: little else is worth study. I, at least, always thought so—you, with many known and unknown to me, think so—others may one day think so: and whether my attempt remain for them or not, I trust, though away and past it, to continue ever yours, R. B.
London, June 9, 1863."
4. Preface to Bells and Pomegranates.—I. Pippa Passes (1841).
"ADVERTISEMENT.
Two or three years ago I wrote a Play, about which the chief matter I much care to recollect at present is, that a Pit-full of good-natured people applauded it: ever since, I have been desirous of doing something in the same way that should better reward their attention. What follows, I mean for the first of a series of Dramatical Pieces, to come out at intervals; and I amuse myself by fancying that the cheap mode in which they appear, will for once help me to a sort of Pit-audience again. Of course such a work must go on no longer than it is liked; and to provide against a certain and but too possible contingency, let me hasten to say now—what, if I were sure of success, I would try to say circumstantially enough at the close—that I dedicate my best intentions most admiringly to the author of 'Ion'—most affectionately to Serjeant Talfourd.
ROBERT BROWNING."
5. Preface to Bells and Pomegranates.—VIII. Luria and A Soul's Tragedy.
"Here ends my first series of 'Bells and Pomegranates:' and I take the opportunity of explaining, in reply to inquiries, that I only meant by that title to indicate an endeavour towards something like an alteration, or mixture, of music with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought; which looks too ambitious, thus expressed, so the symbol was preferred. It is little to the purpose, that such is actually one of the most familiar of the many Rabbinical (and Patristic) acceptations of the phrase; because I confess that, letting authority alone, I supposed the bare words, in such juxtaposition, would sufficiently convey the desired meaning. 'Faith and good works' is another fancy, for instance, and perhaps no easier to arrive at: yet Giotto placed a pomegranate-fruit in the hand of Dante, and Raffaelle crowned his Theology (in the Camera della Segnatura) with blossoms of the same; as if the Bellari and Vasari would be sure to come after, and explain that it was merely 'simbolo delle buone opere—il qual Pomogranato fu pero usato nelle vesti del Pontefice appresso gli Ebrei.' R. B."
It may be worth while to append the interesting concluding paragraph of the preface to the first series of Selections, issued by Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. in 1872:
"A few years ago, had such an opportunity presented itself, I might have been tempted to say a word in reply to the objections my poetry was used to encounter. Time has kindly co-operated with my disinclination to write the poetry and the criticism besides. The readers I am at last privileged to expect, meet me fully half-way; and if, from their fitting standpoint, they must still 'censure me in their wisdom,' they have previously 'awakened their senses that they may the better judge.' Nor do I apprehend any more charges of being wilfully obscure, unconscientiously careless, or perversely harsh. Having hitherto done my utmost in the art to which my life is a devotion, I cannot engage to increase the effort; but I conceive that there may be helpful light, as well as reassuring warmth, in the attention and sympathy I gratefully acknowledge R. B.
London, May 14, 1872."
