: A Day with Browning by Browning Robert Contributor Flint W Russell William Russell Illustrator Haslehust E W Illustrator Neatby William James Illustrator - Browning Robert 1812-1889

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"The Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati was a place of historical association and fifteenth-century traditions.... At three o'clock regularly, a friend's gondola, which was always at hand to convey him, came and carried him, usually, to the Lido,--his favourite spot."

A DAY WITH BROWNING.

From his bed-room window in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati, every morning in 1885, Robert Browning watched the sunrise. "My window commands a perfect view," he wrote, "the still, grey lagoon, the few seagulls flying, the islet of San Giorgio in deep shadow, and the clouds in a long purple rack, from behind which a sort of spirit of rose burns up, till presently all the rims are on fire with gold.... So my day begins."

The Palazzo, in which a suite of rooms had been placed by Mrs. Bronson at the disposal of the poet and his sister, was a place of historical association and fifteenth-century traditions. And no more appropriate abiding-place than Venice could have been selected for a man of Browning's temperament. The Venetian colouring was a perpetual feast to his eye: its mediaeval glories were a source of continual inspiration. And if much of his heart still remained with his native land, so that the London daily papers were a necessity of existence, and a certain sense of exile occasionally obtruded itself, we must needs be grateful to that fact for its result in certain immortal lines:

Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England--now!

And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent-spray's edge-- That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower, --Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive; I call That piece a wonder, now: Fr? Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fr? Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps Fr? Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps Over my Lady's wrist too much," or "Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat;" such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 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, 'twas 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 Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 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.

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive; I call That piece a wonder, now: Fr? Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fr? Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there.

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that, to-day; One day more bursts them open fully, --You know the red turns grey.

I wish that when you died last May, Charles, there had died along with you Three parts of spring's delightful things; Ay, and for me, the fourth part too.

A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps! There must be many a pair of friends Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm Moon-births, and the long evening-ends.

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