[ { "title": "Hervé Riel", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety two,", "Did the English fight the French,--woe to France!", "And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue.", "Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,", " Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,", "With the English fleet in view.", "", "'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;", " First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;", " Close on him fled, great and small,", " Twenty-two good ships in all;", "And they signalled to the place", "\"Help the winners of a race!", " Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick--or, quicker still,", " Here's the English can and will!\"", "", "Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;", " \"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?\" laughed they:", "\"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,", "Shall the '_Formidable_' here, with her twelve and eighty guns", " Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,", "Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,", " And with flow at full beside?", " Now 'tis slackest ebb of tide.", " Reach the mooring? Rather say,", "While rock stands or water runs,", "Not a ship will leave the bay!\"", "", "Then was called a council straight.", "Brief and bitter the debate:", "\"Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow", "All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,", "For a prize to Plymouth Sound?", "Better run the ships aground!\"", " (Ended Damfreville his speech).", "Not a minute more to wait!", " \"Let the Captains all and each", " Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!", "France must undergo her fate.", "", "\"Give the word!\" But no such word", "Was ever spoke or heard;", " For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these", "--A Captain? A Lieutenant? A Mate--first, second, third?", " No such man of mark, and meet", " With his betters to compete!", " But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleet,", "A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervé Riel the Croisickese.", "", "And, \"What mockery or malice have we here?\" cries Hervé Riel:", " \"Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?", "Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell", "On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell", " 'Twixt the offing here and Grève where the river disembogues?", "Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for?", " Morn and eve, night and day,", " Have I piloted your bay,", "Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.", " Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!", " Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way!", "Only let me lead the line,", " Have the biggest ship to steer,", " Get this '_Formidable_' clear,", "Make the others follow mine,", "And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well,", " Right to Solidor past Grève,", " And there lay them safe and sound;", " And if one ship misbehave,", " --Keel so much as grate the ground.", "Why, I've nothing but my life,--here's my head!\" cries Hervé Riel.", "", "Not a minute more to wait.", "\"Steer us in then, small and great!", " Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!\" cried its chief.", "Captains, give the sailor place!", " He is Admiral, in brief.", "", "Still the north-wind, by God's grace!", "See the noble fellow's face", "As the big ship, with a bound,", "Clears the entry like a hound,", "Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound!", " See, safe thro' shoal and rock,", " How they follow in a flock,", "Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,", " Not a spar that comes to grief!", "The peril, see, is past,", "All are harboured to the last,", "And just as Hervé Kiel hollas \"Anchor!\"--sure as fate", "Up the English come, too late!", "", "So, the storm subsides to calm:", " They see the green trees wave", " On the heights o'erlooking Grève.", "Hearts that bled are staunched with balm.", "\"Just our rapture to enhance,", " Let the English rake the bay,", "Gnash their teeth and glare askance", " As they cannonade away!", "'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!\"", "How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's countenance!", "Out burst all with one accord,", " \"This is Paradise for Hell!", " Let France, let France's King", " Thank the man that did the thing!\"", "What a shout, and all one word,", " \"Hervé Riel!\"", "As he stepped in front once more,", " Not a symptom of surprise", " In the frank blue Breton eyes,", "Just the same man as before.", "", "Then said Damfreville, \"My friend,", "I must speak out at the end,", " Tho' I find the speaking hard.", "Praise is deeper than the lips:", "You have saved the King his ships,", " You must name your own reward,", "'Faith our sun was near eclipse!", "Demand whate'er you will,", "France remains your debtor still.", "Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not Damfreville.\"", "", "Then a beam of fun outbroke", "On the bearded mouth that spoke,", "As the honest heart laughed through", "Those frank eyes of Breton blue:", "\"Since I needs must say my say,", " Since on board the duty's done,", " And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run?--", "Since 'tis ask and have, I may--", "Since the others go ashore--", "Come! A good whole holiday!", " Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!\"", "That he asked and that he got,--nothing more.", "", "Name and deed alike are lost:", "Not a pillar nor a post", " In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell;", "Not a head in white and black", "On a single fishing smack,", "In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack", " All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell.", "Go to Paris: rank on rank.", " Search, the heroes flung pell-mell", "On the Louvre, face and flank!", " You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel.", "So, for better and for worse,", "Hervé Riel, accept my verse!", "In my verse, Hervé Riel, do thou once more", "Save the squadron, honour France, love thy wife the Belle Aurore!" ], "linecount": "140" }, { "title": "Home-Thoughts, From the Sea", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Nobly, nobly, Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away;", "Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;", "Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;", "", "In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;", "\"Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?\"--say,", "Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God and pray,", "While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa." ], "linecount": "7" }, { "title": "Summum Bonum", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:", "All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:", "In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:", "Breath and bloom, shade and shine,--wonder, wealth, and--how far above them--", " Truth, that's brighter than gem,", " Trust, that's purer than pearl,--", "Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe,--all were for me", " In the kiss of one girl." ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "\"De Gustibus--\"", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,", " (If our loves remain)", " In an English lane,", "By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.", "Hark, those two in the hazel coppice--", "A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,", " Making love, say,--", " The happier they!", "Draw yourself up from the light of the moon.", "And let them pass, as they will too soon,", " With the beanflower's boon,", " And the blackbird's tune,", " And May, and June!", "", "What I love best in all the world", "Is a castle, precipice-encurled,", "In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.", "Or look for me, old fellow of mine,", "(If I get my head from out the mouth", "O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,", "And come again to the land of lands)--", "In a sea-side house to the farther South,", "Where the baked cicala dies of drouth,", "And one sharp tree--'tis a cypress--stands,", "By the many hundred years red-rusted,", "Bough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,", "My sentinel to guard the sands", "To the water's edge. For, what expands", "Before the house, but the great opaque", "Blue breadth of sea without a break?", "While, in the house, forever crumbles", "Some fragment of the frescoed walls,", "From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.", "A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles", "Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,", "And says there's news to-day--the king", "Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing,", "Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:", "--She hopes they have not caught the felons.", "Italy, my Italy!", "Queen Mary's saying serves for me--", " (When fortune's malice", " Lost her, Calais)", "Open my heart and you will see", "Graved inside of it, \"Italy.\"", "Such lovers old are I and she:", "So it always was, so shall ever be!" ], "linecount": "46" }, { "title": "An Epistle: Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Karshish, the picker up of learning's crumbs,", "The not incurious in God's handiwork", "(This man's flesh he hath admirably made,", "Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,", "To coop up and keep down on earth a space", "That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul)", "--To Abib, all sagacious in our art,", "Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,", "Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks", "Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain,", "Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip", "Back and rejoin its source before the term,--", "And aptest in contrivance (under God)", "To baffle it by deftly stopping such--", "The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home", "Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace)", "Three samples of true snake-stone--rarer still,", "One of the other sort, the melon-shaped,", "(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs)", "And writeth now the twenty-second time.", "", "My journeyings were brought to Jericho:", "Thus I resume. Who studious in our art", "Shall count a little labour unrepaid?", "I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone", "On many a flinty furlong of this land.", "Also, the country-side is all on fire", "With rumours of a marching hitherward:", "Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son.", "A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear:", "Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls:", "I cried and threw my staff and he was gone.", "Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me,", "And once a town declared me for a spy;", "But at the end, I reach Jerusalem,", "Since this poor covert where I pass the night,", "This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence", "A man with plague-sores at the third degree", "Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here!", "'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe,", "To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip", "And share with thee whatever Jewry yields.", "A viscid choler is observable", "In tertians, I was nearly bold to say;", "And falling-sickness hath a happier cure", "Than our school wots of: there's a spider here", "Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,", "Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back;", "Take five and drop them ... but who knows his mind,", "The Syrian run-a-gate I trust this to?", "His service payeth me a sublimate", "Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye.", "Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn,", "There set in order my experiences,", "Gather what most deserves, and give thee all--", "Or I might add, Judæa's gum-tragacanth", "Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained,", "Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry.", "In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease", "Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy:", "Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar--", "But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.", "", "Yet stay! my Syrian blinketh gratefully,", "Protested his devotion is my price--", "Suppose I write, what harms not, tho' he steal?", "I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush,", "What set me off a-writing first of all.", "An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!", "For, be it this town's barrenness--or else", "The man had something in the look of him--", "His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth.", "So, pardon if--(lest presently I lose,", "In the great press of novelty at hand,", "The care and pains this somehow stole from me)", "I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind.", "Almost in sight--for, wilt thou have the truth?", "The very man is gone from me but now,", "Whose ailment is the subject of discourse.", "Thus then, and let thy better wit help all!", "", "'Tis but a case of mania: subinduced", "By epilepsy, at the turning-point", "Of trance prolonged unduly some three days", "When, by the exhibition of some drug", "Or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art", "Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know,", "The evil thing, out-breaking all at once,", "Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,--", "But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide,", "Making a clear house of it too suddenly,", "The first conceit that entered might inscribe", "Whatever it was minded on the wall", "So plainly at that vantage, as it were,", "(First come, first served) that nothing subsequent", "Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls", "The just-returned and new-established soul", "Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart", "That henceforth she will read or these or none.", "And first--the man's own firm conviction rests", "That he was dead (in fact they buried him)", "--That he was dead and then restored to life", "By a Nazarene physician of his tribe:", "--'Sayeth, the same bade \"Rise,\" and he did rise,", "\"Such cases are diurnal,\" thou wilt cry.", "Not so this figment!--not, that such a fume,", "Instead of giving way to time and health,", "Should eat itself into the life of life.", "As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all!", "For see, how he takes up the after-life,", "The man--it is one Lazarus, a Jew,", "Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,", "The body's habit wholly laudable,", "As much, indeed, beyond the common health.", "As he were made and put aside to show.", "Think, could we penetrate by any drug", "And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh,", "And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep!", "Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?", "This grown man eyes the world now like a child.", "Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,", "Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep,", "To bear my inquisition. While they spoke,", "Now sharply, now with sorrow,--told the case,--", "He listened not except I spoke to him,", "But folded his two hands and let them talk,", "Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool.", "And that's a sample how his years must go.", "", "Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life,", "Should find a treasure,--can he use the same", "With straitened habits and with tastes starved small,", "And take at once to his impoverished brain", "The sudden element that changes things,", "That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand,", "And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust?", "Is he not such an one as moves to mirth--", "Warily parsimonious, when no need,", "Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times?", "All prudent counsel as to what befits", "The golden mean, is lost on such an one:", "The man's fantastic will is the man's law.", "So here--we call the treasure knowledge, say,", "Increased beyond the fleshly faculty--", "Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,", "Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven:", "The man is witless of the size, the sum,", "The value in proportion of all things,", "Or whether it be little or be much.", "Discourse to him of prodigious armaments", "Assembled to besiege his city now,", "And of the passing of a mule with gourds--", "'Tis one! Then take it on the other side,", "Speak of some trifling fact,--he will gaze rapt", "With stupor at its very littleness,", "(Far as I see) as if in that indeed", "He caught prodigious import, whole results.", "And so will turn to us the bystanders", "In ever the same stupor (note this point)", "That we too see not with his opened eyes.", "Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play,", "Preposterously, at cross purposes.", "Should his child sicken unto death,--why, look", "For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness,", "Or pretermission of the daily craft!", "While a word, gesture, glance from that same child", "At play or in the school or laid asleep,", "Will startle him to an agony of fear,", "Exasperation, just as like. Demand", "The reason why--\"'tis but a word,\" object--", "\"A gesture\"--he regards thee as our lord", "Who lived there in the pyramid alone,", "Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young", "We both would unadvisedly recite", "Some charm's beginning, from that book of his,", "Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst", "All into stars, as suns grown old are wont.", "Thou and the child have each a veil alike", "Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both", "Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match", "Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know!", "He holds on firmly to some thread of life", "(It is the life to lead perforcedly)", "Which runs across some vast distracting orb", "Of glory on either side that meagre thread,", "Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet--", "The spiritual life around the earthly life:", "The law of that is known to him as this,", "His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.", "So is the man perplext with impulses", "Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on,", "Proclaiming what is right and wrong across,", "And not along, this black thread thro' the blaze--", "\"It should be\" balked by \"here it cannot be.\"", "And oft the man's soul springs into his face", "As if he saw again and heard again", "His sage that bade him \"Rise\" and he did rise.", "Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within", "Admonishes: then back he sinks at once", "To ashes, who was very fire before,", "In sedulous recurrence to his trade", "Whereby he earneth him the daily bread;", "And studiously the humbler for that pride,", "Professedly the faultier that he knows", "God's secret, while he holds the thread of life.", "Indeed the especial marking of the man", "Is prone submission to the heavenly will--", "Seeing it, what it is, and why it is.", "'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last", "For that same death, which must restore his being", "To equilibrium, body loosening soul", "Divorced even now by premature full growth:", "He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live", "So long as God please, and just how God please.", "He even seeketh not to please God more", "(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please.", "Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach", "The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be,", "Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do:", "How can he give his neighbour the real ground,", "His own conviction? Ardent as he is--", "Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old", "\"Be it as God please\" reassureth him.", "I probed the sore as thy disciple should:", "\"How, beast,\" said I, \"this stolid carelessness", "Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march", "To stamp out like a little spark thy town,", "Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?\"", "He merely looked with his large eyes on me,", "The man is apathetic, you deduce?", "Contrariwise, he loves both old and young,", "Able and weak, affects the very brutes", "And birds--how say I? flowers of the field--", "As a wise workman recognizes tools", "In a master's workshop, loving what they make.", "Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb:", "Only impatient, let him do his best,", "At ignorance and carelessness and sin--", "An indignation which is promptly curbed:", "As when in certain travel I have feigned", "To be an ignoramus in our art", "According to some preconceived design,", "And happed to hear the land's practitioners", "Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance,", "Prattle fantastically on disease,", "Its cause and cure--and I must hold my peace!", "", "Thou wilt object--Why have I not ere this", "Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene", "Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source,", "Conferring with the frankness that befits?", "Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech", "Perished in a tumult many years ago,", "Accused--our learning's fate--of wizardry,", "Rebellion, to the setting up a rule", "And creed prodigious as described to me.", "His death, which happened when the earthquake fell", "(Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss", "To occult learning in our lord the sage", "Who lived there in the pyramid alone),", "Was wrought by the mad people--that's their wont!", "On vain recourse, as I conjecture it.", "To his tried virtue, for miraculous help--", "How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way!", "The other imputations must be lies:", "But take one, tho' I loathe to give it thee,", "In mere respect for any good man's fame.", "(And after all, our patient Lazarus", "Is stark mad; should we count on what he says?", "Perhaps not: tho' in writing to a leech", "'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.)", "This man so cured regards the curer, then,", "As--God forgive me! who but God Himself,", "Creator and sustainer of the world,", "That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile.", "--'Sayeth that such an one was born, and lived,", "Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house,", "Then died; with Lazarus by, for aught I know,", "And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat,", "And must have so avouched himself, in fact,", "In hearing of this very Lazarus", "Who saith--but why all this of what he saith?", "Why write of trivial matters, things of price", "Calling at every moment for remark?", "I noticed on the margin of a pool", "Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort,", "Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!", "", "Thy pardon for this long and tedious case,", "Which, now that I review it, needs must seem", "Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth!", "Nor I myself discern in what is writ", "Good cause for the peculiar interest", "And awe indeed this man has touched me with.", "Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness", "Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus:", "I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills", "Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came", "A moon made like a face with certain spots", "Multiform, manifold, and menacing:", "Then a wind rose behind me. So we met", "In this old sleepy town at unaware,", "The man and I. I send thee what is writ.", "Regard it as a chance, a matter risked", "To this ambiguous Syrian: he may lose,", "Or steal, or give it thee with equal good.", "Jerusalem's repose shall make amends", "For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine;", "Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!", "", "The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?", "So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too--", "So, through the thunder comes a human voice", "Saying, \"O heart I made, a heart beats here!", "Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!", "Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,", "But love I gave thee, with myself to love,", "And thou must love me who have died for thee!\"", "The madman saith He said so; it is strange." ], "linecount": "312" }, { "title": "The Glove", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "\"Heigho!\" yawned one day King Francis,", "\"Distance all value enhances.", "When a man's busy, why, leisure", "Strikes him as wonderful pleasure:", "Faith, and at leisure once is he?", "Straightway he wants to be busy.", "Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm", "Caught thinking war the true pastime.", "Is there a reason in metre?", "Give us your speech, master Peter!\"", "I who, if mortal dare say so,", "Ne'er am at loss with my Naso", "\"Sire,\" I replied, \"joys prove cloudlets:", "\"Men are the merest Ixions\"--", "Here the King whistled aloud, \"Let's", "--Heigho--go look at our lions.\"", "Such are the sorrowful chances", "If you talk fine to King Francis.", "", "And so, to the courtyard proceeding,", "Our company, Francis was leading,", "Increased by new followers tenfold", "Before he arrived at the penfold;", "Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen", "At sunset the western horizon.", "And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost", "With the dame he professed to adore most.", "Oh, what a face! One by fits eyed", "Her, and the horrible pitside;", "For the penfold surrounded a hollow", "Which led where the eye scarce dared follow", "And shelved to the chamber secluded", "Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.", "", "The King hailed his keeper, an Arab", "As glossy and black as a scarab,", "And bade him make sport and at once stir", "Up and out of his den the old monster.", "They opened a hole in the wire-work", "Across it, and dropped there a firework,", "And fled: one's heart's beating redoubled;", "A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled,", "The blackness and silence so utter,", "By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter;", "Then earth in a sudden contortion", "Gave out to our gaze her abortion.", "Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot", "(Whose experience of nature's but narrow", "And whose faculties move in no small mist", "When he versifies David the Psalmist)", "I should study that brute to describe you", "Illum Juda Leonem de Tribu.", "One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy", "To see the black mane, vast and heapy,", "The tail in the air stiff and straining", "The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning,", "As over the barrier which bounded", "His platform, and us who surrounded", "The barrier, they reached and they rested", "On space that might stand him in best stead:", "For who knew, he thought, what the amazement,", "The eruption of clatter and blaze meant,", "And if, in this minute of wonder,", "No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder,", "Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered,", "The lion at last was delivered?", "Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead!", "And you saw by the flash on his forehead,", "By the hope in those eyes wide and steady,", "He was leagues in the desert already", "Driving the flocks up the mountain", "Or catlike couched hard by the fountain", "To waylay the date-gathering negress:", "So guarded he entrance or egress.", "\"How he stands!\" quoth the King: \"we may well swear,", "(No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhere", "And so can afford the confession)", "We exercise wholesome discretion", "In keeping aloof from his threshold;", "Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold,", "Their first would too pleasantly purloin", "The visitor's brisket or surloin:", "But who's he would prove so fool-hardy?", "Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!\"", "", "The sentence no sooner was uttered,", "Than over the rails a glove fluttered,", "Fell close to the lion, and rested:", "The dame 'twas, who flung it and jested", "With life so, De Lorge had been wooing", "For months past; he sat there pursuing", "His suit, weighing out with nonchalance", "Fine speeches like gold from a balance.", "", "Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!", "De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,", "Walked straight to the glove--while the lion", "Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on", "The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,", "And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir--", "Picked it up, and as calmly retreated,", "Leaped back where the lady was seated,", "And full in the face of its owner", "Flung the glove.", "", "\"Your heart's queen, you dethrone her?", "So should I!\"--cried the King--\"'twas mere vanity", "Not love set that task to humanity!\"", "Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing", "From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing.", "", "Not so, I; for I caught an expression", "In her brow's undisturbed self-possession", "Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment,", "As if from no pleasing experiment", "She rose, yet of pain not much heedful", "So long as the process was needful,--", "As if she had tried in a crucible,", "To what \"speeches like gold\" were reducible,", "And, finding the finest prove copper,", "Felt the smoke in her face was but proper;", "To know what she had not to trust to,", "Was worth all the ashes and dust too.", "She went out 'mid hooting and laughter;", "Clement Marot stayed; I followed after,", "And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?", "If she wished not the rash deed's recalment?", "For I\"--so I spoke--\"am a poet:", "Human nature,--behoves that I know it!\"", "", "She told me, \"Too long had I heard", "Of the deed proved alone by the word:", "For my love--what De Lorge would not dare!", "With my scorn--what De Lorge could compare!", "And the endless descriptions of death", "He would brave when my lip formed a breath,", "I must reckon as braved, or, of course,", "Doubt his word--and moreover, perforce,", "For such gifts as no lady could spurn,", "Must offer my love in return.", "When I looked on your lion, it brought", "All the dangers at once to my thought,", "Encountered by all sorts of men,", "Before he was lodged in his den--", "From the poor slave whose club or bare hands", "Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands,", "With no King and no Court to applaud,", "By no shame, should he shrink, overawed,", "Yet to capture the creature made shift,", "That his rude boys might laugh at the gift", "--To the page who last leaped o'er the fence", "Of the pit, on no greater pretence", "Than to get back the bonnet he dropped,", "Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.", "So, wiser I judged it to make", "One trial what 'death for my sake'", "Really meant, while the power was yet mine,", "", "Than to wait until time should define", "Such a phrase not so simply as I,", "Who took it to mean just 'to die.'", "The blow a glove gives is but weak:", "Does the mark yet discolour my cheek?", "But when the heart suffers a blow,", "Will the pain pass so soon, do you know?\"", "", "I looked, as away she was sweeping.", "And saw a youth eagerly keeping", "As close as he dared to the doorway.", "No doubt that a noble should more weigh", "His life than befits a plebeian;", "And yet, had our brute been Nemean--", "(I judge by a certain calm fervour", "The youth stepped with, forward to serve her)", "--He'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turn", "If you whispered \"Friend, what you'd get, first earn!\"", "And when, shortly after, she carried", "Her shame from the Court, and they married,", "To that marriage some happiness, maugre", "The voice of the Court, I dared augur.", "", "For De Lorge, he made women with men vie,", "Those in wonder and praise, these in envy;", "And in short stood so plain a head taller.", "That he wooed and won... how do you call her?", "The beauty, that rose in the sequel", "To the King's love, who loved her a week well.", "And 'twas noticed he never would honour", "De Lorge (who looked daggers upon her)", "With the easy commission of stretching", "His legs in the service, and fetching", "His wife, from her chamber, those straying", "Sad gloves she was always mislaying,", "While the King took the closet to chat in,--", "But of course this adventure came pat in.", "And never the King told the story,", "How bringing a glove brought such glory,", "But the wife smiled--\"His nerves are grown firmer:", "Mine he brings now and utters no murmur.