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Impudent staring women! It had done me,
However, surely no such mighty hurt
To learn his name who passed that jest
upon me:

No foreigner, that I can recollect,
Came, as she says, a month since, to in-
spect

Our silk-mills-none with blue eyes and thick rings

520

Of raw-silk-colored hair, at all events. Well, if old Luca keep his good intents, We shall do better, see what next year brings!

I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear
More destitute than you perhaps next year!
Bluph... something! I had caught the
uncouth name

But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter
Above us-bound to spoil such idle chatter
As ours: it were indeed a serious matter
If silly talk like ours should put to shame
The pious man, the man devoid of blame,
The . . . ah but—ah but, all the same,
No mere mortal has a right

To carry that exalted air;
Best people are not angels quite:
While

532

not the worst of people's doings

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Day for folly, night for schooling!
New year's day is over and spent,
Ill or well, I must be content.
Even my lily 's asleep, I vow:
Wake up

you!

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- if you please,

here's a friend I've plucked Do good or evil to them some slight way.

Call this flower a heart's-ease now!
Something rare, let me instruct you,
Is this, with petals triply swollen,
Three times spotted, thrice the pollen;
While the leaves and parts that witness
Old proportions and their fitness,
Here remain unchanged, unmoved now;
Call this pampered thing improved now!
Suppose there's a king of the flowers
And a girl-show held in his bowers -
"Look ye, buds, this growth of ours,"
Says he, "Zanze from the Brenta,
I have made her gorge polenta
Till both cheeks are near as bouncing

560

As her... name there's no pronouncing!
See this heightened color too,

For she swilled Breganze wine

Till her nose turned deep carmine;

'T was but white when wild she grew.

And only by this Zanze's eyes

Of which we could not change the size,
The magnitude of all achieved
Otherwise, may be perceived."

570

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For instance, if I wind

Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind

601

[Sitting on the bedside.

And border Ottima's cloak's hem.
Ah me, and my important part with them,
This morning's hymn half promised when I

rose !

True in some sense or other, I suppose.
[As she lies down.

God bless me! I can pray no more to-
night.

No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right.

All service ranks the same with God
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we; there is no last nor first.

CAVALIER TUNES

[Publ. 1842]

I. MARCHING ALONG

611

[She sleeps.

KENTISH Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:
And, pressing a troop unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest folk
droop,

Marched them along, fifty-score strong,
Great hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

God for King Charles! Pym and such carles

To the Devil that prompts 'em their trea-
sonous parles!

Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup,
Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup
Till you 're-

Сно. Marching along, fifty-score

strong,

Great-hearted gentlemen, sing-
ing this song.

Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell.
Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry

as well!

England, good cheer! Rupert is near!
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here,

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right now?

King Charles, and who's ripe for
fight now?

Give a rouse: here's, in hell's de-
spite now,
King Charles!

To whom used my boy George quaff else,
By the old fool's side that begot him?
For whom did he cheer and laugh else,
While Noll's damned troopers shot him?
CHO.- King Charles, and who 'll do him
right now?

King Charles, and who 's ripe for
fight now?

Give a rouse: here's, in hell's de-
spite now,
King Charles!

III. BOOT AND SADDLE

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
Rescue my castle before the hot day
Brightens to blue from its silvery gray.

CHO. Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say; Many's the friend there, will listen and pray

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Browning was beset with questions by people asking if he referred to Wordsworth in this poem. He answered the question more than once, as an artist would: the following letter to Rev. A. B. Grosart, the editor of Wordsworth's Prose Works, sufficiently states his position.

19 Warwick-Crescent, W., Feb. 24, '75. DEAR MR. GROSART, I have been asked the ques tion you now address me with, and as duly answered it, I can't remember how many times; there is no sort of objection to one more assurance or rather confession, on my part, that I did in my hasty youth presume to use the great and venerated personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model; one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account; had I intended mo, e, above all, such a boldness as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about "handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon." These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet, whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face-about of his special party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to deplore. But just as in the tapestry on my wall I can recognize figures which have struck out a fancy, on occasion, that though truly enough thus derived, yet would be preposterous as a copy, so, though I dare not deny the original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have it considered as the "very effigies" of such a moral and intellectual superiority. Faithfully yours,

ROBERT BROWNING.

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Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,

One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels,

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!

Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,

Forced praise on our part-the glimmer of twilight,

Never glad confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him strike gallantly,

Menace our heart ere we master his

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At Düffeld, 't was morning as plain as could be;

And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,

So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one,

20

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