X.
And all I remember is, friends flocking round
As I sat with his head ’twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)
Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.
The indefiniteness of the date at the head of this poem will be best explained by the following extract from a letter of Mr. Browning’s, published in 1881 in the Boston Literary World:—
“There is no sort of historical foundation about ‘Good News From Ghent.’ I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse ‘York,’ then in my stable at home.”
This poem, therefore, widely known and appreciated as one of the most stirring in the language, may be regarded as a living picture to illustrate the pages—no page in particular—of Motley.