nel. He brings up
one picture after another of the early happy life of Paracelsus, and
dwells on the grandeur of his mind and achievements, and on the fame
that shall be his. But the desired peace comes only when Festus sings
the song of the river Mayne beside which their youth had been spent. At
the end of the song Paracelsus exclaims,

"My heart! they loose my heart, those simple words;
Its darkness passes which naught else could touch."

The Mayne, or Main, is the most important of the right-hand tributaries
of the Rhine. Wurzburg, where Festus and Paracelsus had been as
students, is on its banks. Its University was especially noted for its
medical department. Mr. Stopford Brooke (_The Poetry of Robert
Browning_, p. 99) says of this lovely lyric: "I have driven through that
gracious country of low hill and dale and wide water-meadows, where
under flowered banks only a foot high the slow river winds in
gentleness; and this poem is steeped in the sentiment of the scenery.
But, as before, Browning quickly slides away from the beauty of
inanimate nature into a record of the animals that haunt the streams. He
could not get on long with mountains and rivers alone. He must people
them with breathing, feeling things; anything for life!"

CAVALIER TUNES

These three, stirring songs represent the gay, reckless loyalty of the
Cavaliers to the cause of King Charles I and their contempt for his
Puritan opposers. The Puritans wore closely cropped hair; hence the
Parliament which came together in 1640 and was controlled by the
opponents of the King, is dubbed "crop-headed." John Pym and John
Hampden were leaders in the struggle against the tyranny of the King.
Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Sir Henry Vane were also adherents of
Oliver Cromwell. Rupert, Prince of the Palatinate, was a nephew of
Charles I and was a noted cavalry leader on the royal side during the
Civil War. The followers of the King unfurled the royal standard at
Nottingham in August, 1642; Kentish Sir Byng raised a troop and hurried
on to join the main royal army. In September occurred the battle of
Edgehill. The "Noll" (l. 16 of "Give a Rouse") is Oliver Cromwell. The
third song was entitled originally "My Wife Gertrude." It was she who
held the castle of Brancepeth against the Roundheads.

THE LOST LEADER

This poem indignantly records a poet's defection from the cause of
progress and liberty. Who this poet might be was for some time a matter
of c