An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry






A Tale.

(The Epilogue to ‘The Two Poets of Croisic’.)

The speaker in this monologue is the wife of a poet, and she tells the story to her husband, of the little cricket that came to the aid of the musician who was contending for a prize, when one of the strings of his lyre snapped. So he made a statue for himself, and on the lyre he held perched his partner in the prize. If her poet-husband gain a prize in poetry, she asks, will some ticket when his statue’s built tell the gazer ‘twas a cricket helped his crippled lyre; that when one string which made “love” sound soft, was snapt in twain, she perched upon the place left vacant and duly uttered, “Love, Love, Love”, whene’er the bass asked the treble to atone for its somewhat sombre drone?

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