Saturday 19 December 2015

A meek ending


In the poetry section of the index there remains an enigma - an unpublished Browning poem is mentioned which bears a strong ressemblance to one by Longfellow. The original review mentioned a duplication in the two poems. The Longfellow version reads: 'He caught the words, "Deposuit potentes  De sede, et exaltavit humiles;" And slowly lifting up his kingly head He to a learned clerk beside him said, "What mean these words?" Whilst the Browning version appears as: 'He caught the words, "Deposuit potentes  De sede, et exaltavit humiles;"And slowly lifting up his kingly head He to a learned clerk beside him said, "What mean these words?"  Oddly however there is no other mention in the literature of the Browing version.

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