by
Robert Browning

Rawdon Brown

“Tutti ga i so gusti, e mi go i mii.”
(Venetian saying.)

Mr. Rawdon Brown was an Englishman who went to Venice on some temporary errand, and lived there for forty years, dying in that city in the summer of 1883. He had an enthusiastic love for Venice, and is mentioned in books of travel as one who knew the city thoroughly. The Venetian saying means that “everybody follows his taste as I follow mine.” Toni was the gondolier and attendant of Brown. The inscription on Brown’s tomb is given in the third and fourth lines. G. W. Cooke.

Sighed Rawdon Brown: “Yes, I’m departing, Toni!
I needs must, just this once before I die,
Revisit England: Anglus Brown am I,
Although my heart’s Venetian. Yes, old crony —
Venice and London — London’s ‘Death the bony’
Compared with Life — that’s Venice! What a sky,
A sea, this morning! One last look! Good-by,
Cà Pesaro! No, lion — I’m a coney
To weep! I’m dazzled; ‘t is that sun I view
Rippling the … the … Cospetto, Toni! Down
With carpet-bag, and off with valise-straps!
Bella Venezia, non ti lascio più!”
Nor did Brown ever leave her: well, perhaps
Browning, next week, may find himself quite Brown!

November 28, 1883.

The Founder of the Feast

Inscribed in an Album presented to Mr. Arthur Chappell, of the Saint James Hall Saturday and Monday popular concerts.

“Enter my palace,” if a prince should say —
“Feast with the Painters! See, in bounteous row,
They range from Titian up to Angelo!”
Could we be silent at the rich survey?
A host so kindly, in as great a way
Invites to banquet, substitutes for show
Sound that’s diviner still, and bids us know
Bach like Beethoven; are we thankless, pray?

Thanks, then, to Arthur Chappell, — thanks to him
Whose every guest henceforth not idly vaunts
“Sense has received the utmost Nature grants,
My cup was filled with rapture to the brim,
When, night by night, — ah, memory, how it haunts! —
Music was poured by perfect ministrants,
By Halle, Schumann, Piatti, Joachim.

April 5, 1884.

The Names

At Dr. F. J. Furnivall’s suggestion, Browning was asked to contribute a sonnet to the Shakesperean Show-Book of the “Shakesperean Show” held in Albert Hall, London, on May 29–31, 1884, to pay off the debt on the Hospital for Women, in Fulham Road. The poet sent to the committee a sonnet on the names of Jehovah and Shakespeare.

Shakespeare! — to such name’s sounding, what succeeds
Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell, —
Act follows word, the speaker knows full well,
Nor tampers with its magic more than needs.
Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads
With his soul only: if from lips it fell,
Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell,
Would own “Thou didst create us!” Naught impedes
We voice the other name, man’s most of might,
Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love
Mutely await their working, leave to sight
All of the issue as — below — above —
Shakespeare’s creation rises: one remove,
Though dread — this finite from that infinite.

March 12, 1884.

Epitaph
on Levi Lincoln Thaxter

Born in Watertown, Massachusetts, February 1, 1824.
Died May 31, 1884.

Mr. Thaxter was early a student of Browning’s genius and in his later years gave readings from his poems, which were singularly interpretative. The boulder over his grave bears these lines.

Thou, whom these eyes saw never! Say friends true
Who say my soul, helped onward by my song,
Though all unwittingly, has helped thee too?
I gave of but the little that I knew:
How were the gift requited, while along
Life’s path I pace, couldst thou make weakness strong!
Help me with knowledge — for Life’s Old — Death’s New!

R. B. to L. L. T., April, 1885.

Why I Am a Liberal

Contributed to a volume edited by Andrew Reid, in which a number of leaders of English thought answered the question, “Why I am a Liberal?”

“Why?” Because all I haply can and do,
All that I am now, all I hope to be, —
Whence comes it save from fortune setting free
Body and soul the purpose to pursue,
God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,
Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,
These shall I bid men — each in his degree
Also God-guided — bear, and gayly, too?

But little do or can the best of us:
That little is achieved through Liberty.
Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus,
His fellow shall continue bound? Not I,
Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss
A brother’s right to freedom. That is “Why.”