Chapter 5 - Page 2

world".

The poem is one which readily lends itself to an allegorical
interpretation. For such an interpretation, the reader is referred to
Mrs. Owen's paper, read before the Browning Society of London,
and contained in the Society's Papers, Part IV., pp. 49* et seq.
It is too long to be given here.

The Last Ride Together.

"The speaker is a man who has to give up the woman he loves;
but his love is probably reciprocated, however inadequately,
for his appeal for 'a last ride together' is granted.
The poem reflects his changing moods and thoughts as
'here we are riding, she and I'. 'Fail I alone in words and deeds?
Why, all men strive, and who succeeds?' Careers, even careers
called 'successful', pass in review -- statesmen, poets, sculptors,
musicians -- each fails in his ideal, for ideals are not attainable
in this life of incompletions. But faith gains something for a man.
He has loved this woman. That is something gained. If this life gave all,
what were there to look forward to? 'Now, heaven and she are beyond
this ride.' Again, -- and this is his closing reflection, --

"'What if heaven be, that, fair and strong'", etc.

-- Browning Soc. Papers, V., 144*.

By the Fireside.

Perhaps in no other of Mr. Browning's poems are the spiritual uses of
"the love of wedded souls" more fully set forth than in the poem,
'By the Fireside'.

The Monologue is addressed by a happy husband to his "perfect wife,
my Leonor". He looks forward to what he will do when the long,
dark autumn evenings come -- the evenings of declining age,
when the pleasant hue of his soul shall have dimmed, and the music
of all its spring and summer voices shall be dumb in life's November.
In his "waking dreams" he will "live o'er again" the happy life
he has spent with his loved and loving companion. Passing out
where the backward vista ends, he will survey, with her,
the pleasant wood through which they have journeyed together.
To the hazel-trees of England, where their childhood passed,
succeeds a rarer sort, till, by green degrees, they at last
slope to Italy, and youth, -- Italy, the woman-country,
loved by earth's male-lands. She being the trusted guide,
they stand at last in the heart of things, the heaped and dim woods
all around them, the single and slim thread of water slipping
from slab to slab, the ruined chapel perched half-way up
in the Alpine gorge, reached by the one-arched bridge
where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond, where all day long
a bird sings, and a stray sheep drinks at times. Here,
where at afternoon, or almost eve, the silence grows conscious
to that degree, one half feels it must get rid of what it