\"", "", "Venienti occurrite morbo!", "With which moral I drop my theorbo." ], "linecount": "191" }, { "title": "The Englishman in Italy", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Piano di Sorrento", "", "Fortù, Fortù, my beloved one,", " Sit here by my side,", "On my knees put up both little feet!", " I was sure, if I tried,", "I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco.", " Now, open your eyes,", "Let me keep you amused till he vanish", " In black from the skies,", "With telling my memories over", " As you tell your beads;", "All the Plain saw me gather, I garland", " --The flowers or the weeds.", "", "Time for rain! for your long hot dry Autumn", " Had net-worked with brown", "The white skin of each grape on the bunches,", " Marked like a quail's crown,", "Those creatures you make such account of,", " Whose heads--speckled white", "Over brown like a great spider's back,", " As I told you last night--", "Your mother bites off for her supper.", " Red-ripe as could be,", "Pomegranates were chapping and splitting", " In halves on the tree:", "And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone,", " Or in the thick dust", "On the path, or straight out of the rockside,", " Wherever could thrust", "Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower", " Its yellow face up,", "For the prize were great butterflies fighting,", " Some five for one cup.", "So, I guessed, ere I got up this morning,", " What change was in store,", "By the quick rustle-down of the quail-nets", " Which woke me before", "I could open my shutter, made fast", " With a bough and a stone,", "And look thro' the twisted dead vine-twigs,", " Sole lattice that's known.", "Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net-poles,", " While, busy beneath,", "Your priest and his brother tugged at them,", " The rain in their teeth.", "And out upon all the flat house-roofs", " Where split figs lay drying,", "The girls took the frails under cover:", " Nor use seemed in trying", "To get out the boats and go fishing,", " For, under the cliff,", "Fierce the black water frothed o'er the blind-rock.", " No seeing our skiff", "Arrive about noon from Amalfi,", " --Our fisher arrive,", "And pitch down his basket before us,", " All trembling alive", "With pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit;", " You touch the strange lumps,", "And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner", " Of horns and of humps,", "Which only the fisher looks grave at,", " While round him like imps", "Cling screaming the children as naked", " And brown as his shrimps;", "Himself too as bare to the middle", " --You see round his neck", "The string and its brass coin suspended,", " That saves him from wreck.", "But to-day not a boat reached Salerno,", " So back, to a man,", "Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards", " Grape-harvest began.", "In the vat, halfway up in our houseside,", " Like blood the juice spins,", "While your brother all bare-legged is dancing", " Till breathless he grins", "Dead-beaten in effort on effort", " To keep the grapes under,", "Since still when he seems all but master,", " In pours the fresh plunder", "From girls who keep coming and going", " With basket on shoulder,", "And eyes shut against the rain's driving;", " Your girls that are older,--", "For under the hedges of aloe,", " And where, on its bed", "Of the orchard's black mould, the love-apple", " Lies pulpy and red,", "All the young ones are kneeling and filling", " Their laps with the snails", "Tempted out by this first rainy weather,--", " Your best of regales,", "As to-night will be proved to my sorrow,", " When, supping in state,", "We shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen,", " Three over one plate)", "With lasagne so tempting to swallow,", " In slippery ropes,", "And gourds fried in great purple slices,", " That colour of popes.", "Meantime, see the grape bunch they've brought you:", " The rain-water slips", "O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe", " Which the wasp to your lips", "Still follows with fretful persistence:", " Nay, taste, while awake,", "This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball", " That peels, flake by flake,", "Like an onion, each smoother and whiter;", " Next, sip this weak wine", "From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,", " A leaf of the vine;", "And end with the prickly-pear's red flesh", " That leaves thro' its juice", "The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth.", " Scirocco is loose!", "Hark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olives", " Which, thick in one's track,", "Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them,", " Tho' not yet half black!", "How the old twisted olive trunks shudder,", " The medlars let fall", "Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees", " Snap off, figs and all,", "For here comes the whole of the tempest!", " No refuge, but creep", "Back again to my side and my shoulder,", " And listen or sleep.", "O how will your country show next week,", " When all the vine-boughs", "Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture", " The mules and the cows?", "Last eve, I rode over the mountains,", " Your brother, my guide,", "Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles", " That offered, each side,", "Their fruit-balls, black, glossy and luscious,--", " Or strip from the sorbs", "A treasure, or, rosy and wondrous,", " Those hairy gold orbs!", "But my mule picked his sure sober path out,", " Just stopping to neigh", "When he recognized down in the valley", " His mates on their way", "With the faggots and barrels of water;", " And soon we emerged", "From the plain, where the woods could scarce follow;", " And still as we urged", "Our way, the woods wondered, and left us,", " As up still we trudged", "Though the wild path grew wilder each instant,", " And place was e'en grudged", "'Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones", " Like the loose broken teeth", "Of some monster which climbed there to die", " From the ocean beneath--", "Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed", " That clung to the path,", "And dark rosemary ever a-dying", " That, 'spite the wind's wrath,", "So loves the salt rock's face to seaward,", " And lentisks as staunch", "To the stone where they root and bear berries,", " And... what shows a branch", "Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets", " Of pale seagreen leaves;", "Over all trod my mule with the caution", " Of gleaners o'er sheaves,", "Still, foot after foot like a lad", " Till, round after round,", "He climbed to the top of Calvano,", " And God's own profound", "Was above me, and round me the mountains,", " And under, the sea,", "And within me my heart to bear witness", " What was and shall be.", "", "Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal!", " No rampart excludes", "Your eye from the life to be lived", " In the blue solitudes.", "Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!", " Still moving with you;", "For, ever some new head and breast of them", " Thrusts into view", "To observe the intruder; you see it", " If quickly you turn", "And, before they escape you surprise them.", " They grudge you should learn", "How the soft plains they look on, lean over", " And love (they pretend)", "--Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine crouches,", " The wild fruit-trees bend,", "E'en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut:", " All is silent and grave:", "'Tis a sensual and timorous beauty,", " How fair! but a slave.", "So, I turned to the sea; and there slumbered", " As greenly as ever", "Those isles of the siren, your Galli;", " No ages can sever", "The Three, nor enable their sister", " To join them,--halfway", "On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses--", " No farther to-day,", "Tho' the small one, just launched in the wave,", " Watches breast-high and steady", "From under the rock, her bold sister", " Swum halfway already.", "Fortù, shall we sail there together", " And see from the sides", "Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts", " Where the siren abides?", "Shall we sail round and round them, close over", " The rocks, tho' unseen,", "That ruffle the grey glassy water", " To glorious green?", "Then scramble from splinter to splinter,", " Reach land and explore,", "On the largest, the strange square black turret", " With never a door,", "Just a loop to admit the quick lizards;", " Then, stand there and hear", "The birds' quiet singing, that tells us", " What life is, so clear?", "--The secret they sang to Ulysses", " When, ages ago,", "He heard and he knew this life's secret", " I hear and I know.", "", "Ah, see! The sun breaks o'er Calvano;", " He strikes the great gloom", "And flutters it o'er the mount's summit", " In airy gold fume.", "All is over. Look out, see the gipsy,", " Our tinker and smith,", "Has arrived, set up bellows and forge,", " And down-squatted forthwith", "To his hammering, under the wall there;", " One eye keeps aloof", "The urchins that itch to be putting", " His jews'-harps to proof,", "While the other, thro' locks of curled wire,", " Is watching how sleek", "Shines the hog, come to share in the windfall", " --Chew, abbot's own cheek!", "All is over. Wake up and come out now,", " And down let us go,", "And see the fine things got in order", " At church for the show", "Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening.", " To-morrow's the Feast", "Of the Rosary's Virgin, by no means", " Of Virgins the least,", "As you'll hear in the off-hand discourse", " Which (all nature, no art)", "The Dominican brother, these three weeks,", " Was getting by heart.", "Not a pillar nor post but is dizened", " With red and blue papers;", "All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar", " A-blaze with long tapers;", "But the great masterpiece is the scaffold", " Rigged glorious to hold", "All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers", " And trumpeters bold,", "Not afraid of Bellini nor Auber,", " Who, when the priest's hoarse,", "Will strike us up something that's brisk", " For the feast's second course.", "And then will the flaxen-wigged Image", " Be carried in pomp", "Thro' the plain, while in gallant procession", " The priests mean to stomp.", "All round the glad church lie old bottles", " With gunpowder stopped,", "Which will be, when the Image re-enters,", " Religiously popped;", "And at night from the crest of Calvano", " Great bonfires will hang,", "On the plain will the trumpets join chorus,", " And more poppers bang.", "At all events, come-to the garden", " As far as the wall;", "See me tap with a hoe on the plaster", " Till out there shall fall", "A scorpion with wide angry nippers!", "", " --\"Such trifles!\" you say?", "Fortù, in my England at home,", " Men meet gravely to-day", "And debate, if abolishing Corn-laws", " Be righteous and wise", "--If 'twere proper, Scirocco should vanish", " In black from the skies!" ], "linecount": "293" }, { "title": "The Last Ride Together", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "I said--Then, dearest, since 'tis so,", "Since now at length my fate I know,", "Since nothing all my love avails,", "Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,", " Since this was written and needs must be--", "My whole heart rises up to bless", "Your name in pride and thankfulness!", "Take back the hope you gave--I claim", "Only a memory of the same,", "--And this beside, if you will not blame,", " Your leave for one more last ride with me.", "", "My mistress bent that brow of hers;", "Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs", "When pity would be softening through,", "Fixed me a breathing-while or two", " With life or death in the balance: right!", "The blood replenished me again;", "My last thought was at least not vain:", "I and my mistress, side by side", "Shall be together, breathe and ride,", "So, one day more am I deified.", " Who knows but the world may end tonight?", "", "Hush! if you saw some western cloud", "All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed", "By many benedictions--sun's", "And moon's and evening-star's at once--", " And so, you, looking and loving best,", "Conscious grew, your passion drew", "Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too,", "Down on you, near and yet more near,", "Till flesh must fade for heaven was here!--", "Thus leant she and lingered--joy and fear!", " Thus lay she a moment on my breast.", "", "Then we began to ride. My soul", "Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll", "Freshening and fluttering in the wind.", "Past hopes already lay behind.", " What need to strive with a life awry?", "Had I said that, had I done this,", "So might I gain, so might I miss.", "Might she have loved me? just as well", "She might have hated, who can tell!", "Where had I been now if the worst befell?", " And here we are riding, she and I.", "", "Fail I alone, in words and deeds?", "Why, all men strive and who succeeds?", "We rode; it seemed my spirit flew,", "Saw other regions, cities new", " As the world rushed by on either side.", "I thought,--All labour, yet no less", "Bear up beneath their unsuccess", "Look at the end of work, contrast", "The petty done, the undone vast,", "This present of theirs with the hopeful past!", " I hoped she would love me; here we ride.", "", "What hand and brain went ever paired?", "What heart alike conceived and dared?", "What act proved all its thought had been?", "What will but felt the fleshly screen?", " We ride and I see her bosom heave.", "There's many a crown for who can reach.", "Ten lines, a statesman's life in each!", "The flag stuck on a heap of bones,", "A soldier's doing! what atones?", "They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.", " My riding is better, by their leave.", "", "What does it all mean, poet? Well,", "Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell", "What we felt only; you expressed", "You hold things beautiful the best,", " And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.", "'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then,", "Have you yourself what's best for men?", "Are you--poor, sick, old ere your time--", "Nearer one whit your own sublime", "Than we who never have turned a rhyme?", " Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.", "", "And you, great sculptor--so, you gave", "A score of years to Art, her slave,", "And that's your Venus, whence we turn", "To yonder girl that fords the burn!", " You acquiesce, and shall I repine?", "What, man of music, you grown grey", "With notes and nothing else to say,", "Is this your sole praise from a friend,", "\"Greatly his opera's strains intend,", "Put in music we know how fashions end!\"", " I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine.", "", "Who knows what's fit for us? Had fate", "Proposed bliss here should sublimate", "My being--had I signed the bond--", "Still one must lead some life beyond,", " Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried.", "This foot once planted on the goal,", "This glory-garland round my soul,", "Could I descry such? Try and test!", "I sink back shuddering from the quest.", "Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?", " Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.", "", "And yet--she has not spoke so long!", "What if heaven be that, fair and strong", "At life's best, with our eyes upturned", "Whither life's flower is first discerned,", " We, fixed so, ever should so abide?", "What if we still ride on, we two", "With life for ever old yet new,", "Changed not in kind but in degree,", "The instant made eternity--", "And heaven just prove that I and she", " Ride, ride together, forever ride?" ], "linecount": "110" }, { "title": "Protus", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Among these latter busts we count by scores,", "Half-emperors and quarter-emperors,", "Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest,", "Loric and low-browed Gorgon on the breast,", "One loves a baby face, with violets there,", "Violets instead of laurel in the hair,", "As those were all the little locks could bear.", "", "Now, read here. \"Protus ends a period", "Of empery beginning with a god;", "Born in the porphyry chamber at Byzant,", "Queens by his cradle, proud and ministrant:", "And if he quickened breath there, 'twould like fire", "Pantingly through the dim vast realm transpire.", "A fame that he was missing spread afar:", "The world from its four corners, rose in war,", "Till he was borne out on a balcony", "To pacify the world when it should see.", "The captains ranged before him, one, his hand", "Made baby points at, gained the chief command.", "And day by day more beautiful he grew", "In shape, all said, in feature and in hue,", "While young Greek sculptors, gazing on the child,", "Became with old Greek sculpture reconciled.", "Already sages laboured to condense", "In easy tomes a life's experience:", "And artists took grave counsel to impart", "In one breath and one hand-sweep, all their art,", "To make his graces prompt as blossoming", "Of plentifully-watered palms in spring:", "Since well beseems it, whoso mounts the throne,", "For beauty, knowledge, strength, should stand alone,", "And mortals love the letters of his name.\"", "", "--Stop! Have you turned two pages? Still the same.", "New reign, same date. The scribe goes on to say", "How that same year, on such a month and day,", "\"John the Pannonian, groundedly believed", "A blacksmith's bastard, whose hard hand reprieved", "The Empire from its fate the year before,", "Came, had a mind to take the crown, and wore", "The same for six years (during which the Huns", "Kept off their fingers from us), till his sons", "Put something in his liquor\"--and so forth.", "Then a new reign. Stay--\"Take at its just worth\"", "(Subjoins an annotator) \"what I give", "As hearsay. Some think, John let Protus live", "And slip away. 'Tis said, he reached man's age", "At some blind northern court; made, first a page,", "Then tutor to the children; last, of use", "About the hunting-stables. I deduce", "He wrote the little tract 'On worming dogs,'", "Whereof the name in sundry catalogues", "Is extant yet. A Protus of the race", "Is rumoured to have died a monk in Thrace,", "And if the same, he reached senility.\"", "", "Here's John the Smith's rough-hammered head. Great eye,", "Gross jaw and griped lips do what granite can", "To give you the crown-grasper. What a man!" ], "linecount": "57" }, { "title": "The Pied Piper of Hamelin: A Child's Story", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Hamelin town's in Brunswick,", "By famous Hanover city;", "The river Weser, deep and wide,", "Washes its walls on either side;", "A pleasanter spot you never spied;", "But, when begins my ditty,", "Almost five hundred years ago,", "To see the townsfolk suffer so", "From vermin, was a pity.", "", " Rats!", "They fought the dogs and killed the cats,", "And bit the babies in the cradles,", "And ate the cheeses out of the vats,", "And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,", "Split open the kegs of salted sprats.", "Made nests inside men's Sunday hats.", "And even spoiled the women's chats", "By drowning their speaking", "With shrieking and squeaking", "In fifty different sharps and flats.", "", "At last the people in a body", "To the Town Hall came flocking:", "\"'Tis clear,\" cried they, \"our Mayor's a noddy;", "And as for our Corporation, shocking", "To think we buy gowns lined with ermine", "For dolts that can't or won't determine", "What's best to rid us of our vermin!", "You hope, because you're old and obese,", "To find in the furry civic robe ease!", "Rouse up, sirs! give your brains a racking", "To find the remedy we're lacking,", "Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!\"", "At this the Mayor and Corporation", "Quaked with a mighty consternation.", "", "An hour they sat in council;", "At length the Mayor broke silence:", "\"For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell,", "I wish I were a mile hence!", "It's easy to bid one rack one's brain--", "I'm sure my poor head aches again,", "I've scratched it so, and all in vain.", "Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!\"", "Just as he said this, what should hap", "At the chamber door but a gentle tap?", "\"Bless us,\" cried the Mayor, \"what's that?\"", "(With the Corporation as he sat,", "Looking little, though wondrous fat;", "Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister", "Than a too-long-opened oyster,", "Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous", "For a plate of turtle, green and glutinous)", "\"Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?", "Anything like the sound of a rat", "Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!\"", "", "\"Come in!\"--the Mayor cried, looking bigger:", "And in did come the strangest figure!", "His queer long coat from heel to head", "Was half of yellow and half of red,", "And he himself was tall and thin,", "With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,", "With light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,", "No tuft on cheek, nor beard on chin,", "But lips where smiles went out and in;", "There was no guessing his kith and kin:", "And nobody could enough admire", "The tall man and his quaint attire.", "Quoth one: \"It's as my great grandsire,", "Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone,", "Had walked his way from his painted tombstone!\"", "", "He advanced to the council-table:", "And, \"Please your honors,\" said he, \"I'm able,", "By means of a secret charm, to draw", "All creatures living beneath the sun,", "That creep or swim or fly or run,", "After me so as you never saw!", "And I chiefly use my charm", "On creatures that do people harm,", "The mole and toad and newt and viper;", "And people call me the Pied Piper.\"", "(And here they noticed round his neck", "A scarf of red and yellow stripe,", "To match with his coat of self-same cheque:", "And at the scarf's end hung a pipe;", "And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying,", "As if impatient to be playing", "Upon this pipe, as low it dangled", "Over his vesture so old-fangled.)", "\"Yet,\" said he, \"poor piper as I am,", "In Tartary I freed the Cham,", "Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;", "I eased in Asia the Nizam", "Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats:", "And as for what your brain bewilders,", "If I can rid your town of rats", "Will you give me a thousand guilders?\"", "\"One? fifty thousand!\"--was the exclamation", "Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.", "", "Into the street the Piper stept,", "Smiling first a little smile,", "As if he knew what magic slept", "In his quiet pipe the while:", "Then, like a musical adept,", "To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,", "And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled,", "Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled;", "And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,", "You heard as if an army muttered:", "And the muttering grew to a grumbling;", "And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;", "And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.", "Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,", "Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats,", "Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,", "Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,", "Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,", " Families by tens and dozens,", "Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives--", "Followed the Piper for their lives.", "From street to street he piped advancing,", "And step for step they followed dancing,", "Until they came to the river Weser,", "Wherein all plunged and perished!", "--Save one, who, stout as Julius Cæsar,", "Swam across and lived to carry", "(As he, the manuscript he cherished)", "To Rat-land home his commentary:", "Which was: \"At the first shrill notes of the pipe,", "I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,", "And putting apples, wondrous ripe,", "Into a cider press's gripe;", "And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,", "And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,", "And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,", "And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks:", "And it seemed as if a voice", "(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery", "Is breathed) called out, 'Oh, rats, rejoice!", "The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!", "So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,", "Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!'", "And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon,", "Already staved, like a great sun shone", "Glorious scarce an inch before me,", "Just as methought it said, 'Come, bore me!'", "--I found the Weser rolling o'er me.\"", "", "You should have heard the Hamelin people", "Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.", "\"Go,\" cried the Mayor, \"and get long poles,", "Poke out the nests and block up the holes!", "Consult with carpenters and builders,", "And leave in our town, not even a trace", "Of the rats!\"--when suddenly, up the face", "Of the Piper perked in the market-place,", "With a, \"First, if you please, my thousand guilders!\"", "", "A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;", "So did the Corporation, too.", "For council dinners made rare havoc", "With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;", "And half the money would replenish", "Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish.", "To pay this sum to a wandering fellow", "With a gypsy coat of red and yellow!", "\"Beside,\" quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink,", "\"Our business was done at the river's brink;", "We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,", "And what's dead can't come to life, I think.", "So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink", "From the duty of giving you something for drink,", "And a matter of money to put in your poke;", "But as for the guilders, what we spoke", "Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.", "Beside, our losses have made us thrifty.", "A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!\"", "", "The Piper's face fell, and he cried,", "\"No trifling! I can't wait! Beside,", "I've promised to visit by dinner-time", "Bagdat, and accept the prime", "Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he's rich in,", "For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen,", "Of a nest of scorpions no survivor:", "With him I proved no bargain-driver,", "With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver!", "And folks who put me in a passion", "May find me pipe after another fashion.\"", "", "\"How?\" cried the Mayor, \"d'ye think I brook", "Being worse treated than a cook?", "Insulted by a lazy ribald", "With idle pipe and vesture piebald?", "You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst!", "Blow your pipe there till you burst!\"", "", "Once more he stept into the street,", " And to his lips again", "Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;", " And ere he blew three notes (such sweet,", "Soft notes as yet musician's cunning", " Never gave the enraptured air)", "There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling", "Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling;", "Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,", "Little hands clapping, and little tongues chattering,", "And, like fowls in a farm-yard, when barley is scattering,", "Out came the children running.", "All the little boys and girls.", "With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,", "And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,", "Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after", "The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.", "", "The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood", "As if they were changed into blocks of wood.", "Unable to move a step, or cry", "To the children merrily skipping by,", "--Could only follow with the eye", "That joyous crowd at the piper's back.", "But how the Mayor was on the rack,", "And the wretched Council's bosom beat,", "As the Piper turned from the High Street", "To where the Weser rolled its waters,", "Right in the way of their sons and daughters!", "However, he turned from South to West,", "And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,", "And after him the children pressed:", "Great was the joy in every breast.", "\"He never can cross that mighty top!", "He's forced to let the piping drop,", "And we shall see our children stop.\"", "When lo, as they reached the mountain-side,", "A wondrous portal opened wide,", "As if a cavern were suddenly hollowed;", "And the Piper advanced, and the children followed,", "And when all were in, to the very last,", "The door in the mountain-side shut fast.", "Did I say all? No! One was lame,", "And could not dance the whole of the way;", "And in after years, if you would blame", "His sadness, he was used to say,--", "\"It's dull in our town since my playmates left!", "I can't forget that I'm bereft", "Of all the pleasant sights they see,", "Which the Piper also promised me.", "For he led us, he said, to a joyous land.", "Joining the town, and just at hand,", "Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,", "And flowers put forth a fairer hue,", "And everything was strange and new:", "The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,", "And their dogs outran our fallow deer.", "And honey-bees had lost their stings,", "And horses were born with eagles' wings;", "And just as I became assured,", "My lame foot would be speedily cured,", "The music stopped and I stood still,", "And found myself outside the hill,", "Left alone against my will,", "To go now limping as before.", "And never hear of that country more!\"", "", "Alas, alas for Hamelin!", " There came into many a burgher's pate", " A text which says that Heaven's gate", " Opes to the rich at as easy a rate", "As the needle's eye takes a camel in!", "The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South,", "To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,", " Wherever it was men's lot to find him,", "Silver and gold to his heart's content,", "If he'd only return the way he went,", " And bring the children behind him.", "But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavor,", "And Piper and dancers were gone forever,", "They made a decree that lawyers never", " Should think their records dated duly", "If, after the day of the month and year,", "These words did not as well appear,", " \"And so long after what happened here", " On the twenty-second of July,", "Thirteen hundred and seventy-six;\"", "And the better in memory to fix", "The place of the children's last retreat,", "They called it the Pied Piper's Street--", "Where any one playing on pipe or tabor", "Was sure for the future to lose his labour.", "Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern", " To shock with mirth a street so solemn;", "But opposite the place of the cavern", " They wrote the story on a column,", "And on the great church window painted", "The same, to make the world acquainted", "How their children were stolen away.", "And there it stands to this very day.", "And I must not omit to say", "That in Transylvania there's a tribe", "Of alien people who ascribe", "The outlandish ways and dress", "On which their neighbours lay such stress,", "To their fathers and mothers having risen", "Out of some subterraneous prison", "Into which they were trepanned", "Long time ago in a mighty band", "Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,", "But how or why, they don't understand.", "", "So, Willy, let me and you be wipers", "Of scores out with all men--especially pipers!", "And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice,", "If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise!" ], "linecount": "303" }, { "title": "A Wall", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "O the old wall here! How I could pass", " Life in a long midsummer day,", "My feet confined to a plot of grass,", " My eyes from a wall not once away!", "", "And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe", " Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green:", "Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loath,", " In lappets of tangle they laugh between.", "", "Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe?", " Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims", "The body,--the house no eye can probe,--", " Divined, as beneath a robe, the limbs?", "", "And there again! But my heart may guess", " Who tripped behind; and she sang, perhaps:", "So the old wall throbbed, and its life's excess", " Died out and away in the leafy wraps.", "", "Wall upon wall are between us: life", " And song should away from heart to heart!", "I--prison-bird, with a ruddy strife", " At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start--", "", "Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing", " That's spirit: tho' cloistered fast, soar free;", "Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring", " Of the rueful neighbours, and--forth to thee!" ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Why I am a Liberal", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "\"Why?\" Because all I haply can and do,", " All that I am now, all I hope to be,--", " Whence comes it save from fortune setting free", "Body and soul the purpose to pursue,", "God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,", " Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,", " These shall I bid men--each in his degree", "Also God-guided--bear, and gayly too?", " But little do or can the best of us:", "That little is achieved thro' Liberty.", " Who then dares hold, emancipated thus,", "His fellow shall continue bound? not I,", " Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss", "A brother's right to freedom. That is \"Why.\"" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "A Toccata of Galuppi's", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!", "I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;", "But altho' I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!", "", "Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.", "What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,", "Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?", "", "Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by ... what you call", "... Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:", "I was never out of England--it's as if I saw it all.", "", "Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?", "Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,", "When they make up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?", "", "Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,--", "On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,", "O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head?", "", "Well, and it was graceful of them: they'd break talk off and afford", "--She, to bite her mask's black velvet--he, to finger on his sword,", "While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?", "", "What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished sigh on sigh,", "Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions--\"Must we die?\"", "Those commiserating sevenths--\"Life might last! we can but try!\"", "", "\"Were you happy?\"--\"Yes.\"--\"And are you still as happy?\"--\"Yes. And you?\"", "--\"Then, more kisses !\"--\"DidI_ stop them, when, a million seemed so few?\"", "Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!", "", "So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!", "\"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!", "I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!\"", "", "Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,", "Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,", "Death, stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.", "", "But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,", "While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,", "In you come with your cold music till I creep thro' every nerve.", "", "Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:", "\"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.", "The soul, doubtless, is immortal--where a soul can be discerned.", "", "\"Yours, for instance: you know physics, something of geology,", "Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;", "Butterflies may dread extinction,--you'll not die, it cannot be!", "", "\"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,", "Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:", "What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?", "", "\"Dust and ashes!\" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.", "Dear dead women, with such hair, too--what's become of all the gold", "Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old." ], "linecount": "45" }, { "title": "A Grammarian's Funeral : Shortly After the Revival of Learning in Europe", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Let us begin and carry up this corpse,", " Singing together.", "Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes,", " Each in its tether", "Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,", " Cared-for till cock-crow:", "Look out if yonder be not day again", " Rimming the rock-row!", "That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,", " Rarer, intenser,", "Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,", " Chafes in the censer.", "", "Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;", " Seek we sepulture", "On a tall mountain, citied to the top,", " Crowded with culture!", "All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;", " Clouds overcome it;", "No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's", " Circling its summit.", "Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:", " Wait ye the warning?", "Our low life was the level's and the night's:", " He's for the morning.", "Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,", " 'Ware the beholders!", "This is our master, famous calm and dead,", " Borne on our shoulders.", "", "Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,", " Safe from the weather!", "He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,", " Singing together,", "He was a man born with thy face and throat,", " Lyric Apollo!", "Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note", " Winter would follow?", "Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!", " Cramped and diminished,", "Moaned he, \"New measures, other feet anon!", " My dance is finished?\"", "No, that's the world's way; (keep the mountain-side,", " Make for the city!)", "He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride", " Over men's pity;", "Left play for work, and grappled with the world", " Bent on escaping:", "\"What's in the scroll,\" quoth he, \"thou keepest furled?", " Show me their shaping,", "Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,--", " Give!\"--So, he gowned him,", "Straight got by heart that book to its last page:", " Learned, we found him.", "Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,", " Accents uncertain:", "\"Time to taste life,\" another would have said,", " \"Up with the curtain!\"", "This man said rather, \"Actual life comes next?", " Patience a moment!", "Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,", " Still there's the comment.", "", "Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,", " Painful or easy!", "Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,", " Ay, nor feel queasy.\"", "Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,", " When he had learned it,", "When he had gathered all books had to give!", " Sooner, he spurned it.", "Image the whole, then execute the parts--", " Fancy the fabric", "Quite, ere you build, ere steel strikes fire from quartz,", " Ere mortar dab brick.", "", "(Here's the town-gate reached; there's the market-place", " Gaping before us.)", "Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace", " (Hearten our chorus!)", "That before living he'd learn how to live--", " No end to learning:", "Earn the means first--God surely will contrive", " Use for our earning.", "Others mistrust and say, \"But time escapes!", " Live now or never!\"", "He said, \"What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!", " Man has Forever.\"", "", "Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:", "Calculus_ racked him:", "Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:", "Tussis_ attacked him.", "\"Now, master, take a little rest!\"--not he!", " (Caution redoubled!", "Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)", " Not a whit troubled,", "Back to his studies, fresher than at first,", " Fierce as a dragon", "He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)", " Sucked at the flagon.", "Oh, if we draw a circle premature,", " Heedless of far gain,", "Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure", " Bad is our bargain!", "Was it not great? did not he throw on God", " (He loves the burthen)--", "God's task to make the heavenly period", " Perfect the earthen?", "Did not he magnify the mind, show clear", " Just what it all meant?", "He would not discount life, as fools do here,", " Paid by instalment.", "He ventured neck or nothing--heaven's success", " Found, or earth's failure:", "\"Wilt thou trust death or not?\" He answered \"Yes!", " Hence with life's pale lure!\"", "That low man seeks a little thing to do,", " Sees it and does it:", "This high man, with a great thing to pursue,", " Dies ere he knows it.", "That low man goes on adding one to one,", " His hundred's soon hit:", "This high man, aiming at a million,", " Misses an unit.", "That, has the world here--should he need the next,", " Let the world mind him!", "This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed", " Seeking shall find Him.", "So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,", " Ground he at grammar;", "Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife:", " While he could stammer", "He settledHoti's_ business--let it be!