Browning's Shorter Poems   By: Robert Browning (1812-1889)

SHORTER POEMS

SELECTED AND EDITED

BY

FRANKLIN T. BAKER, A.M.

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

FOURTH EDITION. REVISED AND ENLARGED

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON; MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1917

COPYRIGHT 1899, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped October, 1899. Reprinted January, 1901; April, 1902; May, 1903; May, 1904; January, 1905; January, June, 1906; January, July, 1907; February, 1908; September, 1909; February, 1910; March, 1911; July, 1912; July, 1913; January, July, 1915; July, 1916; January, September, 1917.

Norwood Press J.S. Cushing Co. Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE

These selections from the poetry of Robert Browning have been made with especial reference to the tastes and capacities of readers of the high school age. Every poem included has been found by experience to be within the grasp of boys and girls. Most of Browning's best poetry is within the ken of any reader of imagination and diligence. To the reader who lacks these, not only Browning, but the great world of literature, remains closed: Browning is not the only poet who requires close study. The difficulties he offers are, in his best poems, not more repellent to the thoughtful reader than the nut that protects and contains the kernel. To a boy or girl of active mind, the difficulty need rarely be more than a pleasant challenge to the exercise of a little patience and ingenuity.

Browning, when at his best in vigor, clearness, and beauty, is peculiarly a poet for young people. His freedom from sentimentality, his liveliness of conception and narration, his high optimism, and his interest in the things that make for the life of the soul, appeal to the imagination and the feelings of youth.

The present edition, attempts but little in the way of criticism. The notes cover such matters as are not readily settled by an appeal to the dictionary, and suggest, in addition, questions that are designed to help in interpretation and appreciation.

TEACHERS' COLLEGE, NEW YORK,

July , 1899.

CONTENTS

LIFE OF BROWNING BROWNING AS POET APPRECIATIONS CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF BROWNING'S WORKS BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Pied Piper of Hamelin Tray Incident of the French Camp "How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" Hervé Riel Pheidippides My Star Evelyn Hope Love among the Ruins Misconceptions Natural Magic Apparitions A Wall Confessions A Woman's Last Word A Pretty Woman Youth and Art A Tale Cavalier Tunes Home Thoughts, from the Sea Summum Bonum A Face Songs from Pippa Passes The Lost Leader Apparent Failure Fears and Scruples Instans Tyrannus The Patriot The Boy and the Angel Memorabilia Why I am a Liberal Prospice Epilogue to "Asolando" "De Gustibus " The Italian in England My Last Duchess The Bishop Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church The Laboratory Home Thoughts, from Abroad Up at a Villa Down in the City A Toccata of Galuppi's Abt Vogler Rabbi Ben Ezra A Grammarian's Funeral Andrea del Sarto Caliban upon Setebos "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" An Epistle Saul One Word More

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

LIFE OF BROWNING

Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, London, May 7, 1812. He was contemporary with Tennyson, Dickens, Thackeray, Lowell, Emerson, Hawthorne, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Dumas, Hugo, Mendelssohn, Wagner, and a score of other men famous in art and science.