by
Robert Browning

Introduction

The third number of Bells and Pomegranates, published in 1842, contained a collection of short poems under the general head of Dramatic Lyrics. When Browning made his first collective edition, he redistributed all his groups of poems, retaining this title and making it cover some of the poems included in the original group, but many more first published under other headings. The arrangement here given is that adopted finally by Browning. “Such Poems,” he says, “as the majority in this volume (Dramatic Lyrics) might also come properly enough, I suppose, under the head of Dramatic Pieces; being, though often Lyric in expression, always Dramatic in principle, and so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine. Part of the Poems were inscribed to my dear friend, John Kenyon; I hope the whole may obtain the honor of an association with his memory.”

The third of the Cavalier Tunes was originally entitled My Wife Gertrude. The three songs have been set to music by Dr. Villiers Stanford.

Cavalier Tunes

I. Marching Along

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:
And, pressing a troop unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,
Marched them along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

God for King Charles! Pym and such carles
To the Devil that prompts ’em their treasonous parles!
Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup,
Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup
Till you’re —
Chorus. — Marching along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

Hampden to hell, and his obsequies’ knell.
Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well!
England, good cheer! Rupert is near!
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here,
Cho. — Marching along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song?

Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls
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 I 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;
Many’s the friend there, will listen and pray
“God’s luck to gallants that strike up the lay —
Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!’’

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads’ array:
Who laughs, “Good fellows ere this, by my fay,
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!”

The Lost Leader

Browning was beset with questions by people asking if he referred to Wordsworth in this poem. He answered the question more than once, as an artist would: the following letter to Rev. A. B. Grosart, the editor of Wordsworth’s Prose Works, sufficiently states his position.

“19 Warwick-Crescent, W., Feb. 24, ’75.

“Dear Mr. Grosart, — I have been asked the question you now address me with, and as duly answered it, I can’t remember how many times; there is no sort of objection to one more assurance or rather confession, on my part, that I did in my hasty youth presume to use the great and venerated personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter’s model; one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account; had I intended more, above all, such a boldness as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about ‘handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon.’ These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet, whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face-about of his special party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to deplore. But just as in the tapestry on my wall I can recognize figures which have struck out a fancy, on occasion, that though truly enough thus derived, yet would be preposterous as a copy, so, though I dare not deny the original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have it considered as the ‘very effigies’ of such a moral and intellectual superiority.

“Faithfully yours,
“ROBERT BROWNING.”

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat —
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us, — they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
— He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!
We shall march prospering, — not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devils’-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life’s night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we master his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

“How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”

Browning wrote to an American inquirer about this poem: “There is no sort of historical foundation for the poem about ‘Good News from Ghent.’ I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel, off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse ‘York,’ then in my stable at home. It was written in pencil on the fly-leaf of Bartoli’s Simboli, I remember.”

[16 — ]

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
“Good speed!” cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
“Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

’T was moonset at starting; but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffeld, ’t was morning as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
So Joris broke silence with, “Yet there is time!”

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye’s black intelligence, — ever that glance
O’er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, “Stay spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault’s not in her,
We’ll remember at Aix” — for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,
’Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,
And “Gallop,” gasped Joris, “for Aix is in sight!”

“How they’ll greet us!” — and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets’ rim.

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

And all I remember is — friends flocking round
As I sat with his head ’twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)
Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr

As I ride, as I ride,
With a full heart for my guide,
So its tide rocks my side,
As I ride, as I ride,
That, as I were double-eyed,
He, in whom our Tribes confide,
Is descried, ways untried,
As I ride, as I ride.

As I ride, as I ride
To our Chief and his Allied,
Who dares chide my heart’s pride
As I ride, as I ride?
Or are witnesses denied —
Through the desert waste and wide
Do I glide unespied
As I ride, as I ride?

As I ride, as I ride,
When an inner voice has cried,
The sands slide, nor abide
(As I ride, as I ride)
O’er each visioned homicide
That came vaunting (has he lied?)
To reside — where he died,
As I ride, as I ride.

As I ride, as I ride,
Ne’er has spur my swift horse plied,
Yet his hide, streaked and pied,
As I ride, as I ride,
Shows where sweat has sprung and dried,
— Zebra-footed, ostrich-thighed —
How has vied stride with stride
As I ride, as I ride!

As I ride, as I ride,
Could I loose what Fate has tied,
Ere I pried, she should hide
(As I ride, as I ride)
All that’s meant me — satisfied
When the Prophet and the Bride
Stop veins I’d have subside
As I ride, as I ride!

Nationality in Drinks

The first two of this group, under the titles Claret and Tokay, were published in Hood’s Magazine, June, 1844, at the request of Richard Monckton Milnes, who was editing the magazine during Hood’s illness. The third, first entitled Beer, was called out by the description of Nelson’s coat at Greenwich, given by the captain of the vessel in which Browning was sailing to Italy.

I

My heart sank with our Claret-flask,
Just now, beneath the heavy sedges
That serve this pond’s black face for mask;
And still at yonder broken edges
O’ the hole, where up the bubbles glisten,
After my heart I look and listen.

Our laughing little flask, compelled
Through depth to depth more bleak and shady;
As when, both arms beside her held,
Feet straightened out, some gay French lady
Is caught up from life’s light and motion,
And dropped into death’s silent ocean!

II