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To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent
carles!

Hold by the right, you double your might;
So, onward to Nottingham,† fresh for the fight,
CHO.-March we along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this
song!

II. GIVE A ROUSE

King Charles, and who 'll do him right now?
King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse; here's, in hell's despite now,
King Charles!

Who gave me the goods that went since?
Who raised me the house that sank once?

Who helped me to gold spent since?
Who found me in wine you drank once?
CHO.-King Charles, and who 'll do him right
now?

King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight
now?

Give a rouse: here 's, in hell's despite
now,
King Charles!

To whom used my boy George quaff else,
By the old fool's side that begot him?
For whom did he cheer and laugh else,
While Noll's damned troopers shot him?
CHO.-King Charles, and who'll do him right
now?

King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight
now?

Give a rouse: here 's, in hell's despite
now,
King Charles!

III. BOOT AND SADDLE

Boot, saddle, to horse and away!
Rescue my castle before the hot day
Brightens to blue from its silvery gray.
CHO.-Boot, saddle, to horse and away!
Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say;

Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his Many's the friend there, will listen and pray snarls

1 impressing, enlisting

2 parleys, debates

3 may it serve

"God's luck to gallants that strike up the layCHO.-Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"'

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' ar-
ray:

These songs are meant to portray the spirit of
the adherents of Charles I., and their hatred
of the Puritans, or Roundheads. The Byngs
of Kent are famous in the annals of British
warfare. Pym, a leader of the Long Parlia-
ment, Hazelrig (or Hesilrige), Fiennes (Lord
Say), and Sir Henry Vane the Younger, were
all important figures in the rebellion against
Charles. Prince Rupert was a nephew of The standard of Charles was raised there in
Charles, and a celebrated cavalry leader.

Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay,

4 Oliver's (i. e.. Cromwell's)

1642, marking the beginning of the Civil War.

600

CHO.-Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!''

Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and
gay,

Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay!
I've better counsellors; what counsel they?
CHO.-Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!''

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: 5 A mile or so away,

On a little mound, Napoleon

Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.

Just as perhaps he mused "My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,

Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,'-

Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew

Until he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect

By just his horse's mane, a boy:

You hardly could suspect(So tight he kept his lips compressed, Scarce any blood came through)

You looked twice ere you saw his breast Was all but shot in two.

"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace

We 've got you Ratisbon!

The Marshal 's in the market-place,

And you'll be there anon

To see your flag-bird flap his vans

Where I, to heart's desire,

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Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 20 16 For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart-how shall I say?-too soon made glad.
Too easily impressed: she liked whate 'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace-all and each

24 Would draw from her alike the approving

speech,

30

Or blush, at least. She thanked men,-good! but thanked

Somehow I know not how-as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who 'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

Perched him!'' The chief's eye flashed; his In speech-(which I have not)—to make your

plans

Soared up again like fire.

The chief's eye flashed; but presently

will

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Softened itself, as sheathes

A film the mother-eagle's eye

When her bruised eaglet breathes;

"You're wounded!" “Nay,’

the soldier's

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A Duke of Ferrara stands before a portrait of his deceased Duchess, talking coolly with the envoy of a Count whose daughter he seeks to marry. The poem is a study in the heartThe less jealousy of supreme selfishness. nature of the commands (line 45) which such a man might give, living at the time of the Italian Renaissance, may be left to the imagi nation. as Browning leaves it. The artists mentioned (lines 3. 56) are imaginary. On the monologue form, see Eng. Lit., p. 301.

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In this my singing.

And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage,
Leave them my ashes when thy use
Sucks out my soul, thy heritage!

He sings

Past we glide, and past, and past!
What's that poor Agnese doing
Where they make the shutters fast?
Gray Zanobi's just a-wooing
To his couch the purchased bride:
Past we glide!

Past we glide, and past, and past!
Why's the Pucci Palace flaring

Like a beacon to the blast?

Guests by hurdreds, not one caring

For the stars help me, and the sea bears part; If the dear host's neck were wried:

The very night is clinging

Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space

Above me, whence thy face

Past we glide!

She sings

May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling The moth's kiss, first!

place.

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30

40

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And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue,
To a feast of our tribe;

Where they need thee to bribe

Written for a picture, "The Serenade," by Daniel Maclise. The characters are imaginary. So also are the pictures mentioned in lines 183202, though the painters are well known. The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe Haste-thee-Luke was a nickname for the Neapolitan, Luca Giordano. Castelfranco is Thy Giorgione. Tizian we know best as Titian,

.. Scatter the vision forever! now,

and his "Ser" (Sir) would be the portrait of As of old, I am I, thou art thou! an Italian gentleman.

And

70

Say again, what we are?

