Browning and Bryon.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13596, 16 May 1908, Page 1 (Supplement)

Browning and Bryon.

Thursday last. May 7th. was (says '*A.L." in the Dtraedui "Star") the an niversary oF the birth of Robert Brownand all over the world Browning societKS would mark the event by roc/ dering over the philosophy -if that great though somewhat tedious poet A foitnight ago was the anniversary of the death of a poetic genius of very different calibre —Lord Byron, praying with his dying breath for the emancipation of a country groaning beneath the yolk of the infidel Turk. Alas, Byron never lived to see the sinking of the Turkish fleet in Navarino Bay and the establishing of the independence of a country he loved as well as his own native land. It may be interesting to recall the utterly different views of these great men upon the question of matrimony. Every year, upon the anniversary "of his wedding with Elizabeth Barrett, Browning made a pilgrimage to St. Pancras Church in the Huston road, London. There he would kneel and reverently kiss ine steps that led to the chancel where he was yoked to her who led him on from joy to joy in a perfectly consummated union. The letters of these married lovers were of the briefest nature —a word here and there on a slip of paper, with a lengthy hiatus between each word. But such was the mutual sympathy that existed between them that their hearts filled in the blanks and elaborated long, letters, the key to which each held in their wonderful devotion to one another. Hear, too, Charles Kingsley, a contemporary and friend of Browning. Writing to his wife, he says: "Some people say marriage is a failure. Fools I" He, at least, never regretted that he had anticipated Punch's advice to those about to wed—don't! Now

isten to Byron : 'Tis melancholy, and a fearful sign Of human folly, frailty, also crime, That love and marriage rarely can combine. Although they both are born in the same clime. Marriage from love, like vinegar From wine, A sad, sour, sober beverage by time Is sharpened from its high celestial flavour Down to a very homely household savor.

If Byron had been asked if marriage improved a man we can imagine him replying facetiously and humorously: "Of course it does, my dear fellow. AH suffering improves "a man." The wretch! Poor Byron, the love of his youth was married to another, and the lady he eventually allied himeelf with he never loved, nor did she love him. Indeed, in his diary he wrote:—"Lady Byron would have" mad a splendid wrangler at i Cambridge." And so it was that when his hair was grey at thirty he wrote:— No more, no more, oh never more on mo The freshness of the lieart can fail like dew, Which, out of all the lovely things we see. Extracts emotions beautiful and new. Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee-. Think'st thou the honey with these objects grew? Alas! 'twas not in mem but in the power To double even the sweetness of .1 Sower. . \ad so he plunged into the counterfeit of lov»'. and reaping the gall and bitterness of it all satirised his fellows and their failings in his immortal 'Don Juan. Ye* the contrast between Browning and Bvron is striking enough, for the former loved with a devotion few men are capable of, while the lattvr mistook passion for love, bke manv a young man of our own dav. who feels before hi* marriage that he" conld eat his wife, and ere the honeymoon is over wishes to goodness that he had. _______^__^__