HELPS TO STUDY Biographical and Historical: Robert Browning was born in a suburb of London in 1812. His four grandparents were respectively of English, German, Scotch, and Creole birth. After his marriage with the poet, Elizabeth Barrett, he lived in Italy, where in the old palace Casa Guidi, in Florence, they spent years of rare companionship and happiness. After her death he returned to England, but spent most of his summers abroad. On the Grand Canal, in Venice, the gondoliers point out a palace where at his son's home, Browning died in 1889. He was buried in the Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. Browning's poems are not easy to read, because he condenses so much into a word or phrase and he often leaves large gaps to be filled in by the reader's imagination. Any one can make selections of lines and even entire poems from Tennyson, Poe, Southey, and Lanier, in which the poet has created for us verbal music and beauty. Browning, however, is not so much concerned with this side of poetry as he is with portraying correctly the varied emotions of the human soul. "Love in the largest sense, as the divine principle working through all nature, is at the very center of Browning's creed. His is the heartiest, happiest, most beautiful poetic voice that his age has read. He stands apart from most others of his kind and age in the positiveness of his religious faith, a faith that is based upon a conviction of the conquering universality of love and self-sacrifice." "How They Brought the Good News" is without historical basis; the ride occurred only in the imagination of the poet. The inspiration came from Browning's longing for a horseback gallop over the English downs. "Good speed! cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew' "With resolute shoulders each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray" 5 10 15 20 25 30 INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP ROBERT BROWNING You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: A mile or so away, On a little mound, Napoleon Stood on our storming-day; With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, As if to balance the prone brow Just as perhaps he mused, "My plans Let once my army-leader, Lannes, Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew Until he reached the mound. Then off there flung in smiling joy, And held himself erect By just his horse's mane, a boy: You hardly could suspect (So tight he kept his lips compressed, You looked twice ere you saw his breast "Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace, The marshal's in the market-place, To see your flag-bird flap his vans Where I, to heart's desire, Perched him!" The chief's eye flashed; his plans The chief's eye flashed; but presently Softened itself, as sheathes A film the mother eagle's eye When her bruised eaglet breathes : "You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride "I'm killed, sire!" And his chief beside, 5 HERVE RIEL ROBERT BROWNING ON the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, 10 "Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase; First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville; Close on him fled, great and small, Twenty-two good ships in all; And they signalled to the place, "Help the winners of a race! Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick-or, quicker still, Here's the English can and will!" 15 Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board; "Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they: "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, Shall the 'Formidable' here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, 20 Trust to enter-where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, And with flow at full beside? "Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow, 30 For a prize to Plymouth Sound? Better run the ships aground!" (Ended Damfreville his speech). "Not a minute more to wait! Let the captains all and each Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach! 35 France must undergo her fate. "Give the word!" But no such word Was ever spoke or heard: For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck, amid all these,A captain? a lieutenant? a mate,-first, second, third? 40 45 50 No such man of mark, and meet With his betters to compete! But a simple Breton sailor, pressed by Tourville for the fleet, A poor coasting-pilot, he,-Hervé Riel, the Croisickese. And “What mockery or malice have we here?" cried Hervé Riel. “Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues? Talk to me of rocks and shoals?-me, who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell, "Twixt the offing here and Grève, where the river disembogues? Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? Morn and eve, night and day, Have I piloted your bay, Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. Burn the fleet, and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me, there's a 55 Only let me lead the line, 60 Have the biggest ship to steer, Get this Formidable clear, Make the others follow mine, And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well, Right to Solidor past Grève, . And there lay them safe and sound; And if one ship misbehave, Keel so much as grate the ground, Why, I've nothing but my life, here's my head!" cries Hervé Riel. 65 Not a minute more to wait. "Steer us in, then, small and great! Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!” cried its chief. Captains, give the sailor place! He is Admiral, in brief. 70 Still the north-wind, by God's grace! See the noble fellow's face As the big ship, with a bound, |