INDEX TO POEMS
Abt Vogler, 23, 145, 146, 147
Adam, Lilith, and Eve, 220, 221
After, 128, 129
"Agamemnon (The), of AEschylus," 17, 202, 203
Andrea del Sarto, 23, 59, 82, 104, 107, 109, 113, 135, 179
Another Way of Love, 130
Any Wife to Any Husband, 124
Apparent Failure, 145
Appearances, 197
Arcades Ambo, 236
"Aristophanes' Apology," 17, 185, 190
Artemis Prologuizes, 63, 64, 85
"Asolando: Fancies and Facts," 231-239
At the Mermaid, 194, 196, 197
Bad Dreams, 232, 234, 236
"Balaustion's Adventure," 169, 173, 186
Bean-Feast, The, 236
Bean-Stripe (A): also Apple-Eating, 225
Beatrice Signorini, 234
Before, 128
Bifurcation, 198
Bishop Blougram's Apology, 27, 105, 111-113, 144
Bishop (The) Orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's Church, 83-85, 115
"Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A," 17, 69-72, 74, 91, 95
Boy and the Angel, The, 89
By the Fireside, 126, 139
Caliban upon Setebos, 27, 141-144
Camel-Driver, A, 224
Cardinal and the Dog, The, 236, 237
Cavalier Tunes, 62
Cenciaja, 201
Cherries, 224
'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower, came,' 118-120
"Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day," 98-103
Cleon, 105, 109, 111, 143
Clive, 214, 215
"Colombe's Birthday," 73-76, 91
Confessional, The, 86
Confessions, 27, 139-141
Count Gismond, 62-63
Cristina, 63
Cristina and Monaldeschi, 221-222
Deaf and Dumb, 145
Death in the Desert, A, 141, 142
'De Gustibus,' 26, 130
Development, 232
Dis aliter Visum, 27, 138
Doctor ——, 193, 217
Donald, 222
"Dramatic Idyls," 208-213
"Dramatic Idyls" (Second Series), 213-218
"Dramatic Lyrics," 58-65
"Dramatic Romances and Lyrics," 56, 77-90
"Dramatis Personae," 135-150, 194
Dubiety, 233
Eagle, The, 224
Earth's Immortalities, 80
Echetlos, 213, 214
Englishman in Italy, The, 25, 87
Epilogue to "Dramatic Idyls" (Second Series), 218
Epilogue to "Dramatis Personae," 194
Epilogue to Pacchiarotto, 194, 195-196
Epilogue to The Two Poets of Croisic, 208
Epistle of Karshish, 104, 105, 109-111, 234
Eurydice and Orpheus, 145
Evelyn Hope, 63, 122
Face, A, 145
Family, The, 224
Fears and Scruples, 197
"Ferishtah's Fancies," 98, 223, 226
"Fifine at the Fair," 17, 111, 130, 177-182, 184
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial, 201
Flight of the Duchess, The, 88
Flower's Name, The, 80
Flute Music, with an Accompaniment, 233
Forgiveness, A, 199
Fra Lippo Lippi, 23, 27, 105, 107, 113
Garden Fancies, 80
Girl, A, 232
Glove, The, 87
Gold Hair: a Story of Pornic, 145
Grammarian's Funeral, A, 115
Guardian Angel, The, 23, 113
Halbert and Hob, 210
Heretic's Tragedy, The, 27, 115, 116-117, 143
Herve Riel, 194, 200
Holy-Cross Day, 27, 115, 117
Home-Thoughts from Abroad, 77, 78
Home-Thoughts from the Sea, 78
House, 194, 197
How it strikes a Contemporary, 128
How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, 77
Humility, 233, 236
"In A Balcony," 105, 132, 135
In a Gondola, 64
Inapprehensiveness, 233
In a Year, 130
Incident of the French Camp, 62
"Inn Album, The," 7, 22, 190, 193
Instans Tyrannus, 129
In Three Days, 130
Italian in England, The, 87
Ivan Ivanovitch, 26, 210, 211-212
Ixion, 219-220
James Lee's Wife, 118, 136, 137
Jochanan Hakkadosh, 219
"Jocoseria," 218, 223
Johannes Agricola, 59
"King Victor and King Charles," 56-58, 66
Laboratory, The, 86
"La Saisiaz," 98, 204, 208
Last Ride Together, The, 81, 125, 130
Life in a Love, 130
Light Woman, A, 130
