He but retained their rule so long as these
Lingered in pupilage, — and last, no mode
Apparent else of keeping safe the road
From Germany direct to Lombardy
For Friedrich, — none, that is, to guarantee
The faith and promptitude of who should next
Obtain Sofia’s dowry, — sore perplexed —
(Sofia being youngest of the tribe
Of daughters, Ecelin was wont to bribe
The envious magnates with — nor, since he sent
Henry of Egna this fair child, had Trent
Once failed the Kaiser’s purposes — ”we lost
“Egna last year, and who takes Egna’s post —
“Opens the Lombard gate if Friedrich knock?”)
Himself espoused the Lady of the Rock
In pure necessity, and, so destroyed
His slender last of chances, quite made void
Old prophecy, and spite of all the schemes
Overt and covert, youth’s deeds, age’s dreams,
Was sucked into Romano. And so hushed
He up this evening’s work that, when ‘t was brushed
Somehow against by a blind chronicle
Which, chronicling whatever woe befell
Ferrara, noted this the obscure woe
Of “Salinguerra’s sole son Giacomo
“Deceased, fatuous and doting, ere his sire,”
The townsfolk rubbed their eyes, could but admire
Which of Sofia’s five was meant.
The chaps
Of earth’s dead hope were tardy to collapse,
Obliterated not the beautiful
Distinctive features at a crash: but dull
And duller these, next year, as Guelfs withdrew
Each to his stronghold. Then (securely too
Ecelin at Campese slept; close by,
Who likes may see him in Solagna lie,
With cushioned head and gloved hand to denote
The cavalier he was) — then his heart smote
Young Ecelin at last; long since adult.
And, save Vicenza’s business, what result
In blood and blaze? (So hard to intercept
Sordello till his plain withdrawal!) Stepped
Then its new lord on Lombardy. I’ the nick
Of time when Ecelin and Alberic
Closed with Taurello, come precisely news
That in Verona half the souls refuse
Allegiance to the Marquis and the Count —
Have cast them from a throne they bid him mount,
Their Podestà, thro’ his ancestral worth.
Ecelin flew there, and the town henceforth
Was wholly his — Taurello sinking back
From temporary station to a track
That suited. News received of this acquist,
Friedrich did come to Lombardy: who missed
Taurello then? Another year: they took
Vicenza, left the Marquis scarce a nook
For refuge, and, when hundreds two or three
Of Guelfs conspired to call themselves “The Free,”
Opposing Alberic, — vile Bassanese, —
(Without Sordello!) — Ecelin at ease
Slaughtered them so observably, that oft
A little Salinguerra looked with soft
Blue eyes up, asked his sire the proper age
To get appointed his proud uncle’s page.
More years passed, and that sire had dwindled down
To a mere showy turbulent soldier, grown
Better through age, his parts still in repute,
Subtle — how else? — but hardly so astute
As his contemporaneous friends professed;
Undoubtedly a brawler: for the rest,
Known by each neighbour, and allowed for, let
Keep his incorrigible ways, nor fret
Men who would miss their boyhood’s bugbear: “trap
“The ostrich, suffer our bald osprey flap
“A battered pinion!” — was the word. In fine,
One flap too much and Venice’s marine
Was meddled with; no overlooking that!
She captured him in his Ferrara, fat
And florid at a banquet, more by fraud
Than force, to speak the truth; there ‘s slender laud
Ascribed you for assisting eighty years
To pull his death on such a man; fate shears
The life-cord prompt enough whose last fine threads
You fritter: so, presiding his board-head,
The old smile, your assurance all went well
With Friedrich (as if he were like to tell!)
In rushed (a plan contrived before) our friends,
Made some pretence at fighting, some amends
For the shame done his eighty years — (apart
The principle, none found it in his heart
To be much angry with Taurello) — gained
Their galleys with the prize, and what remained
But carry him to Venice for a show?
— Set him, as ‘t were, down gently — free to go
His gait, inspect our square, pretend observe
The swallows soaring their eternal curve
‘Twixt Theodore and Mark, if citizens
Gathered importunately, fives and tens,
To point their children the Magnifico,
All but a monarch once in firm-land, go
His gait among them now — ”it took, indeed,
“Fully this Ecelin to supersede
“That man,” remarked the seniors. Singular!
