Third Group.

“THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR” represents a follower of Abd-el-Kadr hastening through the desert to join his chief.  Mystic fancies crowd upon him as he “rides” and “rides”:  his pulses quickened by the end in view, and by the swift unresting motion of a horse which never needs the spur; and as he describes his experience in his own excited words, we receive not only the mental picture, but the physical impression of it.  This poem is a strong instance of Mr. Browning’s power of conveying sense by sound, when he sees occasion for doing so.

“MEETING AT NIGHT” is a glimpse of moonlight and repose; and of the appropriate seclusion in the company of the one woman loved.

“PARTING AT MORNING” asserts the need of “men” and their “world,” which is born again with the sunshine.

“THE PATRIOT” tells, as its second title informs us, “an old story.”  Only this day year, the “patriot” entered the city as its hero, amidst a frenzy of gratitude and joy.  To-day he passes out of it through comparatively silent streets; for those for whom he has laboured last as first, are waiting for him at the foot of the scaffold.  No infliction of physical pain or moral outrage is spared him as he goes.  He is “safer so,” he declares.  The reward men have withheld awaits him at the hand of God.

“INSTANS TYRANNUS"[101] is the confession of a king, who has been possessed by an unreasoning and uncontrolled hatred for one man.  This man was his subject, but so friendless and obscure that no hatred could touch, so stupid or so upright that no temptation could lure him into his enemy’s power.  The King became exasperated by the very smallness of the creature which thus kept him at bay; drew the line of persecution closer and closer; and at last ran his victim to earth.  But, at the critical moment, the man so long passive and cowering threw himself on the protection of God.  The King saw, in a sudden revulsion of feeling, an Arm thrown out from the sky, and the “wretch” he had striven to crush, safely enfolded in it Then he in his turn—­was “afraid.”

“MESMERISM” is a fanciful but vivid description of an act of mesmeric power, which draws a woman, alone, in the darkness, and through every natural obstacle, to the presence of the man who loves her.

“TIME’S REVENGES” is also a confession made in the form of a soliloquy.  The speaker has a friend whose devotion is equal to any test, and whose love he barely repays with liking; and he has a lady-love by whom this friend is avenged; for he has given up to his passion for her his body and his soul, his peace and his renown, every laudable ambition, every rational aim; and he knows she would let him roast by a slow fire if this would procure her an invitation to a certain ball.