"WE SOW THE GLEBE, WE REAP THE CORN, WE BUILD THE HOUSE WHERE WE MAY REST;-(BROWNING)

54

SING, SERAPH WITH THE GLORY! HEAVEN IS HIGH;-(BROWNING)

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

They answer, "Who is God that he should hear us,
While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us

Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word;
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)

Strangers speaking at the door :

Is it likely God, with angels singing round him,

Hears our weeping any more?

"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,
And at midnight's hour of harm,

'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,

We say softly for a charm.

We know no other words except 'Our Father,'
And we think that, in some pause of angel's song,
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
And hold both within his right hand which is strong.
'Our Father!' If he heard us, he would surely

(For they call him good and mild)

Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,
'Come and rest with me, my child.'

"But no!" say the children, weeping faster,
"He is speechless as a stone:

And they tell us, of his image is the master
Who commands us to work on.

66

Go to!" say the children, up in heaven,
Dark wheel-like turning clouds are all we find.
Do not mock us, grief has made us unbelieving :
We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.”
Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,

O my brothers, what ye preach?

For God's possible is taught by this world's loving,
And the children doubt of each.

SING, POET WITH THE SORROW! EARTH IS LOW."--BROWNING.

WE LOOK UP TO THE GREAT WIDE SKY, INQUIRING WHEREFORE WE WERE BORN."-MRS. BROWNING.

“SO OTHERS SHALL TAKE PATIENCE, LABOUR, TO THEIR HEART AND HAND, FROM THY HAND, AND THY HEART,

WE HEAR SUBMISSIVE O'ER THE STORMY MAIN-MRS. BROWNING)

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.

And well may the children weep before you!

They are weary ere they run;

They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory

Which is brighter than the sun.

They know the grief of man, without its wisdom;
They sink in man's despair, without its calm;
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom;

Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm:
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly

The harvest of its memories cannot reap,—
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly.
Let them weep! let them weep!

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see;

For they mind you of their angels in high places,

With their eyes turned on Deity.

"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, -
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,

And your purple shows your path!

But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper
Than the strong man in his wrath."

55

The

[An able critic has characterized the foregoing as "the most extraordi-
nary and strikingly original of all Mrs. Browning's productions.
'importunate and heavy load' of its truth weighs on the heart, like a night-
mare, on the imagination, like a torture-scene by Spagnoletto."]

GOD'S CHARTERED JUDGMENTS WALK FOR EVERMORE.”—BROWNING.

AND THY BRAVE CHEER, AND GOD'S GRACE FRUCTIFY THROUGH THEE TO ALL."-ELIZABETH BARRET BROWNING.

"THERE ARE FLASHES STRUCK FROM MIDNIGHT, THERE ARE FIRE-FLAMES NOONDAYS KINDLE,

BECAUSE LIFE'S WAY IS SHORT, I THANK THEE, GOD."-E. B. BROWNING.

He was

[THIS great dramatic poet was born at Cambridge in 1812.
educated at the London University, which may well be proud of its
alumnus. At the age of twenty-four, he published his first work, "Paracel-
sus: " which found not many readers, but then every reader was an admirer.
His next production was the fanciful Italian dramatic poem of "Pippa
Passes," which seems interpenetrated with the glow of Italian skies and the
flush of purple vineyards. Next came the tragedy of "Strafford;" the
strange, metaphysical, and, it must be owned, somewhat obscure—nay, in
not a few places, unintelligible-poem of "Sordello;" and the powerful
drama of "The Blot on the Scutcheon" (produced at Drury Lane Theatre
in 1843). In 1846, Mr. Browning found a congenial helpmate in Elizabeth
Barrett, the poetess, and thenceforward resided in Italy until her lamented
death. Besides the works already mentioned, which in themselves are the
title-deeds to an enduring renown, he has enriched our literature with a
collection of dramatic sketches, published under the collective name of
"Men and Women "-"a gallery of portraits, painted with the strength of
Velasquez, the glow of Giorgione, or the tenderness of Correggio"; "Co-
lombe's Birth-day;" "The Return of the Druses;" "Christmas Eve and
Easter Day;" and "Dramatis Persona." A powerful if rugged genius is
visible in every one of these; a keen analytical intellect; a lively sym-
pathy with nature; a strong, true, manly soul; and a remarkable subjec-
tive faculty. His faults are an occasional cloudiness of thought, com-
plexity of reasoning, and harshness of versification; and some of his works
are rather abstruse psychological dissertations than poems, though cast in a
metrical form.

