When we read this poem, the first question that comes to us is “What was the ‘good news from Ghent?’” But we find on looking up the matter that the whole incident is a fanciful one; Browning simply imagined a very dramatic situation, and then wrote this stirring poem about it.  And surely he has made it all seem very real to us.  We feel the intense anxiety of the riders to reach Aix on time—­for we are given to understand in the last line of the third stanza that Aix must learn the news by a certain hour; we feel the despair of the two who are forced to give up the attempt, and the increased sense of responsibility of the only remaining rider; and we fairly hold our breath in our fear that the gallant Roland will not stand the strain.

The towns mentioned are real places, all of them in Belgium.

Does the poem seem to you somewhat rough and jerky?  It is a ballad, and that fact accounts in part for its style, for ballads are not usually smooth and perfect in structure.

But there is another reason for the jerkiness, if we may call it by so strong a name.  Read the first two lines aloud, giving them plenty of swing.  Do they not remind you of the galloping of a horse, with their regular rise and fall?  A little poet might have attempted to write about this wild midnight ride in the same smooth, flowing style in which he would describe a lazy river slipping over the stones; but Browning was a great poet, and knew how to fit sound to sense.  Other poets may excel him in writing of quiet, peaceful scenes, but no one who has ever written could put more dash and vigor into a poem than could Browning.

[Illustration:  GHENT]

REMINISCENCES OF A PIONEER[1]

By EDWIN D. COE

My father left his old home in Oneida County, New York, in June, 1839, a young man in his twenty-fourth year.  The beauty and fertility of the Rock River valley, in Wisconsin, had been widely proclaimed by participants in the Black Hawk War and in the glowing reports of Government engineers.  In fact, the latter declared it to be a very Canaan of promise.  As a consequence, hundreds of young people, restless and ambitious, and very many older ones whom the panic of the late 30’s had separated from their business moorings, turned their thoughts and then their steps toward the new promised land.

When my father was rowed ashore from the steamer at Milwaukee, he could have taken up “government land” within the present limits of that city, but the bluffs and swamps of the future metropolis had no charms for him compared with the vision he had in mind of the Rock River country.  So he crossed Milwaukee River on a ferry at the foot of Wisconsin Street, walked out on a sidewalk quavering on stilts until solid ground was reached at Third Street, and then struck the trail for the west.

[Footnote 1:  From the Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1907.]