--", " Properly basedOun_--", "Gave as the doctrine of the encliticDe_", " Dead from the waist down.", "Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:", " Hail to your purlieus,", "All ye highfliers of the feathered race,", " Swallows and curlews:", "Here's the top-peak; the multitude below", " Live, for they can, there:", "This man decided not to Live, but Know--", " Bury this man there?", "Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,", " Lightnings are loosened,", "Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,", " Peace let the dew send!", "Lofty designs must close in like effects:", " Loftily lying,", "Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects,", " Living and dying." ], "linecount": "148" }, { "title": "The Heretic's Tragedy: A Middle-Age Interlude", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "The Lord, we look to once for all,", " Is the Lord we should look at, all at once:", "He knows not to vary, saith Saint Paul,", " Nor the shadow of turning, for the nonce.", "See him no other than as he is!", " Give both the infinitudes their due--", "Infinite mercy, but, I wis,", " As infinite a justice too.", "", "As infinite a justice too.", "", "John, Master of the Temple of God,", " Falling to sin the Unknown Sin,", "What he bought of Emperor Aldabrod,", " He sold it to Sultan Saladin:", "Till, caught by Pope Clement, a-buzzing there,", " Hornet-prince of the mad wasps' hive,", "And clipt of his wings in Paris square,", " They bring him now to be burned alive.", " [And wanteth there grace of lute or", " clavicithern, ye shall say to", " confirm him who singeth--", " We bring John now to be burned alive.", "", "In the midst is a goodly gallows built;", " 'Twixt fork and fork, a stake is stuck;", "But first they set divers tumbrils a-tilt,", " Make a trench all round with the city muck;", "Inside they pile log upon log, good store;", " Faggots no few, blocks great and small,", "Reach a man's mid-thigh, no less, no more,--", " For they mean he should roast in the sight of all.", "", " We mean he should roast in the sight of all.", "", "Good sappy bavins that kindle forthwith;", " Billets that blaze substantial and slow;", "Pine-stump split deftly, dry as pith;", " Larch-heart that chars to a chalk-white glow:", "They up they hoist me John in a chafe,", " Sling him fast like a hog to scorch,", "Spit in his face, then leap back safe,", "Sing \"Laudes\" and bid clap-to the torch.", "", " Laus deo--who bids clap-to the torch.", "", "John of the Temple, whose fame so bragged,", " Is burning alive in Paris square!", "How can he curse, if his mouth is gagged?", " Or wriggle his neck, with a collar there?", "Or heave his chest, which a band goes round?", " Or threat with his fist, since his arms are spliced?", "Or kick with his feet, now his legs are bound?", " --Thinks John, I will call upon Jesus Christ.", "", "Jesus Christ--John had bought and sold,", " Jesus Christ--John had eaten and drunk;", "To him, the Flesh meant silver and gold.", " (Salva reverentia.)", "Now it was, \"Saviour, bountiful lamb,", " \"I have roasted thee Turks, though men roast me!", "\"See thy servant, the plight wherein I am!", " \"Art thou a saviour? Save thou me!\"", "", " 'Tis John the mocker cries, \"Save thou me!\"", "", "Who maketh God's menace an idle word?", " --Saith, it no more means what it proclaims,", "Than a damsel's threat to her wanton bird?", " For she too prattles of ugly names.", "--Saith, he knoweth but one thing--what he knows?", " That God is good and the rest is breath;", "Why else is the same styled Sharon's rose?", " Once a rose, ever a rose, he saith.", "", " O, John shall yet find a rose, he saith!", "", "Alack, there be roses and roses, John!", " Some, honied of taste like your leman's tongue:", "Some, bitter; for why? (roast gaily on!)", " Their tree struck root in devil's-dung.", "When Paul once reasoned of righteousness", " And of temperance and of judgment to come,", "Good Felix trembled, he could no less:", " John, snickering, crook'd his wicked thumb.", "", " What cometh to John of the wicked thumb?", "", "Ha ha, John plucketh now at his rose", " To rid himself of a sorrow at heart!", "Lo,--petal on petal, fierce rays unclose;", " Anther on anther, sharp spikes outstart;", "And with blood for dew, the bosom boils;", " And a gust of sulphur is all its smell;", "And lo, he is horribly in the toils", " Of a coal-black giant flower of hell!", "", " What maketh heaven, That maketh hell.", "", "So, as John called now, through the fire amain,", " On the Name, he had cursed with, all his life--", "To the Person, he bought and sold again--", " For the Face, with his daily buffets rife--", "Feature by feature It took its place:", " And his voice, like a mad dog's choking bark,", "At the steady whole of the Judge's face--", " Died. Forth John's soul flared into the dark.", "", " God help all poor souls lost in the dark!" ], "linecount": "92" }, { "title": "Incident of the French Camp", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:", " A mile or so away", "On a little mound, Napoleon", " Stood on our storming-day;", "With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,", " Legs wide, arms locked behind,", "As if to balance the prone brow", " Oppressive with its mind.", "", "Just as perhaps he mused \"My plans", " That soar, to earth may fall,", "Let once my army-leader Lannes", " Waver at yonder wall\"--", "Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew", " A rider, bound on bound", "Full-galloping; nor bridle drew", " Until he reached the mound,", "", "Then off there flung in smiling joy,", " And held himself erect", "By just his horse's mane, a boy:", " You hardly could suspect--", "(So tight he kept his lips compressed.", " Scarce any blood came through)", "You looked twice ere you saw his breast", " Was all but shot in two.", "", "\"Well,\" cried he, \"Emperor, by God's grace", " We've got you Ratisbon!", "The Marshal's in the market-place,", " And you'll be there anon", "To see your flag-bird flap his vans", " Where I, to heart's desire,", "Perched him!\" The chief's eye flashed; his plans", " Soared up again like fire.", "", "The chief's eye flashed; but presently", " Softened itself, as sheathes", "A film the mother-eagle's eye", " When her bruised eaglet breathes.", "\"You're wounded!\" \"Nay,\" the soldier's pride", " Touched to the quick, he said:", "\"I'm killed, Sire!\" And his chief beside,", " Smiling, the boy fell dead." ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "Love Among the Ruins", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles", " Miles and miles", "On the solitary pastures where our sheep", " Half-asleep", "Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop", " As they crop--", "Was the site once of a city great and gay,", " (So they say)", "Of our country's very capital, its prince", " Ages since", "Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far", " Peace or war.", "", "Now,--the country does not even boast a tree,", " As you see,", "To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills", " From the hills", "Intersect and give a name to (else they run", " Into one),", "Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires", " Up like fires", "O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall", " Bounding all,", "Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,", " Twelve abreast.", "", "And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass", " Never was!", "Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads", " And embeds", "Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,", " Stock or stone--", "Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe", " Long ago;", "Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame", " Struck them tame;", "And that glory and that shame alike, the gold", " Bought and sold.", "", "Now,--the single little turret that remains", " On the plains,", "By the caper overrooted, by the gourd", " Overscored,", "While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks", " Thro' the chinks--", "Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time", " Sprang sublime,", "And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced", " As they raced,", "And the monarch and his minions and his dames", " Viewed the games.", "", "And I know--while thus the quiet-coloured eve", " Smiles to leave", "To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece", " In such peace,", "And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray", " Melt away--", "That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair", " Waits me there", "In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul", " For the goal,", "When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb", " Till I come,", "", "But he looked upon the city, every side,", " Far and wide,", "All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'", " Colonnades,", "All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then,", " All the men!", "When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,", " Either hand", "On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace", " Of my face,", "Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech", " Each on each.", "", "In one year they sent a million fighters forth", " South and North,", "And they built their gods a brazen pillar high", " As the sky,", "Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--", " Gold, of course.", "Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!", " Earth's returns", "For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin!", " Shut them in,", "With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!", " Love is best." ], "linecount": "84" }, { "title": "A Woman's Last Word", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Let's contend no more, Love,", " Strive nor weep:", "All be as before, Love,", " --Only sleep!", "", "What so wild as words are?", " I and thou", "In debate, as birds are,", " Hawk on bough!", "", "See the creature stalking", " While we speak!", "Hush and hide the talking,", " Cheek on cheek.", "", "What so false as truth is,", " False to thee?", "Where the serpent's tooth is,", " Shun the tree--", "", "Where the apple reddens,", " Never pry--", "Lest we lose our Edens,", " Eve and I.", "", "Be a god and hold me", " With a charm!", "Be a man and fold me", " With thine arm!", "", "Teach me, only teach, Love!", " As I ought", "I will speak thy speech, Love,", " Think thy thought--", "", "Meet, if thou require it,", " Both demands,", "Laying flesh and spirit", " In thy hands.", "", "That shall be to-morrow,", " Not to-night:", "I must bury sorrow", " Out of sight:", "", "--Must a little weep, Love,", " (Foolish me!)", "And so fall asleep, Love,", " Loved by thee." ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "The Lost Leader", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Just for a handful of silver he left us,", " Just for a riband to stick in his coat--", "Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,", " Lost all the others she lets us devote;", "They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,", " So much was theirs who so little allowed;", "How all our copper had gone for his service!", " Rags--were they purple, his heart had been proud!", "We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,", " Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,", "Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,", " Made him our pattern to live and to die!", "Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,", " Burns, Shelley, were with us,--they watch from their graves!", "He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,", " He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!", "", "We shall march prospering--not through his presence;", " Songs may inspirit us,--not from his lyre:", "Deeds will be done,--while he boasts his quiescence,", " Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:", "Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,", " One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,", "One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,", " One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!", "Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!", " There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,", "Forced praise on our part--the glimmer of twilight,", " Never glad confident morning again!", "Best fight on well, for we taught him--strike gallantly,", " Menace our heart ere we master his own;", "Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,", " Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!" ], "linecount": "32" }, { "title": "Apparent Failure", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "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?", "", "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 balked!", "", "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.", "", "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 asphalt seemed best.", "", "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!", "", "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!", "", "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,", "Tho' a wide compass round be fetched;", " That what began best, can't end worst,", " Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst." ], "linecount": "63" }, { "title": "In a Gondola", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "He sings.", "", "I send my heart up to thee, all my heart", " In this my singing.", "For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;", " The very night is clinging", "Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space", " Above me, whence thy face", "May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.", "", "She speaks.", "", "Say after me, and try to say", "My very words, as if each word", "Came from you of your own accord,", "In your own voice, in your own way:", "\"This woman's heart and soul and brain", "Are mine as much as this gold chain", "She bids me wear, which (say again)", "I choose to make by cherishing", "A precious thing, or choose to fling", "Over the boat-side, ring by ring.\"", "And yet once more say... no word more!", "Since words are only words. Give o'er!", "", "Unless you call me, all the same,", "Familiarly by my pet name,", "Which if the Three should hear you call,", "And me reply to, would proclaim", "At once our secret to them all.", "Ask of me, too, command me, blame--", "Do, break down the partition-wall", "'Twixt us, the daylight world beholds", "Curtained in dusk and splendid folds!", "What's left but--all of me to take?", "I am the Three's: prevent them, slake", "Your thirst! 'Tis said, the Arab sage,", "In practising with gems, can loose", "Their subtle spirit in his cruce", "And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage,", "Leave them my ashes when thy use", "Sucks out my soul, thy heritage!", "", "", "He sings.", "", "Past we glide, and past, and past!", " What's that poor Agnese doing", "Where they make the shutters fast?", " Grey Zanobi's just a-wooing", "To his couch the purchased bride:", " Past we glide!", "", "Past we glide, and past, and past!", " Why's the Pucci Palace flaring", "Like a beacon to the blast?", " Guests by hundreds, not one caring", "If the dear host's neck were wried:", " Past we glide!", "", "She sings.", "", "The moth's kiss, first!", "Kiss me as if you made believe", "You were not sure, this eve,", "How my face, your flower, had pursed", "Its petals up; so, here and there", "You brush it, till I grow aware", "Who wants me, and wide ope I burst..", "", "The bee's kiss, now!", "Kiss me as if you entered gay", "My heart at some noonday,", "A bud that dares not disallow", "The claim, so all is rendered up,", "And passively its shattered cup", "Over your head to sleep I bow.", "", "He sings.", "", "What are we two?", "I am a Jew,", "And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue,", "To a feast of our tribe;", "Where they need thee to bribe", "The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe.", "Thy... Scatter the vision for ever! And now", "As of old, I am I, thou art thou!", "", "Say again, what we are?", "The sprite of a star,", "I lure thee above where the destinies bar", "My plumes their full play", "Till a ruddier ray", "Than my pale one announce there is withering away", "Some... Scatter the vision forever! And now,", "As of old, I am I, thou art thou!", "", "He muses.", "", "Oh, which were best, to roam or rest?", "The land's lap or the water's breast?", "To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,", "Or swim in lucid shallows just", "Eluding water-lily leaves,", "An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust", "To lock you, whom release he must;", "Which life were best on Summer eves?", "", "He speaks, musing.", "", "Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?", "From this shoulder let there spring", "A wing; from this, another wing;", "Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you!", "Snow-white must they spring, to blend", "With your flesh, but I intend", "They shall deepen to the end,", "Broader, into burning gold,", "Till both wings crescent-wise enfold", "Your perfect self, from 'neath your feet", "To o'er your head, where, lo, they meet", "As if a million sword-blades hurled", "Defiance from you to the world!", "", "Rescue me thou, the only real!", "And scare away this mad ideal", "That came, nor motions to depart!", "Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!", "", "Still he muses.", "", "What if the Three should catch at last", "Thy serenader? While there's cast", "Paul's cloak about my head, and fast", "Gian pinions me, Himself has past", "His stylet thro' my back; I reel;", "And... is it thou I feel?", "", "They trail me, these three godless knaves,", "Past every church that saints and saves,", "Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves", "By Lido's wet accursed graves,", "They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,", "And... on thy breast I sink!", "", "She replies, musing.", "", "Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow-deep,", "As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep,", "Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame or steel,", "Or poison doubtless; but from water--feel!", "Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There!", "Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass", "To plait in where the foolish jewel was,", "I flung away: since you have praised my hair,", "'Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.", "", "He speaks.", "", "Row home? must we row home? Too surely", "Know I where its front's demurely", "Over the Giudecca piled;", "Window just with window mating,", "Door on door exactly waiting,", "All's the set face of a child:", "But behind it, where's a trace", "Of the staidness and reserve,", "And formal lines without a curve,", "In the same child's playing-face?", "No two windows look one way", "O'er the small sea-water thread", "Below them. Ah, the autumn day", "I, passing, saw you overhead!", "First, out a cloud of curtain blew,", "Then a sweet cry, and last came you--", "To catch your lory that must needs", "Escape just then, of all times then,", "To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds,", "And make me happiest of men.", "I scarce could breathe to see you reach", "So far back o'er the balcony", "To catch him ere he climbed too high", "Above you in the Smyrna peach", "That quick the round smooth cord of gold,", "This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,", "Fell down you like a gorgeous snake", "The Roman girls were wont, of old,", "When Rome there was, for coolness' sake", "To let lie curling o'er their bosoms.", "Dear lory, may his beak retain", "Ever its delicate rose stain", "As if the wounded lotus-blossoms", "Had marked their thief to know again!", "", "Stay longer yet, for others' sake", "Than mine! What should your chamber do?", "--With all its rarities that ache", "In silence while day lasts, but wake", "At night-time and their life renew,", "Suspended just to pleasure you", "Who brought against their will together", "These objects, and, while day lasts, weave", "Around them such a magic tether", "That dumb they look: your harp, believe,", "With all the sensitive tight strings", "Which dare not speak, now to itself", "Breathes slumberously, as if some elf", "Went in and out the chords, his wings", "Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze,", "As an angel may, between the maze", "Of midnight palace-pillars, on", "And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone", "Through guilty glorious Babylon.", "And while such murmurs flow, the nymph", "Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell", "As the dry limpet for the nymph", "Come with a tune he knows so well.", "And how your statues' hearts must swell!", "And how your pictures must descend", "To see each other, friend with friend!", "Oh, could you take them by surprise,", "You'd find Schidone's eager Duke", "Doing the quaintest courtesies", "To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke!", "And, deeper into her rock den,", "Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen", "You'd find retreated from the ken", "Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser--", "As if the Tizian thinks of her,", "And is not, rather, gravely bent", "On seeing for himself what toys", "Are these, his progeny invent,", "What litter now the board employs", "Whereon he signed a document", "That got him murdered! Each enjoys", "Its night so well, you cannot break", "The sport up, so, indeed must make", "More stay with me, for others' sake.", "", "She speaks.", "", "To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,", "Is used to tie the jasmine back", "That overfloods my room with sweets,", "Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets", "My Zanze! If the ribbon's black,", "The Three are watching: keep away!", "", "Your gondola--let Zorzi wreathe", "A mesh of water weeds about", "Its prow, as if he unaware", "Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair!", "That I may throw a paper out", "As you and he go underneath.", "There's Zanze's vigilant taper; safe are we.", "Only one minute more to-night with me?", "Resume your past self of a month ago!", "Be you the bashful gallant, I will be", "The lady with the colder breast than snow.", "Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand", "More than I touch yours when I step to land,", "And say, \"All thanks, Siora!\"--", " Heart to heart", "And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,", "Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art!", "", " [He is surprised, and stabbed.", "", "It was ordained to be so, sweet!--and best", "Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast.", "Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care", "Only to put aside thy beauteous hair", "My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn", "To death, because they never lived: but I", "Have lived indeed, and so--(yet one more kiss)--can die!" ], "linecount": "245" }, { "title": "Porphyria's Lover", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "The rain set early in to-night,", " The sullen wind was soon awake,", "It tore the elm-tops down for spite,", " And did its worst to vex the lake:", " I listened with heart fit to break.", "When glided in Porphyria; straight", " She shut the cold out and the storm,", "And kneeled and made the cheerless grate", " Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;", " Which done, she rose, and from her form", "Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,", " And laid her soiled gloves by, untied", "Her hat and let the damp hair fall,", " And, last, she sat down by my side", " And called me. When no voice replied,", "She put my arm about her waist,", " And made her smooth white shoulder bare,", "And all her yellow hair displaced,", " And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,", " And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,", "Murmuring how she loved me--she", " Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,", "To set its struggling passion free", " From pride, and vainer ties dissever,", " And give herself to me for ever.", "But passion sometimes would prevail,", " Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain", "A sudden thought of one so pale", " For love of her, and all in vain:", " So, she was come through wind and rain.", "", "Be sure I looked up at her eyes", " Happy and proud; at last I knew", "Porphyria worshipped me; surprise", " Made my heart swell, and still it grew", " While I debated what to do.", "That moment she was mine, mine, fair,", " Perfectly pure and good: I found", "A thing to do, and all her hair", " In one long yellow string I wound", " Three times her little throat around,", "And strangled her. No pain felt she;", " I am quite sure she felt no pain.", "As a shut bud that holds a bee,", " I warily oped her lids: again", " Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.", "And I untightened next the tress", " About her neck; her cheek once more", "Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:", " I propped her head up as before,", " Only, this time my shoulder bore", "Her head, which droops upon it still:", " The smiling rosy little head,", "So glad it has its utmost will,", " That all it scorned at once is fled,", "And I, its love, am gained instead!", "Porphyria's love: she guessed not how", " Her darling one wish would be heard.", "And thus we sit together now,", " And all night long we have not stirred,", " And yet God has not said a word!" ], "linecount": "60" }, { "title": "How They Brought the Good News From Ghent to Aix", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;", "I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;", "\"Good speed!\" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;", "\"Speed!\" echoed the wall to us galloping through;", "Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,", "And into the midnight we galloped abreast.", "", "Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace", "Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;", "I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,", "Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,", "Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,", "Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.", "", "'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near", "Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear:", "At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;", "At Düffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be;", "And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,", "So, Joris broke silence with, \"Yet there is time!\"", "", "At Aershot up leaped of a sudden the sun,", "And against him the cattle stood black every one,", "To stare through the mist at us galloping past,", "And I saw my stout galloper Roland, at last,", "With resolute shoulders, each butting away", "The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:", "", "And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back", "For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;", "And one eye's black intelligence,--ever that glance", "O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!", "And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon", "His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.", "", "By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, \"Stay spur!", "Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,", "We'll remember at Aix\"--for one heard the quick wheeze", "Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,", "And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,", "As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.", "", "So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,", "Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;", "The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,", "'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;", "Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,", "And \"Gallop,\" gasped Joris, \"for Aix is in sight!\"", "", "\"How they'll greet us!\"--and all in a moment his roan", "Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;", "And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight", "Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,", "With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,", "And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.", "", "Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall,", "Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,", "Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,", "Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;", "Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,", "Till at length, into Aix Roland galloped and stood.", "", "And all I remember is,--friends flocking round", "As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;", "And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,", "As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,", "Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)", "Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent." ], "linecount": "60" }, { "title": "Misconceptions", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "This is a spray the bird clung to,", " Making it blossom with pleasure,", "Ere the high tree-top she sprung to,", " Fit for her nest and her treasure.", " Oh, what a hope beyond measure", "Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to,--", "So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!", "", "This is a heart the Queen leant on,", " Thrilled in a minute erratic,", "Ere the true bosom she bent on,", " Meet for love's regal dalmatic.", " Oh, what a fancy ecstatic", "Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went on--", "Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Natural Magic", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "All I can say is--I saw it!", "The room was as bare as your hand.", "I locked in the swarth little lady,--I swear,", "From the head to the foot of her--well, quite as bare!", "\"No Nautch shall cheat me,\" said I, \"taking my stand", "At this bolt which I draw!\" And this bolt--I withdraw it,", "And there laughs the lady, not bare, but embowered", "With--who knows what verdure, o'erfruited, o'erflowered?", "Impossible! Only--I saw it!", "", "All I can sing is--I feel it!", "This life was as blank as that room;", "I let you pass in here. Precaution, indeed?", "Walls, ceiling, and floor,--not a chance for a weed!", "Wide opens the entrance: where's cold, now, where's gloom?", "No May to sow seed here, no June to reveal it,", "Behold you enshrined in these blooms of your bringing,", "These fruits of your bearing--nay, birds of your winging!", "A fairy-tale! Only--I feel it!" ], "linecount": "18" }, { "title": "Apparitions", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Such a starved bank of moss", " Till, that May-morn,", "Blue ran the flash across:", " Violets were born!", "", "Sky--what a scowl of cloud", " Till, near and far,", "Ray on ray split the shroud:", " Splendid, a star!", "", "World--how it walled about", " Life with disgrace,", "Till God's own smile came out:", " That was thy face!" ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Songs From Pippa Passes", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Day!", "Faster and more fast,", "O'er night's brim, day boils at last:", "Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.", "Where spurting and suppressed it lay,", "For not a froth-flake touched the rim", "Of yonder gap in the solid gray", "Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;", "But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,", "Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,", "Rose, reddened, and its seething breast", "Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.", "", " All service ranks the same with God:", " If now, as formerly He trod", " Paradise, His presence fills", " Our earth, each only as God wills", " Can work--God's puppets, best and worst,", " Are we: there is no last nor first.", "", " The year's at the spring", " And day's at the morn:", " Morning's at seven;", " The hillside's dew-pearled;", " The lark's on the wing;", " The snail's on the thorn:", " God's in His heaven--", " All's right with the world!", "", "Give her but a least excuse to love me!", " When--where--", "How--can this arm establish her above me,", " If fortune fixed her as my lady there,", "There already, to eternally reprove me?", " (\"Hist!\"--said Kate the queen;", "But \"Oh,\" cried the maiden, binding her tresses,", " \"'Tis only a page that carols unseen,", "Crumbling your hounds their messes!\")", "", "Is she wronged?--To the rescue of her honour,", " My heart!", "Is she poor?--What costs it to be styled a donor?", " Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.", "But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!", " (\"Nay, list!\"--bade Kate the queen;", "And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,", " \"'Tis only a page that carols unseen,", "Fitting your hawks their jesses!\")" ], "linecount": "44" }, { "title": "Fears and Scruples", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Here's my case. Of old I used to love him.", " This same unseen friend, before I knew:", "Dream there was none like him, none above him,--", " Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.", "", "Loved I not his letters full of beauty?", " Not his actions famous far and wide?", "Absent, he would know I vowed him duty,", " Present, he would find me at his side.", "", "Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters,", " Only knew of actions by hearsay:", "He himself was busied with my betters;", " What of that? My turn must come some day.", "", "\"Some day\" proving--no day! Here's the puzzle.", " Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain?", "He's so busied! If I could but muzzle", " People's foolish mouths that give me pain!", "", "\"Letters?\" (hear them!) \"You a judge of writing?", " Ask the experts!--How they shake the head", "O'er these characters, your friend's inditing--", " Call them forgery from A to Z!", "", "\"Actions? Where's your certain proof\" (they bother)", " \"He, of all you find so great and good,", "He, he only, claims this, that, the other", " Action--claimed by men, a multitude?\"", "", "I can simply wish I might refute you,", " Wish my friend would,--by a word, a wink,--", "Bid me stop that foolish mouth,--you brute you!", " He keeps absent,--why, I cannot think.", "", "Never mind! Tho' foolishness may flout me.", " One thing's sure enough; 'tis neither frost,", "No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me", " Thanks for truth--tho' falsehood, gained--tho' lost.", "", "All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier,", " For that dream's sake! How forget the thrill", "Thro' and thro' me as I thought, \"The gladlier", " Lives my friend because I love him still!\"", "", "Ah, but there's a menace some one utters!", " \"What and if your friend at home play tricks?", "Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters?", " Mean your eyes should pierce thro' solid bricks?", "", "'What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy?", " Lay on you the blame that bricks--conceal?", "Say '_At least I saw who did not see me,", " Does see now, and presently shall feel_'?\"", "", "\"Why, that makes your friend a monster!\" say you;", " \"Had his house no window? At first nod,", "Would you not have hailed him?\" Hush, I pray you!", " What if this friend happen to be--God?" ], "linecount": "48" }, { "title": "The Patriot: An Old Story", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "It was roses, roses, all the way,", " With myrtle mixed in my path like mad;", "The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,", " The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,", "A year ago on this very day.", "", "The air broke into a mist with bells,", " The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.", "Had I said, \"Good folk, mere noise repels--", " But give me your sun from yonder skies!\"", "They had answered \"And afterward, what else?\"", "", "Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun", " To give it my loving friends to keep!", "Naught man could do, have I left undone:", " And you see my harvest, what I reap", "This very day, now a year is run.", "", "There's nobody on the house-tops now--", " Just a palsied few at the windows set;", "For the best of the sight is, all allow,", " At the Shambles' Gate--or, better yet,", "By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.", "", "I go in the rain, and, more than needs,", " A rope cuts both my wrists behind;", "And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,", " For they fling, whoever has a mind,", "Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.", "", "Thus I entered, and thus I go!", " In triumphs, people have dropped down dead,", "\"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe", " Me? \"--God might question; now instead,", "'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so." ], "linecount": "30" }, { "title": "Memorabilia", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,", " And did he stop and speak to you,", "And did you speak to him again?", " How strange it seems and new!", "", "But you were living before that,", " And also you are living after;", "And the memory I started at--", " My starting moves your laughter!", "", "I crossed a moor with a name of its own", " And a certain use in the world, no doubt,", "Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone", " 'Mid the blank miles round about.", "", "For there I picked upon the heather", " And there I put inside my breast", "A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!", " Well, I forget the rest." ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Epilogue to \"Asolando\"", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,", " When you set your fancies free,", "Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned--", "Low he lies who once so loved you whom you loved so,", " --Pity me?", "", "Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!", " What had I on earth to do", "With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?", "Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel", " --Being--who?", "", "One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,", " Never doubted clouds would break,", "Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph,", " Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,", " Sleep to wake.", "", "No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time", " Greet the unseen with a cheer!", "Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,", " \"Strive and thrive!