rowning a week or two before his
death, which show how permanent was his sense of indebtedness to his
father. "It would have been quite unpardonable in my case," he said,
"not to have done my best. My dear father put me in a condition most
favorable for the best work I was capable of. When I think of the many
authors who have had to fight their way through all sorts of
difficulties, I have no reason to be proud of my achievements.... He
secured for me all the care and comfort that a literary man needs to do
good work. It would have been shameful if I had not done my best to
realize his expectations of me."

After it was determined that Robert should "commence poet," he and his
father came to the conclusion that a university training had many
elements foreign to the aim the youth had set before him, and that a
richer and more directly available preparation could be gained from
"sedulous cultivation of the powers of his mind" at home, and from
"seeing life in the best sense" at home and abroad. Mrs. Orr tells us
that the first qualifying step of the zealous young poet was to read and
digest the whole of Dr. Johnson's _Dictionary_.

Browning's first published poem, _Pauline_, appeared anonymously in
January, 1833, when he was twenty years old. This poem is of especial
autobiographical interest. Its enthusiastic praise of Shelley recalls
his early devotion to that poet, and in many scattered passages we find
references to his own personality or experiences. The following lines
show with what intensity he recreated the lives and scenes in the books
he read:

And I myself went with the tale--a god
Wandering after beauty, or a giant
Standing vast in the sunset--an old hunter
Talking with gods, or a high-crested chief
Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos.
I tell you, naught has ever been so clear
As the place, the time, the fashion of those lives:
I had not seen a work of lofty art,
Nor woman's beauty, nor sweet nature's face,
Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those
On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea,
The deep groves and white temples and wet caves;
And nothing ever will surprise me now--
Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed,
Who bound my forehead with Proserpine's hair.

There is true and powerful self-analysis in the lines beginning:

I am made up of an intensest life;

and the invocation in lines 811-854 reveals the passionately religious
nature