EASTER-DAY. As Christmas-Eve has suggested the subject of the Christian Faith, Easter-Day gives occasion to a discussion concerning the Christian Life—the life of those who are “risen with Christ.” The poem is in substance a conversation or discussion between two persons, one of whom (a thorough Christian) finds it very hard, while the other (who takes a much lower and more common-place view of spiritual things) thinks it quite easy, to be a Christian. It is not, however, in the form of a conversation. As usual in Browning’s work, one speaks, stating his own views and quoting the other’s, which are therefore distinguished from his own (except when he quotes, as he sometimes does, from himself) by quotation marks. The argument is too abstruse to be followed out in all its ramifications; but enough of it can be given to render quite intelligible the extracts from it which we find it possible to give. The opening sentence will give the theme:— I. How very hard it is to be A Christian! Hard for you and me, —Not the mere task of making real That duty up to its ideal, Effecting thus, complete and whole, A purpose of the human soul— For that is always hard to do; But hard, I mean, for me and you To realize it, more or less, With even the moderate success Which commonly repays our strife To carry out the aims of life. After some preliminary discussion about faith in its relation to life, the easy-going friend takes this position:— VI. * * * * * “Renounce the world! “Were that a mighty hardship? Plan “A pleasant life, and straight some man “Beside you, with, if he thought fit, “Abundant means to compass it, “Shall turn deliberate aside “To try and live as, if you tried “You clearly might, yet most despise. “One friend of mine wears out his eyes, “Slighting the stupid joys of sense, “In patient hope that, ten years hence, “‘Somewhat completer,’ he may say, “‘My list of _coleoptera_!’ “While just the other who most laughs “At him, above all epitaphs “Aspires to have his tomb describe “Himself as sole among the tribe “Of snuffbox-fanciers, who possessed “A Grignon with the Regent’s crest. “So that, subduing, as you want, “Whatever stands predominant “Among my earthly appetites “For tastes and smells and sounds and sights, “I shall be doing that alone, “To gain a palm-branch and a throne, “Which fifty people undertake “To do, and gladly, for the sake “Of giving a Semitic guess, “Or playing pawns at blindfold chess.” The stanza which follows gives the speaker’s answer, ending with this striking passage:— “Renounce the world!”—Ah, were it done By merely cutting one by one Your limbs off, with your wise head last, How easy were it!—how soon past, If once in the believing mood!