vall of December 3, 1883 (Wise, Letters of R. If you don't ask them 'tis another thing, Browning, ii., 31): Until the judgment-day be sure they'll sing. GEROUSIOS OINOS "They are going to unveil and display here a monument erected to Goldoni, and the committee did me the honour to request a word or two for insertion in an Album to [This poem, which was put into type at which the principal men of letters in Italy the same time as the volume "Jocoseria" have contributed. I made a sonnet, which (1883), was not eventually published, but they please to think so well of that they pref- came to light in its present form as a rough ace the work with it." printed proof in what is known as “galleyMrs. Bronson (Cornhill Magazine, Febru- slip" among the poet's papers offered the ary, 1902, p. 10) adds that the sonnet was sale of the Browning Collections in M 1913, written very rapidly, and only two or three and purchased by the well-known biblic-hile, trifling alterations were made in the original Mr. Bertram Dobell. It was first blished in the Cornhill Magazine and the Century Magazine, April 1914.] copy. The sonnet was printed in the Pall Mall Gazette, December 8, 1883, and has since been reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, 1884, Pt. V.., p. 99; in Nicoll and Wise's Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, vol. i. (1895); in the Cambridge (Boston, U. S. A.) Edition (1895), p. 910; and in the Centenary Edition of the Poet's Works, vol. ix., p. 347.] GOLDONI-good, gay, sunniest of souls--- Of common life, nor render, as it rolls, Was Carnival: Parini's depths enshrine scrolls. There throng the people: how they come and go, Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb-see On Piazza, Calle, under Portico And over Bridge! Dear king of Comedy, ON SINGERS [First printed in the Pall Mall Gazette, December 13, 1883, and reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, 1884, Pt. V., p. 99. Robert Browning was asked to write in a lady's album, where he saw some one had written the lines from Horace]: OMNIBUS hoc vitium est cantoribus, inter Ut nunquam inducant animum cantare rogati, DREAMED there was once held a feast: Good tipple and of various growth All drank in honour of the host, For in rushed straightway loon and lout, So said, so done: first, hunger spends But seeing that rage appeased, In every glass deep-drained From wine is water stained. "Fill up each glass with water! Get He immediately appended the following "So here's your health to watered port! translation: Thanks: mine is sherry of a sort. Claret, though thinnish, clear. 30 Nineteenth Century, vol. i. (1895); in the SHAKESPEARE!-to such name's sounding Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell,-Act follows word, the speaker knows full well, Nor tampers with its magic more than need. Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads With his soul only: if from lips it fell, impedes might, [In 1884 Browning contributed these lines to the Album presented to Mr. Arthur Chappell, e organiser of the Popular Concerts at St. James's Hall, thus testifying to his love of music and to his frequent attendance at concerts. The poem was printed in The Would own "Thou did'st create us!" Nought World for April 16, 1884, and has been reprinted in the Browning Society's Papers, We voice the other name, man's most of 1884, Pt. VII., p. 18; in Nicoll and Wise's Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, vol. i. (1895); in the Cambridge (Bosto.., U. S. A.) Edition (1895), p. 947, and in the Centenary Edition of the Poet's Works (1912), vol. ix., p. 349. It has hitherto contained fifteen lines, but the following version, reduced to the sonnet form of fourteen lines: (by the deletion of line nine and the conse- [Browning never took an active part in quent revision of line ten), is printed from a politics, and this statement of his political cutting taken from the World and corrected faith, composed in response to an invitation by Browning, which was found among his from Mr. Andrew Reid, and published by papers.] "ENTER my palace," if a prince should say"Feast with the Painters! See, in boun teous row, Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and icve Mutely await their working, leave to sight All of the issue as-below-aboveShakespeare's creation rises: one remove, Though dread-this finite from that infinite. WHY I AM A LIBERAL him in a volume with the same title issued in 1885 in support of the then waning Liberal cause, appeared only a few months before he ceased to support the official Liberal party. The principles expressed in it, however, had no reference to the temporary policies of any party, and remained his principles to the end of his life. They range from Titian up to Angelo!" 