Home Thoughts from Abroad. (Published in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, in Bells and Pomegranates, VII., 1845.) In praise of all the mighty ravishment of our English spring, and the lovely sister months April and May,—
“May flowers bloom before May comes,
To cheer, a little, April’s sadness.”
And nowhere, surely, are these months so delightful as in England! Melon-flowers do not make up “for the buttercups, the little children’s dower.” In many parts of Southern Europe the trees have all been ruthlessly cut down, lest they should harbour birds. The absence of our hedgerows does much to mar the beauty of a Continental landscape in spring.
Home Thoughts from the Sea. (Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, in Bells and Pomegranates, VII., 1845.) Patriotic reflections on passing the Bay of Trafalgar by one who, remembering how here England helped the Englishmen, asks himself “How can I help England?”
House. (Pacchiarotto, with other Poems: 1876.) If we accept Shakespeare’s Sonnets in their natural sense, as the best authorities say we must, they open up to the public gaze passages in the life of the great poet which those who love an ideal Shakespeare would rather have not known. If, says Mr. Browning in the poem, Shakespeare unlocked his heart with a sonnet-key, the less Shakespeare he! For his own part, he will do nothing of the sort; and, though probably few men led purer and holier lives from youth to manhood than Mr. Browning, he declines to admit the vulgar gaze of the public into the secret chambers of his soul. In earthquakes, indeed, the fronts of houses often fall, and expose the private arrangements of the home to the impertinent observation of the passer-by. In earthquakes this cannot be helped; but a writer may keep his secrets to himself till an imprudent biographer gets hold of them to make “copy” of. As a fact, all that the world is really concerned with in Mr. Browning’s life and opinions can be gathered “by the spirit-sense” from his works. The main idea of the poem is very similar to that of At the Mermaid.
Householder, The. (Fifine at the Fair.) The Epilogue to the poem, telling how Don Juan is at last united to his wife Elvire by death.
How it strikes a Contemporary. (Men and Women: 1855.) The faculty of observation is essential both to the poet and the spy. Lavater said that “he alone is an acute observer who can observe minutely without being observed.” The poet of Valladolid was mistaken by the vulgar mob for an agent of the Government, because they were always catching him taking “such cognisance of men and things.” His picture is sketched in a very few lines; but these are sufficient to show us the very man, in his scrutinising hat, crossing the Plaza Mayor of the dull and deserted city, in which there was—one would think—as little life to interest a poet as to employ a spy. We soon get to feel that the poet-evidences in the man’s behaviour should have been sufficiently strong to save him from the reproaches of his neighbours. The dog at his heels, the note he took of any cruelty towards animals or cursing of a woman, the interest in men’s simple trades, the poring over bookstalls, reveal to us the image of his soul. However, his fellow-citizens in all these things thought they had evidence of a chief inquisitor; and in the land of Spain, which for many centuries cowered under the shadow of the most terrible weapon ever forged against the liberties of man, inquisition and espionage were in the air. Men were better judges of spies than of poets; they were more familiar with them. So it was set down in their minds that all their doings were sent by this recording prowler to the king. All the mysteries of the town were traced to his influence: A’s surprising fate, B’s disappearing, C’s mistress, all were traced to this “man about the streets.” But it was not true, says the contemporary, that if you tracked the inquisitor home you would find him revelling in luxury. On the contrary, his habits were simple and abstemious; at ten he went to bed, after a modest repast and a quiet game of cribbage with his maid. And when the poor, mysterious man came to die in the clean garret, whose sides were lined by an invisible guard who came to relieve him, there was no more need for that old coat which had seen so much service. How suddenly the angels change the fashion of our dress—and how much better they understand us than do our neighbours!
How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. (Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, in Bells and Pomegranates, 1845.) There is no actual basis in history for the incidents of this poem, though there is no doubt that in the war in the Netherlands such an adventure was likely enough. Three men go off on horseback at their hardest, at moonset, from the city of Ghent, to save their town—through Boom, and Düffeld, Mecheln, Aerschot, Hasselt, Looz, Tongres, and Dalhem, to the ancient city of Aix. The hero of the work was the good horse Roland, who was voted the last measure of wine the city had left. Two of the horses dropped dead on the road, and the noble Roland, bearing “the whole weight of the news,” with blind, distended eyes and nostrils, fell just as he reached the market-place of Aix, resting his head between the knees of his master.
Humility. (Asolando, 1889.) A flower-laden girl drops a careless bud without troubling to pick it up. She has “enough for home.” “So give your lover,” says the poet, “heaps of love,” he thinking himself happy in picking up a stray bud, “and not the worst,” which she has gladdened him by letting fall.