\" cry \"Speed,--fight on, fare ever", " There as here!\"" ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "Home Thoughts, From Abroad", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Oh, to be in England", "Now that April's there,", "And whoever wakes in England", "Sees, some morning, unaware,", "That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf", "Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,", "While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough", "In England--now!", "", "And after April, when May follows,", "And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!", "Hark I where my blossomed pear tree in the hedge", "Leans to the field and scatters on the clover", "Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge--", "That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,", "Lest you should think he never could recapture", "The first fine careless rapture!", "And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,", "All will be gay when noontide wakes anew", "The buttercups, the little children's dower", "--Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!" ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "Caliban upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the Island", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "\"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.\"", "", "['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,", "Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,", "With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin,", "And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,", "And feels about his spine small eft-things course,", "Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:", "And while above his head a pompion-plant,", "Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye,", "Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,", "And now a flower drops with a bee inside,", "And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,--", "He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross", "And recross till they weave a spider-web,", "(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times)", "And talks, to his own self, howe'er he please,", "Touching that other, whom his dam called God.", "Because to talk about Him, vexes--ha,", "Could He but know! and time to vex is now,", "When talk is safer than in winter-time.", "Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep", "In confidence, he drudges at their task,", "And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,", "Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]", "", " Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!", "'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.", "", " 'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,", "But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;", "Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:", "Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,", "And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.", "", "'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease:", "He hated that He cannot change His cold,", "Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish", "That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived,", "And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine", "O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,", "A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave;", "Only, she ever sickened, found repulse", "At the other kind of water, not her life,", "(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun)", "Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe,", "And in her old bounds buried her despair,", "Hating and loving warmth alike: so He.", "", "'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,", "Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.", "Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;", "Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,", "That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown,", "He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye", "By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue", "That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm,", "And says a plain word when she finds her prize,", "But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves", "That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks", "About their hole--He made all these and more,", "Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?", "He could not, Himself, make a second self", "To be His mate: as well have made Himself:", "He would not make what He mislikes or slights,", "An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains;", "But did, in envy, listlessness, or sport,", "Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be--", "Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,", "Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,", "Things He admires and mocks too,--that is it!", "Because, so brave, so better tho' they be,", "It nothing skills if He begin to plague.", "Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,", "Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,", "Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,--", "Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,", "Quick, quick, till maggots scamper thro' my brain;", "Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme.", "And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.", "Put case, unable to be what I wish,", "I yet could make a live bird out of clay:", "Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban", "Able to fly?--for there, see, he hath wings,", "And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire,", "And there, a sting to do his foes offence,", "There, and I will that he begin to live,", "Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns", "Of grigs high up that make the merry din,", "Saucy thro' their veined wings, and mind me not.", "In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay,", "And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh;", "And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,", "Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,", "Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,--", "Well, as the chance were, this might take or else", "Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry,", "And give the mankin three sound legs for one,", "Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg,", "And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.", "Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,", "Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,", "Making and marring clay at will? So He.", "", "'Thinketh such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,", "Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.", "'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs", "That march now from the mountain to the sea;", "'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,", "Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.", "'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots", "Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;", "'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm.", "And two worms he whose nippers end in red:", "As it likes me each time, I do: so He.", "", "Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main,", "Placable if His mind and ways were guessed,", "But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!", "Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself,", "And envieth that, so helped, such things do more", "Than He who made them! What consoles but this?", "That they, unless thro' Him, do naught at all,", "And must submit: what other use in things?", "'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint", "That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay", "When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue;", "Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay", "Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt:", "Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth", "\"I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,", "I make the cry my maker cannot make", "With his great round mouth; he must blow thro' mine!\"", "Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.", "", " But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?", "Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that,", "What knows,--the something over Setebos", "That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,", "Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.", "There may be something quiet o'er His head,", "Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,", "Since both derive from weakness in some way.", "I joy because the quails come; would not joy", "Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:", "This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.", "'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,", "But never spends much thought nor care that way.", "It may look up, work up,--the worse for those", "It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos", "The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,", "Who, making Himself feared thro' what He does,", "Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar", "To what is quiet and hath happy life;", "Next looks down here, and out of very spite", "Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,", "These good things to match those as hips do grapes.", "'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.", "Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books", "Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:", "Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,", "Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;", "Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;", "Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe", "The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;", "And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,", "A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,", "Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,", "And saith she is Miranda and my wife:", "'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane", "He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;", "Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,", "Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,", "And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge", "In a hole o' the rock, and calls him Caliban;", "A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.", "'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way,", "Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.", "", "His dam held that the Quiet made all things", "Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so.", "Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.", "Had He meant other, while His hand was in,", "Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,", "Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,", "Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint,", "Like an orc's armour? Ay,--so spoil His sport!", "He is the One now: only He doth all.", "", "'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.", "Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?", "'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast", "Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose.", "But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate", "Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.", "Also it pleaseth Setebos to work,", "Use all His hands, and exercise much craft,", "By no means for the love of what is worked.", "'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world", "When all goes right, in this safe summer-time,", "And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,", "Than trying what to do with wit and strength.", "'Falls to make something; 'piled yon pile of turfs,", "And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,", "And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,", "And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,", "And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,", "Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.", "No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake;", "'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.", "", "'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!", "One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.", "He hath a spite against me, that I know.", "Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why?", "So it is, all the same, as well I find.", "'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm", "With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises", "Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave,", "Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck,", "Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue,", "And licked the whole labour flat; so much for spite!", "'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)", "Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade:", "Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!", "'Dug up a newt He may have envied once", "And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone.", "Please Him and hinder this?--What Prosper does?", "Aha, if he would tell me how! Not he!", "There is the sport: discover how or die!", "All need not die, for of the things o' the isle", "Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;", "Those at His mercy,--why, they please Him most", "When ... when ... well, never try the same way twice!", "Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.", "You must not know His ways, and play Him off,", "Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself:", "'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears", "But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,", "And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:", "'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise,", "Curls up into a ball, pretending death", "For fright at my approach: the two ways please.", "But what would move my choler more than this,", "That either creature counted on its life", "To-morrow, next day and all days to come,", "Saying forsooth in the inmost of its heart,", "\"Because he did so yesterday with me,", "And otherwise with such another brute,", "So must he do henceforth and always.\" Ay?", "'Would teach the reasoning couple what \"must\" means!", "'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.", "", "'Conceiveth all things will continue thus,", "And we shall have to live in fear of Him", "So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,", "If He have done His best, make no new world", "To please Him more, so leave off watching this,--", "If He surprise not even the Quiet's self", "Some strange day,--or, suppose, grow into it", "As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we,", "And there is He, and nowhere help at all.", "", "'Believeth with the life the pain shall stop.", "His dam held different, that after death", "He both plagued enemies and feasted friends:", "Idly! He doth His worst in this our life,", "Giving just respite lest we die thro' pain,", "Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end.", "Meanwhile, the best way to escape His Ire", "Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself,", "Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,", "Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.", "'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball", "On head and tail as if to save their lives:", "'Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.", "", "Even so, 'would have him misconceive, suppose", "This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,", "And always, above all else, envies Him;", "Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights,", "Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh,", "And never speaks his mind save housed as now:", "Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here,", "O'erheard this speech, and asked \"What chucklest at?\"", "'Would to appease Him, cut a finger off,", "Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,", "Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,", "Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste:", "While myself lit a fire, and made a song", "And sung it,\"What I hate, be consecrate", "To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate", "For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?\"_", "Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,", "Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,", "That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch", "And conquer Setebos, or likelier He", "Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.", "", "[What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once!", "Crickets stop hissing; not a bird--or, yes,", "There scuds His raven, that hath told Him all!", "It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind", "Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move,", "And fast invading fires begin! White blaze--", "A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there,", "His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!", "So! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!", "'Maketh his teeth meet thro' his upper lip,", "Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month", "One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!]" ], "linecount": "296" }, { "title": "Saul", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Said Abner, \"At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak.", "Kiss my cheek, wish me well!\" Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek.", "And he, \"Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent,", "Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent", "Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet,", "Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet.", "For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days,", "Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of praise,", "To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife,", "And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life.", "", "\"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with his dew", "On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue", "Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat", "Were now raging to torture the desert!\"", "", " Then I, as was meet,", "Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet,", "And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped;", "I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped;", "Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone,", "That extends to the second enclosure. I groped my way on", "Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I prayed,", "And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid", "But spoke, \"Here is David, thy servant!\" And no voice replied.", "At the first I saw naught but the blackness; but soon I descried", "A something more black than the blackness--the vast, the upright", "Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight", "Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all.", "Then a sunbeam, that burst thro' the tent roof, showed Saul.", "", "He stood erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide", "On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side;", "He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his pangs", "And waiting his change, the king serpent all heavily hangs,", "Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come", "With the spring-time,--so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind and dumb.", "", "Then I tuned my harp,--took off the lilies we twine round its chords", "Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide--those sunbeams like swords!", "And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one,", "So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done.", "They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed", "Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed;", "And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star", "Into eve and the blue far above us,--so, blue and so far!", "", "--Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate", "To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate", "Till for boldness they fight one another: and then, what has weight", "To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house--", "There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse!", "God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,", "To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.", "", "Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand", "Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand", "And grow one in the sense of this world's life.--And then, the last song", "When the dead man is praised on his journey--\"Bear, bear him along", "With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets!\" Are balm-seeds not here", "To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier.", "\"Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!\"--And then, the glad chaunt", "Of the marriage,--first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt", "As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.--And then, the great march", "Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch", "Naught can break; who shall harm them, our friends?--Then, the chorus intoned", "As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned.", "But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul groaned.", "", "And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart;", "And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered: and sparkles 'gan dart", "From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once with a start,", "All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart.", "So the head: but the body still moved not, still hung there erect.", "And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked,", "As I sang,--", "", " \"Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste,", "Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced.", "Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,", "The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock", "Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear,", "And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.", "And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold-dust divine,", "And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,", "And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell", "That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.", "How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ", "All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy!", "Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou didst guard", "When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward?", "Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung", "The low song of the nearly departed, and hear her faint tongue", "Joining in while it could to the witness, 'Let one more attest,", "I have lived, seen God's hand thro' a lifetime, and all was for best!'", "Then they sung thro' their tears in strong triumph, not much, but the rest.", "And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence grew", "Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit strained true:", "And the friends of thy boyhood--that boyhood of wonder and hope,", "Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye's scope,--", "Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is thine:", "And all gifts which the world offers singly, on one head combine!", "On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like the throe", "That, a-work in the rock, helps its labour and lets the gold go),", "High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them,--all", "Brought to blaze on the head of one creature--King Saul!\"", "", "And lo, with that leap of my spirit,--heart, hand, harp, and voice,", "Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice", "Saul's fame in the light it was made for----as when, dare I say,", "The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains thro' its array,", "And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot--\"Saul!\" cried I, and stopped,", "And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung propped", "By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name.", "Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim,", "And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone,", "While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone", "A year's snow bound about for a breastplate,--leaves grasp of the sheet?", "Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet,", "And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your mountain of old,", "With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold:", "Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar", "Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest--all hail, there they are!", "--Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest", "Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on his crest", "For their food in the ardours of summer. One long shudder thrilled.", "All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled", "At the King's self left standing before me, released and aware.", "What was gone, what remained? All to traverse 'twixt hope and despair.", "Death was past, life not come; so he waited. Awhile his right hand", "Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant, forthwith to remand", "To their place what new objects should enter: 'twas Saul as before.", "I looked up, and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more", "Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore,", "At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean--a sun's slow decline", "Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwine", "Base with base to knit strength more intensely: so, arm folded arm", "O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.", "", " What spell or what charm,", "(For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urge", "To sustain him where song had restored, him? Song filled to the verge", "His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields", "Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty: beyond, on what fields", "Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye,", "And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by?", "He saith, \"It is good:\" still he drinks not: he lets me praise life,", "Gives assent, yet would die for his own part.", "", " Then fancies grew rife", "Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep", "Fed in silence--above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep;", "And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie", "'Neath his ken, tho' I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and the sky:", "And I laughed--\"Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks,", "Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks,", "Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show", "Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!", "Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains,", "And the prudence that keeps what men strive for!\" And now these old trains", "Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the string", "Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus--", "", " \"Yea, my King,\"", "I began--\"thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring", "From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute:", "In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit.", "Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree,--how its stem trembled first", "Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely outburst", "The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, in turn", "Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: yet more was to learn,", "E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight,", "When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight", "Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and branch.", "Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall staunch", "Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine.", "Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine!", "By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy", "More indeed, than at first when, inconscious, the life of a boy.", "Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed thou hast done", "Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en as the sun", "Looking down on the earth, tho' clouds spoil him, tho' tempests efface,", "Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace", "The results of his past summer-prime,--so, each ray of thy will.", "Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill", "Thy whole people, the countless, with ardour, till they too give forth", "A like cheer to their sons: who in turn, fill the South and the North", "With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the past!", "But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last.", "As the lion, when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height,", "So with man--so his power and his beauty forever take flight.", "No! Again a long draught of my soul-wine! Look forth o'er the years!", "Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer's!", "Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb--bid arise", "A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built to the skies,", "Let it mark where the great First King slumbers: whose fame would ye know?", "Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go", "In great characters cut by the scribe,--Such was Saul, so he did;", "With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid,--", "For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend,", "In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend", "(See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record", "With the gold of the graver, Saul's story,--the statesman's great word.", "Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's a-wave", "With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds rave;", "So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part", "In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art!\"", "", "And behold while I sang ... but O Thou who didst grant me that day,", "And before it not seldom had granted Thy help to essay.", "Carry on and complete an adventure,--my shield and my sword", "In that act where my soul was Thy servant, Thy word was my word,--", "Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour", "And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as ever", "On the new stretch of heaven above me--till, mighty to save,", "Just one lift of Thy hand cleared that distance--God's throne from man's grave!", "Let me tell out my tale to its ending--my voice to my heart", "Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I took part,", "As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep,", "And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep!", "For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron, upheaves", "The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron retrieves", "Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine.", "", " I say then,--my song", "While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and, ever more strong,", "Made a proffer of good to console him--he slowly resumed.", "His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed", "His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes", "Of his turban, and see--the huge sweat that his countenance bathes,", "He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of yore,", "And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before,", "He is Saul, ye remember in glory,--ere error had bent", "The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, tho' much spent", "Be the life and bearing that front you, the same, God did choose,", "To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose.", "So sank he along by the tent-prop, till, stayed by the pile", "Of his armour and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile,", "And sat out my singing,--one arm round the tent-prop, to raise", "His bent head, and the other hung slack--till I touched on the praise", "I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there;", "And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 'ware", "That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees", "Which were thrust out each side around me, like oak roots which please", "To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know", "If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow", "Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care", "Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: thro' my hair", "The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind power--", "All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower.", "Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine--", "And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign?", "I yearned--\"Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss,", "I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this;", "I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence.", "As this moment,--had love but the warrant, love's heart to dispense!\"", "", "Then the truth came upon me. No harp more--no song more! outbroke--", "", "\"I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke;", "I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain", "And pronounced on the rest of his handwork--returned him again", "His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I saw,", "Reported, as man may of God's work--all's love, yet all's law.", "Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked", "To perceive him has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked.", "Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.", "Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care!", "Do I task any faculty highest, to image success?", "I but open my eyes,--and perfection, no more and no less,", "In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God", "In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.", "And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew", "(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)", "The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all complete,", "As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to His feet.", "Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known,", "I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own,", "There's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink,", "I am fain to keep still in abeyance (I laugh as I think),", "Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst", "E'en the Giver in one gift.--Behold, I could love if I durst!", "But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake", "God's own speed in the one way of love; I abstain for love's sake.", "--What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small,", "Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch; should the hundredth appal?", "In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all?", "Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift,", "That I doubt His own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift?", "Here, the creature surpass the creator,--the end, what began?", "Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man,", "And dare doubt He alone shall not help him, who yet alone can?", "Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power,", "To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower", "Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul,", "Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole?", "And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest),", "These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best?", "Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height", "This perfection,--succeed with life's dayspring, death's minute of night?", "Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake,", "Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now,--and bid him awake", "From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set", "Clear and safe in new light and new life,--a new harmony yet", "To be run and continued, and ended--who knows?--or endure!", "The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make sure;", "By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss,", "And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this.", "", "\"I believe it! 'Tis Thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive;", "In the first is the last, in Thy will is my power to believe.", "All's one gift: Thou canst grant it, moreover, as prompt to my prayer,", "As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air.", "From Thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, Thy dread Sabaoth:", "_I_ will?--the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loath", "To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare", "Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair?", "This;--'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!", "See the King--I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through.", "Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich,", "To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would--knowing which,", "I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak thro' me now!", "Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst Thou--so wilt Thou!", "So shall crown Thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown--", "And Thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down", "One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath,", "Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death!", "As Thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved", "Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved!", "He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak,", "'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek", "In the Godhead! I seek and I find it, O Saul, it shall be", "A Face like my face that receives thee: a Man like to me,", "Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand", "Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!