Chapter III

"In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;
And one, half-hidden by his side
Under the furled sail, soon I spied, 240
With great grass hat and kerchief black,
Who looked up with his kingly throat,
Said somewhat, while the other shook
His hair back from his eyes to look
Their longest at us; then the boat,
I know not how, turned sharply round,
Laying her whole side on the sea
As a leaping fish does; from the lee
Into the weather, cut somehow
Her sparkling path beneath our bow 250
And so went off, as with a bound,
Into the rosy and golden half
O' the sky, to overtake the sun
And reach the shore, like the sea-calf
Its singing cave; yet I caught one
Glance ere away the boat quite passed,
And neither time nor toil could mar
Those features: so I saw the last
Of Waring!"--You? Oh, never star
Was lost here but it rose afar! 260
Look East, where whole new thousands are!
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?

NOTES:
"Waring." In recounting the sudden disappearance from
among his friends of a man proud and sensitive, who with
fine powers of intellect yet incurred somewhat of disdain
because of his failure to accomplish anything permanent,
expression is given to the deep regret experienced by his
friends now that he has left them, his absence having
brought them to a truer realization of his worth. If only
Waring would come back, the speaker, at least, would
give him the sympathy and encouragement he craved
instead of playing with his sensibilities as he had done.
Conjectures are indulged in as to Waring's whereabouts.
The speaker prefers to think of him as back in London
preparing to astonish the world with some great masterpiece
in art, music, or literature. Another speaker surprises all
by telling how he had seen the "last of Waring" in a
momentary meeting at Trieste, but the first speaker is
certain that the star of Waring is destined to rise again
above their horizon.

1. Waring: Alfred Domett (born at Camberwell
Grove, Surrey, May 20, 1811), a friend of Browning's,
distinguished as a poet and as a Colonial statesman and
ruler. His first volume of poems was published in 1832.
Some verses of his in Blackwood's, 1837, attracted much
attention to him as a rising young poet. In 1841 he
was called to the bar, and in 1841 went out to New
Zealand among the earliest settlers. There he lived for
thirty years, filling several important official positions.
His unceremonious departure for New Zealand with no
leave-takings was the occasion of Browning's poem, which
is said by Mrs. Orr to give a lifelike sketch of Domett's
character. His "star" did, however, rise again for his
English friends, for he returned to London in 1871. The
year following saw the publication of his "Ranolf and
Amohia," a New Zealand poem, in the course of which
he characterizes Browning as "Subtlest Asserter of the
Soul in Song." He met Browning again in London, and
was one of the vice-presidents of the London Browning
Society. Died Nov.12, 1877.

15. I left his arm that night myself: George W. Cooke
points out that in his Living Authors of England
Thomas Powell describes this incident, the "young author"
mentioned being himself: "We have a vivid
recollection of the last time we saw him. It was at
an evening party, a few days before he sailed from
England; his intimate friend, Mr. Browning, was also
present. It happened that the latter was introduced that
evening for the first time to a young author who had just
then appeared in the literary world. This, consequently,
prevented the two friends from conversation, and they
parted from each other without the slightest idea on Mr.
Browning's part that he was seeing his old friend Domett
for the last time. Some days after, when he found that
Domett had sailed, he expressed in strong terms to the
writer of this sketch the self-reproach he felt at having
preferred the conversation of a stranger to that of his
old associate."

54. Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous: a slight transposition
of part of a line in Virgil describing Polyphemus,
"Monstrum horrendum informe ingens," a monster horrid,
misshapen, huge.

55. Demoniaco-seraphic: these two lines form a compound
of adjectives humorously used by Browning to express
the inferiority of the writers he praised to Waring.

99. Ichabod: "Ichabod, the glory is departed." I Samuel
IV. 21.

112. syenite: Egyptian granite

122. Lamb-white maiden: Iphigenia, who was borne
away to Taurus by Diana, when her father, Agamemnon,
was about to sacrifice her to obtain favorable winds for
his expedition to Troy.

