puzzle comes in. We wonder whether it all
turns on the punctuation. And the awkward thing for Mr. Browning's
reputation is this, that these bewildering poems are for the most part
very short. We say awkward, for it is not more certain that Sarah Gamp
liked her beer drawn mild than it is that your Englishman likes his
poetry cut short; and so, accordingly, it often happens that some
estimable paterfamilias takes up an odd volume of Browning his volatile
son or moonstruck daughter has left lying about, pishes and pshaws! and
then, with an air of much condescension and amazing candor, remarks that
he will give the fellow another chance, and not condemn him unread. So
saying, he opens the book, and carefully selects the very shortest poem
he can find; and in a moment, without sign or signal, note or warning,
the unhappy man is floundering up to his neck in lines like these, which
are the third and final stanza of a poem called 'Another Way of Love':--

"And after, for pastime,
If June be refulgent
With flowers in completeness,
All petals, no prickles,
Delicious as trickles
Of wine poured at mass-time,
And choose One indulgent
To redness and sweetness;
Or if with experience of man and of spider,
She use my June lightning, the strong insect-ridder
To stop the fresh spinning,--why June will consider."

He comes up gasping, and more than ever persuaded that Browning's poetry
is a mass of inconglomerate nonsense, which nobody understands--least of
all members of the Browning Society.

We need be at no pains to find a meaning for everything Mr. Browning has
written. But when all is said and done--when these few freaks of a
crowded brain are thrown overboard to the sharks of verbal criticism
who feed on such things--Mr. Browning and his great poetical achievement
remain behind to be dealt with and accounted for. We do not get rid of
the Laureate by quoting:--

"O darling room, my heart's delight,
Dear room, the apple of my sight,
With thy two couches soft and white
There is no room so exquisite--
No little room so warm and bright
Wherein to read, wherein to write;"

or of Wordsworth by quoting:--

"At this, my boy hung down his head:
He blushed with shame, nor made reply,
And five times to the child I said,
"'Why, Edward? tell me why?'"

or of Keats by remembering th