[He is surprised, and stabbed.

It was ordained to be so, sweet!—­and best
Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast. 
Still kiss me!  Care not for the cowards!  Care
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair
My blood will hurt!  The Three, I do not scorn
To death, because they never lived:  but I 230
Have lived indeed, and so—­(yet one more kiss)—­can die!

Notes:  “In a Gondola” is a lyric dialogue between two Venetian lovers who have stolen away in a gondola spite of “the three”—­“Himself’,” perhaps a husband, and “Paul’’ and “Gian,’’ her brothers—­whose vengeance discovers them at the end, but not before their love and danger have moved them to weave a series of lyrical fancies, and led them to a climax of emotion which makes Life so deep a joy that Death is of no account.

“The first stanza was written,’’ writes Browning, “to illustrate Maclise’s picture, for which he was anxious to get some line or two.  I had not seen it, but from Forster’s description, gave it to him in his room impromptu . . . .  When I did see it I thought the serenade too jolly, somewhat, for the notion I got from Forster, and I took up the subject in my own way.’’

113.  Lido’s . . . graves:  Jewish tombs were there.

127.  Giudecca:  a canal of Venice.

155.  Lory:  a kind of parrot.

186.  Schidone’s eager Duke:  an imaginary painting by Bartolommeo Schidone of Modena (1560-1616).

188.  Haste-thee-Luke:  the English form of the nickname, Luca-f-presto, given Luca Giordano (1632-1705), a Neapolitan painter, on account of his constantly being goaded on in his work by his penurious and avaricious father.

190.  Castelfranco:  the Venetian painter, Giorgione, called Castelfranco, because born there, 1478, died 1511.

193.  Tizian:  (1477-1516).  The pictures are all imaginary, but suggestive of the style of each of these artists.

WARING

[Mr. Alfred Domett, C.M.G., author of “Ranolf and Amohia,” full of descriptions of New Zealand scenery.]

I

What’s become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down
Any longer London town?

II

Who’d have guessed it from his lip
Or his brow’s accustomed bearing,
On the night he thus took ship
Or started landward?—­little caring 10
For us, it seems, who supped together
(Friends of his too, I remember)
And walked home thro’ the merry weather,
The snowiest in all December. 
I left his arm that night myself
For what’s-his-name’s, the new prose-poet
Who wrote the book there, on the shelf—­
How, forsooth, was I to know it
If Waring meant to glide away
Like a ghost at break of day? 20
Never looked he half so gay!