The songs in _Paracelsus_ (1835) prove that Browning was a genuine
lyrical poet: the best of them, _Over the Sea Our Galleys Went_, is
more properly a dramatic monologue: but the song in the second act,
by Aprile (who I think stands for Keats) is a pure lyric, and so are
the two stanzas sung by Paracelsus in the fourth act. There are
lines here which suggest something of the drowsy music of Tennyson's
_Lotos-Eaters_, published in 1832:
.... such balsam falls
Down sea-side mountain pedestals,
From tree-tops where tired winds are fain,
Spent with the vast and howling main,
To treasure half their island-gain.
SONGS FROM PARACELSUS
1835
(Aprile sings)
I hear a voice, perchance I heard
Long ago, but all too low,
So that scarce a care it stirred
If the voice were real or no:
I heard it in my youth when first
The waters of my life outburst:
But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear
That voice, still low, but fatal-clear--
As if all poets, God ever meant
Should save the world, and therefore lent
Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused
To do his work, or lightly used
Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavour,
So, mourn cast off by him for ever,--
As if these leaned in airy ring
To take me; this the song they sing.
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