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and feelings of the past, so adding harmonious depths to the general effect.

His diction is noticeable in that he uses a large proportion of Saxon words, and, by so doing, gives a lifelike naturalness to his speech, especially in his shorter poems, in which his characters do not talk as if they were confined within metrical limits, but seemingly as if the unstilted ways of daily life were open to them. Yet in all this apparently natural flow of words, there is a harmony of rhythm, a recurring stress of rhyme, and a condensation of thought that produces an effect of consummate art, frequently enhanced by a subtile symbolism underlying the words. How simple in its mere external form is the little poem, 'Appearances.' Two momentary scenes, a few words to each, yet there have been laid bare the worldly, ambitious heart of one person and the true heart of another, disappointed by the shattering of his idol; and under all, symbolically, a universal truth.

The obscurity with which Browning has been taxed so often is largely due to this monologue form. It is apt to be confusing at first, mainly because nothing like it has been met with before. · The mind must be on the alert to catch the power of every word, to see its individual force and its relational force. Nothing, neither a scene nor an event, is described outright. Only in the course of the talk, references to events and scenes are made a part of the very warp and woof of the poem, and woven in with such skilfulness by the poet that the entire scene or event may be reconstructed by those who have eyes to see.

A harmonizing of imagery and of rhythm and even rhyme with the subject in hand is a marked characteristic of Browning's verse.

In the poems Meeting at Night' and 'Parting at Morning,' the wave motion of the sea is indicated in the form, not only by the arrangement of the rhymes to form a climax by bringing a couplet in the middle of the stanza like the crest of the wave, but the thought, also, gathers to a climax midway in the stanzas, and subsides toward their close.

In 'Pheidippides' the measure is a mixture of dactyls and spondees, original with the poet, with a pause at the end of each line, which reflects the firm-set eager purpose of the patriotic Greek runner and the breath-obstructed rhythm of his bounding flight.

In 'James Lee's Wife,' the metre is changed in each lyric to chime in with the changing mood dictating each one; and the imagery is in general chosen to mate every aspect of the thought dominating each mood. For example, in the second section, called 'By the Fireside,' the fire of shipwreck wood is the metaphor made to yield the mood of the brooding wife a mould which takes the cast of every sudden turn and cranny of her ill-foreboding reverie.

In the grotesque, frequently double rhymes, and the rough rhythm of "The Flight of the Duchess,' the bluff, blunt manner of the huntsman who tells the story is conveyed. The subtle change that passes over the spirit of the tale as the rhythm falls tranquilly, with pure rhymes, now, into the dreamy chant of the gypsy, is the more effective for the colloquial swing, stop, and start of the forester's gruff-voiced diction. As in his choice of poems for this volume Browning says he had an imaginary personality in mind to guide him, so it may be said that he has had always in mind imaginary personalities, in various guises and manifold circumstances, to guide him in fashioning his style. The marked traits of his art are keyed to attune with the theme and motive they interpret.

As an artist Browning disclaimed the nice selection and employment of a style in itself beautiful. As an artist, none the less, he chose to create in every given case a style fitly proportioned to the design, fioling in that dramatic relating of style and motive a more vital beauty.

MAY 25, 1896.

CHARLOTTE PORTER.
HELEN A. CLARKE.

1

ROBERT BROWNING'S POEMS.

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LL that I know

MY STAR.

Of a certain star

it can throw

(Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red,

Now a dart of blue;

Till my friends have said

They would fain see, too,

My star that dartles the red and the blue!

Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:

IO

They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.

What matter to me if their star is a world?

Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

A FACE.

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Painted upon a background of pale gold,
Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers!

No shade encroaching on the matchless mould
Of those two lips, which should be opening soft
In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,
For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft
Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's
Burthen of honey-coloured buds, to kiss
And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this.

Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround,
How it should waver, on the pale gold ground,
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!
I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts
Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb
Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb:

IC

But these are only massed there, I should think,
Waiting to see some wonder momently

Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky,
(That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by)
All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye
Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

20

MY LAST DUCHESS.

FERRARA.

THAT is my on

HAT'S my last Duchess painted on the wall,

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design: for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat: " such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
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.
Sir, 't was all one! My favour 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

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

10.

20

30

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
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
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
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,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

40

50

G

SONG FROM "PIPPA PASSES."

I.

IVE her but a least excuse to love me!
When-where-

How can this arm establish her above me,

If fortune fixed her as my lady there, There already, to eternally reprove me?

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("Hist! said Kate the queen;

But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "'T is only a page that carols unseen, Crumbling your hounds their messes!")

II.

Is she wronged? — To the rescue of her honour,
My heart!

Is she poor? What costs it to be styled a donor?
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.

But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!
("Nay, list!" bade Kate the queen;

And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,

66

""T is only a page that carols unseen,

Fitting your hawks their jesses!")

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