instinct, secures his climax by a contrast between the greatness of the deed and the slightness of the reward, — a day's holiday. There is an admirable strength in this poem, a most skilful weaving of bluff, straightforward narrative into verse. It is interesting to note that Browning published "Hervé Riel" in "The Cornhill Magazine" in 1871, and gave the proceeds, 100/, to the fund for sufferers from the siege of Paris. 1. La Hogue. A cape on the coast of Normandy, near which the battle occurred. 5. St. Malo. A seaport of importance at the mouth of the Rance. 8. Damfreville. The commander of the fleeing squadron. 43. Tourville. The French admiral (1642-1701). Though defeated by the Anglo-Dutch fleet in this battle, he won from them at St. Vincent a year later. 44. Croisickese. A native of Croisic, a small town in Brittany which was a favourite haunt of Browning's in his later life. 46. Malouins. Inhabitants of St. Malo. 49. Grève. The sands between St. Malo and Mont St. Michel are called La Grève. - Disembogues. Empties. 61. Solidor. A fort at the mouth of the Rance. PHEIDIPPIDES. Page 33 This is one of Browning's best narrative poems, giving as it does, besides the story itself, a splendid background of Athenian life, character, and history. The moment is that in which Athens stood out, almost alone, against the Persian army sent by Darius to conquer Hellas, and under the captaincy of Miltiades won the victory of Marathon, 490 B. C. The story of Pheidippides is a part of Greek legend, and recorded by Herodotus. Browning adds to its dramatic force by the device, which he so often employed, of making the hero tell his own story. He is the messenger sent by Athens, threatened with destruction, to Sparta to plead for instant aid. This is refused. The runner, returning in despair, encounters the god Pan, who, majestical, magnanimous, promises aid in the approaching combat, and renews in the pious messenger strength and confidence. For himself, as he tells us, Pan's promise is "release from the racer's toil," which comes, not as he has interpreted it, as rest and a peaceful old age, but as glorious death in the supreme moment of triumph," joy in his blood bursting his heart." χαίρετε, νικῶμεν. Rejoice, we conquer. 2. Dæmons. Tutelary divinities, supposed by the Greeks to guard and guide individuals and families. 4. Her of the ægis and spear. Minerva. - Aegis. shield. 5. Ye of bow and buskin. Diana, or Artemis, the huntress. Buskin. A shoe laced about the ankle. 8. Pan. A Greek word, meaning all. Pan was god of all nature, and of things natural and out-of-doors, woods, fields, etc. Browning calls him the goat-god, because he was thought by the Greeks to be half human and half goat. The belief was that he turned the tide of battle at Marathon by appearing among the Persians and filling them with terror. Hence pan-ic. 9. Tettix. The grasshopper, which was supposed to have sprung from the ground. The golden grasshopper was worn by the Athenians to signify their right to their territory as descendants of earth-born possessors. Archons. A Greek word for rulers: nine archons constituted the governing body of Athens. 18. Water and earth. The form of demand used by Persia in exacting submission. 19. Eretria. A city on the island of Eubœa, north of Athens. 32. Phoibos. Phoebus Apollo. 38. The moon half orbed. The Spartans were famous for their delays, and consultation of omens, such as states of the weather and of the moon. 47. Filleted victim. Animals for sacrifice were decked with bands or fillets of ribbon. 52. Parnes. Mountains west of Athens. Herodotus says that the meeting occurred on Mount Parthenium. 62. Erebos. Hades. 83. Fennel. In Greek, Marathon, a prophecy of the place where the great battle should be fought. 89. Miltiades. The "Tyrant of the Chersonese' on the Hellespont. He fled before the Persian invasion and took refuge at Athens where he was chosen to command the Greek Army which won the battle of Marathon. 106. Akropolis. The citadel of a Greek town. set himself to put a Theocrite, the poor THE BOY AND THE ANGEL. Page 38 In "The Boy and the Angel" Browning has purely moral theme into the form of legend. artisan, longs to be Pope that he may praise God that great way, and lo! he vanishes from his cell and has his wish. But God misses the humble voice of praise, and the angel Gabriel, sinking to earth, strives to fill Theocrite's place. Still, to God's ear, the voice is not the same. "I miss my little human praise." Then Gabriel seeks Theocrite in the Pope's abode and bids him go back to his humble occupation, and renew that voice of praise which, in his absence, God has lacked. The angel takes his place as Pope, but at Theocrite's death, they come before God side by side, the humblest equal with the highest, since, in his own place, each has fulfilled his mission. The same lesson is the burden of the song in Pippa Passes. "All service ranks the same with God." 51. Dight. Prepared; adorned. CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME. Page 41 "Childe Roland" is of all Browning's poems the