EPILOGUE
1889
At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where—by death, fools think, imprisoned—
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
—Pity me?
Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel
—Being—who?
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.
No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
"Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,—fight on, fare ever
There as here!"
INDEX
Abt Vogler. Addison, J., disgust for the Alps. Andrea del Sarto. Another Way of Love. Apparent Failure. Artemis Prologises. Asolando, Prologue and Epilogue. Asolo: Browning's visits to, its place in his work; last summer passed there. Austin, Alfred, compared with F. Thompson.
Bad Dreams.
Bells and Pomegranates, meaning of title.
Bishop Blougram's Apology.
Bishop Orders His Tomb, The.
Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A.
Boy and the Angel, The.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett: engagement;
her sonnets;
described by her son;
her ill health;
invented name "Dramatic Lyric;"
her assistance in R. Browning's poems.
Browning, Robert: parentage and early life;
education;
visit to Russia;
play-writing;
first visit to Italy;
marriage;
travels in Italy and lives at Paris;
domestic life in Florence described by Hawthorne;
death;
personal habits;
peculiarities;
piano-playing;
enthusiasm;
friendship with Tennyson;
normality in appearance;
excellence in character;
his theory of poetry;
his sonnets;
his favorite feature the brow;
fondness for yellow hair;
his "rejected lovers,".
Browning, Robert Barrett: death at Asolo;
my conversation with.
Bryant, W. C., visits Browning.
Byron, Lord, lyrical power.
By the Fireside.
Caliban on Setebos.
Campion, T., his lyrical power compared with Donne's.