\"", "", "I know not too well how I found my way home in the night.", "There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right,", "Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware:", "I repressed, I got thro' them as hardly, as stragglingly there,", "As a runner beset by the populace famished for news--", "Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews;", "And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot", "Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not,", "For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed", "All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest,", "Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest.", "Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth--", "Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth;", "In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills;", "In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills;", "In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still", "Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill", "That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe:", "E'en the serpent that slid away silent--he felt the new law.", "The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers;", "The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers;", "And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low.", "With their obstinate, all but hushed voices--\"E'en so, it is so!\"" ], "linecount": "341" }, { "title": "A Pretty Woman", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,", " And the blue eye", " Dear and dewy,", "And that infantine fresh air of hers!", "", "To think men cannot take you, Sweet,", " And infold you,", " Ay, and hold you,", "And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!", "", "You like us for a glance, you know--", " For a word's sake", " Or a sword's sake:", "All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.", "", "And in turn we make you ours, we say--", " You and youth too,", " Eyes and mouth too,", "All the face composed of flowers, we say.", "", "All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet--", " Sing and say for,", " Watch and pray for,", "Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!", "", "But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,", " Tho' we prayed you,", " Paid you, brayed you", "In a mortar--for you could not, Sweet!", "", "So, we leave the sweet face fondly there,", " Be its beauty", " Its sole duty!", "Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!", "", "And while the face lies quiet there,", " Who shall wonder", " That I ponder", "A conclusion? I will try it there.", "", "As,--why must one, for the love foregone", " Scout mere liking?", " Thunder-striking", "Earth,--the heaven, we looked above for, gone!", "", "Why, with beauty, needs there money be,", " Love with liking?", " Crush the fly-king", "In his gauze, because no honey-bee?", "", "May not liking be so simple-sweet,", " If love grew there", " 'Twould undo there", "All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?", "", "Is the creature too imperfect, say?", " Would you mend it", " And so end it?", "Since not all addition perfects aye!", "", "Or is it of its kind, perhaps,", " Just perfection--", " Whence, rejection", "Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps?", "", "Shall we burn up, tread that face at once", " Into tinder,", " And so hinder", "Sparks from kindling all the place at once?", "", "Or else kiss away one's soul on her?", " Your love-fancies!", " --A sick man sees", "Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her!", "", "Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,--", " Plucks a mould-flower", " For his gold flower,", "Uses fine things that efface the rose.", "", "Rosy rubies make its cup more rose.", " Precious metals", " Ape the petals,--", "Last, some old king locks it up, morose!", "", "Then how grace a rose? I know a way!", " Leave it, rather.", " Must you gather?", "Smell, kiss, wear it--at last, throw away." ], "linecount": "72" }, { "title": "My Last Duchess", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,", "Looking as if she were alive. I call", "That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands", "Worked busily a day, and there she stands.", "Will't please you sit and look at her? I said", "\"Frà Pandolf\" by design: for never read", "Strangers like you that pictured countenance,", "The depth and passion of its earnest glance,", "But to myself they turned (since none puts by", "The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)", "And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,", "How such a glance came there; so, not the first", "Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not", "Her husband's presence only, called that spot", "Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps", "Frà Pandolf chanced to say \"Her mantle laps", "Over my lady's wrist too much,\" or \"Paint", "Must never hope to reproduce the faint", "Half-flush that dies along her throat:\" such stuff", "Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough", "For calling up that spot of joy. She had", "A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,", "Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er", "She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.", "Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,", "The dropping of the daylight in the West,", "The bough of cherries some officious fool", "Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule", "She rode with round the terrace--all and each", "Would draw from her alike the approving speech,", "Or blush, at least. She thanked men,--good! but thanked", "Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked", "My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name", "With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame", "This sort of trifling? Even had you skill", "In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will", "Quite clear to such an one, and say, \"Just this", "Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,", "Or there exceed the mark\"--and if she let", "Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set", "Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,", "--E'en then would be some stooping: and I choose", "Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,", "Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without", "Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;", "Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands", "As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet", "The company below, then. I repeat,", "The Count your master's known munificence", "Is ample warrant that no just pretence", "Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;", "Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed", "At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go", "Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,", "Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,", "Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!" ], "linecount": "56" }, { "title": "The Laboratory (Ancien Regime)", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,", "May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely,", "As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy--", "Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?", "", "He is with her, and they know that I know", "Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow", "While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear", "Empty church, to pray God in, for them!--I am here!", "", "Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,", "Pound at thy powder, I am not in haste!", "Better sit thus and observe thy strange things,", "Than go where men wait me, and dance at the King's.", "", "That in the mortar--you call it a gum?", "Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!", "And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,", "Sure to taste sweetly,--is that poison, too?", "Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,", "What a wild crowd of Invisible pleasures!", "To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,", "A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!", "", "Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give", "And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!", "But to light a pastille, and Elise, with her head", "And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!", "", "Quick--is it finished? The colour's too grim!", "Why not soft like the phial's, enticing and dim?", "Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir,", "And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!", "", "What a drop! She's not little, no minion like me!", "That's why she ensnared him: this never will free", "The soul from those masculine eyes,--say \"No!\"", "To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go.", "", "For only last night, as they whispered, I brought", "My own eyes to bear on her so that I thought", "Could I keep them one half-minute fixed, she would fall", "Shrivelled; she fell not: yet this does it all!", "", "Not that I bid you spare her the pain;", "Let death be felt and the proof remain:", "Brand, burn up, bite into its grace--", "He is sure to remember her dying face!", "", "Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose;", "It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close:", "The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee!", "If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?", "", "Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill,", "You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will!", "But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings", "Ere I know it--next moment I dance at the King's!" ], "linecount": "48" }, { "title": "A Light Woman", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "So far as our story approaches the end,", " Which do you pity the most of us three?", "My friend, or the mistress of my friend", " With her wanton eyes, or me?", "", "My friend was already too good to lose,", " And seemed in the way of improvement yet,", "When she crossed his path with her hunting noose", " And over him drew her net.", "", "When I saw him tangled in her toils,", " A shame, said I, if she adds just him", "To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,", " The hundredth for a whim!", "", "And before my friend be wholly hers,", " How easy to prove to him, I said,", "An eagle's the game her pride prefers,", " Though she snaps at a wren instead!", "", "So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,", " My hand sought hers as in earnest need,", "And round she turned for my noble sake,", " And gave me herself indeed.", "", "The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,", " The wren is he, with his maiden face.", "You look away and your lip is curled?", " Patience, a moment's space!", "", "For see, my friend goes shaking and white;", " He eyes me as the basilisk:", "I have turned, it appears, his day to night,", " Eclipsing his sun's disk.", "", "And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:", " \"Though I love her--that, he comprehends--", "One should master one's passions (love, in chief)", " And be loyal to one's friends!\"", "", "And she,--she lies in my hand as tame", " As a pear late basking over a wall;", "Just a touch to try and off it came;", " 'Tis mine,--can I let it fall?", "", "With no mind to eat it, that's the worst!", " Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?", "'Twas quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst", " When I gave its stalk a twist.", "", "And I,--what I seem to my friend, you see:", " What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:", "What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?", " No hero, I confess.", "", "'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,", " And matter enough to save one's own:", "Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals", " He played with for bits of stone!", "", "One likes to show the truth for the truth;", " That the woman was light is very true:", "But suppose she says,--Never mind that youth!", " What wrong have I done to you?", "", "Well, any how, here the story stays,", " So far at least as I understand;", "And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays,", " Here's a subject made to your hand!" ], "linecount": "56" }, { "title": "The Statue and the Bust", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well,", "And a statue watches it from the square,", "And this story of both do our townsmen tell.", "", "Ages ago, a lady there,", "At the farthest window facing the East", "Asked, \"Who rides by with the royal air?\"", "", "The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased;", "She leaned forth, one on either hand;", "They saw how the blush of the bride increased--", "", "They felt by its beats her heart expand--", "As one at each ear and both in a breath", "Whispered, \"The Great-Duke Ferdinand.\"", "", "That self-same instant, underneath,", "The Duke rode past in his idle way,", "Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.", "", "Gay he rode, with a friend as gay,", "Till he threw his head back--\"Who is she?\"", "\"A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day.\"", "", "Hair in heaps lay heavily", "Over a pale brow spirit-pure--", "Carved like the heart of a coal-black tree,", "", "Crisped like a war-steed's encolure--", "And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes", "Of the blackest black our eyes endure.", "", "And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise", "Filled the fine empty sheath of a man--", "The Duke grew straightway brave and wise.", "", "He looked at her, as a lover can;", "She looked at him, as one who awakes:", "The past was a sleep, and her life began.", "", "Now, love so ordered for both their sakes,", "A feast was held that selfsame night", "In the pile which the mighty shadow makes.", "", "(For Via Larga is three-parts light,", "But the palace overshadows one,", "Because of a crime which may God requite!", "", "To Florence and God the wrong was done,", "Through the first republic's murder there", "By Cosimo and his cursed son.)", "", "The Duke (with the statue's face in the square)", "Turned in the midst of his multitude", "At the bright approach of the bridal pair.", "", "Face to face the lovers stood", "A single minute and no more,", "While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued--", "", "Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor--", "For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred,", "As the courtly custom was of yore.", "", "In a minute can lovers exchange a word?", "If a word did pass, which I do not think,", "Only one out of the thousand heard.", "", "That was the bridegroom. At day's brink", "He and his bride were alone at last", "In a bedchamber by a taper's blink.", "", "Calmly he said that her lot was cast,", "That the door she had passed was shut on her", "Till the final catafalk repassed.", "", "The world meanwhile, its noise and stir,", "Through a certain window facing the East,", "She could watch like a convent's chronicler.", "", "Since passing the door might lead to a feast", "And a feast might lead to so much beside,", "He, of many evils, chose the least.", "", "\"Freely I choose too,\" said the bride--", "\"Your window and its world suffice,\"", "Replied the tongue, while the heart replied--", "", "\"If I spend the night with that devil twice,", "May his window serve as my loop of hell", "Whence a damned soul looks on paradise!", "", "\"I fly to the Duke who loves me well,", "Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow!", "Ere I count another ave-bell,", "", "\"'Tis only the coat of a page to borrow,", "And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim,", "And I save my soul--but not to-morrow\"--", "", "(She checked herself and her eye grew dim)", "\"My father tarries to bless my state:", "I must keep it one day more for him.", "", "\"Is one day more so long to wait?", "Moreover the Duke rides past, I know;", "We shall see each other, sure as fate.\"", "", "She turned on her side and slept. Just so!", "So we resolve on a thing and sleep:", "So did the lady, ages ago.", "", "That night the Duke said, \"Dear or cheap", "As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove", "To body or soul, I will drain it deep.\"", "", "And on the morrow, bold with love,", "He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call,", "As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove)", "", "And smiled, \"'Twas a very funeral,", "Your lady will think, this feast of ours,", "A shame to efface, whate'er befall!", "", "\"What if we break from the Arno bowers,", "And try if Petraja, cool and green,", "Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?\"", "", "The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen", "On his steady brow and quiet mouth,", "Said, \"Too much favour for me so mean!", "", "\"But, alas! my lady leaves the South;", "Each wind that comes from the Apennine", "Is a menace to her tender youth:", "", "\"Nor a way exists, the wise opine,", "If she quits her palace twice this year,", "To avert the flower of life's decline.\"", "", "Quoth the Duke, \"A sage and a kindly fear.", "Moreover Petraja is cold this spring:", "Be our feast to-night as usual here!\"", "", "And then to himself--\"Which night shall bring", "Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool--", "Or I am the fool, and thou art the king!", "", "\"Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool--", "For to-night the Envoy arrives from France", "Whose heart I unlock with thyself my tool.", "", "\"I need thee still and might miss perchance.", "To-day is not wholly lost, beside,", "With its hope of my lady's countenance:", "", "\"For I ride--what should I do but ride?", "And passing her palace, if I list,", "May glance at its window-well betide!\"", "", "So said, so done: nor the lady missed", "One ray that broke from the ardent brow,", "Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed.", "", "Be sure that each renewed the vow,", "No morrow's sun should arise and set", "And leave them then as it left them now.", "", "But next day passed, and next day yet,", "With still fresh cause to wait one day more", "Ere each leaped over the parapet.", "", "And still, as love's brief morning wore,", "With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh,", "They found love not as it seemed before.", "", "They thought it would work infallibly,", "But not in despite of heaven and earth:", "The rose would blow when the storm passed by.", "", "Meantime they could profit in winter's dearth", "By store of fruits that supplant the rose:", "The world and its ways have a certain worth:", "", "And to press a point while these oppose", "Were simple policy; better wait:", "We lose no friends and we gain no foes.", "", "Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate", "Who daily may ride and pass and look", "Where his lady watches behind the grate!", "", "And she--she watched the square like a book", "Holding one picture and only one,", "Which daily to find she undertook:", "", "When the picture was reached the book was done,", "And she turned from the picture at night to scheme", "Of tearing it out for herself next sun.", "", "So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam", "The glory dropped from their youth and love,", "And both perceived they had dreamed a dream;", "", "Which hovered as dreams do, still above:", "But who can take a dream for a truth?", "Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove!", "", "One day as the lady saw her youth", "Depart, and the silver thread that streaked", "Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's tooth,", "", "The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked,", "And wondered who the woman was,", "Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked,", "", "Fronting her silent in the glass--", "\"Summon here,\" she suddenly said,", "\"Before the rest of my old self pass,", "", "\"Him, the Carver, a hand to aid,", "Who fashions the clay no love will change", "And fixes a beauty never to fade.", "", "\"Let Robbia's craft so apt and strange", "Arrest the remains of young and fair,", "And rivet them while the seasons range.", "", "\"Make me a face on the window there,", "Waiting as ever, mute the while,", "My love to pass below in the square!", "", "\"And let me think that it may beguile", "Dreary days which the dead must spend", "Down in their darkness under the aisle,", "", "\"To say, 'What matters it at the end?", "'I did no more while my heart was warm", "Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.'", "", "\"Where is the use of the lip's red charm,", "The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow,", "And the blood that blues the inside arm--", "", "\"Unless we turn, as the soul knows how,", "The earthly gift to an end divine?", "A lady of clay is as good, I trow.\"", "", "But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine,", "With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace,", "Was set where now is the empty shrine--", "", "(And, leaning out of a bright blue space,", "As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky,", "The passionate pale lady's face--", "", "Eyeing ever, with earnest eye", "And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch,", "Some one who ever is passing by)", "", "The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch", "In Florence, \"Youth--my dream escapes!", "Will its record stay?\" And he bade them fetch", "", "Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes--", "\"Can the soul, the will, die out of a man", "Ere his body find the grave that gapes?", "", "\"John of Douay shall effect my plan,", "Set me on horseback here aloft,", "Alive, as the crafty sculptor can,", "", "\"In the very square I have crossed so oft:", "That men may admire, when future suns", "Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft,", "", "\"While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze--", "Admire and say, 'When he was alive", "How he would take his pleasure once!'", "", "\"And it shall go hard but I contrive", "To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb", "At idleness which aspires to strive.\"", "", "So! While these wait the trump of doom,", "How do their spirits pass, I wonder,", "Nights and days in the narrow room?", "", "Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder", "What a gift life was, ages ago,", "Six steps out of the chapel yonder.", "", "Only they see not God, I know,", "Nor all that chivalry of his,", "The soldier-saints who, row on row,", "", "Burn upward each to his point of bliss--", "Since, the end of life being manifest,", "He had burned his way thro' the world to this.", "", "I hear you reproach, \"But delay was best,", "For their end was a crime.\" Oh, a crime will do", "As well, I reply, to serve for a test,", "", "As a virtue golden through and through,", "Sufficient to vindicate itself", "And prove its worth at a moment's view!", "", "Must a game be played for the sake of pelf", "Where a button goes, 'twere an epigram", "To offer the stamp of the very Guelph.", "", "The true has no value beyond the sham:", "As well the counter as coin, I submit,", "When your table's a hat, and your prize a dram.", "", "Stake your counter as boldly every whit,", "Venture as warily, use the same skill,", "Do your best, whether winning or losing it,", "", "If you choose to play!--is my principle.", "Let a man contend to the uttermost", "For his life's set prize, be it what it will!", "", "The counter our lovers staked was lost", "As surely as if it were lawful coin:", "And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost", "", "Is--the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,", "Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.", "You of the virtue (we issue join)", "How strive you? De te, fabula!" ], "linecount": "250" }, { "title": "Pheidippides", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock!", "Gods of my birthplace, dæmons and heroes, honour to all!", "Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in praise", "--Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the ægis and spear!", "Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your peer,", "", "Now, henceforth, and forever,--O latest to whom I upraise", "Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock!", "Present to help, potent to save, Pan--patron I call!", "Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return!", "See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks!", "Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you,", "\"Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid!", "Persia has come, we are here, where is She?\" Your command I obeyed,", "Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs through,", "Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did I burn", "Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.", "", "Into their midst I broke: breath served but for \"Persia has come!", "Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth;", "Razed to the ground is Eretria.--but Athens, shall Athens sink,", "Drop into dust and die--the flower of Hellas utterly die,", "Die with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by?", "Answer me quick,--what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink?", "How,--when? No care for my limbs!--there's lightning in all and some--", "Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!\"", "", "O my Athens--Sparta love thee? did Sparta respond?", "Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust,", "Malice,--each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate!", "Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood", "Quivering,--the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood:", "\"Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate?", "Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry beyond", "Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them 'Ye must'!\"", "", "No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer at last!", "\"Has Persia come,--does Athens ask aid,--may Sparta befriend?", "Nowise precipitate judgment--too weighty the issue at stake!", "Count we no time lost time which lags thro' respect to the Gods!", "Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the odds", "In your favour, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take", "Full-circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to it fast:", "Athens must wait, patient as we--who judgment suspend.\"", "", "Athens,--except for that sparkle,--thy name, I had mouldered to ash!", "That sent a blaze thro' my blood; off, off and away was I back,", "--Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!", "Yet \"O Gods of my land!\" I cried, as each hillock and plain,", "Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again,", "\"Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honours we paid you erewhile?", "Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash", "Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!", "", "\"Oak and olive and bay,--I bid you cease to en-wreathe", "Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's foot,", "You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave!", "Rather I hail thee, Parnes,--trust to thy wild waste tract!", "Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if slacked", "My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave", "No deity deigns to drape with verdure?--at least I can breathe,", "Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!\"", "", "Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge;", "Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar", "Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way.", "Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across:", "\"Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?", "Athens to aid? Tho' the dive were thro' Erebos, thus I obey--", "Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge", "Better!\"--when--ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that are?", "", "There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he--majestical Pan!", "Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof;", "All the great God was good in the eyes grave-kindly--the curl", "Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe", "As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw.", "\"Halt, Pheidippides!\"--halt I did, my brain of a whirl:", "\"Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?\"! he gracious began:", "\"How is it,--Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?", "", "\"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!", "Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old?", "Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me!", "Go bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith", "In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The Goat-God saith:", "When Persia--so much as strews not the soil--Is cast in the sea,", "Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least,", "Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the bold!'", "", "\"Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!'\"", "(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear", "--Fennel,--I grasped it a-tremble with dew--whatever it bode),", "\"While, as for thee...\" But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto--", "Be sure that the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew.", "Parnes to Athens--earth no more, the air was my road;", "Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge!", "Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare!", "", "Then spoke Miltiades. \"And thee, best runner of Greece,", "Whose limbs did duty indeed,--what gift is promised thyself?", "Tell it us straightway,--Athens the mother demands of her son!\"", "Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at length", "His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength", "Into the utterance--\"Pan spoke thus: 'For what thou hast done", "Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release", "From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!'", "", "\"I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my mind!", "Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may grow,--", "Pound--Pan helping us--Persia to dust, and, under the deep,", "Whelm her away forever; and then,--no Athens to save,--", "Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,--", "Hie to my house and home: and, when my children shall creep", "Close to my knees,--recount how the God was awful yet kind,", "Promised their sire reward to the full--rewarding him--so!\"", "", "Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:", "So, when Persia was dust, all cried \"To Akropolis!", "Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!", "'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!\" He flung down his shield,", "Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field", "And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,", "Till in he broke: \"Rejoice, we conquer!\" Like wine thro' clay,", "Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!", "", "So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute", "Is still \"Rejoice!\"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed.", "So is Pheidippides happy forever,--the noble strong man", "Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom a god loved so well,", "He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell", "Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began,", "So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute:", "\"Athens is saved!\"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed." ], "linecount": "120" }, { "title": "Youth and Art", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "It once might have been, once only:", " We lodged in a street together,", "You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,", " I, a lone she-bird of his feather.", "", "Your trade was with sticks and clay,", " You thumbed, thrust, patted, and polished,", "Then laughed \"They will see some day,", " Smith made, and Gibson demolished.\"", "", "My business was song, song, song;", " I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and twittered,", "\"Kate Brown's on the boards ere long,", " And Grisi's existence embittered!\"", "", "I earned no more by a warble", " Than you by a sketch in plaster;", "You wanted a piece of marble,", " I needed a music-master.", "", "We studied hard in our styles,", " Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,", "For air, looked out on the tiles,", " For fun, watched each other's windows.", "", "You lounged, like a boy of the South,", " Cap and blouse--nay, a bit of beard too;", "Or you got it, rubbing your mouth", " With fingers the clay adhered to.", "", "And I--soon managed to find", " Weak points in the flower-fence facing,", "Was forced to put up a blind", " And be safe in my corset-lacing.", "", "No harm! It was not my fault", " If you never turned your eye's tail up", "As I shook upon Ein alt_,", " Or ran the chromatic scale up:", "", "For spring bade the sparrows pair.", " And the boys and girls gave guesses,", "And stalls in our street looked rare", " With bulrush and watercresses.", "", "Why did not you pinch a flower", " In a pellet of clay and fling it?", "Why did not I put a power", " Of thanks in a look or sing it?", "", "I did look, sharp as a lynx,", " (And yet the memory rankles)", "When models arrived, some minx", " Tripped up stairs, she and her ankles.", "", "But I think I gave you as good!", " \"That foreign fellow,--who can know", "How she pays, in a playful mood,", " For his tuning her that piano?\"", "", "Could you say so, and never say", " \"Suppose we join hands and fortunes,", "And I fetch her from over the way,", " Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?\"", "", "No, no: you would not be rash,", " Nor I rasher and something over;", "You've to settle yet Gibson's hash,", " And Grisi yet lives in clover.", "", "But you meet the Prince at the Board,", " I'm queen myself atbals-parés_,", "I've married a rich old lord,", " And you're dubbed knight and an R.A.", "", "Each life unfulfilled, you see;", " It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:", "We have not sighed deep, laughed free,", " Starved, feasted, despaired,--been happy", "", "And nobody calls you a dunce,", " And people suppose me clever;", "This could but have happened once,", " And we missed it, lost it forever." ], "linecount": "68" }, { "title": "Prospice", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat,", " The mist in my face,", "When the snows begin, and the blasts denote", " I am nearing the place,", "The power of the night, the press of the storm,", " The post of the foe;", "Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,", " Yet the strong man must go:", "For the journey is done and the summit attained,", " And the barriers fall,", "Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,", " The reward of it all.", "I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,", " The best and the last!", "", "I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,", " And bade me creep past,", "No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers", " The heroes of old,", "Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears", " Of pain, darkness, and cold.", "For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,", " The black minute's at end,", "And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,", " Shall dwindle, shall blend,", "Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,", " Then a light, then thy breast,", "O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,", " And with God be the rest!" ], "linecount": "28" }, { "title": "Count Gismond", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Christ God who savest man, save most", " Of men Count Gismond who saved me!", "Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,", " Chose time and place and company", "To suit it; when he struck at length", "My honour, 'twas with all his strength.", "", "And doubtlessly ere he could draw", " All points to one, he must have schemed!", "That miserable morning saw", " Few half so happy as I seemed,", "While being dressed in queen's array", "To give our tourney prize away.", "", "I thought they loved me, did me grace", " To please themselves; 'twas all their deed;", "God makes, or fair or foul, our face;", " If showing mine so caused to bleed", "My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped", "A word, and straight the play had stopped.", "", "They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen", " By virtue of her brow and breast;", "Not needing to be crowned, I mean,", " As I do. E'en when I was dressed,", "Had either of them spoke, instead", "Of glancing sideways with still head!", "", "But no: they let me laugh, and sing", " My birthday song quite through, adjust", "The last rose in my garland, fling", " A last look on the mirror, trust", "My arms to each an arm of theirs,", "And so descend the castle-stairs--", "", "And come out on the morning-troop", " Of merry friends who kissed my cheek,", "And called me queen, and made me stoop", " Under the canopy--a streak", "That pierced it, of the outside sun,", "Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun--", "", "And they could let me take my state", " And foolish throne amid applause", "Of all come there to celebrate", " My queen's-day--Oh I think the cause", "Of much was, they forgot no crowd", "Makes up for parents in their shroud!", "", "However that be, all eyes were bent", " Upon me, when my cousins cast", "Theirs down; 'twas time I should present", " The victor's crown, but... there, 'twill last", "No long time... the old mist again", "Blinds me as then it did. How vain!", "", "See! Gismond's at the gate, in talk", " With his two boys: I can proceed.", "Well, at that moment, who should stalk", " Forth boldly--to my face, indeed--", "But Gauthier, and he thundered \"Stay!