The songs in _Pippa Passes_ (1841) are ail exquisite works of art.
The one on the King had been printed in the _Monthly Repository_ in
1835; the others appeared for the first time in the published drama.
All of them are vitally connected with the action of the plot,
differing in this respect from the Elizabethan custom of simple
interpolation. The song sung in the early morning by the girl in her
chamber
All service ranks the same with God
contains the philosophy of the play--human lives are inextricably
intertwined, and all are dependent on the will of God. No individual
can separate himself either from other men and women, or can sever
the connection between himself and his Father in Heaven. The first
stanza repeats the teaching of Milton in the sonnet on his blindness:
the second is more definitely connected with Pippa's professional
work.
Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life,
refers to her daily duty as a girl in the silk-mill, for she
naturally thinks of the complexity of life as a tangled skein.
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