The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning Cambridge Edition

The Cambridge Edition of the Poets

    EDITED BY
    HORACE E. SCUDDER

    BROWNING

    BY

    THE EDITOR

[Illustration]




    THE COMPLETE

    POETIC AND DRAMATIC WORKS OF

    ROBERT BROWNING

    Cambridge Edition

    [Illustration: _Asolo: Browning's Italian Home_]

    BOSTON AND NEW YORK
    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
    The Riverside Press, Cambridge




    Copyright, 1895,
    BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

    _All rights reserved._

    _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
    Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.




PUBLISHERS' NOTE


The Riverside Edition of the _Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert
Browning_ was published first in 1887. It included all the writings
which the American publishers had from time to time brought out by
arrangement with Mr. Browning or his representatives. A year later
the English publishers issued a new and revised edition, whereupon
the Riverside Edition was carefully compared with the author's latest
revision and made to agree with it. There had grown up, moreover,
about the writings a considerable body of comment and interpretation,
and to facilitate the study and enjoyment of the poems, the American
publishers engaged Mr. George Willis Cooke to prepare a _Guide-Book_
which served as a very desirable accompaniment to the Riverside Edition
of the works. They added also to the series, by arrangement with the
English publishers, the authorized Life of the poet by Mrs. Sutherland
Orr.

The ten volumes thus brought together furnish a complete Browning
collection, but it has long been apparent that students and lovers of
Browning would find it very convenient to have the complete works of
their author in a single portable volume, and the plan of the Cambridge
Edition so successfully applied to the poems of Longfellow and Whittier
was adopted for this purpose. By a careful study of condensation with
every regard for legibility it has been found possible to bring the
entire body of Browning's work into a single volume, and to equip the
edition with the requisite apparatus. The order of arrangement is
chronological, with one or two obvious divergences. As in the other
volumes of the Cambridge Edition, a biographical sketch introduces
the work, brief head-notes chiefly pertaining to the origin of the
respective poems have been supplied, drawn largely from Mr. Cooke's
admirable volume, and a small body of pertinent notes of an explanatory
character added, though the reader will readily see that the exigencies
of the volume have compelled the editor to be very frugal in this
respect. The appendix also contains the one notable piece of Browning's
prose, a chronological list of his writings, and indexes of titles and
first lines.

BOSTON, 4 PARK STREET, _August 1, 1895_.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


                                                               PAGE
    BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH                                         ix

    PAULINE: A FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION                          1

    SONNET: "EYES, CALM BESIDE THEE, (LADY, COULDST THOU
      KNOW!)"                                                   11

    PARACELSUS.
        I. PARACELSUS ASPIRES                                   12
       II. PARACELSUS ATTAINS                                   19
      III. PARACELSUS                                           25
       IV. PARACELSUS ASPIRES                                   34
        V. PARACELSUS ATTAINS                                   40

    STRAFFORD: A TRAGEDY                                        49

    SORDELLO                                                    74

    PIPPA PASSES: A DRAMA                                      128

    KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES: A TRAGEDY                    145

    DRAMATIC LYRICS.
        CAVALIER TUNES.
            I. MARCHING ALONG                                  163
           II. GIVE A ROUSE                                    163
          III. BOOT AND SADDLE                                 163
        THE LOST LEADER                                        164
        "HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX"     164
        THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR                     165
        NATIONALITY IN DRINKS                                  166
        GARDEN FANCIES.
            I. THE FLOWER'S NAME                               166
           II. SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS                      167
        SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER                      167
        THE LABORATORY                                         168
        THE CONFESSIONAL                                       169
        CRISTINA                                               169
        THE LOST MISTRESS                                      170
        EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES                                  170
        MEETING AT NIGHT