\"", "And all stayed. \"Bring no crowns, I say!\"", "", "\"Bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet", " About her! Let her shun the chaste,", "Or lay herself before their feet!", " Shall she whose body I embraced", "A night long, queen it in the day?", "For honour's sake no crowns, I say!\"", "", "I? What I answered? As I live,", " I never fancied such a thing", "As answer possible to give.", " What says the body when they spring", "Some monstrous torture-engine's whole", "Strength on it? No more says the soul.", "", "Till out strode Gismond; then I knew", " That I was saved. I never met", "His face before, but, at first view,", " I felt quite sure that God had set", "Himself to Satan; who would spend", "A minute's mistrust on the end?", "", "He strode to Gauthier, in his throat", " Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth", "With one back-handed blow that wrote", " In blood men's verdict there. North, South,", "East, West, I looked. The lie was dead,", "And damned, and truth stood up instead.", "", "This glads me most, that I enjoyed", " The heart of the joy, with my content", "In watching Gismond unalloyed", " By any doubt of the event:", "God took that on him--I was bid", "Watch Gismond for my part: I did.", "", "Did I not watch him while he let", " His armourer just brace his greaves,", "Rivet his hauberk, on the fret", " The while! His foot... my memory leaves", "No least stamp out, nor how anon", "He pulled his ringing gauntlets on.", "", "And e'en before the trumpet's sound", " Was finished, prone lay the false knight,", "Prone as his lie, upon the ground:", " Gismond flew at him, used no sleight", "O' the sword, but open-breasted drove,", "Cleaving till out the truth he clove.", "", "Which done, he dragged him to my feet", " And said \"Here die, but end thy breath", "In full confession, lest thou fleet", " From my first, to God's second death!", "Say, hast thou lied?\" And, \"I have lied", "To God and her,\" he said, and died.", "", "Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked", " What safe my heart holds, though no word", "Could I repeat now, if I tasked", " My powers for ever, to a third", "Dear even as you are. Pass the rest", "Until I sank upon his breast.", "", "Over my head his arm he flung", " Against the world; and scarce I felt", "His sword (that dripped by me and swung)", " A little shifted in its belt:", "For he began to say the while", "How South our home lay many a mile.", "", "So 'mid the shouting multitude", " We two walked forth to never more", "Return. My cousins have pursued", " Their life, untroubled as before", "I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place", "God lighten! May his soul find grace!", "", "Our elder boy has got the clear", " Great brow; tho' when his brother's black", "Full eye shows scorn, it... Gismond here?", " And have you brought my tercel back?", "I just was telling Adela", "How many birds it struck since May." ], "linecount": "126" }, { "title": "Time's Revenges", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "I've a Friend, over the sea;", "I like him, but he loves me.", "It all grew out of the books I write;", "They find such favour in his sight", "That he slaughters you with savage looks", "Because you don't admire my books.", "He does himself though,--and if some vein", "Were to snap tonight in this heavy brain,", "To-morrow month, if I lived to try,", "Round should I just turn quietly,", "Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand", "Till I found him, come from his foreign land", "To be my nurse in this poor place,", "And make my broth and wash my face", "And light my fire and, all the while,", "Bear with his old good-humoured smile", "That I told him \"Better have kept away", "Than come and kill me, night and day,", "With, worse than fever throbs and shoots,", "The creaking of his clumsy boots.\"", "I am as sure that this he would do,", "As that Saint Paul's is striking two.", "And I think I rather... woe is me!", "--Yes, rather would see him than not see,", "If lifting a hand could seat him there", "Before me in the empty chair", "To-night, when my head aches indeed,", "And I can neither think nor read", "Nor make these purple fingers hold", "The pen; this garret's freezing cold!", "", "And I've a Lady--there he wakes,", "The laughing fiend and prince of snakes", "Within me, at her name, to pray", "Fate send some creature in the way", "Of my love for her, to be down-torn,", "Upthrust and outward-borne,", "So I might prove myself that sea", "Of passion which I needs must be!", "Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint", "And my style infirm and its figures faint,", "All the critics say, and more blame yet,", "And not one angry word you get.", "But, please you, wonder I would put", "My cheek beneath that lady's foot", "Rather than trample under mine", "That laurels of the Florentine,", "And you shall see how the devil spends", "A fire God gave for other ends!", "I tell you, I stride up and down", "This garret, crowned with love's best crown,", "And feasted with love's perfect feast,", "To think I kill for her, at least,", "Body and soul and peace and fame,", "Alike youth's end and manhood's aim,", "--So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,", "Filled full, eaten out and in", "With the face of her, the eyes of her,", "The lips, the little chin, the stir", "Of shadow round her mouth; and she", "--I'll tell you,--calmly would decree", "That I should roast at a slow fire,", "", "If that would compass her desire", "And make her one whom they invite", "To the famous ball to-morrow night.", "", "There may be heaven; there must be hell;", "Meantime, there is our earth here--well!" ], "linecount": "66" }, { "title": "The Flight of the Duchess", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "You're my friend:", " I was the man the Duke spoke to;", " I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;", "So here's the tale from beginning to end,", "My friend!", "", "Ours is a great wild country:", " If you climb to our castle's top,", " I don't see where your eye can stop;", "For when you've passed the cornfield country,", "Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed,", "And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract,", "And cattle-tract to open-chase,", "And open-chase to the very base", "Of the mountain where, at a funeral pace,", "Round about, solemn and slow,", "One by one, row after row,", "Up and up the pine-trees go,", "So, like black priests up, and so", "Down the other side again", " To another greater, wilder country,", "That's one vast red drear burnt-up plain,", "Branched through and through with many a vein", "Whence iron's dug, and copper's dealt;", " Look right, look left, look straight before--", "Beneath they mine, above they smelt,", " Copper-ore and iron-ore,", "And forge and furnace mould and melt,", " And so on, more and ever more,", "Till at the last, for a bounding belt,", " Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea shore", "--And the whole is our Duke's country.", "", "I was born the day this present Duke was--", " (And O, says the song, ere I was old!)", "In the castle where the other Duke was--", " (When I was happy and young, not old!)", "I in the kennel, he in the bower:", "We are of like age to an hour.", "My father was huntsman in that day;", "Who has not heard my father say", "That, when a boar was brought to bay,", "Three times, four times out of five,", "With his huntspear he'd contrive", "To get the killing-place transfixed,", "And pin him true, both eyes betwixt?", "And that's why the old Duke would rather", "He lost a salt-pit than my father,", "And loved to have him ever in call;", "That's why my father stood in the hall", "When the old Duke brought his infant out", " To show the people, and while they passed", "The wondrous bantling round about,", " Was first to start at the outside blast", "As the Kaiser's courier blew his horn", "Just a month after the babe was born.", "\"And,\" quoth the Kaiser's courier,\" since", "The Duke has got an heir, our Prince", " Needs the Duke's self at his side:\"", "The Duke looked down and seemed to wince,", " But he thought of wars o'er the world wide,", "Castles a-fire, men on their march,", "The toppling tower, the crashing arch;", " And up he looked, and awhile he eyed", "The row of crests and shields and banners", "Of all achievements after all manners,", " And \"ay,\" said the Duke with a surly pride.", " The more was his comfort when he died", "At next year's end, in a velvet suit,", "With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot", "In a silken shoe for a leather boot,", "Petticoated like a herald,", " In a chamber next to an ante-room,", " Where he breathed the breath of page and groom,", " What he called stink, and they, perfume:", "--They should have set him on red Berold", "Mad with pride, like fire to manage!", "They should have got his cheek fresh tannage", "Such a day as to-day in the merry sunshine!", "Had they stuck on his fist a rough-foot merlin!", "(Hark, the wind's on the heath at its game!", "Oh for a noble falcon-lanner", "To flap each broad wing like a banner,", "And turn in the wind, and dance like flame!)", "Had they broached a white-beer cask from Berlin", "--Or if you incline to prescribe mere wine", "Put to his lips, when they saw him pine,", "A cup of our own Moldavia fine,", "Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrel", "And ropy with sweet--we shall not quarrel.", "", "So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess", "Was left with the infant in her clutches,", "She being the daughter of God knows who:", " And now was the time to revisit her tribe.", "Abroad and afar they went, the two,", " And let our people rail and gibe", "At the empty hall and extinguished fire,", " As loud as we liked, but ever in vain,", "Till after long years we had our desire,", " And back came the Duke and his mother again.", "", "And he came back the pertest little ape", "That ever affronted human shape;", "Full of his travel, struck at himself.", " You'd say, he despised our bluff old ways?", "--Not he! For in Paris they told the elf", " Our rough North land was the Land of Lays,", " The one good thing left in evil days;", "Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time,", " And only in wild nooks like ours", "Could you taste of it yet as in its prime,", " And see true castles, with proper towers,", "Young-hearted women, old-minded men,", "And manners now as manners were then.", "So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it,", "This Duke would fain know he was, without being it;", "'Twas not for the joy's self, but the joy of his showing it,", "Nor for the pride's self, but the pride of our seeing it,", "He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out,", "The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn-out:", "And chief in the chase his neck he perilled", "On a lathy horse, all legs and length,", "With blood for bone, all speed, no strength;", "--They should have set him on red Berold", "With the red eye slow consuming in fire,", "And the thin stiff ear like an abbey-spire!", "", "Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard:", "And out of a convent, at the word,", "Came the lady, in time of spring.", "--Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling!", "That day, I know, with a dozen oaths", "I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes", "Fit for the chase of urochs or buffle", "In winter-time when you need to muffle.", "But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure,", " And so we saw the lady arrive:", "My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger!", " She was the smallest lady alive,", "Made in a piece of nature's madness,", "Too small, almost, for the life and gladness", " That over-filled her, as some hive", "Out of the bears' reach on the high trees", "Is crowded with its safe merry bees:", "In truth, she was not hard to please!", "Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead,", "Straight at the castle, that's best indeed", "To look at from outside the walls:", "As for us, styled the \"serfs and thralls,\"", "She as much thanked me as if she had said it,", " (With her eyes, do you understand?)", "Because I patted her horse while I led it;", " And Max, who rode on her other hand,", "Said, no bird flew past but she inquired", "What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired--", "If that was an eagle she saw hover,", "And the green and grey bird on the field was the plover.", "When suddenly appeared the Duke:", " And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed", "On to my hand,--as with a rebuke,", " And as if his backbone were not jointed,", "The Duke stepped rather aside than forward", " And welcomed her with his grandest smile;", " And, mind you, his mother all the while", "Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor'ward;", "And up, like a weary yawn, with its pullies", "Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis;", "And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies,", "The lady's face stopped its play,", "As if her first hair had grown grey;", "For such things must begin some one day.", "", "In a day or two she was well again;", "As who should say, \"You labour in vain!", "This is all a jest against God, who meant", "I should ever be, as I am, content", "And glad in his sight; therefore, glad I will be.\"", "So, smiling as at first went she.", "", "She was active, stirring, all fire--", "Could not rest, could not tire--", "To a stone she might have given life!", " (I myself loved once, in my day)", "--For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife,", " (I had a wife, I know what I say)", "Never in all the world such an one!", "And here was plenty to be done,", "And she that could do it, great or small,", "She was to do nothing at all.", "There was already this man in his post,", " This in his station, and that in his office,", "And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, at most,", " To meet his eye, with the other trophies,", "Now outside the hall, now in it,", " To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen,", "At the proper place in the proper minute,", " And die away the life between.", "And it was amusing enough, each infraction", " Of rule--(but for after-sadness that came)", "To hear the consummate self-satisfaction", " With which the young Duke and the old dame", "Would let her advise, and criticise,", "And, being a fool, instruct the wise,", " And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame:", "They bore it all in complacent guise,", "As though an artificer, after contriving", "A wheel-work image as if it were living,", "Should find with delight it could motion to strike him!", "So found the Duke, and his mother like him:", "The lady hardly got a rebuff--", "That had not been contemptuous enough,", "With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause,", "And kept off the old mother-cat's claws.", "", "So, the little lady grew silent and thin,", " Paling and ever paling,", "As the way is with a hid chagrin;", " And the Duke perceived that she was ailing,", "And said in his heart, \"'Tis done to spite me,", "But I shall find in my power to right me!\"", "Don't swear, friend! The old one, many a year,", "Is in hell, and the Duke's self... you shall hear.", "", "Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning,", "When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning,", "A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice", "That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice,", "Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold,", " And another and another, and faster and faster", "Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled:", " Then it so chanced that the Duke our master", "Asked himself what were the pleasures in season,", " And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty,", "He should do the Middle Age no treason", " In resolving on a hunting-party.", "Always provided, old books showed the way of it!", " What meant old poets by their strictures?", "And when old poets had said their say of it,", " How taught old painters in their pictures?", "We must revert to the proper channels,", "Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels,", "And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions:", "Here was food for our various ambitions,", "As on each case, exactly stated--", " To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup", " Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting your stirrup--", "We of the household took thought and debated.", "Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkin", "His sire was wont to do forest-work in;", "Blesseder he who nobly sunk \"ohs\"", "And \"ahs\" while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk-hose;", "What signified hats if they had no rims on,", " Each slouching before and behind like the scallop,", " And able to serve at sea for a shallop,", "Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson?", "So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on't,", " What with our Venerers, Prickers and Verderers,", " Might hope for real hunters at length and not murderers,", "And oh the Duke's tailor, he had a hot time on't!", "", "Now you must know that when the first dizziness", " Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided,", " The Duke put this question, \"The Duke's part provided,", "Had not the Duchess some share in the business?\"", "For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses", "Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses:", "And, after much laying of heads together,", "Somebody's cap got a notable feather", "By the announcement with proper unction", "That he had discovered the lady's function;", "Since ancient authors gave this tenet,", " \"When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege,", "Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet,", " And with water to wash the hands of her liege", "In a clean ewer with a fair toweling,", "Let her preside at the disemboweling.\"", "Now, my friend, if you had so little religion", " As to catch a hawk, some falcon-lanner,", " And thrust her broad wings like a banner", "Into a coop for a vulgar pigeon;", "And if day by day and week by week", " You cut her claws, and sealed her eyes,", "And clipped her wings, and tied her beak,", " Would it cause you any great surprise", "If, when you decided to give her an airing,", "You found she needed a little preparing?", "--I say, should you be such a curmudgeon,", "If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon?", "Yet when the Duke to his lady signified,", "Just a day before, as he judged most dignified,", "In what a pleasure she was to participate,--", " And, instead of leaping wide in flashes,", " Her eyes just lifted their long lashes,", "As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate,", "And duly acknowledged the Duke's fore-thought,", "But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught,", "Of the weight by day and the watch by night,", "And much wrong now that used to be right,", "So, thanking him, declined the hunting--", "Was conduct ever more affronting?", "With all the ceremony settled--", " With the towel ready, and the sewer", " Polishing up his oldest ewer,", " And the jennet pitched upon, a piebald,", " Black-barred, cream-coated and pink eye-balled--", "No wonder if the Duke was nettled!", "And when she persisted nevertheless,--", "Well, I suppose here's the time to confess", "That there ran half round our lady's chamber", "A balcony none of the hardest to clamber;", "And that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in waiting,", "", "Stayed in call outside, what need of relating?", "And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a fervent", "Adorer of Jacynth of course was your servant;", "And if she had the habit to peep through the casement,", " How could I keep at any vast distance?", " And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence,", "The Duke, dumb-stricken with amazement,", "Stood for a while in a sultry smother,", " And then, with a smile that partook of the awful,", "Turned her over to his yellow mother", " To learn what was held decorous and lawful;", "And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct,", "As her cheek quick whitened thro' all its quince-tinct.", "Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once!", "What meant she?--Who was she?--Her duty and station,", "The wisdom of age and the folly of youth, at once,", " Its decent regard and its fitting relation--", "In brief, my friend, set all the devils in hell free", "And turn them out to carouse in a belfry", "And treat the priests to a fifty-part canon,", "And then you may guess how that tongue of hers ran on!", "Well, somehow or other it ended at last", "And, licking her whiskers, out she passed;", "And after her,--making (he hoped) a face", " Like Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin,", "Stalked the Duke's self with the austere grace", " Of ancient hero or modern paladin,", "From door to staircase--oh such a solemn", "Unbending of the vertebral column!", "", "However, at sunrise our company mustered;", " And here was the huntsman bidding unkennel,", "And there 'neath his bonnet the pricker blustered,", " With feather dank as a bough of wet fennel;", "For the court-yard walls were filled with fog", "You might have cut as an axe chops a log--", "Like so much wool for colour and bulkiness;", "And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness,", "Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily", " And a sinking at the lower abdomen", " Begins the day with indifferent omen.", "And lo, as he looked around uneasily,", "The sun ploughed the fog up and drove it asunder", "This way and that from the valley under;", " And, looking through the court-yard arch,", "Down in the valley, what should meet him", " But a troop of Gipsies on their march?", "No doubt with the annual gifts to greet him.", "", "Now, in your land, Gipsies reach you, only", " After reaching all lands beside;", "North they go, South they go, trooping or lonely", " And still, as they travel far and wide,", "Catch they and keep now a trace here, a trace there,", "That puts you in mind of a place here, a place there.", "But with us, I believe they rise out of the ground,", "And nowhere else, I take it, are found", "With the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned:", "Born, no doubt, like insects which breed on", "The very fruit they are meant to feed on.", "For the earth-not a use to which they don't turn it,", " The ore that grows in the mountain's womb,", " Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb,", "They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it--", "Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle", "With side-bars never a brute can baffle;", "Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards;", "Or, if your colt's fore-foot inclines to curve inwards,", "Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel", "And won't allow the hoof to shrivel.", "Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle", "That keep a stout heart in the ram with their tinkle;", "But the sand-they pinch and pound it like otters;", "Commend me to Gipsy glass-makers and potters!", "Glasses they'll blow you, crystal-clear,", "Where just a faint cloud of rose shall appear,", "As if in pure water you dropped and let die", "A bruised black-blooded mulberry;", "And that other sort, their crowning pride,", "With long white threads distinct inside,", "Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots which dangle", "Loose such a length and never tangle,", "Where the bold sword-lily cuts the clear waters,", "And the cup-lily couches with all the white daughters:", "Such are the works they put their hand to,", "The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to.", "And these made the troop, which our Duke saw sally", "Toward his castle from out of the valley,", "Men and women, like new-hatched spiders,", "Come out with the morning to greet our riders.", "And up they wound till they reached the ditch,", "Whereat all stopped save one, a witch", "That I knew, as she hobbled from the group,", "By her gait directly and her stoop,", "I, whom Jacynth was used to importune", "To let that same witch tell us our fortune.", "The oldest Gipsy then above ground;", "And, sure as the autumn season came round,", "She paid us a visit for profit or pastime,", "And every time, as she swore, for the last time.", "", "And presently she was seen to sidle", "Up to the Duke till she touched his bridle,", "So that the horse of a sudden reared up", "As under its nose the old witch peered up", "With her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holes", " Of no use now but to gather brine,", " And began a kind of level whine", "Such as they used to sing to their viols", "When their ditties they go grinding", "Up and down with nobody minding", "And then, as of old, at the end of the humming", "Her usual presents were forthcoming", "--A dog-whistle blowing the fiercest of trebles,", "(Just a sea-shore stone holding a dozen fine pebbles)", "Or a porcelain mouth-piece to screw on a pipe-end--", "And so she awaited her annual stipend.", "But this time, the Duke would scarcely vouchsafe", " A word in reply; and in vain she felt", " With twitching fingers at her belt", " For the purse of sleek pine-martin pelt,", "Ready to put what he gave in her pouch safe--", "Till, either to quicken his apprehension,", "Or possibly with an after-intention,", "She was come, she said, to pay her duty", "To the new Duchess, the youthful beauty.", "No sooner had she named his lady,", "Than a shine lit up the face so shady,", "And its smirk returned with a novel meaning--", "For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning;", "If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow,", "She, foolish today, would be wiser tomorrow;", "And who so fit a teacher of trouble", "As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double?", "So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture,", " (If such it was, for they grow so hirsute", " That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit)", "He was contrasting, 'twas plain from his gesture,", "The life of the lady so flower-like and delicate", "With the loathsome squalor of this helicat.", "I, in brief, was the man the Duke beckoned", " From out of the throng, and while I drew near", "He told the crone-as I since have reckoned", " By the way he bent and spoke into her ear", "With circumspection and mystery--", "The main of the lady's history,", "Her frowardness and ingratitude:", "And for all the crone's submissive attitude", "I could see round her mouth the loose plaits tightening,", "And her brow with assenting intelligence brightening", " As though she engaged with hearty goodwill", " Whatever he now might enjoin to fulfil,", "And promised the lady a thorough frightening.", "", "And so, just giving her a glimpse", "Of a purse, with the air of a man who imps", "The wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hernshaw,", " He bade me take the Gipsy mother", " And set her telling some story or other", "Of hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw,", "To wile away a weary hour", "For the lady left alone in her bower,", "Whose mind and body craved exertion", "And yet shrank from all better diversion.", "", "Then clapping heel to his horse, the mere curveter,", " Out rode the Duke, and after his hollo", "Horses and hounds swept, huntsman and servitor,", " And back I turned and bade the crone follow.", "And what makes me confident what's to be told you", " Had all along been of this crone's devising,", "Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you,", " There was a novelty quick as surprising:", "For first, she had shot up a full head in stature,", " And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered,", "As if age had foregone its usurpature,", " And the ignoble mien was wholly altered,", "And the face looked quite of another nature,", "And the change reached too, whatever the change meant,", "Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak's arrangement:", "For where its tatters hung loose like sedges,", "Gold coins were glittering on the edges,", "Like the band-roll strung with tomans", "Which proves the veil a Persian woman's:", "And under her brow, like a snail's horns newly", " Come out as after the rain he paces,", "Two unmistakeable eye-points duly", " Live and aware looked out of their places.", "So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry", "Of the lady's chamber standing sentry;", "I told the command and produced my companion,", "And Jacynth rejoiced to admit any one,", "For since last night, by the same token,", "Not a single word had the lady spoken:", "They went in both to the presence together,", "While I in the balcony watched the weather.", "", "And now, what took place at the very first of all,", "I cannot tell, as I never could learn it:", "Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall", "On that little head of hers and burn it", "If she knew how she came to drop so soundly", " Asleep of a sudden and there continue", "The whole time sleeping as profoundly", " As one of the boars my father would pin you", "'Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison,", "--Jacynth forgive me the comparison!", "But where I begin my own narration", "Is a little after I took my station", "To breathe the fresh air from the balcony,", "And, having in those days a falcon eye,", "To follow the hunt thro' the open country,", " From where the bushes thinlier crested", "The hillocks, to a plain where's not one tree.", " When, in a moment, my ear was arrested", "By--was it singing, or was it saying,", "Or a strange musical instrument playing", "In the chamber?--and to be certain", "I pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain,", "And there lay Jacynth asleep,", "Yet as if a watch she tried to keep,", "In a rosy sleep along the floor", "With her head against the door;", "While in the midst, on the seat of state,", "Was a queen-the Gipsy woman late,", "With head and face downbent", "On the lady's head and face intent:", "For, coiled at her feet like a child at ease,", "The lady sat between her knees", "And o'er them the lady's clasped hands met,", "And on those hands her chin was set,", "And her upturned face met the face of the crone", "Wherein the eyes had grown and grown", "As if she could double and quadruple", "At pleasure the play of either pupil", " --Very like, by her hands' slow fanning,", "As up and down like a gor-crow's flappers", "They moved to measure, or bell-clappers.", " I said, \"Is it blessing, is it banning,", "Do they applaud you or burlesque you--", " Those hands and fingers with no flesh on?\"", "But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue,", " At once I was stopped by the lady's expression:", "For it was life her eyes were drinking", "From the crone's wide pair above unwinking,", "--Life's pure fire received without shrinking,", "Into the heart and breast whose heaving", "Told you no single drop they were leaving,", "--Life, that filling her, passed redundant", "Into her very hair, back swerving", "Over each shoulder, loose and abundant,", " As her head thrown back showed the white throat curving;", "And the very tresses shared in the pleasure,", "Moving to the mystic measure,", "Bounding as the bosom bounded.", "I stopped short, more and more confounded,", "As still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened,", "As she listened and she listened:", "When all at once a hand detained me,", "The selfsame contagion gained me,", "And I kept time to the wondrous chime,", "Making out words and prose and rhyme,", "Till it seemed that the music furled", " Its wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped", " From under the words it first had propped,", "And left them midway in the world:", "Word took word as hand takes hand", "I could hear at last, and understand,", "And when I held the unbroken thread,", "The Gipsy said:", "\"And so at last we find my tribe.", " And so I set thee in the midst,", "And to one and all of them describe", " What thou saidst and what thou didst,", "Our long and terrible journey through,", "And all thou art ready to say and do", "In the trials that remain:", "I trace them the vein and the other vein", "That meet on thy brow and part again,", "Making our rapid mystic mark;", " And I bid my people prove and probe", " Each eye's profound and glorious globe", "Till they detect the kindred spark", "In those depths so dear and dark,", "Like the spots that snap and burst and flee,", "Circling over the midnight sea.", "And on that round young cheek of thine", " I make them recognize the tinge,", "As when of the costly scarlet wine", " They drip so much as will impinge", "And spread in a thinnest scale afloat", "One thick gold drop from the olive's coat", "Over a silver plate whose sheen", "Still thro' the mixture shall be seen.", "For so I prove thee, to one and all,", " Fit, when my people ope their breast,", "To see the sign, and hear the call,", " And take the vow, and stand the test", " Which adds one more child to the rest--", "When the breast is bare and the arms are wide,", "And the world is left outside.", "", "For there is probation to decree,", "And many and long must the trials be", "Thou shalt victoriously endure,", "If that brow is true and those eyes are sure;", "Like a jewel-finder's fierce assay", " Of the prize he dug from its mountain tomb--", "Let once the vindicating ray", " Leap out amid the anxious gloom,", "And steel and fire have done their part", "And the prize falls on its finder's heart;", "So, trial after trial past,", "Wilt thou fall at the very last", "Breathless, half in trance", "With the thrill of the great deliverance,", " Into our arms for evermore;", "And thou shalt know, those arms once curled", " About thee, what we knew before,", "How love is the only good in the world.", "Henceforth be loved as heart can love,", "Or brain devise, or hand approve!", "Stand up, look below,", "It is our life at thy feet we throw", "To step with into light and joy;", "Not a power of life but we employ", "To satisfy thy nature's want;", "Art thou the tree that props the plant,", "Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree--", "Canst thou help us, must we help thee?", "If any two creatures grew into one,", "They would do more than the world has done:", "Though each apart were never so weak,", "Ye vainly through the world should seek", "For the knowledge and the might", "Which in such union grew their right:", "So, to approach at least that end,", "And blend,--as much as may be, blend", "Thee with us or us with thee--", "As climbing plant or propping tree,", "Shall some one deck thee, over and down,", " Up and about, with blossoms and leaves?", "Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland-crown,", " Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves,", "Die on thy boughs and disappear", "While not a leaf of thine is sere?", "Or is the other fate in store,", "And art thou fitted to adore,", "To give thy wondrous self away,", "And take a stronger nature's sway?", "I foresee and could foretell", "Thy future portion, sure and well:", "But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true,", "Let them say what thou shalt do!", "Only be sure thy daily life,", "In its peace or in its strife,", "Never shall be unobserved;", " We pursue thy whole career,", " And hope for it, or doubt, or fear--", "Lo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved,", "We are beside thee in all thy ways,", "With our blame, with our praise,", "Our shame to feel, our pride to show,", "Glad, angry--but indifferent, no!", "Whether it be thy lot to go,", "For the good of us all, where the haters meet", "In the crowded city's horrible street;", "Or thou step alone through the morass", "Where never sound yet was", "Save the dry quick clap of the stork's bill,", "For the air is still, and the water still,", "When the blue breast of the dipping coot", "Dives under, and all is mute.", "So, at the last shall come old age,", "Decrepit as befits that stage;", "How else wouldst thou retire apart", "With the hoarded memories of thy heart,", "And gather all to the very least", "Of the fragments of life's earlier feast,", "Let fall through eagerness to find", "The crowning dainties yet behind?", "Ponder on the entire past", "Laid together thus at last,", "When the twilight helps to fuse", "The first fresh with the faded hues,", "And the outline of the whole,", "As round eve's shades their framework roll,", "Grandly fronts for once thy soul.", "And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam", " Of yet another morning breaks,", "And like the hand which ends a dream,", "Death, with the might of his sunbeam,", " Touches the flesh and the soul awakes,", "Then--\"", " Ay, then indeed something would happen!", " But what? For here her voice changed like a bird's;", " There grew more of the music and less of the words;", "Had Jacynth only been by me to clap pen", "To paper and put you down every syllable", " With those clever clerkly fingers,", " All I've forgotten as