work of Andrea del Sarto and his contemporaries). 55. gum-tragacanth: got from certain shrubs in the Near East, and em (451.) 307. cullion: low fellow; see line ployed to give firmness to pills, lozenges, 31 ff. and the like. 328. Who turn the Deacon etc.: According to the legend Saint Laurence was so brave that, when being broiled to death on a gridiron, he bade his tormentors turn him over as he was "done on one side." (452.) 344. I shall paint a piece: The picture described in the remainder of the poem is "The Coronation of the Virgin," painted by Lippo for St. Ambrose Church. It is reproduced in W. H. Griffin's Life of R. B. 347. a cast o' my office: a stroke of my kind of art. 354. Saint John etc.: John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence; for his "camel-hair" (line 375) see Matthew, III, 4. In the painting, he stands close to, and in striking contrast with, the stout Lippo. 377. Iste perfecit opus: This man executed the work (i.e., the picture).. These words appear on a scroll running between the speaker and Lippo, in the lower right-hand corner of the painting. 380. kirtles: women's gowns. 381. hot cockles: a game in which a person, kneeling with his face hidden in another's lap, is struck by one of the players, and must guess the striker's name. 392. fear me: fear for me. AN EPISTLE OF KARSHISH For the story of Lazarus, see John, XI, I-44. (453.) 17. Snake-stone: a variable porous substance, supposed to cure snake-bites. 28. l'espasian: The Emperor Nero's general, who began his march against Palestine in 66 A.D. — Jerusalem was captured in the year 70. 42. viscid choler: sticky bile. 43. tertians: intermittent fevers. 47. Take five and drop them: i.e., into some liquid the name of which Karshish withholds. Spider's flesh, as a component of various mixtures, was regarded as a cure for a number of diseases. 57. porphyry: a hard rock, used in this case for a mortar. (454.) 89. conceit: fancy, idea. 91. vantage: favorable opportunity. 94. Supply "which" before The just-returned etc. 96. or or: either. . .or. 103. figment: figment (i.e., fiction) of the imagination. This refers to the "first conceit" (line 89) and the "firm conviction" (line 97). 107. the after-life: his life on earth after being restored by Christ. 109. fifty years of age: If taken literally (see note to line 28, above) this would make Lazarus a mere youth at the time of the miracle (about 33 A.D.), though according to tradition he was then thirty years old. (455.) 126. in fixed middle-life: in the fixed habits of middle age. 174. Thou: used indefinitely, like "thee" in line 167. — the child: see line 162. 179. It is perforcedly: ie., earthly life, which the miracle forced him to resume. It now seems to him like a slight thread running across the vast "orb" of eternity (line 180). (456.) 229-231. flowers of the field loving what they make: This is similar to Christ's view of the "lilies of the field" (Matthew, VI, 28-30). throughout Europe. "His inventive genius did much for music . . . but he had not the wise judgment which was necessary to perfect success. He suggested rather than accomplished great results. . . . As a composer.. it was his aim to enrich the old church music with the wealth of harmony at the command of modern music" (G. W. Cooke, Guide-Book to the Works of R. B.).— Browning, himself a charming extemporizer on the piano, had evidently brooded on the fact that most of Vogler's music had to die with him, finding here a striking instance of the “broken arcs" of art and life in general, and a musical opportunity for his own ideal doctrine (stanzas IX-XI). (458.) 7. the ineffable name: In Oriental legend, Solomon could summon the demons and powers of nature by means of a seal on which was engraved the unspeakable name of God. Peter's. 19. rampired: ramparted. 23. Rome's dome: the dome of St. 34. Presences plain in the place: spirits of the present in contrast with the dimmer spirits of the future (lines 34-36) and of the past (lines 37-38). 34. Protoplast: the original model or type of created things and beings. Cf. Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound," Act First, lines 195-206 (page 185). (459.) 45. still: in this case also (as in painting). 51. this: this sphere (music). 52. That out of three sounds etc.: The reader may decide just what contrast with the words and colors of the other two arts is here conveyed. RABBI BEN EZRA Abenezra, or Ibn Ezra, was a distinguished Jewish thinker and writer of the earlier twelfth century, who travelled much and worked hard. He "evidently had no gift for prospering in worldly matters; he was too much the student. He found it difficult to provide for his family and to establish a home. He was often discouraged and poured out his grief in poetry; but he was also full of trust in God, strong in love of his people, witty, lively, and alert in mind" (Cooke's Browning Guide-Book). He was a strong upholder of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Browning, who was widely read in Rabbinical lore, makes here some use of Abenezra's philosophy. But for the most part the poet is giving his own view of life at the approach of old age. He repeats ideas from preceding poems; but emphasizes, now, the wholeness of the individual life as seen in retrospect and in faith. The poem may fruitfully be compared, in respect to tone and outlook, with Tennyson's "Ancient Sage" (page 397). The main phases of the theme may be suggested as follows (numbers refer to lines): (1) Youth and idealism. (43) Flesh and spirit. (73) Age and evaluation. (115) Self and world. (151) Self and time. (461.) 57. I, who · perfect too: A favorite thought with Browning; see "Paracelsus" (page 403), "Saul" (page 419), etc. 62-66. Our soul, in its rose-mesh etc.: Living in the body, we have a natural yearning for the complacency of the earth and its creatures (cf. lines 18, 24): we desire to have, like them, an earthly gain proportioned to our efforts. 67-72. Let us not always etc.: This exhortation qualifies the thought of lines 25-30, 43-48. 76. Thence shall I pass: i.e. from life's struggle" (line 75) into old age. With this stanza, compare Tennyson's "By an Evolutionist" (page 401). 