“Sentence our guilty selves; so, hang us out of hand!”
Ned sank upon his knees in the old court-house, while his wife Tab wheezed a hoarse “Do hang us, please!” The Lord Chief Justice wondered what judge ever had such a case before him since the world began, and having thought the matter over, said—
“Hanging you both deserve, hanged both shall be this day!”
And so they were.
Never the Time and the Place. (Jocoseria, 1883.) It is impossible to doubt that in this exquisite poem is enshrined the memory of Mrs. Browning. Joy and beauty are all around, time and place are all that heart could wish, but the loved one is absent, and nothing can fill her place. Yet beyond the reach of storms and stranger they will meet! The eternal value of human love is again asserted in this poem.
Norbert. (In a Balcony.) The young man with whom the Queen has fallen in love, but whose heart is given to Constance.
“Not with my Soul Love.” The tenth lyric in Ferishtah’s Fancies begins with these words.
Now. (Asolando, 1889.) The value of “the quintessential moment,” a theme on which Mr. Browning frequently dilates, is emphasized in this poem—
“The moment eternal—just that and nothing more,”
when the assurance comes that love has been definitely won despite of time future and time past.