'13EOWNING'S CIIIIVA4AS-EVE AND EASTE-DA.Y. *

th His human air,

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....,-, [tii,,,at„ia is just before : 2-t-i>"'-""." ;"`-'1'973 Thiadetlie' of IBM, no more— He had left the chapel, then, as I. -1-roilibirol a wItforget all About the sky. • fl i 7:11T0I1Clq o11**R9 I, mgy the sight , ..

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"i''VgiarhIlEfT'tITsrtea0.(1123ite,

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I felt tei;tor, no surprise : ' ' '- -uff9 11430 tt,. My mind.filled with-the,catarect, • ..-.c.mt, ,1 Stu ...:: At otie.hound, of the mighty fact. ..11;iitt,..f, _t , I' .1, rwearbered lie did, say c , , ., . .Coubtless, that, to this world's end, '-''''''''''' ' ' ''Whsle, two or three should meet and pray, 11 '--"-"1 ''''' ' ''• -'' Tfe'wMilil he in the niidsti their : 'Certainly He'was there with them. Is •D-m,b3 'I. And-my pulses leaped/turner

7

)Li ;per' -.,. f ' IN. the goldep thought. -wit.iit alloy, - , -. That I saw His very vesture's hem. -1'" r,b'jiY''; / Then rushed the blood back, cold and clear, 'R. '." 'i' ' With a fresh enhancing shiver of feei; ,i,./1 - And I hastened, 'ivied out while I pressed

-c icier . To the'saivatiomeif the vest.

4317irb filitoi.7 . , Less or more, , 'I suppose that I spoke thus. "-i' cli '',"-rir'°'- When,—have mercy,„Iord, on us ! 5:41-"1031,;(1 l' ',The whole face turned upon me full. -;.c..j..--aill nm-fiAnd, I ;spread -myself heneatb.it, ,iiiirric!if - ' - -As'whee the blitteher spreads, to seethe it ,ii-, ,, ,,,,,.:, In the cleansing sun, his,wool,

,= Steeps in the flood of noontide whiteness

..airar: - : - Some defiled, discoleitred Web,—

So lay I, saturate with' brightness. And when the flood appeared to ebb,

" LeJ;was walking,; light end swift, ,, , _ . IS ithmy senses settling fast and eteadpp

(Kw en,

r i But my body caught igi in the whirl and id1-1":E-' .,''''''' - Of the-Vesture'S Miplitude, Still pdelYing ' --1"-"96 ' . On, just befere-me'jsitill to- be followed; Jot .....oklori' As it'ealtied me after with its motion: _*twit Itict ,1-, ; What shalLI Ear? as a..patb, were hollowed .., 1,-,,,,,..,,„ rfoi,: And a man went weltering through the ocean, , ..,,,4+ + i ' Sucked along in the flying wake 7,-."-_" '0°' ""r • Of the luininous water-snake. di 11(q11 - ' Darbaress and cold-were cloven, as tlu-ough', -dl to ,-T ' • . I passed, upborne.yetwalking too." ' Iiitbitv way thepoet is carried to St. Peter's, and-thence to the lecture-room of a German Rationalist; the action or narrative closing- with hilf-awakening in the Methodist chapel. So faxes we can -form a eonansionifrarn what is too purely Browninglike to be veilintelligibla;f4 Christmas-Eve " points the moral that love, not opadoti,-/ifir 'the ',in 'aim. chaineteristic of Christianity, and that the mercy of !G-64-fialrifukite. " Eastey•Day" has 14as story-than " Christmas-Eve." It opens with ,-ti. dialogue - between the poet and a friend on belief, and sollke:,oVier essentials of Christianity as connected therewith. A story lis then Iola of another vision which takes place on the selfsame earmark; but the - subject on this occasion is the Day of Judgment. It leads to another dialogue between the poet and a Voice, in which unworldly gifts are passed in review, and found to be nought, :till we reach at last (as we understand) the former theory of heavenly love. 'The practical conclusion of the poet himself is expressed in the closing lines.

" When I lived again, The day was breaking ; the grey plain I rose from, silvered thick with dew. Was this a vision ? False or true ?

Since then, three varied years are spent ; And commonly my mind is bent To-think it was a dream—be sure A mere dream and distemperature- The last day's watching : then the night,— The shock of that strange Northern Light Set my head swimming, bred in me A dream. And so I live, you see,

at Christmas Eve and Easter-Day; a Poem. By Robert Browning. Published by Chapman and Hall. Tnas poem is in the form of-visions. On a Christmas-eve, the poet was caught in a stoin in thd *ieinrty 'of et'lbw Dissenting. chapel on,the datareirtaaof ca Awn; Het mitered, to escape the rain ; fell asleep(as itivirriernit) under the itoperifie influence of the 'preacher and dreamed h d.rearn. He thought that !thevweatiter ,had cleared up, 'and- , the-tithe had -taken-a path across a common which: ad- joined the chapel; when, suddenly, he saw before hint the form of Christ.

" All at once I looked up with terror.

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Go through the world, try, prove, reject, Prefer, stall struggling to effect My warfare ; happy that I can Be crossed and thwarted as a man, Not left in God's contempt apart, With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, e m earth's paddock as her prize. hank God she still each method tries

To catch me, who may yet escape, She knows, the fiend m angel's shape!

Thank God, no paradise stands barred To entry,: and I find it hard To be a Christianots I said !

Still every now and then my head Raised glad, sinks mournful—all grows drear

Spite of the sunshine, -while Mbar

And think, ' How dreadful to be grudged No ease henceforth, as-one that's judged, COndemtied-to earth for ever, shut ' FroM Heaven:- :: But Easter-day breaks! But Christ rises! Mercy every way Is infinite,---and who can say ?

It requires esoteric knowledge to speak of a peculiar faith. We cannot tell what those may think who see originality m strange- ness ; but it does not strike us.-that Mr. Browning has at all-ad- vanced himself by this new poem. There is not such dreary lengths of-obscurity as in some of his former pieces ; but the cause of that improvement appears mechanical. It arises from the choice of 'Metre, whoie nature compels "brevity ; and brevity avoids the obscurity of length and involution, though there is still the ob- scurity of hazy thought and indistinct expression. In other re- Vects, it seems to us that Mr.. Browning is much the same. His every-day snbjects are commonplace in their images ; though an affected quaintness may give them an air of novelty. His loftier themes _are rather .shrouded than presented ; they pass for any- thing to the eye of faith, they are nothing in the eye of reason. Passages of merit, though perhaps scarcely equal to the theme, may be picked oat; but the whole is strange as poetry, and mystical as Christianity.