"Mr. Browning," says a critic in the Quarterly Review, "has qualities such
as should be cherished by the age we live in, for it needs them. His poetry
ought to be taken as a tonic. He grinds no mere hand-organ or music-box
of pretty tunes; he does not try to attract the multitude with the scarlet
dazzle of poppies in his corn; he is not a poet of similes, who continually
makes comparisons which are the mere play of fancy; he has nothing of the
ordinary technique of poetry; he has felt himself driven, somewhat con-
sciously, to the opposite course, of using, as much as possible, the com-
monest forms of speech. The language of his verse is generally as sturdy
as is the prose of Swift or De Foe. His poetry is full of hearty English
character. His genius is dramatic..... He is dramatic down to his smallest
lyric. His poetry is not to be dipped into or skimmed lightly with swallow-
flights of attention. Its pearls must be dived for. It must be read,
studied, and dwelt with for a while. The difficulties which arise from
novelty must be encountered; the poetry must be thought over before its
concentrated force is unfolded and its subtler qualities can be fully felt.
Coming fresh from a great deal of our nineteenth century poetry to that of
Mr. Browning, we are in a new world altogether, and one of the first
things we are apt to do is to regret the charms of the old.
But the new

A THOUGHT LAY LIKE A FLOWER UPON MY HEART."-E. B. BROWNING.

WHEREBY PILED-UP HONOURS PERISH, WHEREBY SWOLN AMBITIONS DWINDLE."-R. BROWNING.

"IT'S WISER BEING GOOD THAN BAD;-(ROBERT BROWNING)

land is well worth exploring; it possesses treasures that will repay us richly.
The strangeness and its startling effects will gradually wear away, and there
will be a growth of permanent beauty. With all its peculiarities and all
its faults, the poetry of Mr. Browning is thoroughly sanative, masculine,
bracing in its influence. It breathes into modern verse a breath of new
life, and more vigorous health, with its aroma of a newly-turned and virgin
soil."]

"WHILE JUST THIS OR THAT POOR IMPULSE WHICH FOR ONCE HAD PLAY UNSTIFLED,-(R. BROWNING)

ROMANCE.

VER the sea our galleys went,

With cleaving prows and order brave,
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave,

A gallant armament:

Each bark built out of a forest tree,

Left leafy and rough as first it grew,
And nailed all over the gaping sides,
Within and without with black bull-hides,
Seethed in fat, and suppled with flame,
To bear the playful billows' game:
So each good ship was rude to see,
Rude and bare to the outward view,
But each upbore a stately tent,
Where cedar-pales in scented row
Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,
And an awning drooped the mast below,
In fold on fold of the purple fine,
That neither noon-tide, nor star-shine,
Nor moon-light cold which maketh mad,
Might pierce the regal tenement.
When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad,
We set the sail and plied the oar;

But when the night wind blew like breath,
For joy of one day's voyage more,

We sang together on the wide sea,
Like men at peace on a peaceful shore;

"IT'S SAFER BEING MEEK THAN FIERCE."-R. BROWNING.

SEEMS THE SOLE WORK OF A LIFE-TIME THAT AWAY THE REST HAVE TRIFLED."-ROBERT BROWNING.

"THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING, AND DAY'S AT THE MORN: THE HILL-SIDE'S DEW-PEARLED;-(R. BROWNING)

O YOUTH, MEN PRAISE SO, HOLDS THEIR PRAISE ITS WORTH?-(R. B.) 58

ROBERT BROWNING.

THE LARK'S ON THE WING; GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN-ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD."-ROBERT BROWNING.

["Over the sea our galleys went.")

Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,
Each helm made sure by the twilight star,
And in a sleep as calm as death,
We, the voyagers from afar,

Lay stretched along, each weary crew
In a circle round its wondrous tent,

Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent,

And with light and perfume, music too;