Part 12 (1/2)

The autuht a new sadness in the death of Miss Arabella Barrett--a dearly loved sister, the ”Arabel” of so many affectionate letters Once more a winter in Rome proved temporally restorative But at last the day caracious welcome to Hans Christian Andersen on the occasion of his first visit to the Eternal City

Early in June of 1861 the Brownings were once more at Casa Guidi But soon after their return the invalid caught a chill For a few days she hovered like a tired bird--though her friends saw only the seeht in the starry eyes, and did not anticipate the silence that was soon to be

By the evening of the 28th day of the ht her husband sat by her, holding her hand Two hours before dawn she realised that her last breath would ere long fall upon his tear-wet face Then, as a friend has told us, she passed into a state of ecstasy: yet not so rapt therein but that she could whisper ht of the new day, she leaned against her lover Awhile she lay thus in silence, and then, softly sighing ”_It is beautiful!_” passed like the windy fragrance of a flower

CHAPTER IX

It is needless to dwell upon what followed The world has all that need be known To Browning himself it was the abrupt, the too deeply pathetic, yet not wholly unhappy ending of a lovelier poem than any he or another should ever write, the poem of their ht of death when it is known to be the gate of life This conviction Browning had, and so his grief was rather that of one whose joy has westered earlier The sweetest music of his life had withdrawn: but there was still music for one to whom life in itself was a happiness He had his son, and was not void of other solace: but even had it been otherwise he was of the strenuous natures who never succumb, nor wish to die--whatever accident of mortality overcome the will and the power

It was in the autu his wife's death that he wrote the noble poem to which allusion has already been made: ”Prospice” Who does not thrill to its close, when all of glooe, shall becoht, then thy breast, O thou soul of ain, And with God be the rest”

There are few direct allusions to his wife in Browning's poems Of those prior to her death the most beautiful is ”One Word More,” which has been already quoted in part: of the two or three subsequent to that event none surpasses theand the Book”

Thereafter the details of his life are public property He all along lived in the light, partly frolad to be alive and to be able to ladness No poet has beenbe a stirring tradition In the presence of his sienerous qualities one is inclined to pass by as valueless, as thespray of the welcoratifications that befell hienius we are fascinated, while undazzled by the mere accidents pertinent thereto, their recital would be wearisome--of hoas asked to be Lord Rector of this University, or made a doctor of laws at that: of how letters and tributes of all kinds came to him from every district in our Empire, fros are ihout ”a noble ”

In 1866 his father died in Paris, strenuous in life until the very end

After this event Miss Sarianna Browning went to reside with her brother, and from that time onas his inseparable companion, and ever one of the dearest and most helpful of friends In latter years brother and sister were constantly seen together, and so regular attendants were they at such functions as the ”Private Views” at the Royal Academy and Grosvenor Gallery, that these never seemed complete without them A Private View, a first appearance of Joachim or Sarasate, a first concert of Richter or Henschel or Halle, at each of these, almost to a certainty, the poet was sure to appear The chief personal happiness of his later life was in his son Mr R Barrett Browning is so well known as a painter and sculptor that it would be superfluous forfurther here, except to state that his successes were his father's keenest pleasures

Two years after his father's death, that is in 1868, the ”Poetical Works of Robert Browning, MA, Honorary Fellow of Baliol College, Oxford,”

were issued in six voluenius may be drawn On the further side lie the ”Men and Wo and the Book”: midway is the transitional zone itself: on the hither side are the ”Men and Women” of a more te and the Book” was not published till Nove with his sister and son at Le Croisic, a picturesque village at the reat salt plains which stretch down fro on the sand-dunes in the golden Septe upon the there somewhat turbid current of the Loire, the poet brooded on those days when he saw its inland waters with her ith hier save in drea poem, ”Herve Riel,” founded upon the valorous action of a French sailor who frustrated the navalas a reward save permission to have a holiday on land to spend a few hours with his wife, ”la belle Aurore” ”Herve Riel” (which has been translated into French, and is often recited, particularly in the maritime towns, and is always evocative of enthusiastic applause) is one of Browning's finest action-lyrics, and is assured of the saht the Good News from Ghent to Aix,” or the ”Pied Piper” hirowing popularity

Baron Tauchnitz issued two volu some of the best of ”Men and Women,” ”Draer ”Soul's Tragedy,” ”Luria,” ”In a Balcony,” and ”Christmas Eve and Easter Day”--theto one eminent cleric, the heterodox self-sophistication of a free-thinker, according to another: really, the reflex of a great crisis, that of the first ht to a practically liram,” then much discussed, apart from its poetic and intellectual worth, on account of its supposed verisimilitude in portraiture of Cardinal Wise's most characteristic, is so clever that it is scarcely a poe already united in perfect ination In his Essay on Truth, Bacon says that one of the Fathers called poetry _Vinuination Certainly if it be not _vinum daemonum_ it is not Poetry

In this year also appeared the first series of ”Selections” by the poet's latest publishers: ”Dedicated to Alfred Tennyson In Poetry--illustrious and consummate: In Friendshi+p--noble and sincere”

It was in his preface to this selection that he wrote the often-quoted words: ”Nor do I apprehend anywilfully obscure, unconscientiously careless, or perversely harsh” At or about the date of these ”Selections” the poet wrote to a friend, on this very point of obscurity, ”I can have little doubt thathas been in the main too hard for many I should have been pleased to conedly tried to puzzle people, as some of my critics have supposed On the other hand, I never pretended to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar or a gaetover--not a crowd, but a few I value , ever restless for pastures neith his sister to spend the autu the mountains near Geneva; this tierton Smith, an intimate and valued friend But there was an unhappy close to the holiday Miss Sht of the fourteenth of September, from heart complaint ”La Saisiaz” is the direct outcome of this incident, and is one of the 's later poems Its trochaics move with a tide-like sound

At the close, there is a line which ht stand as epitaph for the poet--

”He, at least, believed in Soul, was very sure of God”

In the following year ”La Saisiaz” was published along with ”The Two Poets of Croisic,” which was begun and partly written at the little French village ten years previously There is nothing of the eight-score stanzas of the ”Two Poets” to equal its delightful epilogue, or the exquisite prefatory lyric, beginning

”Such a starved bank of moss Till that May-morn Blue ran the flash across: Violets were born”

Extre--and for”--it is as a poeh detached lines are often far fro poem, where proportion and harmony are of more importance than casual exfoliations of beauty, yet to a certain extent they do serve as ive the fundamental tone One certainly would have to search in vain to find in the Croisic poeh to Bronze the clustered wilding apple, redden ripe the mountain ash”

Or these of Mont Blanc, seen at sunset, towering over icy pinnacles and teeth-like peaks,

”Blanc, suprereen, Horns of silver, fangs of crystal set on edge in his de himself above the dark shoulder of Jura--