And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this. . . this lute and song .. loved yesterday
(The singing angels know) are only dear,

Because thy name moves right in what they say.

Ě. B. BROWNING (Sonnets from the Portuguese).

84. THE POETS

THERE, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud the poems
Made to Tuscan flutes, or instruments more various of our own;
Read the pastoral parts of Spenser-or the subtle interflowings
Found in Petrarch's sonnets-here's the book-the leaf is folded
down!

Or at times a modern volume-Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl,
Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's enchanted reverie,—

Or from Browning some 'Pomegranate', which, if cut deep down the middle,

Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.

85.

E. B. BROWNING (Lady Geraldine's Courtship).

HIRAM POWERS'S GREEK SLAVE

THEY Say Ideal beauty cannot enter

The house of anguish. On the threshold stands
An alien Image with enshackled hands,

Called the Greek Slave! as if the artist meant her
(That passionless perfection which he lent her,
Shadowed not darkened where the sill expands)
To, so, confront man's crimes in different lands
With man's ideal sense. Pierce to the centre,
Art's fiery finger !-and break up ere long
The serfdom of this world! appeal, fair stone,

From God's pure heights of beauty against man's wrong!
Catch up in thy divine face, not alone

East griefs but west,-and strike and shame the strong,
By thunders of white silence, overthrown.

86. TO GEORGE SAND

A DESIRE

E. B. BROWNING.

THOU large-brained woman and large-hearted man,
Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions
Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance,
And answers roar for roar, as spirits can!
I would some mild miraculous thunder ran
Above the applauded circus, in appliance

Of thine own nobler nature's strength and science,
Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan,
From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place
With holier light! that thou to woman's claim
And man's, mightst join beside the angel's grace
Of a pure genius sanctified from blame,-
Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace,
To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame.

A RECOGNITION

True genius, but true woman! dost deny
Thy woman's nature with a manly scorn,
And break away the gauds and armlets worn
By weaker women in captivity?

Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry

Is sobbed in by a woman's voice forlorn !—
Thy woman's hair, my sister, all unshorn,
Floats back dishevelled strength in agony,
Disproving thy man's name! and while before
The world thou burnest in a poet-fire,

We see thy woman-heart beat evermore

Through the large flame. Beat purer, heart, and higher,
Till God unsex thee on the heavenly shore,

Where unincarnate spirits purely aspire.

87. THE LADY'S YES

E. B. BROWNING.

'YES,' I answered you last night; | Yet the sin is on us both;

'No,' this morning, sir, I say.
Colours seen by candle-light
Will not look the same by day.

When the viols played their best,
Lamps above, and laughs below,
Love me sounded like a jest,

Fit for yes or fit for no.

Call me false or call me free

Vow, whatever light may shine, No man on your face shall see Any grief, for change on mine.

Time to dance is not to woo; Wooing light makes fickle troth,

Scorn of me recoils on you.

Learn to win a lady's faith

Nobly, as the thing is high, Bravely, as for life and deathWith a loyal gravity.

Lead her from the festive boards,

Point her to the starry skies, Guard her, by your truthful words, Pure from courtship's flatteries.

By your truth she shall be true,
Ever true, as wives of yore ;
And her yes, once said to you,
SHALL be Yes for evermore.

E. B. BROWNING.

88. YET LOVE, MERE LOVE
YET, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax. An equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed.
And love is fire; and when I say at need

I love thee. mark! . I love thee! . in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,

With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low
In love, when love the lowest : meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.

E. B. BROWNING (Sonnets from the Portuguese).

89. FLUSH OR FAUNUS

You see this dog. It was but yesterday
I mused forgetful of his presence here

Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear,
When from the pillow, where wet-cheeked I lay,
A head as hairy as Faunus, thrust its way
Right sudden against my face,-two golden-clear
Great eyes astonished mine,— -a drooping ear
Did flap me on either cheek to dry the spray!
I started first, as some Arcadian,
Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove;
But, as the bearded vision closelier ran
My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above
Surprise and sadness,—thanking the true PAN,
Who, by low creatures, leads to heights of love.

90. MY STAR

ALL that I know

Of a certain star,

Is, 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,

E. B. BROWNING.

My star that darles the red and the blue !

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

91. LIFE IN A LOVE

ESCAPE me?

Never

Beloved!

While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loath,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:

It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again,—

So the chace takes up one's life, that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,

No sooner the old hope drops to ground

Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me-

Ever
Removed!

FEAR death ?-to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:

For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more,

The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace, then a joy,
Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

93. GROW OLD ALONG WITH ME

GROW old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

R. BROWNING.

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'

Then, welcome each rebuff

0 That turns earth's smoothness rough,

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!

Be our joys three-parts pain!

Strive, and hold cheap the strain;

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

Not on the vulgar mass

Called 'work', must sentence pass,

Things done, that took the eye and had the price;

O'er which, from level stand,

The low world laid its hand,

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coarse thumb

And finger failed to plumb,

So passed in making up the main account;

All instincts immature,

All purposes unsure,

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped;

All I could never be,

All, men ignored in me,

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

So, take and use Thy work

Amend what flaws may lurk,

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim !
My times be in Thy hand!

Perfect the cup as planned!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

R. BROWNING (Rabbi Ben Ezra).