Soft look that found me Love's, and left
What else but you—the tears and clamor
That 's all your very own! Undone me—
Ghost-bereft!
HERVÉ RIEL
This ballad was printed first in the Cornhill Magazine for March, 1871. In a letter to Mr. George Smith, one of the publishers of the magazine, Browning stated that he intended to devote the proceeds of the poem to the aid of the people of Paris suffering from the Franco-German war. The publisher generously seconded his resolve and paid one hundred pounds for the poem.
I
On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French,—woe to France!
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,