the business necessary to earn a
living, occupies "each day and all day long" with no spirit-life behind.

HERVE RIEL

This poem was written during Browning's second visit to Le Croisic in
Brittany, in September, 1867. It was published in _The Cornhill
Magazine_, March, 1871, the proceeds of one hundred guineas being sent
by Browning to the Paris Relief Fund, to provide food for the people
after the siege of Paris. The story is historic. Mrs. Lemoyne, in 1884,
read "Herve Riel" to Browning and he then told her that it was his
custom to learn all about the heroes and legends of any town that he
stopped in and that he had thus, in going over the records of the town
of St. Malo, come upon the story of Herve Riel, which he narrated just
as it happened in 1692, except that in reality the hero had a life
holiday. "The facts of the story had been forgotten, and were denied at
St. Malo; but the reports of the French Admiralty were looked up, and
the facts established." (Dr. Furnivall quoted in Berdoe, _Browning
Cyclopaedia_.)

"GOOD TO FORGIVE"

This little poem was written and printed as the Prologue to _La Saisiaz_
in 1878, but in the _Selections_ it appeared as No. 3 of
"Pisgah-Sights."

"SUCH A STARVED BANK OF MOSS"

Prefatory stanzas to _The Two Poets of Croisic_.

EPILOGUE TO THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC

This fate of the musician and the cricket has the same fundamental idea
as the prefatory stanzas, the power of love to soften what is gruff and
brighten what is somber in life.

64. _Music's son._ Goethe. The "Lotte" of the next line, the heroine of
Goethe's _Sorrows of Werther_, was modeled in part on Charlotte Buff,
with whom Goethe was at one time in love.

PHEIDIPPIDES

[Greek: Chairete, nikomen.] Rejoice we conquer!

2. _Daemons._ In Greek mythology a superior order of beings between men
and the gods.

4. _Her of the aegis and spear._ Athena, whose aegis was a scaly cloak or
mantle bordered with serpents and bearing Medusa's head.

5. _Ye of the bow and the buskin._ Artemis or Diana, the huntress.
Ancient statues represent her as wearing shoes laced to the ankle.

8. _Pan._ The god of nature, half goat and half man. To him was ascribed
the power of causing sudden fright by his voice and appearance. He came
suddenly into the midst of the Persians on the field of Marathon--so the
legend runs--and threw them into such a "panic" that, for this reason,
they lost the battle.

9. _Archons of Ath