I don't know if it's really fitting to choose this poem as the last by Robert Browning, but he has a lot of wisdom and sees things from a different angle than most and isn't afraid to take on difficult subjects to make his point. Here he describes visiting Paris for the baptism of the prince and then walking along the Seine River and visiting the morgue. He talks about three men he saw there that had drowned themselves in the river and surmises what their lives were like and why they had wanted to end it all. He completes his poem with some sound wisdom on what to seek in life -"It’s wiser being good than bad; It’s safer being meek than fierce: It’s fitter being sane than mad." and "what began best, can’t end worst, Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst."
Apparent Failure
I. NO, for I ’ll save it! Seven years since, I passed through Paris, stopped a day To see the baptism of your Prince; Saw, made my bow, and went my way Walking the heat and headache off, I took the Seine-side, you surmise, Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff, Cavour’s appeal and Buol’s replies, So sauntered till—what met my eyes? II. Only the Doric little Morgue! The dead-house where you show your drowned Petrarch’s Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue, Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned. One pays one’s debt in such a case; I plucked up heart and entered,—stalked, Keeping a tolerable face Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked Let them! No Briton’s to be baulked! III. First came the silent gazers; next, A screen of glass, we’re thankful for; Last, the sight’s self, the sermon’s text, The three men who did most abhor Their life in Paris yesterday, So killed themselves: and now, enthroned Each on his copper couch, they lay Fronting me, waiting to be owned. I thought, and think, their sin’s atoned.IV. Poor men, God made, and all for that! The reverence struck me; o’er each head Religiously was hung its hat, Each coat dripped by the owner’s bed, Sacred from touch: each had his berth, His bounds, his proper place of rest, Who last night tenanted on earth Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,— Unless the plain asphalte seemed best. V. How did it happen, my poor boy? You wanted to be Buonaparte And have the Tuileries for toy, And could not, so it broke your heart? You, old one by his side, I judge, Were red as blood, a socialist. A leveller! Does the Empire grudge You’ve gained what no Republic missed? Be quiet, and unclench your fist! VI. And this—why, he was red in vain, Or black,—poor fellow that is blue! What fancy was it turned your brain? Oh, women were the prize for you! Money gets women, cards and dice Get money, and ill-luck gets just The copper couch and one clear nice Cool squirt of water o’er your bust, The right thing to extinguish lust! VII. It’s wiser being good than bad; It’s safer being meek than fierce: It’s fitter being sane than mad. My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That, after Last, returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched; That what began best, can’t end worst, Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.
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