Hearts would leap otherwise at thy advance,
Lady, to whom this Tower is consecrate!

Like hers, thy face once made all eyes elate,
Yet, unlike hers, was bless'd by every glance.

The Tower of Hate is outworn, far and strange;
A transitory shame of long ago;

It dies into the sand from which it sprang;
But thine, Love's rock-built Tower, shall fear no change.

God's self laid stable earth's foundations so,
When all the morning-stars together sang.

April 26, 1870.
==

Lord Dufferin is a warm admirer of Mr. Browning's genius.
He also held him in strong personal regard.

In the summer of 1869 the poet, with his sister and son,
changed the manner of his holiday, by joining Mr. Story and his family

in a tour in Scotland, and a visit to Louisa, Lady Ashburton,
at Loch Luichart Lodge; but in the August of 1870 he was again

in the primitiveatmosphere of a French fishing village,
though one which had little to recommend it but the society of a friend;

it was M. Milsand's St.-Aubin. He had written, February 24,
to Miss Blagden, under the one inspiration which naturally recurred

in his correspondence with her.
==

`. . . So you, too, think of Naples for an eventual resting-place!
Yes, that is the proper basking-ground for "bright and aged snakes."

Florence would be irritating, and, on the whole, insufferable --
Yet I never hear of any one going thither but my heart is twitched.

There is a good, charming, little singing German lady, Miss Regan,
who told me the other day that she was just about revisiting her aunt,

Madame Sabatier, whom you may know, or know of -- and I felt as if
I should immensely like to glide, for a long summer-day

through the streets and between the old stone-walls, --
unseen come and unheard go -- perhaps by some miracle, I shall do so --

and look up at Villa Brichieri as Arnold's Gypsy-Scholar
gave one wistful look at "the line of festal light in Christ Church Hall,"

before he went to sleep in some forgotten grange. . . .
I am so glad I can be comfortable in your comfort. I fancy exactly

how you feel and see how you live: it IS the Villa Geddes of old days,
I find. I well remember the fine view from the upper room --

that looking down the steep hill, by the side of which runs
the road you describe -- that path was always my preferred walk,

for its shortness (abruptness) and the fine old wall to your left
(from the Villa) which is overgrown with weeds and wild flowers --

violets and ground-ivy, I remember. Oh, me! to find myself
some late sunshiny Sunday afternoon, with my face turned to Florence --

"ten minutes to the gate, ten minutes HOME!" I think I should
fairly end it all on the spot. . . .'

==
He writes again from St.-Aubin, August 19, 1870:

==
`Dearest Isa, -- Your letter came prosperously to this little wild place,

where we have been, Sarianna and myself, just a week.
Milsand lives in a cottage with a nice bit of garden, two steps off,

and we occupy another of the most primitive kind on the sea-shore --
which shore is a good sandy stretch for miles and miles on either side.

I don't think we were ever quite so thoroughly washed by the sea-air
from all quarters as here -- the weather is fine, and we do well enough.

The sadness of the war and its consequences go far to paralyse
all our pleasure, however. . . .

`Well, you are at Siena -- one of the places I love best to remember.
You are returned -- or I would ask you to tell me how the Villa Alberti wears,

and if the fig-tree behind the house is green and strong yet.
I have a pen-and-ink drawing of it, dated and signed the last day

Ba was ever there -- "my fig tree --" she used to sit under it,
reading and writing. Nine years, or ten rather, since then!

Poor old Landor's oak, too, and his cottage, ought not to be forgotten.
Exactly opposite this house, -- just over the way of the water, --

shines every night the light-house of Havre -- a place I know well,
and love very moderately: but it always gives me a thrill as I see afar,

EXACTLY a particular spot which I was at along with her. At this moment,
I see the white streak of the phare in the sun, from the window where I write

and I THINK. . . . Milsand went to Paris last week, just before we arrived,
to transport his valuables to a safer place than his house,

which is near the fortifications. He is filled with as much despondency
as can be -- while the old dear and perfect kindness remains.

I never knew or shall know his like among men. . . .'
==

The war did more than sadden Mr. and Miss Browning's visit to St.-Aubin;
it opposed unlooked-for difficulties to their return home.

They had remained, unconscious of the impending danger,
till Sedan had been taken, the Emperor's downfall proclaimed,

and the country suddenly placed in a state of siege.
One morning M. Milsand came to them in anxious haste,

and insisted on their starting that very day. An order, he said,
had been issued that no native should leave the country,

and it only needed some unusually thick-headed Maire
for Mr. Browning to be arrested as a runaway Frenchman or a Prussian spy.

The usual passenger boats from Calais and Boulogne no longer ran;
but there was, he believed, a chance of their finding one at Havre.

They acted on this warning, and discovered its wisdom
in the various hindrances which they found on their way.

Everywhere the horses had been requisitioned for the war.
The boat on which they had relied to take them down the river to Caen

had been stopped that very morning; and when they reached the railroad
they were told that the Prussians would be at the other end before night.

At last they arrived at Honfleur, where they found an English vessel
which was about to convey cattle to Southampton; and in this,

setting out at midnight, they made their passage to England.
Some words addressed to Miss Blagden, written I believe in 1871,

once more strike a touching familiar note.
==

`. . . But NO, dearest Isa. The simple truth is that SHE was the poet,
and I the clever person by comparison -- remember her limited experience

of all kinds, and what she made of it. Remember on the other hand,
how my uninterrupted health and strength and practice with the world

have helped me. . . .'
==

`Balaustion's Adventure' and `Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau' were published,
respectively, in August and December 1871. They had been preceded

in the March of the same year by a ballad, `Herve Riel',
afterwards reprinted in the `Pacchiarotto' volume, and which Mr. Browning

now sold to the `Cornhill Magazine' for the benefit of the French sufferers
by the war.

The circumstances of this little transaction, unique in
Mr. Browning's experience, are set forth in the following letter:

==
Feb. 4, '71.

`My dear Smith, -- I want to give something to the people in Paris,
and can afford so very little just now, that I am forced upon an expedient.

Will you buy of me that poem which poor Simeon praised in a letter you saw,
and which I like better than most things I have done of late? --

Buy, -- I mean, -- the right of printing it in the Pall Mall and,
if you please, the Cornhill also, -- the copyright remaining with me.

You remember you wanted to print it in the Cornhill, and I was obstinate:
there is hardly any occasion on which I should be otherwise,

if the printing any poem of mine in a magazine were purely for my own sake:
so, any liberality you exercise will not be drawn into a precedent

against you. I fancy this is a case in which one may handsomely