Sordello’s inability to bar
Rivals the stage, that evening, mainly brought
About by his strange disbelief that aught
Was ever to be done, — this thrust the Twain
Under Taurello’s tutelage, — whom, brain
And heart and hand, he forthwith in one rod
Indissolubly bound to baffle God
Who loves the world — and thus allowed the thin
Grey wizened dwarfish devil Ecelin,
And massy-muscled big-boned Alberic
(Mere man, alas!) to put his problem quick
To demonstration — prove wherever’s will
To do, there’s plenty to be done, or ill
Or good. Anointed, then, to rend and rip —
Kings of the gag and flesh-hook, screw and whip,
They plagued the world: a touch of Hildebrand
(So far from obsolete!) made Lombards band
Together, cross their coats as for Christ’s cause,
And saving Milan win the world’s applause.
Ecelin perished: and I think grass grew
Never so pleasant as in Valley Rù
By San Zenon where Alberic in turn
Saw his exasperated captors burn
Seven children and their mother; then, regaled
So far, tied on to a wild horse, was trailed
To death through raunce and bramble-bush. I take
God’s part and testify that ‘mid the brake
Wild o’er his castle on the pleasant knoll,
You hear its one tower left, a belfry, toll —
The earthquake spared it last year, laying flat
The modern church beneath, — no harm in that!
Chirrups the contumacious grasshopper,
Rustles the lizard and the cushats chirre
Above the ravage: there, at deep of day
A week since, heard I the old Canon say
He saw with his own eyes a barrow burst
And Alberic’s huge skeleton unhearsed
Only five years ago. He added, “June ‘s
“The month for carding off our first cocoons
“The silkworms fabricate” — a double news,
Nor he nor I could tell the worthier. Choose!
And Naddo gone, all’s gone; not Eglamor!
Believe,
I knew the face I waited for,
A guest my spirit of the golden courts!
Oh strange to see how, despite ill-reports,
Disuse, some wear of years, that face retained
Its joyous look of love! Suns waxed and waned,
And still my spirit held an upward flight,
Spiral on spiral, gyres of life and light
More and more gorgeous — ever that face there
The last admitted! crossed, too, with some care
As perfect triumph were not sure for all,
But, on a few, enduring damp must fall,
— A transient struggle, haply a painful sense
Of the inferior nature’s clinging — whence
Slight starting tears easily wiped away,
Fine jealousies soon stifled in the play
Of irrepressible admiration — not
Aspiring, all considered, to their lot
Who ever, just as they prepare ascend
Spiral on spiral, wish thee well, impend
Thy frank delight at their exclusive track,
That upturned fervid face and hair put back!
Is there no more to say? He of the rhymes —
Many a tale, of this retreat betimes,
Was born: Sordello die at once for men?
The Chroniclers of Mantua tired their pen
Telling how Sordello Prince Visconti saved
Mantua, and elsewhere notably behaved —
Who thus, by fortune ordering events,
Passed with posterity, to all intents,
For just the god he never could become.
As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb
In praise of him: while what he should have been,
Could be, and was not — the one step too mean
For him to take, — we suffer at this day
Because of: Ecelin had pushed away
Its chance ere Dante could arrive and take
That step Sordello spurned, for the world’s sake:
He did much — but Sordello’s chance was gone.
Thus, had Sordello dared that step alone,
Apollo had been compassed: ‘t was a fit
He wished should go to him, not he to it
— As one content to merely be supposed
Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed
Really at home — one who was chiefly glad
To have achieved the few real deeds he had,
Because that way assured they were not worth
Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth —
A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes
Never itself, itself. Had he embraced
Their cause then, men had plucked Hesperian fruit
And, praising that, just thrown him in to boot
All he was anxious to appear, but scarce
Solicitous to be. A sorry farce
Such life is, after all! Cannot I say
He lived for some one better thing? this way. —
Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill
By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill,
Morning just up, higher and higher runs
A child barefoot and rosy. See! the sun’s
On the square castle’s inner-court’s low wall
Like the chine of some extinct animal
Half turned to earth and flowers; and through the haze
(Save where some slender patches of grey maize
Are to be overleaped) that boy has crossed
The whole hill-side of dew and powder-frost
Matting the balm and mountain camomile.
Up and up goes he, singing all the while
Some unintelligible words to beat
The lark, God’s poet, swooning at his feet,
So worsted is he at “the few fine locks
“Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks
“Sun-blanched the livelong summer,” — all that’s left
Of the Goito lay! And thus bereft,
Sleep and forget, Sordello! In effect
He sleeps, the feverish poet — I suspect
Not utterly companionless; but, friends,
Wake up! The ghost’s gone, and the story ends
I’d fain hope, sweetly; seeing, peri or ghoul,
That spirits are conjectured fair or foul,
Evil or good, judicious authors think,
According as they vanish in a stink
Or in a perfume. Friends, be frank! ye snuff
Civet, I warrant. Really? Like enough!
