-Ah, do not mind that-better that will look When cast in bronze-an Almaign Kaiser that, Or you had recognized that here you sit As I imagined you, Hippolyta Naked upon her bright Numidian horse! -Forgot you this then? "carve in bold relief,”- you command me--"carve against I come A Greek, bay filleted and thunder free, Rising beneath the lifted myrtle-branch, Whose turn arrives to praise Harmodius."-Praise him! Only consenting at the branches' end They strain towards, serves for frame to a sole face- Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine But you must say a "well" to that-say "well" Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, Curved beewise o'er its bough, as rosy limbs Depending nestled in the leaves-and just From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk Some clear primordial creature dug from deep In the Earth's heart where itself breeds itself Down to the diamond;-is not metal there -Not flesh-as flake off flake I scale, approach, Lay bare these bluish veins of blood asleep? Lurks flame in no strange windings where surprised Flushes and glowings radiate and hover About its track ?— The girl, thus addressed, feels the wings budding within her, that shall upbear her from the birth-place of pollution in whose mud her young feet have been imprisoned. Still, her first words reveal to the proud, passionate, confiding genius the horrible deception that has been practised on him. After his first anguish, one of Pippa's songs steals in to awaken consoling thoughts. He feels that only because his heart was capable of noble trust could it be so deceived; feels too that the beauty which had enchanted him could not be a mere mask, but yet might be vivified by a soul worthy of it, and finds the way to soar above his own pride and the opinions of an often purblind world. Another song, with which Pippa passes, contains, in its first stanza, this grand picture : A king lived long ago, In the morning of the world, When Earth was nigher Heaven than now: And the King's locks curled Disparting o'er a forehead full As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn Only calm as a babe new-born; For he has got to a sleepy mood, Age with its bane so sure gone by, (The gods so loved him while he dreamed) That, having lived thus long there seemed No need the King should ever die. Luigi—No need that sort of King should ever die. Among the rocks his city was; Before his palace, in the sun, He sat to see his people pass, And judge them every one, From its threshold of smooth stone. This picture is as good as the Greeks. Next came a set of Dramatic Lyrics, all more or less good, from which we select ITALY. That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, That piece a wonder, now; Frà Pandolf's hands Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not Or blush, at least. She thanked men-good; but thanked My gift of a nine hundred years' old name With any body's gift. Who'd stoop to blame In speech-(which I have not)-could make your will "Just this "Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, We'll meet The company below then. I repeat, At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me. CRISTINA. To this volume succeeded "King Victor and King Charles," “The Return of the Druses," "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon," and "Colombe's Birthday." Her She Her The first we do not so much admire, but the other three have all the same originality of conception, delicate penetration into the mysteries of human feeling, atmospheric individuality, and skill in picturesque detail. All four exhibit very high and pure ideas of Woman, and a knowledge very rare in man of the ways in which what is peculiar in her office and nature works. loftiest elevation does not, in his eyes, lift her out of nature. becomes not a mere saint, but the goddess-queen of nature. purity is not cold like marble, but the healthy, gentle energy of the flower, instinctively rejecting what is not fit for it, with no need of disdain to dig a gulf between it and the lower forms of creation. Her office to man is that of the Muse, inspiring him to all good thoughts and deeds. The passions that sometimes agitate these maidens of his verse, are the surprises of noble hearts, unprepared for evil, and even their mistakes cannot cost bitter tears to their attendant angels. The girl in the "Return of the Druses" is the sort of nature Byron tried to paint in Myrrha. But Byron could only paint women as they were to him. Browning can show what they are in themselves. In "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon" we see a lily, storm-struck, half broken, but still a lily. In "Colombe's Birthday" a queenly rosebud, which expands into the full glowing rose before our eyes. This is marvelous in this drama, how the characters are unfolded before us by the crisis, which not only exhibits, but calls |