Likeness, A, 141
Lost Leader, The, 77, 78
Lost Mistress, The, 79, 130
Love among the Ruins, 120, 121
Love in a Life, 130
Lovers' Quarrel, A, 27, 121, 122
"Luria," 4, 91, 95-98, 211, 212
Magical Nature, 175, 197-198
Martin Relph, 209, 210, 211
Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli, 222
Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha, 23, 24, 113, 114
May and Death, 145
Meeting at Night, 81, 82
Melon-Seller, The, 224
Memorabilia, 131
"Men and Women," 15, 58, 77, 85, 89, 91, 104, 132, 135, 141, 199, 232
Mesmerism, 129
Mihrab Shah, 224
Misconceptions, 130, 197
Mr Sludge, "The Medium," 27, 141, 144
Muckle-mouth Meg, 236
Muleykeh, 191, 215, 217
My Last Duchess, 59, 60, 61, 199, 233
My Star, 130
Nationality in Drinks, 78
Natural Magic, 197
Ned Bratts, 26, 27, 210, 212
Never the Time and the Place 222, 223
Now, 233
Numpholeptos, 198, 199
Old Pictures in Florence, 24, 113, 114
One Way of Love, 130, 131, 132
One Word More, 126
Pacchiarotto, 27, 88, 194, 195
"Pacchiarotto and Other Poems," 194, 201
Pambo, 222
Pan and Luna, 214
"Paracelsus," 6, 37, 41, 49, 59, 74, 118, 218, 229
"Parleyings with certain People," 226-230
Parting at Morning, 82
Patriot, The: an Old Story, 129
"Pauline," 33-36, 37, 49, 59, 118
Pearl, A, 232
Pheidippides, 212, 213
Pictor Ignotus, 23, 82, 83, 85
Pied Piper of Hamelin, The, 27, 65, 77
Pietro of Abano, 217
Pillar at Sebzevah, A, 225
"Pippa Passes," 52-56, 94, 132, 151
Pisgah-Sights, 197
Plot-Culture, 225
Poetics, 232
Pope and the Net, The, 236
Popularity, 131
Porphyria's Lover, 25, 59
Pretty Woman, A, 130
"Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau," 17, 111, 173, 177, 184, 192
Prospice, 145, 148-150
Protus, 117
Rabbi Ben Ezra, 145, 147, 148
"Red-Cotton Night-Cap Country," 7, 182, 185, 190, 192
Rephan, 231
Respectability, 129
"Return of the Druses, The," 65, 69, 74
Reverie, 231
"Ring and the Book, The," 17, 20, 136, 150, 169, 173, 233
Rosny, 232
Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli, 63
St. Martin's Summer, 195
Saul, 89, 90
Serenade at the Villa, A, 25, 26, 124
Shah Abbas, 224
Shop, 194, 197
Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis, 27, 80
Solomon and Balkis, 220
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 27, 62, 129
"Sordello," 7, 17, 37, 42, 44, 52, 55, 59, 145, 229
"Soul's Tragedy, A," 27, 91, 95, 132
Speculative, 233, 235
Statue and the Bust, The, 127
"Strafford," 41, 44, 57, 132
Summum Bonum, 232, 235, 236
Sun, The, 224
Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr, 62
Time's Revenges, 86
Toccata of Galuppi's, A, 23, 113, 114
Too Late, 136, 137, 138
'Transcendentalism,' 128
Tray, 222
Twins, The, 130
Two Camels, 224
Two in the Campagna, 125
"Two Poets of Croisic, The," 206-208
Up at a Villa—Down in the City, 27, 130
Wanting Is—What? 222
Waring, 61, 62
Which, 234
White Witchcraft, 236
Woman's Last Word, A, 122, 124
Women and Roses, 130
Worst of It, The, 136, 137
Youth and Art, 139
BY THE SAME WRITER
POEMS (COLLECTED EDITION IN TWO VOLUMES) 1902.
AUBREY BEARDSLEY, 1897.
THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE, 1899.
PLAYS, ACTING AND MUSIC, 1903.
CITIES, 1903.
STUDIES IN PROSE AND VERSE, 1904.
A BOOK OF TWENTY SONGS, 1905.
SPIRITUAL ADVENTURES, 1905.
STUDIES IN SEVEN ARTS, 1906.
THE FOOL OF THE WORLD, AND OTHER POEMS, 1906.
The Temple Press Letchworth England
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