Merely the savour’s rareness; any nose
May ravage with impunity a rose:
Rifle a musk-pod and ‘t will ache like yours!
I’d tell you that same pungency ensures
An after-gust, but that were overbold.
Who would has heard Sordello’s story told.
BELLS AND POMEGRANATES NO. III: DRAMATIC LYRICS
This famous collection of poems was first published in 1842 as the third volume in a series of self-published books entitled Bells and Pomegranates. The collection contains some of Browning’s most popular works, including The Pied Piper of Hamelin, My Last Duchess, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister and Porphyria’s Lover.
Browning’s source for the well-known tale of the Pied Piper came from Nathaniel Wanley’s Wonders of the Little World (1687). It recounts how in 1284, while the town of Hamelin was suffering a rat infestation, a man dressed in pied clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the mayor a solution for their problem with the rats and the mayor in turn promised to pay him for the removal of the rats. The man accepted, playing his pipe to lure the rats with a song into the Weser River, where all but one drowned. Despite his success, the mayor refused to pay the rat-catcher the full amount of money and the piper left the town angrily, vowing to return for his revenge. On Saint John and Paul’s day, while the inhabitants were in church, the stranger returned playing his pipe, this time attracting the children of Hamelin. One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and never seen again.
My Last Duchess is a dramatic monologue, composed in 28 rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter. The poem is preceded by the word Ferrara, indicating that the speaker is most likely Alfonso II d’Este, the fifth Duke of Ferrara (1533–1598) who, at the age of 25, married Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici, 14-year-old daughter of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Set during the late Italian Renaissance, the poem portrays the Duke of Ferrara giving a tour of the artworks in his home to the emissary of a prospective second wife. The Duke draws a curtain to reveal a painting of a woman, explaining that it is a portrait of his late wife and he invites his guest to study the painting carefully. As they look at the portrait of the late Duchess, the Duke describes her happy, cheerful and flirtatious nature, which ultimately led to her tragic end.
Porphyria’s Lover was first published as Porphyria in the January 1836 issue of Monthly Repository and it is Browning’s first ever dramatic monologue, a genre of poetry he was to excel in during his literary career. It is also the first of his works to concern the theme of abnormal psychology, which he would explore in greater depth in later works. Although its initial publication passed nearly unnoticed and it received little critical attention in the nineteenth century, the poem is now one of the most anthologised poems of English literature.
The poem recounts how a man strangles his lover Porphyria with her own hair, describing the immense feeling of ineffable happiness the murder gives him. Although he winds her hair around her throat three times in order to kill her, the lover never cries out. A possible inspiration of the poem is John Wilson’s Extracts from Gosschen’s Diary, a lurid account of a murder published in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1818.
Robert Browning by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1855
CONTENTS
Cavalier Tunes I. Marching Along.
Cavalier Tunes II. Give a Rouse.
&
nbsp; Cavalier Tunes III. Boot and Saddle.
My Last Duchess
Count Gismond
Incident of the French Camp
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
In a Gondola
Artemis Prologuizes
Waring
Warning II.
Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli
Cristina
Johannes Agricola in Meditation I. — Madhouse Cell
Johannes Agricola in Meditation II. — Madhouse Cell
Porphyria’s Lover
Through the Metidja to Abd-El-Kadr
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
The oldest depiction of the Pied Piper, copied from the glass window of Marktkirche in Goslar
Lucrezia de’ Medici, believed to be the inspiration of ‘My Last Duchess’
Cavalier Tunes I. Marching Along.
I.
KENTISH Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:
And, pressing a troop unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,
Marched them along, fifty score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.
II.
God for King Charles! Pym and such carles
To the Devil that prompts ‘em their treasonous parles!
Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup,
Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup
Till you’re (Chorus) Marching along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.
III.
Hampden to hell, and his obsequies’ knell.
Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well!
England, good cheer! Rupert is near!
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here
(Chorus) Marching along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song?
IV.
Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls
To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles!
Hold by the right, you double your might;
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight,
(Chorus) March we along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!
Cavalier Tunes II. Give a Rouse.
I.
KING CHARLES, and who’ll do him right now?
King Charles, and who’s ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here’s, in hell’s despite now,
King Charles!
II.
Who gave me the goods that went since?
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 22