152. Caldara Polidore: Surnamed da Caravaggio. He was
born in Milan in 1492, went to Rome and was employed by
Raphael to paint the friezes in the Vatican. He was murdered
by a servant in Messina, 1543.

155. Purcell: an eminent English musician, composer
of church music, operas, songs, and instrumental music.
(1658-1695).--Rosy Bowers: One of Purcell's most
celebrated songs. "'From Rosie Bowers' is said to
have been set in his last sickness, at which time he seems
to have realized the poetical fable of the Swan and to have
sung more sweetly as he approached nearer his dissolution,
for it seems to us as if no one of his productions was
so elevated, so pleasing, so expressive, and throughout so
perfect as this" (Rees's Cyclopaedia, 1819).

190. Garrick: David, an English actor, celebrated
especially for his Shakespearian parts (1716-1779).

193. Junius: the assumed name of a political writer
who in 1769 began to issue in London a series of famous
letters which opposed the ministry in power, and denounced
several eminent persons with severe invective and pungent
sarcasm.

195. Some Chatterton shall have the luck of calling
Rowley into life: the chief claim to celebrity of Thomas
Chatterton (1752-1770) is the real or pretended discovery
of poems said to have been written in the fifteenth century
by Thomas Rowley, a priest of Bristol, and found
in Radcliffe church, of which Chatterton's ancestors had
been sextons for many years. They are now generally
considered Chatterton's own.

THE TWINS

"Give" and "It-shall-be-given-unto-you"

I

Grand rough old Martin Luther
Bloomed fables-flowers on furze,
The better the uncouther:
Do roses stick like burrs?

II

A beggar asked an alms
One day at an abbey-door,
Said Luther; but, seized with qualms,
The abbot replied, "We're poor!"

III

"Poor, who had plenty once,
When gifts fell thick as rain: 10
But they give us nought, for the nonce,
And now should we give again?"

IV

Then the beggar, "See your sins!
Of old, unless I err,
Ye had brothers for inmates, twins,
Date and Dabitur.

V

"While Date was in good case
Dabitur flourished too:
For Dabitur's lenten face
No wonder if Date rue. 20

VI

"Would ye retrieve the one?
Try and make plump the other!
When Date's penance is done,
Dabitur helps his brother.

VII

"Only, beware relapse!"
The Abbot hung his head.
This beggar might be perhaps
An angel, Luther said.

NOTES:
"The Twins" versifies a story told by Martin Luther in
his "Table Talk," in which the saying, "Give and it
shall be given unto you," is quaintly personified by the
Latin words equivalent in meaning: Date, "Give," and
Dabitur, "It-shall-be-given-unto-you."

I. Martin Luther: (1483-1546), the leader of the Reformation.

A LIGHT WOMAN

I

So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?

II

My friend was already too good to lose,
And seemed in the way of improvement yet,
When she crossed his path with her hunting noose
And over him drew her net.

III

When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him 10
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim!

IV

And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagle's the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!

V

So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
My hand sought hers as in earnest need,
And round she turned for my noble sake,
And gave me herself indeed. 20

VI

The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,
The wren is he, with his maiden face.
You look away and your lip is curled?
Patience, a moment's space!

VII

For see, my friend goes shaking and white;
He eyes me as the basilisk:
I have turned, it appears, his day to night,
Eclipsing his sun's disk.

VIII

And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:
"Though I love her--that, he comprehends-- 30
One should master one's passions (love, in chief)
And be loyal to one's friends!"

IX

And she,--she lies in my hand as tame
As a pear late basking over a wall;
Just a touch to try and off it came;
'Tis mine,--can I let it fall?

X

With no mind to eat it, that's the worst!
Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?
'Twas quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst
When I gave its stalk a twist. 40

XI

And I,--what I seem to my friend, you see:
What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:
What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?
No hero, I confess.

XII

'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,
And matter enough to save one's own:
Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals
He played with for bits of stone!

XIII

One likes to show the truth for the truth;
That the woman was light is very true: 50
But suppose she says,--Never mind that youth!
What wrong have I done to you?