well as what lingers", "In this old brain of mine that's but ill able", "To give you even this poor version", " Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering", " --More fault of those who had the hammering", " Of prosody into me and syntax", " And did it, not with hobnails but tintacks!", "", "But to return from this excursion--", "Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest,", "The peace most deep and the charm completest,", "There came, shall I say, a snap--", " And the charm vanished!", " And my sense returned, so strangely banished,", "And, starting as from a nap,", "I knew the crone was bewitching my lady,", "With Jacynth asleep; and but one spring made I", "Down from the casement, round to the portal,", " Another minute and I had entered--", "When the door opened, and more than mortal", " Stood, with a face where to my mind centred", "All beauties I ever saw or shall see,", "The Duchess: I stopped as if struck by palsy.", "She was so different, happy and beautiful,", " I felt at once that all was best,", " And that I had nothing to do, for the rest", "But wait her commands, obey and be dutiful.", "Not that, in fact, there was any commanding;", " I saw the glory of her eye,", "And the brow's height and the breast's expanding,", " And I was hers to live or to die.", "As for finding what she wanted,", "You know God Almighty granted", "Such little signs should serve wild creatures", " To tell one another all their desires,", " So that each knows what his friend requires,", "And does its bidding without teachers.", "I preceded her; the crone", "Followed silent and alone;", "I spoke to her, but she merely jabbered", " In the old style; both her eyes had slunk", " Back to their pits; her stature shrunk;", " In short, the soul in its body sunk", "Like a blade sent home to its scabbard.", "We descended, I preceding;", "Crossed the court with nobody heeding;", "All the world was at the chase,", "The courtyard like a desert-place,", "The stable emptied of its small fry;", "I saddled myself the very palfrey", "I remember patting while it carried her,", "The day she arrived and the Duke married her.", "And, do you know, though it's easy deceiving", "Oneself in such matters, I can't help believing", "The lady had not forgotten it either,", "And knew the poor devil so much beneath her", "Would have been only too glad for her service", "To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise,", "But, unable to pay proper duty where owing", "Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it:", "For though the moment I began setting", "His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting,", "(Not that I meant to be obtrusive)", " She stopped me, while his rug was shifting,", " By a single rapid finger's lifting,", "And, with a gesture kind but conclusive,", "And a little shake of the head, refused me--", "I say, although she never used me,", "Yet when she was mounted, the Gipsy behind her,", "And I ventured to remind her", "I suppose with a voice of less steadiness", " Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me,", "--Something to the effect that I was in readiness", " Whenever God should please she needed me--", "Then, do you know, her face looked down on me", "With a look that placed a crown on me,", "And she felt in her bosom--mark, her bosom--", "And, as a flower-tree drops its blossom,", "Dropped me... ah, had it been a purse", "Of silver, my friend, or gold that's worse,", "Why, you see, as soon as I found myself", " So understood,--that a true heart so may gain", " Such a reward,--I should have gone home again,", "Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself!", "It was a little plait of hair", " Such as friends in a convent make", " To wear, each for the other's sake--", "This, see, which at my breast I wear,", "Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment),", "And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment.", "And then-and then--to cut short--this is idle,", " These are feelings it is not good to foster--", "I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle,", " And the palfrey bounded--and so we lost her.", "", "When the liquor's out why clink the cannikin?", "I did think to describe you the panic in", "The redoubtable breast of our master the mannikin,", "And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness,", " How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-rib", " Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib,", "When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness", "--But it seems such child's play,", "What they said and did with the lady away!", "And to dance on, when we've lost the music,", "Always made me--and no doubt makes you--sick.", "Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern", "As that sweet form disappeared through the postern,", "She that kept it in constant good humour,", "It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more.", "But the world thought otherwise and went on,", "And my head's one that its spite was spent on:", "Thirty years are fled since that morning,", "And with them all my head's adorning.", "Nor did the old Duchess die outright,", "As you expect, of suppressed spite,", "The natural end of every adder", "Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder:", "But she and her son agreed, I take it,", "That no one should touch on the story to wake it,", "For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery,", "So, they made no search and small inquiry--", "And when fresh Gipsies have paid us a visit, I've", "Notice the couple were never inquisitive,", "But told them they're folks the Duke don't want here,", "And bade them make haste and cross the frontier.", "Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it,", " And the old one was in the young one's stead,", " And took, in her place, the household's head,", "And a blessed time the household had of it!", "And were I not, as a man may say, cautious", "How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous,", "I could favour you with sundry touches", "Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess", "Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness", "(To get on faster) until at last her", "Cheek grew to be one master-plaster", "Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse:", "In short, she grew from scalp to udder", "Just the object to make you shudder.", "", "You're my friend--", "What a thing friendship is, world without end!", "How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up", " As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet,", " And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit,", "Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup,", "Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids--", "Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids;", "Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs,", "Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts", "Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees", "Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease.", "I have seen my little lady once more,", " Jacynth, the Gipsy, Berold, and the rest of it,", "For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before;", " I always wanted to make a clean breast of it:", "And now it is made-why, my heart's blood, that went trickle,", " Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets,", "Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle,", " And genially floats me about the giblets.", "", "I'll tell you what I intend to do:", "I must see this fellow his sad life through--", "He is our Duke, after all,", "And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall.", "My father was born here, and I inherit", " His fame, a chain he bound his son with;", "Could I pay in a lump I should prefer it,", " But there's no mine to blow up and get done with:", "So, I must stay till the end of the chapter.", "For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter,", "Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on,", "Some day or other, his head in a morion", "And breast in a hauberk, his heels he'll kick up,", "Slain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup.", "And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust,", "And its leathern sheath lie o'ergrown with a blue crust,", "Then I shall scrape together my earnings;", " For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes,", " And our children all went the way of the roses:", "It's a long lane that knows no turnings.", "One needs but little tackle to travel in;", " So, just one stout cloak shall I indue:", "And for a staff, what beats the javelin", " With which his boars my father pinned you?", "And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently,", " Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful,", "I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly!", " Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful.", "What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all;", " Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:", " When we mind labour, then only, we're too old--", "What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?", "And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees,", " (Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil)", " I hope to get safely out of the turmoil", "And arrive one day at the land of the Gipsies,", "And find my lady, or hear the last news of her", "From some old thief and son of Lucifer,", "His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop,", "Sunburned all over like an AEthiop.", "And when my Cotnar begins to operate", "And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate,", "And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent,", "I shall drop in with--as if by accident--", "\"You never knew, then, how it all ended,", "What fortune good or bad attended", "The little lady your Queen befriended?\"", "--And when that's told me, what's remaining?", "This world's too hard for my explaining.", "The same wise judge of matters equine", " Who still preferred some slim four-year-old", " To the big-boned stock of mighty Berold", "And, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak wine,", "He also must be such a lady's scorner!", " Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau:", " Now up, now down, the world's one see-saw.", "--So, I shall find out some snug corner", "Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight,", "Turn myself round and bid the world good night;", "And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet blowing", " Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)", "To a world where will be no further throwing", " Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen!" ], "linecount": "916" }, { "title": "Tray", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst", "Of soul, ye bards!", " Quoth Bard the first:", "\"Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don", "His helm, and eke his habergeon ...\"", "Sir Olaf and his bard----!", "", "\"That sin-scathed brow\" (quoth Bard the second),", "\"That eye wide ope as tho' Fate beckoned", "My hero to some steep, beneath", "Which precipice smiled tempting Death ...\"", "You too without your host have reckoned!", "", "\"A beggar-child\" (let's hear this third!)", "\"Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird", "Sang to herself at careless play,", "And fell into the stream. 'Dismay!", "Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred.", "", "\"Bystanders reason, think of wives", "And children ere they risk their lives.", "Over the balustrade has bounced", "A mere instinctive dog, and pounced", "Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!", "", "\"'Up he comes with the child, see, tight", "In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite", "A depth of ten feet--twelve, I bet!", "Good dog! What, off again? There's yet", "Another child to save? All right!", "", "\"'How strange we saw no other fall!", "It's instinct in the animal.", "Good dog! But he's a long while under:", "If he got drowned I should not wonder--", "Strong current, that against the wall!", "", "\"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time", "--What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!", "Now, did you ever? Reason reigns", "In man alone, since all Tray's pains", "Have fished--the child's doll from the slime!'", "", "\"And so, amid the laughter gay,", "Trotted my hero off,--old Tray,--", "Till somebody, prerogatived", "With reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived,", "His brain would show us, I should say.", "", "\"'John, go and catch--or, if needs be,", "Purchase that animal for me!", "By vivisection, at expense", "Of half-an-hour and eighteen pence,", "How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'\"" ], "linecount": "46" }, { "title": "A Tale (Epilogue to \"The Two Poets of Croisic.\")", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "What a pretty tale you told me", " Once upon a time", "--Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)", " Was it prose or was it rhyme,", "Greek or Latin? Greek, you said,", "While your shoulder propped my head.", "", "Anyhow there's no forgetting", " This much if no more,", "That a poet (pray, no petting!)", " Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore,", "Went where suchlike used to go,", "Singing for a prize, you know.", "", "Well, he had to sing, nor merely", " Sing but play the lyre;", "Playing was important clearly", " Quite as singing: I desire,", "Sir, you keep the fact in mind", "For a purpose that's behind.", "", "There stood he, while deep attention", " Held the judges round,", "--Judges able, I should mention,", " To detect the slightest sound", "Sung or played amiss: such ears", "Had old judges, it appears!", "", "None the less he sang out boldly,", " Played in time and tune,", "Till the judges, weighing coldly", " Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon,", "Sure to smile \"In vain one tries", "Picking faults out: take the prize!\"", "", "When, a mischief! Were they seven", " Strings the lyre possessed?", "Oh, and afterwards eleven,", " Thank you! Well, sir,--who had guessed", "Such ill luck in store?--it happed", "One of those same seven strings snapped.", "", "All was lost, then! No! a cricket", " (What \"cicada\"? Pooh!)", "--Some mad thing that left its thicket", " For mere love of music--flew", "With its little heart on fire,", "Lighted on the crippled lyre.", "", "So that when (Ah joy!) our singer", " For his truant string", "Feels with disconcerted finger,", " What does cricket else but fling", "Fiery heart forth, sound the note", "Wanted by the throbbing throat?", "", "Ay and, ever to the ending,", " Cricket chirps at need,", "Executes the hand's intending,", " Promptly, perfectly,--indeed", "Saves the singer from defeat", "With her chirrup low and sweet.", "", "Till, at ending, all the judges", " Cry with one assent", "\"Take the prize--a prize who grudges", " Such a voice and instrument?", "Why, we took your lyre for harp,", "So it shrilled us forth F sharp!\"", "", "Did the conqueror spurn the creature", " Once its service done?", "That's no such uncommon feature", " In the case when Music's son", "Finds his Lotte's power too spent", "For aiding soul development.", "", "No! This other, on returning", " Homeward, prize in hand,", "Satisfied his bosom's yearning:", " (Sir, I hope you understand!)", "--Said \"Some record there must be", "Of this cricket's help to me!\"", "", "So, he made himself a statue:", " Marble stood, life size;", "On the lyre, he pointed at you,", " Perched his partner in the prize;", "Never more apart you found", "Her, he throned, from him, she crowned.", "", "That's the tale: its application?", " Somebody I know", "Hopes one day for reputation", " Thro' his poetry that's--Oh,", "All so learned and so wise", "And deserving of a prize!", "", "If he gains one, will some ticket", " When his statue's built,", "Tell the gazer \"'Twas a cricket", " Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt", "Sweet and low, when strength usurped", "Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped?", "", "\"For as victory was nighest,", " While I sang and played,--", "With my lyre at lowest, highest,", " Right alike,--one string that made", "'Love' sound soft was snapt in twain", "Never to be heard again,--", "", "\"Had not a kind cricket fluttered,", " Perched upon the place", "Vacant left, and duly uttered", " 'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass", "Asked the treble to atone", "For its somewhat sombre drone.\"", "", "But you don't know music! Wherefore", " Keep on casting pearls", "To a--poet? All I care for", " Is--to tell him that a girl's", "\"Love\" comes aptly in when gruff", "Grows his singing, (There, enough!)" ], "linecount": "108" }, { "title": "Cavalier Tunes", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,", "Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:", "And, pressing a troop unable to stoop", "And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,", "Marched them along, fifty score strong,", "Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.", "", "God for King Charles! Pym and such carles", "To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles!", "Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup,", "Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup", "Till you're--", "", "--Marching along, fifty score strong,", " Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.", "", "Hampden to hell, and his obsequies knell.", "Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well!", "England, good cheer! Rupert is near!", "Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here,", "", "--Marching along, fifty score strong,", " Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.", "", "Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls", "To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles!", "Hold by the right, you double your might;", "So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight,", "", "--March we along, fifty score strong,", " Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!", "", "King Charles, and who'll do him right now?", "King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?", "Give a rouse; here's, in hell's despite now,", "King Charles!", "", "Who gave me the goods that went since?", "Who raised me the house that sank once?", "Who helped me to gold I spent since?", "Who found me in wine you drank once?", "", "--King Charles, and who'll do him right now?", " King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?", " Give a rouse; here's, in hell's despite now,", " King Charles!", "", "To whom used my boy George quaff else,", "By the old fool's side that begot him?", "For whom did he cheer and laugh else,", "While Noll's damned troopers shot him?", "", "--King Charles, and who'll do him right now?", " King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?", " Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,", " King Charles!", "", "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!", "Rescue my castle before the hot day", "Brightens to blue from its silvery gray,", "", "--Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!", "", "Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say;", "Many's the friend there, will listen and pray", "\"God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay--", "", "--Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!\"", "", "Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,", "Flouts castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array:", "Who laughs, \"Good fellows ere this, by my fay,", "", "--Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!\"", "", "Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay,", "Laughs when you talk of surrendering, \"Nay!", "I've better counsellors; what counsel they?", "", "-- Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!\"" ], "linecount": "61" }, { "title": "A Face", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "If one could have that little head of hers", "Painted upon a background of pure gold,", "Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers!", "No shade encroaching on the matchless mould", "Of those two lips, which should be opening soft", "In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,", "For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft", "Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's", "Burden of honey-colored buds to kiss", "And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this.", "Then her little neck, three fingers might surround,", "How it should waver on the pale gold ground", "Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!", "I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts", "Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb", "Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb:", "But these are only massed there, I should think,", "Waiting to see some wonder momently", "Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky", "(That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by),", "All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye", "Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink." ], "linecount": "22" }, { "title": "Instans Tyrannus", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Of the million or two, more or less,", "I rule and possess,", "One man, for some cause undefined,", "Was least to my mind.", "", "I struck him, he grovelled of course--", "For, what was his force?", "I pinned him to earth with my weight", "And persistence of hate;", "And he lay, would not moan, would not curse,", "As his lot might be worse.", "", "\"Were the object less mean? would he stand", "At the swing of my hand!", "For obscurity helps him, and blots", "The hole where he squats.\"", "So, I set my five wits on the stretch.", "To inveigle the wretch.", "All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw,", "Still he couched there perdue;", "I tempted his blood and his flesh,", "Hid in roses my mesh,", "Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth:", "Still he kept to his filth.", "", "Had he kith now or kin, were access", "To his heart, did I press:", "Just a son or a mother to seize!", "No such booty as these.", "Were it simply a friend to pursue", "'Mid my million or two,", "Who could pay me, in person or pelf,", "What he owes me himself!", "No: I could not but smile thro' my chafe:", "For the fellow lay safe", "As his mates do, the midge and the nit,", "--Thro' minuteness, to wit.", "", "Then a humour more great took its place", "At the thought of his face:", "The droop, the low cares of the mouth,", "The trouble uncouth", "'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain", "To put out of its pain,", "And, \"no!\" I admonished myself,", "\"Is one mocked by an elf.", "Is one baffled by toad or by rat?", "The gravamen's in that!", "How the lion, who crouches to suit", "His back to my foot,", "Would admire that I stand in debate!", "But the small turns the great", "If it vexes you,--that is the thing!", "Toad or rat vex the king?", "Tho' I waste half my realm to unearth", "Toad or rat, 'tis well worth!\"", "", "So, I soberly laid my last plan", "To extinguish the man.", "Round his creep-hole, with never a break", "Ran my fires for his sake;", "Overhead, did my thunder combine", "With my under-ground mine:", "Till I looked from my labour content", "To enjoy the event.", "", "When sudden ... how think ye, the end?", "Did I say \"without friend?\"", "Say rather, from marge to blue marge", "The whole sky grew his targe", "With the sun's self for visible boss,", "While an Arm ran across", "Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast!", "Where the wretch was safe prest!", "Do you see! Just my vengeance complete,", "The man sprang to his feet,", "Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed!", "--So,I_ was afraid!" ], "linecount": "72" }, { "title": "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church (Rome, 15--)", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!", "Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?", "Nephews--sons mine ... ah God, I know not! Well,", "She, men would have to be your mother once,", "Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!", "What's done is done, and she is dead beside,", "Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since.", "And as she died so must we die ourselves,", "And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.", "Life, how and what is it? As here I lie", "In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,", "Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask", "\"Do I live, am I dead?\" Peace, peace seems all.", "Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;", "And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought", "With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:", "--Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;", "Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South", "He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!", "Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence", "One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,", "And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,", "And up into the aery dome where live", "The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:", "And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,", "And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,", "With those nine columns round me, two and two,", "The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:", "Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe", "As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse,", "--Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,", "Put me where I may look at him! True peach,", "Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!", "Draw close: that conflagration of my church", "--What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!", "My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig", "The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,", "Drop water gently till the surface sink,", "And if ye find... Ah God, I know not, I!...", "Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,", "And corded up in a tight olive-frail,", "Some lump, ah God, oflapis lazuli_,", "Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,", "Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...", "Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,", "That brave Frascati villa, with its bath,", "So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,", "Like God the Father's globe on both his hands", "Ye worship in the Jesu Church, so gay,", "For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!", "Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:", "Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?", "Did I say, basalt for my slab, sons? Black--", "'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else", "Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?", "The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,", "Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance", "Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,", "The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,", "Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan", "Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,", "And Moses with the tables ... but I know", "Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,", "Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope", "To revel down my villas while I gasp", "Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine", "Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!", "Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then!", "'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve", "My bath must needs be left behind, alas!", "One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,", "There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world--", "And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray", "Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,", "And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?", "--That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,", "Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,", "No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line--", "Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!", "And then how I shall lie thro' centuries,", "And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,", "And see God made and eaten all day long,", "And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste", "Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!", "For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,", "Dying in state and by such slow degrees,", "I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,", "And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,", "And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop", "Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:", "And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts", "Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,", "About the life before I lived this life,", "And this life too, popes, cardinals, and priests,", "Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,", "Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,", "And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,", "And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,", "--Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?", "No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!", "Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.", "Alllapis_, all, sons! Else I give the Pope", "My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?", "Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,", "They glitter like your mother's for my soul.", "Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,", "Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase", "With grapes, and add a visor and a Term,", "And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx", "That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,", "To comfort me on my entablature", "Whereon I am to lie till I must ask", "\"Do I live, am I dead?\" There, leave me, there!", "For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude", "To death--ye wish it--God, ye wish it! stone--", "Gritstone, a-crumble! clammy squares which sweat", "As if the corpse they keep were oozing through--", "And no morelapis_ to delight the world!", "Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,", "But in a row: and, going, turn your backs", "--Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,", "And leave me in my church, the church for peace,", "That I may watch, at leisure if he leers--", "Old Gandolf--at me, from his onion-stone,", "As still he envied me, so fair she was!" ], "linecount": "125" }, { "title": "Up at a Villa--Down in the City", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "_(As distinguished by an Italian person of quality.)_", "", "Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,", "The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city square;", "Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!", "Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!", "There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;", "While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.", "", "Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull", "Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull,", "Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!", "--I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.", "", "But the city, oh the city--the square with the houses! Why?", "They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye!", "Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry;", "You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;", "Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;", "And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.", "", "What of a villa? Tho' winter be over in March, by rights,", "'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights:", "You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze,", "And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive trees.", "", "Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once;", "In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns,", "'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,", "The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell", "Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.", "", "Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash!", "In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash", "On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash", "Round the lady atop in her conch--fifty gazers do not abash,", "Tho' all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash.", "", "All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,", "Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger.", "Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle,", "Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.", "Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,", "And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill.", "Enough of the seasons,--I spare you the months of the fever and chill.", "", "Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin:", "No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in:", "You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.", "By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth;", "Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.", "At the post-office such a scene-picture--the new play, piping hot!", "And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.", "Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes,", "And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's!", "Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so,", "Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome and Cicero,", "\"And moreover\" (the sonnet goes rhyming), \"the skirts of St. Paul has", " reached,", "Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he", " preached.\"", "Noon strikes,--here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart.", "", "With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart!", "_Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum,tootle-te-tootle_ the fife;", "No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life.", "", "But bless you, it's dear--it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate.", "They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate", "It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!", "Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still--ah, the pity, the pity!", "Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals,", "And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles;", "One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,", "And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals:", "_Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum,tootle-te-tootle_ the fife.", "Oh, a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!" ], "linecount": "67" }, { "title": "Andrea Del Sarto (Called \"the Faultless Painter\")", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "But do not let us quarrel any more,", "No, my Lucrezia! bear with me for once:", "Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.", "You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?", "I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear.", "Treat his own subject after his own way,", "Fix his own time, accept too his own price,", "And shut the money into this small hand", "When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?", "Oh, I'll content him,--but to-morrow, Love!", "I often am much wearier than you think,", "This evening more than usual: and it seems", "As if--forgive now--should you let me sit", "Here by the window, with your hand in mine,", "And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,", "Both of one mind, as married people use,", "Quietly, quietly the evening through,", "I might get up to-morrow to my work", "Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.", "To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!", "Your soft hand is a woman of itself,", "And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside.", "Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve", "For each of the five pictures we require:", "It saves a model. So! keep looking so--", "My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!", "--How could you ever prick those perfect ears,", "Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet--", "My face, my moon, my everybody's moon.", "Which everybody looks on and calls his,", "And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,", "While she looks--no one's: very dear, no less.", "You smile? why, there's my picture ready made,", "There's what we painters call our harmony!", "A common grayness silvers everything,--", "All in a twilight, you and I alike", "--You, at the point of your first pride in me", "(That's gone, you know)--but I, at every point;", "My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down", "To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.", "There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;", "That length of convent-wall across the way", "Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;", "The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,", "And autumn grows, autumn in everything.", "Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape,", "As if I saw alike my work and self", "And all that I was born to be and do,", "A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand.", "How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead;", "So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!", "I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!", "This chamber for example--turn your head--", "All that's behind us! You don't understand", "Nor care to understand about my art,", "But you can hear at least when people speak:", "And that cartoon, the second from the door", "--It is the thing, Love! so such things should be--", "Behold Madonna!