Chapter LXIX

_The Return of the Guards and Other Poems_ (Macmillan & Co., 1866). By permission of the publishers. The poem deals with an incident of the war with China (1860):--‘Some Seiks (Sikhs) and a private of the Buffs (or East Kent Regiment) having remained behind with the grog-carts, fell into the hands of the Chinese. On the next morning they were brought before the authorities, and commanded to perform the _Ko tou_. The Seiks obeyed; but Moyse, the English soldier, declaring that he would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman alive, was immediately knocked upon the head, and his body thrown upon a dunghill.’ Quoted by the author from _The Times_.

LXX-LXXI

_Bells and Pomegranates_ (vii. 1845). The first was written in Italy. The second was written in pencil on the cover of an Italian book during Browning’s first journey to Italy. He sailed in a merchant vessel from London to Trieste, and was the only passenger (1838). A letter from the poet to Miss Haworth gives an account of the voyage. (_Life and Letters_, edited by Mrs. Sutherland Orr, 2nd edition, p. 97.)