10 Could we be silent at the rich survey? A host so kindly, in as great a way Invites to banquet, substitutes for show The lines were reprinted in the Browning Sound that's diviner still, and bids us know Society's Papers, 1885, p. 89; in Sonnets of Bach like Beethoven; are we thankless, pray? the Century, edited by W. Sharp (1886); To him whose every guest not idly vaunts, in Nicoll and Wise's Literary Anecdotes of "Sense has received the utmost Nature the Nineteenth Century, vol. i. (1895); in the My up was filled with rapture to the brim. Cambridge (Boston, U. S. A.) Edition (1895), p. 948; and in the Centenary Edition of the When, night by night-ah, memory, how Poet's Works (1912), vol. ix., p. 351.] it haunts!-"WHY?" Because all I haply can and do, All that I am now, all I hope to beWhence comes it save from fortune setting free grants, Music was poured by perfect ministrants, 20 By Hallè, Schumann, Piatti, Joachim." April 5, 1884. THE NAMES (To Shakespear€) Body and soul the purpose to pursue, [Written for the Shakesperean Show-Book Also God-guided-bear, and gaily too? published in May 1884, in connection with But little do or can the best of us: the Shakesperean Show held at the Albert That little is achieved through Liberty. Hall in aid of the Hospital for Women in the Who, then, dares hold-emancipated thusHis fellow shall continue bound? Not I Fulham Road. It was reprinted in the Pall Mall Gazette for May 29; in the Browning Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why." Society's Papers, 1884, Pt. V., p. 105; in 36 40 LINES FOR THE TOMB OF LEVI LIN- Two hundred and eighty years ago Epps soldiered it there: and, hew or hack At his breast as the enemy might, his back [Mr. Thaxter, who was born at Waterford Got never a scratch: yet life must end in Massachusetts in 1824 and died in 1884, Somehow,-Epps ended-so! was an enthusiastic student of Browning's poems, and in his later years gave readings He had lost an eye on the walls, look out from the poet's works. These lines have been printed in Mrs. Orr's Life, 1908, p. 335. and in the Cambridge (Boston, U. S. A.) Edition (1895), p. 948.] THOU, whom these eyes saw never,-Say Who say my soul, helped onward by my song, No longer could Epps: said h At all events they shall soon see me, "Epps got loose again!" yelped the curs: Life's path I pace, couldst thou make weak-Yon flag from his hold, win spurs!" ness strong, Help me with knowledge-for Life's Old-As a big wave bursts on a rock, broke they Death's New! R. B. to. L. L. T., April 19, 1885. EPPS As far as can now be recollected, it was about the year 1884 that Robert Browning On bannerman Epps: as staunch gay: company stood-Epps laughed announced to Mrs. Edmund Gosse and "I with my flag-that's well, no fear But the staff 'tis a mere hand holds-lets fall If there stab me or shoot one knave of them all: To hinder which game-" I hear Epps laugh round verses, which he did not treat as a serious And off in a trice from the staff that's wood, specimen of his poetic art. It is not recol- And on to a staff that's flesh, lected what became of the MS., of which Tears Epps and ties the ladies kept no copy; it was doubtless returned to Mr. Browning. January 12, 1914. EDMUND GOSSE. binds about his breast {tight The flag in a red swathe: "Here's the ves [The MS. was included in the sale of the Whereat, in a twinkling, man and horse Browning Collections in 1913. The poem Went down-one, two and three, was first printed in the Cornhill Magazine And how many more? But they shot and and the New York Outlook, October 1913. slashed As a result of that publication, Mr. Edmund Gosse has very kindly given the above in- Two teresting facts in connection with this characteristic historical poem.] ASKS anyone "Where's a tag for steps?" 