It may be said that the advice given in this poem, Browning has not
sufficiently followed in his own poetry. On this point, a writer in
the ‘British Quarterly Review’ (Vol. 23, p. 162) justly remarks:
“Browning’s thought is always that of a poet. Subtle, nimble,
and powerful as is the intellect, and various as is the learning,
all is manifested through the imagination, and comes forth
shaped and tinted by it. Thus, even in the foregoing passages
{cited from ‘Transcendentalism’ and ‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’},
where the matter is almost as purely as it can be the produce of
the mere understanding, it is still evident that the method of
the thought is poetic. The notions take the form of images.
For example, the poet means to say that Prose is a good
and mighty vehicle in its way, but that it is not Poetry;
and how does the conception shape itself in his mind? Why,
in an image. All at once it is not Prose that is thought about,
but a huge six-foot speaking-trumpet braced round with bark,
through which the Swiss hunters help their voices from Alp to Alp--
Poetry, on the other hand, being no such big and blaring instrument,
but a harp taken to the breast of youth and swept by ecstatic fingers.
And so with the images of Boehme and his book, and John of Halberstadt
with his magic rose--still a concrete body to enshrine
an abstract meaning.”
Apparent Failure.
“We shall soon lose a celebrated building.”--Paris Newspaper.
1.
No, for I’ll save it! Seven years since,
I passed through Paris, stopped a day
To see the baptism of your Prince;
Saw, made my bow, and went my way:
Walking the heat and headache off,
I took the Seine-side, you surmise,
Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,
Cavour’s appeal and Buol’s replies,
So sauntered till--what met my eyes?
--
St. 1. To see the baptism of your Prince: the Prince Imperial,
son of Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie,
born March 16, 1856.
the Congress: the Congress of Paris.
Gortschakoff: Prince Alexander Michaelowitsch Gortschakoff;
while representing Russia at the Court of Vienna, he kept Austria
neutral during the Crimean War.
Cavour: Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, Italian statesman, b. 1810;
at the Congress of Paris, brought forward the question of
the political consolidation of Italy, which led to the invasion of Italy
by the Austrians, who were defeated; d. 6th June, 1861.
Buol: Karl Ferdinand von Buol-Schauenstein, Austrian diplomatist,
and minister of foreign affairs from 1852 to 1859.
2.
Only the Doric little Morgue!
The dead-house where you show your drowned:
Petrarch’s Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,
Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.
One pays one’s debt in such a case;
I plucked up heart and entered,--stalked,
Keeping a tolerable face
Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:
Let them! No Briton’s to be balked!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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