1256 / ROBERT BROWNING
For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart?how shall I say??too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
25 Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace?all and each
30 Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men?good! but thanked Somehow?I know not how?as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
35 This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech?(which I have not)?to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark'?and if she let
40 Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse ?E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
45 Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence
50 Is ample warrant that no just pretense Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
55 Taming a sea horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck' cast in bronze for me!
1842 1842
The Lost Leader1
Just for a handful of silver he left us,2 Just for a riband' to stick in his coat? Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
3. An unidentified or imaginary sculptor. The of his young admirers such as Browning, whose Count of Tyrol had his capital at Innsbruck. liberalism was then as passionate as Wordsworth's 1. William Wordsworth, who had been an ardent had once been. libera! in his youth, had become a political con-2. Browning here alludes to the 'thirty pieces of servative in later years. In old age, when he silver' for which Judas betrayed lesus (Matthew accepted a grant of money from the government 26.14-16). and the office ol poet laureate, he alienated some 3. Symbol of the office of poet laureate.
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Ho w THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS / 125 7
Lost all the others she lets us devote; 5 They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, So much was theirs who so little allowed: How all our copper had gone for his service! Rags?were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, 10 Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to die! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us?they watch from their graves! 15 He alone breaks from the van4 and the freemen ?He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!
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We shall march prospering?not through his presence; Songs may inspirit us?not from his lyre; Deeds will be done?while he boasts his quiescence, 20 Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! 25 Life's night begins: let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation and pain, Forced praise on our part?the glimmer of twilight, Never glad confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him?strike gallantly, 30 Menace our heart ere we master his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!
1843 1845
How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix1
(16-)
I I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; 'Good speed!' cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; 'Speed!' echoed the wall to us galloping through; s Behind shut the postern,0 the lights sank to rest, side door And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
4. Vanguard of the army of liberalism. ders and Spain, was an imaginary one. In 1889 1. The distance between Ghent, in Flanders, and Thomas Edison prepared a cylinder recording of Aix-la-Chapelle (now Aachen, in Germany) is Browning's recitation of the opening lines of this about one hundred miles. Browning said that the poem. incident, occurring during the wars between Flan
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125 8 / ROBERT BROWNING
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Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
10 Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique0 right, spur or pommel Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.
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'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
is At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; At Diiffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be; And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime, So, Joris broke silence with, 'Yet there is time!'
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