10 Till somebody versed in the English tongue Till now, and all for want of a rhyme, Is the prowess of Kentish Epps?'" 2 30 As he falters "See! Flag to the staff sticks Its blank of nature. If a traveller came fast, And, flag saved, staff may die!" And die did Epps, with his English round: For Donne and Dekker, brave poets and rare, As a pipe with their trumpet-sound! THE ISLE'S ENCHANTRESS [Lines, on Felix Moscheles' painting called "The Isle's Enchantress," given by Robert Browning to the painter and printed in the Pall Mall Gazette by the poet's permission. March 26, 1889.] WIND wafted from the sunset, o'er the swell 10 Of summer's slumbrous sea, herself asleep Come shoreward, in her iridescent shell Seeing my bare bald skull and my still brows Whose part is played to an end,--he might For some god Terminus set on these flats Which thronged against the outer rim of earth From Beauty in action which spun audibly 20 30 I hear it in the distance droning small from me UNFINISHED DRAFT OF A POEM Are strange to me with life-and separate WHICH MAY BE ENTITLED "ÆSCHYLUS' SOLILOQUY" The outside of my being-I myself The only roof above me where I sit This description is correct in that the poem had never been published, but it is evident that it was not a draft for "Aristophanes' Apology," but a soliloquy of the aged Eschylus, just before the prophecy as to his death Over my head, because I spoke my Greek was fulfilled by an eagle dropping a tortoise Too deep down in my soul to suit their case. upon his head. The poem was first printed Who did not die to see the solemn vests in the Cornhill Magazine and the New York Of my white chorus round the thymele Independent, November 1913, strictly accord- Flutter like doves, and sweep back like a cloud ing to the original MS., now in the British Before the shrill lipped people . . . but Museum, as it reads with the poet's variants] stood calm and queries. In line 56 Dephos" is ob- And cold, and felt the theatre wax hot viously a slip of the pen for "Delphos," With mouthing whispers . . . the man and in line 59 "rush" seems the best inter- Eschylus pretation of a scarcely legible word, of which Is gray I fancy--and his wrinkles ridge the MS. contains many.] I AM an old and solitary man And now at set of sun in Sicily I sit down in the middle of this plain The smoothest of his phrases--or the times Have grown too polished for this old rough work We have no Sphynxes in the Parthenon Nor any flints at Dephos-or forsooth, 50 60 Which drives between the mountains and the I think the Sphynxes wrote this Attic Greek- 70 sea Our Sophocles hath something more than this Cast out on-and their smilenot die (?) -I would Thro' the heart of the sun-some black as night in Hell At this time by the crushing of a house Who lived that Day out . . . I would go to death With voluntary and majestic steps All mixed, sharp, driven against me! and as I gazed (For I gazed still) I saw the sea and earth Leap up as wounded by the innumerous shafts Jove thundering on the right hand. Let it be. And hurry round, and whirl into a blot I am an old and solitary man Mine eyes feel dimly out the setting sun Drove up the saltness of our hearts to it A blessed fruit, a full Hesperian fruit Across which evermore fell thick the shafts Which the fair sisters with their starry eyes And then it was revealed, it was revealed to Did warm to scarlet bloom. O holy sun, That I should be a priest of the Unseen straight My eyes are weak and cannot hold thee And build a bridge of sound across the round! But in my large soul there is room for thee-From Heaven to earth whence all the Gods All human wrongs and shames cast out from it, And I invite thee, sun, to sphere thyself 30 A little tunicked child and felt my thoughts (?) might walk Nor bend it with their soles (?) And then I saw the Gods tread past me slow The beak and claws shut whitely up in calm--Buzzed dimly in the histow of his light On all sides, a libation to the world. There I sate a child 40 Half hidden in purple thyme with knees drawn up By clasping of my little arms, and cheek Laid slant across them with obtruded nose up And Neptune with beard and locks drawn As seaweed-ay and Pluto with his Dark And then Apollo trenching on the dusk JOAN OF ARC AND THE KINGFISHER Against the heated metal of thy shield light. Then shot innumerous arrows in my eyes 50 From all sides of the Heavens- so blinding me As countless as the norland snowflakes fall they may be said to reveal the poet in historical, social, and humorous moods. The following lines were written as a motto for a picture painted by his son.] Now, as she fain would bathe, one eventide, Some shafts as bright as sun rays none times-God's Maid, this Joan-from a pool's edge 70 |