He that in his Catholic wholeness used to call the very flowers Sisters, brothers—and the beasts-whose pains are hardly less than ours!

Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! who can tell how all will end?

Read the wide world's annals, you, and take their wisdom for your friend.

Hope the best, but hold the Present fatal daughter of the Past,

105

Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hour will last.

Edward III (1312-1377), a contemporary of Timur. "Here" Europe, as distinguished from Asia.

Chaucer, Wyclif, Langland, etc.

Probably the cruelties committed in the Peasant Revolt in France, as Tennyson refers to this later (p. 606, l. 157, and n.), or possibly those practised by the Black Prince in the French War. Horrible deeds are recorded by Froissart in his account of the Jaquerie, e. g. Chron., Chap. CLXXXII and CLXXXIV.

7 i. e. the French populace. Demos is the Greek word for the masses, the common people. The reference is to the French Revolution and the "Gospel," then preached, of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.'

8 An allusion to recent disturbances in Ireland.

Pluck the mighty from their seat, but set no meek ones in their place;" Pillory Wisdom in your markets, pelt your offal at her face.

Tumble Nature heel o'er head, and, yelling with the yelling street,

135

Set the feet above the brain and swear the brain is in the feet.

Bring the old dark ages back without the faith, without the hope,

Break the State, the Church, the Throne, and roll their ruins down the slope.

Authors essayist, atheist, novelist, realist, rhymester, play your part,

Paint the mortal shame of nature with the living hues of art. 140

Rip your brothers' vices open, strip your own foul passions bare; Down with Reticence, down with Reverenceforward-naked-let them stare.

Feed the budding rose of boyhood with the drainage of your sewer;

Send the drain into the fountain, lest the stream should issue pure.

Here we met, our latest meeting-Amy-si years ago

She and I-the moon was falling greenish thre a rosy glow,

Just above the gateway tower, and even wher you see her now

Here we stood and claspt each other, swore the seeming-deathless vow.—

Dead, but how her living glory lights the ha the dune, the grass!

Yet the moonlight is the sunlight, and the s himself will pass.

Venus near her! smiling downward at this earthlier earth of ours,

Closer on the sun, perhaps a world of never fading flowers.

Then a peal that shakes the portal-one is come to claim his bride,

Her that shrank, and put me from her, shri, and started from my side

Silent echoes! You, my Leonard, use and abuse your day,

Move among your people, know them, fu him who led the way,

Strove for sixty widow'd years to help he homelier brother men,

Served the poor, and built the cottage, nei the school, and drain'd the fen.

Hears he now the voice that wrong'd him' shall swear it cannot be? Earth would never touch her worst, were? in fifty such as he

Ere she gain her heavenly-best, a God mingle with the game,

Nay, there may be those about us whom neither see nor name,

Felt within us as ourselves, the Powers of Go the Powers of Ill,

Strowing balm or shedding poison in the fa tains of the will.

Follow you the star that lights a desert p way, yours or mine,

Forward, till you see the Highest Human ture is divine.

Follow Light, and do the Right-for mat at half-control his doom

Till you find the deathless Angel seated in vacant tomb.

Forward, let the stormy moment fly and minge with the past.

I that loathed have come to love him. Lev will conquer at the last.

Gone at eighty, mine own age, and I and yo will bear the pall;

Then I leave thee lord and master,

of Locksley Hall.

THE THROSTLE

latest i

(Included in Demeter and Other Poems, 1 "Summer is coming, summer is coming. I know it, I know it, I know it. Light again, leaf again, life again, love ag Yes, my wild little Poet.

Sing the new year in under the blue.

Last year you sang it as gladly. "New, new, new, new!" Is it then so new That you should carol so madly?

"Love again, song again, nest again, y again,"

Never a prophet so crazy!
And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,
See, there is hardly a daisy.

J

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now; Frà Pandolf's2 hand Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

The Duke in this poem, like Browning's Bishop who ordered "his tomb at St. Praxed's Church." is a characteristic product of the Italy of the Renaissance. He exemplifies Browning's favorite doctrine that we are not saved by taste, and that a fine appreciation of art and letters is by no means incompatible with a small, ignoble, and worldly nature.

2 An imaginary artist, as is Claus of Innsbruck.