The sprite of a star,

I lure thee above where the destinies bar

My plumes their full play

Till a ruddier ray

She replies, musing

Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow-deep,
As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep,
Caught this way? Death 's to fear from flame
or steel,

Than my pale one announce there is withering Or poison doubtless; but from water-feel!

away

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Oh, which were best, to roam or rest?
The land's lap or the water's breast?
To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,
Or swim in lucid shallows just
Eluding water-lily leaves,

An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust
To lock you, whom release he must;
Which life were best on Summer eves?

He speaks, musing

80

Go find the bottom!

There!

Would you stay me?

120

Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass
To plait in where the foolish jewel was,

I flung away: since you have praised my hair,

"T is proper to be choice in what I wear.

He speaks

Row home? must we row home? Too surely
Know I where its front 's demurely
Over the Giudecca2 piled;
Window just with window mating,
Door on door exactly waiting,
All 's the set face of a child:
But behind it, where 's a trace
Of the staidness and reserve,

Lie back; could thought of mine improve you? And formal lines without a curve,
From this shoulder let there spring

A wing; from this, another wing;

Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you! 90
Snow-white must they spring, to blend
With your flesh, but I intend
They shall deepen to the end,
Broader, into burning gold,

Till both wings crescent-wise enfold
Your perfect self, from 'neath your feet
To o'er your head, where, lo, they meet
As if a million sword-blades hurled
Defiance from you to the world!

Rescue me thou, the only real!
And scare away this mad ideal
That came, nor motions to depart!
Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!

Still he muses

What if the Three should catch at last
Thy serenader? While there 's cast
Paul's cloak about my head, and fast
Gian pinions me, Himself has past
His stylet through my back; I reel;
And
is it thou I feel?

They trail me, these three godless knaves,
Past every church that saints and saves,
Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves
By Lido's wet accursed graves,
They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,
And
on thy breast I sink!

1 A long sandy bar lying off Venice. Jewish cemetery there.

100

In the same child's playing-face?
No two windows look one way
O'er the small sea-water thread
Below them. Ah, the autumn day
I, passing, saw you overhead!
First, out a cloud of curtain blew,
Then a sweet cry, and last came you—
To catch your lory3 that must needs
Escape just then, of all times then,
To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds,
And make me happiest of men.

I scarce could breathe to see you reach
So far back o'er the balcony
To catch him ere he climbed too high
Above you in the Smyrna peach,

That quick the round smooth cord of gold,
This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,
Fell down you like a gorgeous snake
The Roman girls were wont, of old,
When Rome there was, for coolness' sake
To let lie curling o'er their bosoms.
Dear lory, may his beak retain
Ever its delicate rose stain

As if the wounded lotus-blossoms
Had marked their thief to know again!

110 Stay longer yet, for others' sake

There is a

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These objects, and, while day lasts, weave
Around them such a magic tether
That dumb they look: your harp, believe,
With all the sensitive tight strings
Which dare not speak, now to itself
Breathes slumberously, as if some elf
Went in and out the chords, his wings
Make murmur wheresoe 'er they graze,
As an angel may, between the maze
Of midnight palace-pillars, on
And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone
Through guilty glorious Babylon.

And while such murmurs flow, the nymph
Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell
As the dry limpet for the lymph
Come with a tune he knows so well.

And how your statues' hearts must swell!
And how your pictures must descend
To see each other, friend with friend!
Oh, could you take them by surprise,
You'd find Schidone's eager Duke
Doing the quaintest courtesies

To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke!
And, deeper into her rock den,
Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen
You'd find retreated from the ken
Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser-
As if the Tizian thinks of her,
And is not, rather, gravely bent
On seeing for himself what toys
Are these, his progeny invent,
What litter now the board employs
Whereon he signed a document

That got him murdered! Each enjoys
Its night so well, you cannot break
The sport up, so, indeed must make
More stay with me, for others' sake.

She speaks

To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,
Is used to tie the jasmine back
That overfloods my room with sweets,
Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets
My Zanze! If the ribbon's black,
The Three are watching: keep away!

Your gondola-let Zorzi wreathe
A mesh of water-weeds about
Its prow, as if he unaware

Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair!
That I may throw a paper out

As you and he go underneath.

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And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,
Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art!
[He is surprised, and stabbed.]

It was ordained to be so, sweet!-and best
Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast.
Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair

180 My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn To death, because they never lived: but I 230 Have lived indeed, and so— -(yet one more kiss)

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210

There's Zanze's vigilant taper; safe are we. Only one minute more to-night with me?

4 Supply "which" before "his".

And ate the cheeses out of the vats,

10

And licked the soup from the cooks' own

ladles,

Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

III

At last the people in a body

20

To the Town Hall came flocking: This poem was written by Browning to amuse the little son of the actor, William Macready, and furnish him a subject for drawings. The legend is an old one. John Fiske is disposed to identify it with various myths: "Goethe's Erlking is none other than the Piper of Hamelin. And the piper, in turn, is the classic Hermes or Orpheus. His wonderful pipe is the horn of Oberon, the lyre of Apollo (who, like the piper, was a rat-killer), the harp stolen by Jack when he climbed the bean-stalk to the ogre's castle."

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