81. my adventure brave and new: the life beyond death. travel. In "The Tempest," Caliban twice mentions his "dam's god, Setebos" (I, 2, 372; V, 1, 261); and his idea of divinity comes out in his attitude toward Stephano, the drunken, autocratic butler. These hints excited Browning's imagination, and here he gives Caliban a modern opportunity to set forth the whole of what the subtitle calls his "natural theology in the island." Many details from that magic island reappear in the poem; but all have changed color in passing from Shakespeare's drama into Browning's dramatic monologue. This is centered, not only in one person, but in one idea, as indicated by the motto (from Psalms, L, 21). The aspect of human nature here given is just the opposite of that emphasized in passage in "Paracelsus" (V, 618619): a "So glorious is our nature, so august Man's inborn uninstructed impulses." (463.) 1. 'Will: he will.- Caliban's speaking of himself in the third person is a feature of his primitiveness. 5. small eft-things: tiny lizard-like creatures. 7. A pompion-plant: a wild vine of the pumpkin family. 17-19. Because to talk etc.: Caliban at once longs, and fears, to vex Setebos with his gibing. 20. Prosper and Miranda: These are the only human beings (excepting his "dam") that Caliban has so far known. See the last note on this poem, below. (464.) 50. pie: magpie. 78. for, there, see: Caliban begins here to mould a lump of clay. Here, and often, his imagination is like that of children at play. 79. hoopoe: a bird (pronunciation: hoopoo or hoopoh). 83. grigs: grasshoppers or crickets. (465.) 111. But rougher than his handiwork: Cf. lines 59-65. 138. 'Esteemeth stars etc.: Cf. line 27 and context. (466.) 148. hips: the hard, round fruit of the wild brier. 156 oncelot: a little ounce (see the next note). 158. A four-legged serpent: Caliban's metaphor for the ounce of the pre Section VII (470.) 7. the doctrine: i.e., the doctrine which the observer may learn from "This autumn morning" (lines 1-6). 10. clear gain etc.: i.e., a smooth and complete earthly joy (in contrast to the gain of line 12). Cf. "Rabbi Ben Ezra," lines 31-36 (page 460). EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS Written for the painting "Orpheus and Eurydice" by Frederick Leighton. Browning puts into words the expression on Eurydice's face, as she is being led up from Hades by her husband. The condition imposed upon him was that if he turned to look at her (as he finally did) she would be caught back again among the dead, and be lost to him for good. O LYRIC LOVE Concerned, like the four poems that follow, with the poet's dead wife. In this superb apostrophe, while she retains her intensely personal meaning for her lover, he seems almost to identify her with the very spirit of human-divine love, a spirit often treated in his previous works (e.g. "Saul," section XVIII, page 425), but here more devotionally conceived than usual. Compare sections CXXIX-CXXXI of "In Memoriam" (page 359).—The theme of the higher love is wrought into the moving story of Pompilia, Part Seventh of "The Ring and the Book." Compare "Crossing the Bar" (page 403), which belongs to the same year and holds a similar position in its author's lifework. In regard to his third stanza, Browning remarked, while reading proof: "It almost looks like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to cancel it; but it's the simple truth; and as it's true, it shall 1393. braved the sun: faced daily stand." - Not long before his death, he 1391. half angel and half bird: partly a missioned being from above, partly a spirit of poetry rising from earth. life. - said to a friend: "Death, death! It is this harping on death I despise so much, this idle and often cowardly as well as ignorant harping. Why should we not change like everything else? In fiction, in poetry, French as well as English, and, I am told, in American art and literature, the shadow of death call it what you will, despair, negation, indifference is upon us. But what fools who talk thus! Why, amico mio, you know as well as I that death is life, just as our daily, our momentarily, dying body is none the less (line 3). 16. No: answers the question of the first stanza, - to which the last stanza is designed, throughout, as a vivid con trast. 17. the unseen: the dead poet. 19. Speed!: God-speed! With the last two lines compare "Rabbi Ben Ezra," lines 81-84 (page 461). prison in London from the sofa of an invalid and the tyranny of an abnormal father to a happy life in contact with humanity in Florence, Italy; and as poetess she advanced, under the awakening influence of her husband, from the tamely imitative to the vitally genuine. This awakening of her powers began in ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWN- With health broken by an accident in her girlhood, Elizabeth Barrett lived a life as uneventful, she says, as that of a bird in a cage, until her marriage to Robert Browning when she was forty years old. She educated herself. "The Greeks were my demigods. . . . The love of Pope's Homer threw me into Pope on the one side, and into Greek on the other, and into Latin as a help to Greek." She worked persistently at her Greek, learned to read the Bible in Hebrew, and in time acquired a fluent reading knowledge of several modern European languages. English poetry she knew widely and intimately, including that of Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, and Tennyson. At the age of seventeen or eighteen she wrote a Popean "Essay on Mind," and then or soon after translated the "Prometheus Bound" of Aeschylus, which she published in 1835 along with some not very promising poems of her own. Other volumes of poems, romantic in character, followed at intervals; and then she met Robert Browning. With her marriage in 1846, she entered upon a new life, in a double sense: she escaped from her SONNETS FROM THE PORTU- The whole series of forty-four poems can be followed more appreciatively after reading the Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., which were written at the same time and give the detail of the story (see the fourth paragraph of the biography of Browning, page 740, above). The distinctive and womanly feeling in these sonnets comes out against the background of the love |