Part 11 (2/2)

Soon after the return to Florence, which, hot as it as preferable in July to Ro wrote to her frequent correspondent Miss Mitford, and h”

had been written She added a significant passage: that her husband had not seen a single line of it up to that tinificant, as one of the several indications that the union of Browning and his as indeed aof the common bane of matrimonial life found existence Moreover, both were artists, and, therefore, too full of respect for the in any way the undue influence of each other into play

By the spring of 1856, however, the first six ”books” were concluded: and these, at once with hu placed in her husband's hands The re three books ritten, in the summer, in John Kenyon's London house

It was her best, her fullest answer to the beautiful dedicatory poem, ”One Word More,” ith her husband, a few months earlier, sent forth his ”Men and Women,” to be for ever associated with ”EBB”

I

”There they are,me the fifty poeether: Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also

XVIII

This I say of me, but think of you, Love!

This to you--yourself my moon of poets!

Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder, Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you!

There, in turn I stand with them and praise you-- Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it

But the best is when I glide froht, Cohts and darks undreamed of, Where I hush and bless myself with silence”

The transference from Florence to London was h” was published, and met with an alent of critics, declared that he was ”half drunk with it,” that it had an iermane to that of Shakspere, and so forth

The poem was dedicated to Kenyon, and on their hos were startled and shocked to hear of his sudden death By the tiain they learned that their good friend had not forgotten the he bequeathed six thousand, to Mrs Browning four thousand guineas This loss was followed early in the ensuing year (1857) by the death of Mr Barrett, steadfast to the last in his refusal of reconciliation with his daughter

Winters and summers passed happily in Italy--with one period of feverish anxiety, when the little boy lay for six weeks dangerously ill, nursed day and night by his father and s, as the companionshi+p for a season of Nathaniel Hawthorne and his fa friends, WW Story, the poet-sculptor, and his wife

So early as 1858 Mrs Hawthorne believed she saw the heralds of death in Mrs Browning's excessive pallor and the hectic flush upon the cheeks, in her extre breath Even the hty, and a great love kept her on earth a season longer She was a seraph in her fla worshi+p of heart” ”She lives so ardently,” adds Mrs Hawthorne, ”that her delicate earthly vesture must soon be burnt up and destroyed by her soul of pure fire”

Yet, notwithstanding, she still sailed the seas of life, like one of those fragile argonauts in their shells of foae of winds and waves But slowly, gradually, the spirit was o'erfretting its teneth ca for rest, for quiescence from that ”excitement from within,” which had been almost over vehement for her in the calnificant that at this tis were resting for the long-sustained flight of ”The Ring and the Book,” and for earlier and shorter though not less royal aerial journeyings But also, no doubt, the prolonged coht or nine years (1855-1864), between the publication of ”Men and Women” and ”Dramatis Personae,” was due in some measure to the poet's incessant and anxious care for his wife, to the deep sorroitnessing her slow but visible passing away, and to the profound grief occasioned by her death However, barrenness of iinative creative activity can be only very relatively affir a period, of years wherein ritten suchBrowning's writings what 'Maud' is aend of pornic;' 'Dis Aliter Visuler,' the e; 'A Death in the Desert,' that singular and ie potency of interest and stranger poetic note, absolutely unique; 'Youth and Art;' 'Apparent Failure;' 'Prospice,' that noble lyrical defiance of death; and the suprehty stanzas, 'Rabbi Ben Ezra,' the ues which Browning has written It seems to me that if these two poems only, ”Prospice” and ”Rabbi Ben Ezra,” were to survive to the day of Macaulay's New Zealander, the contemporaries of that meditative traveller would have sufficient to enable thereat fame of the poet of ”di theh time had preserved but the three lines--

”Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child”

soh the le passionate cry--

”Lesbia illa, Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unainning of July (1858), the Brownings left Florence for the sues travelled to Normandy Here the invalid benefited considerably at first: and here, I end of pornic,' 'Gold-Hair' This poem of twenty-seven five-line stanzas (which differs only from that in more recent ”Collected Works,” and ”Selections,” in its lack of the three stanzas now numbered xxi, xxii, and xxiii) was printed for lih priht Browning several tile poems thus, and for the saht, or when the verses were not likely to be included in any volued period These leaflets or half-sheetlets of 'Gold Hair' and 'Prospice,'

of 'Cleon' and 'The Statue and the Bust'--together with the ”Two Poe,” published, for benefit of a charity, in 1854--are a the rarest ”finds” for the collector, and are literally worth a good deal old

In the tumultuous year of 1859 all Italy was in a fer the Nationalists waspoetess, whose flareat hopes that animated her for her adopted country Well indeed did she deserve, a the lines which the poet Toraved in gold upon a white marble slab, to be placed upon Casa Guidi, the words _fece del suo verso aureo anello fra Italia e Inghilterra_--”who of her Verse land and Italy”

The victories of Solferino and San Martino raceful Treaty of Villafranca the more hard to bear Even had we not Mr Story's evidence, it would be a natural conclusion that this disastrous ending to the high hopes of the Italian patriots accelerated Mrs Browning's death The withdrawal of hope is often worse in its physical effects than any direct bodily ill

It was a miserable summer for both husband and wife, for more private sorrows also pressed upon the upon Siena wafted away the shadow that had settled upon the invalid: nor was there medicine for her in the air of Rome, where the winter was spent A teenial cli's help, to see her Italian patriotic poe that these ”Poe reception from the critics, because they dared to hint that all was not roseate-hued in England The true patriots are those who love despite ble with the virtues

To hint at a flaw is ”not to be an Englishman”