Stories from Robert Browning

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882. Excerpt: ... THE book referred to is composed, as Browning says, of printed briefs and manuscript letters, to which he applied a process like that of the Roman jewellers, who make an unusually delicate ring by alloying the thread of gold until it will bear file and hammer, and, after these tools have done their work, cleanse away the dross with acids, so as to leave the shape perfect. Thus was created the poem which is dedicated thus: --'O lyric Love, half angel and half bird, And all a wonder and a wild desire, --Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, Took sanctuary within the holier blue, And sang a kindred soul out to his face, --Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart--When the first summons from the darkling earth Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue, And bared them of the glory--to drop down To toil for man, to suffer or to die, --This is the same voice: can thy soul know change? Hail, then, and hearken from the realms of help! Never may I commence my song, my due To God, who best taught song by gift of thee, Except with bent head and beseeching hand--That still, despite the distance and the dark, What was, again may be; some interchange Of grace, some splendour once thy very thought, Some benediction anciently thy smile: --Never conclude, but raising hand and head Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn For all hope, all sustainment, all reward, Their utmost up and on, --so blessing back In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home, Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud, Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall!' The story opens about two hundred years ago in Rome, and among the actors are two married people, named Pietro and Violante Comparini. Their rank was humble, their reputation good, and their residence s