ROBERT BROWNING AND EASTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 89, 16 April 1927, Page 22

ROBERT BROWNING AND EASTER.

Robert Browning, who ultimately "became" the greatest poet of the inner life of his generation, wrote in his early manhood " A Death in the Desert." David Fredrick Strauss, a German ' writer, had produced a life of Jesus with Jesus left out. He had sought to show that His history was a myth. And , that book was the genesis of Brown- ! ing's poem (writes the Rev. George Thomas Dowling, D.D., in the "Church- ' man"). The poet represents John, the last and best beloved of the Apostles* dying in a cave in the desert. His face ] glows with the triumph of a Christian, , toild he exclaims to his few faithful ' attendants:— i "I say, the acknowledgement of God in Christ, 1 Accepted by the reason, solves for thee ( All questions in the earth and out of it." j Then he dies, solaced and strengthened ( "by the words of Jesus: "I am the resur- ' lection and the life!" That was Brown- ( jng's answer to Strauss. ' Elsewhere he writes:— *I know that this earth Is not mv sphere 1 For I cannot so narrow me, but that , J shall o.ceed it." ' Then 03 the years went hv there came ; to him deep sorrow. In 1861 Kli/.abeth { Barrett Browning, the gentle loving , Hvife whom next to God he worshipped, i died. '"There was no lingering,"* be wrote, "nor acute pain, nor consciousness of separation, but God took her to Himself, as you would lift a sleeping Child from the dark uneasy bed into yotir firms and tlic light. Thank God.*' C'ttiinty of Victory. A few years later he wrote "Prospiee" "(look forward), in which hs visualised tho scene of his own transition. Exultant With the certainty of victory, he challenged death to do his worst, and cried: •'I-var death?—to feel the fog in my throat, *l'in! mist in my face. . . . 3 wan ever a fighter, so—one fight more, O'ue best and the last! J. would hate that death bandaged my ( eyes, and forbore, ,And bade me creep past. let iue taste the whole oC it, faro like t my peers, yhe heroes of old." i Then a quarter of a century later. "*»hen in his- seventy-eighth year, his ?ast poem was published, and on that *amo day he died. Could anything' be Jiore jubilant than that final 6uminons IP his soul, to "greet the unknown with L iu ttt J** l "* u « describes LPa«L«w 7—-.

•One who never turned Ms bacfc but ma rohod breast forward, Xever doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed though right were worsted, .wrong would triumph. Hold we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. .Sleep to wake." "T never read in that wonderful service of our Prayer Book without a thrill" (writes Mr. Howling) "Death is swallowed up in victory. 0 death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"'