one which has provoked most discussion and controversy. Some critics are for making it an elaborate allegory. Some think it merely a long and rather dull tale. Miss Porter and Miss Clarke tell us that "Childe Roland" symbolizes the conquest of despair by "fealty to the Ideal." Mr. G. K. Chesterton, in a characteristic outburst, calls it an entirely new and curious type of poetry, the poetry of the shabby and hungry aspect of the earth. Daring poets who wished to escape from conventional gardens and orchards had long been in the habit of celebrating the poetry of rugged and gloomy landscapes, but Browning is not content with this. He insists upon celebrating the poetry of mean landscapes. That sense of scrubbiness in nature, as of a man unshaved, has never been conveyed with this enthusiasm and primeval gusto before. "If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents "This is a perfect realization of that eerie sentiment which comes upon us, not so often among mountains and waterfalls, as it does on some half-starved common at twilight, or in walking down some mean grey street. It is the song of the beauty of refuse; and Browning was the first to sing it. Oddly enough, it has been one of the poems about which most of those pedantic and trivial questions have been asked, which are asked invariably by those who treat Browning as a science instead of a poet, 'What does the poem of Childe Roland mean?' The only genuine answer to this is what does inything mean? Does the earth mean nothing? Do grey skies and wastes covered with thistles mean nothing? Does an old horse turned out to graze mean nothing? If it does, there is but one further truth to be added, that everything means nothing." This is certainly a vivid and appreciative analysis of the narrative and doubtless strikes the key of it. Browning was evidently caught by the high note of romance and mystery in the line from Lear, and, with a quick imaginative leap into the paradoxical, built upon it a narrative compounded of the sordid, the grotesque, and the fantastic. The story itself is very slight. We are to imagine a wayfarer in search of a distant tower, who has asked the way of an old cripple and been directed into a most "ominous tract." Yet he fares forward grimly, in spite of the physical horror of the landscape and the moral horror of the presentiment that his quest must after all end in failure. What the "dark tower "" is, or wherefore it must be sought, or whether its finding is anything more than the end of a tragedy, we are not told. Only this we know, that Childe Roland finished his quest, and bore himself bravely at the last. Surely, there is moral enough in this to satisfy us. 48. Estray. One who has strayed. 58. Cockle. A weed, like the tare, that grows among corn. Spurge. A plant with an acrid, milky juice. 64. Skills. Matters. 66. Calcine. Reduce to powder by heat. 68. Bents. Coarse grasses. 70. Dock. A name given to many weeds, e. g. the burdock. 72. Pashing. Dashing. 80. Colloped. Probably, marked with blows. (Cf. Fr. coup). 114. Bespate. Spat upon, or perhaps spattered. Notice how the words are chosen to strengthen the impression of sordid horror. 130. Pad. Tread down. 135. Mews. An inclosure. 143. Tophet. A place in the valley of Gehenna, where the idolatrous Jews worshipped with sacrifices of children. The name became synonymous with hell. 150. Rubble. Broken stone. 160. Apollyon. The angel of the bottomless pit. See Rev. ix. 2. 161. Dragon-penned. Furnished with feathers like those in a dragon's wing. 179. Nonce. A word usually found in the phrase "for the nonce," meaning "for the once," "for one time." Here, "at the very moment." 203. Slug-horn. Properly not a horn at all, but a battle shout, from "slogan." II The next group includes poems which are mainly descriptive in quality or purpose, or are inspired by a feeling for place. In them, as in the background of the narratives, is to be noted Browning's exact local colour, his specific use of detail, whether he is looking out upon Italian landscape and life, or remembering his English home, or calling up, by imagination, suggestive touches of remote time and place, as in the song from Paracelsus. HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD. HOME THOUGHTS FROM THE SEA. Pages 50, 51 These poems suggest two contrasting moods of the love of country. 1. Cape St. Vincent. The southwestern point of Portugal. Near this cape the English fleet of fifteen vessels, under Jervis, won a glorious victory over nearly twice as many Spanish ships, February 14, 1797. 2. Cadiz. A town on the southern coast of Spain; the scene of another splendid exploit in 1596, when the English fleet, under Essex and Raleigh, entered the harbour and destroyed the second Spanish armada. 3. Trafalgar. A cape east of Cadiz, off which Nelson won his greatest victory, over the combined French and Spanish fleets, October 21, 1805. The hero, beaten This song is set into Part IV. of Paracelsus. "Not but they had their beauty; who should know If that may be. Stay: thus they pass in song! (He sings.)" |