--I am bold to say.", "I can do with my pencil what I know,", "What I see, what at bottom of my heart", "I wish for, if I ever wish so deep--", "Do easily, too--when I say, perfectly,", "I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,", "Who listened to the Legate's talk last week;", "And just as much they used to say in France.", "At any rate 'tis easy, all of it!", "No sketches first, no studies, that's long past:", "I do what many dream of, all their lives,", "--Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,", "And fail in doing. I could count twenty such", "On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,", "Who strive--you don't know how the others strive", "To paint a little thing like that you smeared", "Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,--", "Yet do much less, so much less. Someone says,", "(I know his name, no matter)--so much less!", "Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.", "There burns a truer light of God in them,", "In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,", "Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt", "This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.", "Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,", "Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,", "Enter and take their place there sure enough,", "Tho' they come back and cannot tell the world.", "My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.", "The sudden blood of these men! at a word--", "Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.", "I, painting from myself and to myself,", "Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame", "Or their praise either. Somebody remarks", "Morello's outline there is wrongly traced,", "His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,", "Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?", "Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?", "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,", "Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-gray,", "Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!", "I know both what I want and what might gain,", "And yet how profitless to know, to sigh", "\"Had I been two, another and myself,", "Our head would have o'erlooked the world!\" No doubt.", "", "Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth", "The Urbinate who died five years ago.", "('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)", "Well, I can fancy how he did it all,", "Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,", "Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,", "Above and thro' his art--for it gives way;", "That arm is wrongly put--and there again--", "A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines,", "Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,", "He means right--that, a child may understand.", "Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:", "But all the play, the insight and the stretch--", "Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?", "Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,", "We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!", "Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think--", "More than I merit, yes, by many times.", "But had you--oh, with the same perfect brow,", "And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,", "And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird", "The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare--", "Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!", "Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged", "\"God and the glory! never care for gain.", "", "The present by the future, what is that?", "Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!", "Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!\"", "I might have done it for you. So it seems:", "Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules.", "Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;", "The rest avail not. Why do I need you?", "What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?", "In this world, who can do a thing, will not;", "And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:", "Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power--", "And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,", "God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.", "'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,", "That I am something underrated here,", "Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.", "I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,", "For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.", "The best is when they pass and look aside;", "But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.", "Well may they speak. That Francis, that first time,", "And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!", "I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,", "Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear,", "In that humane great monarch's golden look,--", "One finger in his beard or twisted curl", "Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile.", "One arm, about my shoulder, round my neck,", "The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,", "I painting proudly with his breath on me,", "All his court round him, seeing with his eyes.", "Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls", "Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,--", "And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,", "This in the background, waiting on my work,", "To crown the issue with a last reward!", "A good tune, was it not, my kingly days?", "And had you not grown restless ... but I know--", "'Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said;", "Too live the life grew, golden and not gray:", "And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt", "Out of the grange whose four walls make his world,", "How could it end in any other way?", "You called me, and I came home to your heart,", "The triumph was--to reach and stay there; since", "I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?", "Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold,", "You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!", "\"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;", "The Roman's is the better when you pray,", "But still the other's Virgin was his wife--\"", "Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge", "Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows", "My better fortune, I resolve to think.", "For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,", "Said one day Agnolo, his very self,", "To Rafael... I have known it all these years...", "(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts", "Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,", "Too lifted up in heart because of it)", "\"Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub", "Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,", "Who, were he set to plan and execute", "As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,", "Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!\"", "To Rafael's!--And indeed the arm is wrong.", "I hardly dare ... yet, only you to see,", "Give the chalk here--quick, thus the line should go!", "Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!", "Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,", "(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?", "Do you forget already words like those?)", "If really there was such a chance so lost,--", "Is, whether you're--not grateful--but more pleased.", "Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!", "", "This hour has been an hour! Another smile?", "If you would sit thus by me every night", "I should work better, do you comprehend?", "I mean that I should earn more, give you more.", "See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star;", "Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,", "The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.", "Come from the window, Love,--come in, at last,", "Inside the melancholy little house", "We built to be so gay with. God is just.", "King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights", "When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,", "The walls become illumined, brick from brick", "Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce, bright gold,", "That gold of his I did cement them with!", "Let us but love each other. Must you go?", "That Cousin here again? he waits outside?", "Must see you--you, and not with me? Those loans?", "More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?", "Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?", "While hand and eye and something of a heart", "Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?", "I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit", "The gray remainder of the evening out,", "Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly", "How I could paint, were I but back in France,", "One picture, just one more--the Virgin's face,", "Not yours this time! I want you at my side", "To hear them--that is, Michel Agnolo--", "Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.", "Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.", "I take the subjects for his corridor,", "Finish the portrait out of hand--there, there,", "And throw him in another thing or two", "If he demurs; the whole should prove enough", "To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside,", "What's better and what's all I care about,", "Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!", "Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,", "The Cousin! what does he to please you more?", "", "I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.", "I regret little, I would change still less.", "Since there my past life lies, why alter it?", "The very wrong to Francis!--it is true", "I took his coin, was tempted and complied,", "And built this house and sinned, and all is said", "My father and my mother died of want.", "Well, had I riches of my own? you see", "How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.", "They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:", "And I have laboured somewhat in my time", "And not been paid profusely. Some good son", "Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try!", "No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes,", "You love me quite enough, it seems to-night.", "This must suffice me here. What would one have?", "In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance--", "Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,", "Meted on each side by the angel's reed,", "For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me", "To cover--the three first without a wife,", "While I have mine! So--still they overcome", "Because there's still Lucrezia,--as I choose.", "", " Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love." ], "linecount": "267" }, { "title": "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "My first thought was, he lied in every word,", " That hoary cripple, with malicious eye", " Askance to watch the working of his lie", "On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford", "Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored", " Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.", "", "What else should he be set for, with his staff?", " What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare", " All travellers who might find him posted there,", "And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh", "Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph", " For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,", "", "If at his counsel I should turn aside", " Into that ominous tract which, all agree,", " Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly", "I did turn as he pointed: neither pride", "Nor hope rekindling at the end descried.", " So much as gladness that some end might be.", "", "For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,", " What, with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope", " Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope", "With that obstreperous joy success would bring,--", "I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring", " My heart made, finding failure in its scope.", "", "As when a sick man very near to death", " Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end", " The tears, and takes the farewell of each friend,", "And hears one bid the other go, draw breath", "Freelier outside, (\"since all is o'er,\" he saith,", " \"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;\")", "", "While some discuss if near the other graves", " Be room enough for this, and when a day", " Suits best for carrying the corpse away,", "With care about the banners, scarves, and staves:", "And still the man hears all, and only craves", " He may not shame such tender love and stay.", "", "Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,", " Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ", " So many times among \"The Band\"--to wit,", "The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed", "Their steps--that just to fail as they, seemed best,", " And all the doubt was now--should I be fit?", "", "So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,", " That hateful cripple, out of his highway", " Into the path he pointed. All the day", "Had been a dreary one at best, and dim", "Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim", " Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.", "", "For mark! no sooner was I fairly found", " Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,", " Than, pausing to throw backward a last view", "O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round:", "Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound,", " I might go on; naught else remained to do.", "", "So, on I went. I think I never saw", " Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:", " For flowers--as well expect a cedar grove!", "But cockle, spurge, according to their law", "Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,", " You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.", "", "No! penury, inertness, and grimace,", " In some strange sort, were the land's portion. \"See", " Or shut your eyes,\" said Nature peevishly,", "\"It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:", "'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,", " Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.\"", "", "If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk", " Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents", " Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents", "In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk", "All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk", " Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.", "", "As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair", " In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud", " Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.", "One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,", "Stood stupefied, however he came there:", " Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!", "", "Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,", " With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,", " And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;", "Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;", "I never saw a brute I hated so;", " He must be wicked to deserve such pain.", "", "I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.", " As a man calls for wine before he fights,", " I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,", "Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.", "Think first, fight afterwards--the soldier's art:", " One taste of the old time sets all to rights.", "", "Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face", " Beneath its garniture of curly gold,", " Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold", "An arm in mine to fix me to the place,", "That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!", " Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.", "", "Giles then, the soul of honour--there he stands", " Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.", " What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.", "Good--but the scene shifts--faugh! what hangman hands", "Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands", " Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!", "", "Better this present than a past like that;", " Back therefore to my darkening path again!", " No sound, no sight so far as eye could strain.", "Will the night send a howlet or a bat?", "I asked: when something on the dismal flat", " Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.", "", "A sudden little river crossed my path", " As unexpected as a serpent comes.", " No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;", "This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath", "For the fiend's glowing hoof--to see the wrath", " Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.", "", "So petty, yet so spiteful! All along,", " Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;", " Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit", "Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:", "The river which had done them all the wrong,", " Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.", "", "Which, while I forded,--good saints, how I feared", " To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,", " Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek", "For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!", "--It may have been a water-rat I speared,", " But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.", "", "Glad was I when I reached the other bank.", " Now for a better country. Vain presage!", " Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage", "Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank", "Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,", " Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--", "", "The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.", " What penned them there, with all the plain, to choose?", " No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,", "None out of it. Mad brewage set to work", "Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk", " Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.", "", "And more than that--a furlong on--why, there!", " What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,", " Or brake, not wheel--that harrow fit to reel", "Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air", "Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware,", " Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.", "", "Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,", " Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth", " Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,", "Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood", "Changes, and off he goes!) within a rood--", " Bog, clay, and rubble, sand, and stark black dearth.", "", "Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,", " Now patches where some leanness of the soil's", " Broke into moss or substances like boils;", "Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him", "Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim", " Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.", "", "And just as far as ever from the end,", " Naught in the distance but the evening, naught", " To point my footstep further! At the thought,", "A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,", "Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned", " That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.", "", "For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,", " 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place", " All round to mountains--with such name to grace", "Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.", "How thus they had surprised me,--solve it, you!", " How to get from them was no clearer case.", "", "Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick", " Of mischief happened to me, Gods knows when--", " In a bad dream, perhaps. Here ended, then,", "Progress this way. When, in the very nick", "Of giving up, one time more, came a click", " As when a trap shuts--you're inside the den.", "", "Burningly it came on me all at once,", " This was the place! those two hills on the right,", " Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;", "While, to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,", "Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,", " After a life spent training for the sight!", "", "What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?", " The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,", " Built of brown stone, without a counterpart", "In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf", "Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf", " He strikes on, only when the timbers start.", "", "Not see? because of night perhaps?--why, day", " Came back again for that! before it left,", " The dying sunset kindled thro' a cleft:", "The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,", "Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,", " \"Now stab and end the creature--to the heft!\"", "", "Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled", " Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears,", " Of all the lost adventurers my peers,--", "How such a one was strong, and such was bold,", "And such was fortunate, yet each of old", " Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.", "", "There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met", " To view the last of me, a living frame", " For one more picture! in a sheet of flame", "I saw them and I knew them all. And yet", "Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,", " And blew. \"_Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came._\"" ], "linecount": "204" }, { "title": "Waring", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "What's become of Waring", "Since he gave us all the slip,", "Chose land-travel or seafaring,", "Boots and chest or staff and scrip,", "Rather than pace up and down", "Any longer London town?", "", "Who'd have guessed it from his lip", "Or his brow's accustomed bearing,", "On the night he thus took ship", "Or started landward?--little caring", "For us, it seems, who supped together", "(Friends of his too, I remember)", "And walked home thro' the merry weather,", "The snowiest in all December.", "I left his arm that night myself", "For what's-his-name's, the new prose-poet", "Who wrote the book there, on the shelf--", "How, forsooth, was I to know it", "If Waring meant to glide away", "Like a ghost at break of day?", "Never looked he half so gay!", "", "He was prouder than the devil:", "How he must have cursed our revel!", "Ay and many other meetings,", "Indoor visits, outdoor greetings,", "As up and down he paced this London,", "With no work done, but great works undone,", "Where scarce twenty knew his name.", "Why not, then, have earlier spoken,", "Written, bustled? Who's to blame", "If your silence kept unbroken?", "\"True, but there were sundry jottings,", "Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings,", "Certain first steps were achieved", "Already which (is that your meaning?)", "Had well borne out whoe'er believed", "In more to come!\" But who goes gleaning", "Hedgeside chance-glades, while full-sheaved", "Stand cornfields by him? Pride, o'erweening", "Pride alone, puts forth such claims", "O'er the day's distinguished names.", "", "Meantime, how much I loved him,", "I find out now I've lost him.", "I who cared not if I moved him,", "Who could so carelessly accost him,", "Henceforth never shall get free", "Of his ghostly company,", "His eyes that just a little wink", "As deep I go into the merit", "Of this and that distinguished spirit--", "His cheeks' raised colour, soon to sink,", "As long I dwell on some stupendous", "And tremendous (Heaven defend us!)", "Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous", "Demoniaco-seraphic", "Penman's latest piece of graphic.", "Nay, my very wrist grows warm", "With his dragging weight of arm.", "E'en so, swimmingly appears,", "Through one's after-supper musings,", "Some lost lady of old years", "With her beauteous vain endeavour", "And goodness unrepaid as ever;", "The face, accustomed to refusings,", "We, puppies that we were... Oh never", "Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled", "Being aught like false, forsooth, to?", "Telling aught but honest truth to?", "What a sin, had we centupled", "Its possessor's grace and sweetness!", "No! she heard in its completeness", "Truth, for truth's a weighty matter,", "And truth, at issue, we can't flatter!", "Well, 'tis done with; she's exempt", "From damning us thro' such a sally;", "And so she glides, as down a valley,", "Taking up with her contempt,", "Past our reach; and in, the flowers", "Shut her unregarded hours.", "", "Oh, could I have him back once more,", "This Waring, but one half-day more!", "Back, with the quiet face of yore,", "So hungry for acknowledgment", "Like mine! I'd fool him to his bent.", "Feed, should not he, to heart's content?", "I'd say, \"to only have conceived,", "Planned your great works, apart from progress,", "Surpasses little works achieved!\"", "I'd lie so, I should be believed.", "I'd make such havoc of the claims", "Of the day's distinguished names", "To feast him with, as feasts an ogress", "Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child!", "Or as one feasts a creature rarely", "Captured here, unreconciled", "To capture; and completely gives", "Its pettish humours license, barely", "Requiring that it lives.", "", "Ichabod, Ichabod,", "The glory is departed!", "Travels Waring East away?", "Who, of knowledge, by hearsay,", "Reports a man upstarted", "Somewhere as a god,", "Hordes grown European-hearted,", "Millions of the wild made tame", "On a sudden at his fame?", "In Vishnu-land what Avatar?", "Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar,", "With the demurest of footfalls", "Over the Kremlin's pavement bright", "With serpentine and syenite,", "Steps, with five other Generals", "That simultaneously take snuff,", "For each to have pretext enough", "And kerchiefwise unfold his sash", "Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff", "To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,", "And leave the grand white neck no gash?", "Waring in Moscow, to those rough", "Cold northern natures born perhaps,", "Like the lamb-white maiden dear", "From the circle of mute kings", "Unable to repress the tear,", "Each as his sceptre down he flings,", "To Dian's fane at Taurica,", "Where now a captive priestess, she alway", "Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech", "With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach", "As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands", "Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands", "Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry", "Amid their barbarous twitter!", "In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!", "Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain", "That we and Waring meet again", "Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane", "Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid", "All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid", "Its stiff gold blazing pall", "From some black coffin-lid.", "Or, best of all,", "I love to think", "The leaving us was just a feint;", "Back here to London did he slink,", "And now works on without a wink", "Of sleep, and we are on the brink", "Of something great in fresco-paint:", "Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor,", "Up and down and o'er and o'er", "He splashes, as none splashed before", "Since great Caldara Polidore.", "Or Music means this land of ours", "Some favour yet, to pity won", "By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers--", "\"Give me my so-long promised son,", "Let Waring end what I begun!\"", "Then down he creeps and out he steals", "Only when the night conceals", "His face; in Kent 'tis cherry-time,", "Or hops are picking: or at prime", "Of March he wanders as, too happy,", "Years ago when he was young,", "Some mild eve when woods grew sappy", "And the early moths had sprung", "To life from many a trembling sheath", "Woven the warm boughs beneath;", "While small birds said to themselves", "What should soon be actual song,", "And young gnats, by tens and twelves,", "Made as if they were the throng", "That crowd around and carry aloft", "The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,", "Out of a myriad noises soft,", "Into a tone that can endure", "Amid the noise of a July noon", "When all God's creatures crave their boon,", "All at once and all in tune,", "And get it, happy as Waring then,", "Having first within his ken", "What a man might do with men:", "And far too glad, in the even-glow,", "To mix with the world he meant to take", "Into his hand, he told you, so--", "And out of it his world to make,", "To contract and to expand", "As he shut or oped his hand.", "Oh Waring, what's to really be?", "A clear stage and a crowd to see!", "Some Garrick, say, out shall not he", "The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck?", "Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,", "Some Junius--am I right?--shall tuck", "His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife!", "Some Chatterton shall have the luck", "Of calling Rowley into life!", "Some one shall somehow run a muck", "With this old world for want of strife", "Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive", "To rouse us, Waring! Who's alive?", "Our men scarce seem in earnest now.", "Distinguished names!--but 'tis, somehow,", "As if they played at being names", "Still more distinguished, like the games", "Of children. Turn our sport to earnest", "With a visage of the sternest!", "Bring the real times back, confessed", "Still better than our very best!", "", "\"When I last saw Waring...\"", "(How all turned to him who spoke!", "You saw Waring? Truth or joke?", "In land-travel or sea-faring?)", "", "\"We were sailing by Triest", "Where a day or two we harboured:", "A sunset was in the West,", "When, looking over the vessel's side,", "One of our company espied", "A sudden speck to larboard.", "And as a sea-duck flies and swims", "At once, so came the light craft up,", "With its sole lateen sail that trims", "And turns (the water round its rims", "Dancing, as round a sinking cup)", "And by us like a fish it curled,", "And drew itself up close beside,", "Its great sail on the instant furled,", "And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried,", "(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's)", "'Buy wine of us, you English Brig?", "Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?", "A pilot for you to Triest?", "Without one, look you ne'er so big,", "They'll never let you up the bay!", "We natives should know best.'", "I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,'", "Our captain said, 'The 'long-shore thieves", "Are laughing at us in their sleeves.'", "", "\"In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;", "And one, half-hidden by his side", "Under the furled sail, soon I spied,", "With great grass hat and kerchief black,", "Who looked up with his kingly throat,", "Said somewhat, while the other shook", "His hair back from his eyes to look", "Their longest at us; then the boat,", "I know not how, turned sharply round,", "Laying her whole side on the sea", "As a leaping fish does; from the lee", "Into the weather, cut somehow", "Her sparkling path beneath our bow", "And so went off, as with a bound,", "Into the rosy and golden half", "O' the sky, to overtake the sun", "And reach the shore, like the sea-calf", "Its singing cave; yet I caught one", "Glance ere away the boat quite passed,", "And neither time nor toil could mar", "Those features: so I saw the last", "Of Waring!\"--You? Oh, never star", "Was lost here but it rose afar!", "Look East, where whole new thousands are!", "In Vishnu-land what Avatar?" ], "linecount": "262" }, { "title": "My Star", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "All that I know", " Of a certain star", "Is, it can throw", " (Like the angled spar)", "Now a dart of red,", " Now a dart of blue;", "Till my friends have said", " They would fain see, too,", "My star that dartles the red and the blue!", "", "Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:", "They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.", "What matter to me if their star is a world?", "Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it." ], "linecount": "13" }, { "title": "Evelyn Hope", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!", " Sit and watch by her side an hour.", "That is her book-shelf, this her bed;", " She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,", "Beginning to die too, in the glass;", " Little has yet been changed, I think:", "The shutters are shut, no light may pass", " Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.", "", "Sixteen years old when she died!", " Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;", "It was not her time to love; beside,", " Her life had many a hope and aim,", "Duties enough and little cares,", " And now was quiet, now astir,", "Till God's hand beckoned unawares,--", " And the sweet white brow is all of her.", "", "Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?", " What, your soul was pure and true,", "The good stars met in your horoscope,", " Made you of spirit, fire and dew--", "And just because I was thrice as old", " And our paths in the world diverged so wide,", "Each was naught to each, must I be told?", " We were fellow mortals, naught beside?", "", "No, indeed! for God above", " Is great to grant, as mighty to make,", "And creates the love to reward the love:", " I claim you still, for my own love's sake!", "Delayed it may be for more lives yet,", " Thro' worlds I shall traverse, not a few:", "Much is to learn, much, to forget", " Ere the time be come for taking you.", "", "But the time will come, at last it will,", " When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)", "In the lower earth in the years long still,", " That body and soul so pure and gay?", "Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,", " And your mouth of your own geranium's red--", "And what would you do with me, in fine,", " In the new life come in the old one's stead.", "", "I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,", " Given up myself so many times,", "Gained me the gains of various men,", " Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;", "Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,", " Either I missed or itself missed me:", "And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!", " What is the issue? let us see!", "", "I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!", " My heart seemed full as it could hold;", "There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,", " And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.", "So hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep:", " See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!", "There, that is our secret: go to sleep!", " You will wake, and remember, and understand." ], "linecount": "56" }, { "title": "Confessions", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "What is he buzzing in my ears?", " \"Now that I come to die,", "Do I view the world as a vale of tears?\"", " Ah, reverend sir, not I!", "", "What I viewed there once, what I view again", " Where the physic bottles stand", "On the table's edge,--is a suburb lane,", " With a wall to my bedside hand.", "", "That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,", " From a house you could descry", "O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue", " Or green to a healthy eye?", "", "To mine, it serves for the old June weather", " Blue above lane and wall;", "And that farthest bottle labelled \"Ether\"", " Is the house o'er-topping all.", "", "At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,", " There watched for me, one June,", "A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,", " My poor mind's out of tune.", "", "Only, there was a way ... you crept", " Close by the side, to dodge", "Eyes in the house, two eyes except:", " They styled their house \"The Lodge.\"", "", "What right had a lounger up their lane?", " But, by creeping very close,", "With the good wall's help,--their eyes might strain", " And stretch themselves to Oes,", "", "Yet never catch her and me together,", " As she left the attic, there,", "By the rim of the bottle labelled \"Ether,\"", " And stole from stair to stair", "", "And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,", " We loved, sir--used to meet;", "How sad and bad and mad it was--", " But then, how it was sweet!" ], "linecount": "36" }, { "title": "The Boy and the Angel", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Morning, evening, noon, and night,", "\"Praise God!\" sang Theocrite.", "", "Then to his poor trade he turned,", "Whereby the daily meal was earned.", "", "Hard he laboured, long and well;", "O'er his work the boy's curls fell.", "", "But ever, at each period,", "He stopped and sang, \"Praise God!\"", "", "Then back again his curls he threw,", "And cheerful turned to work anew.", "", "Said Blaise, the listening monk, \"Well done;", "I doubt not thou art heard, my son:", "", "\"As well as if thy voice to-day", "Were praising God, the Pope's great way.", "", "\"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome", "Praises God from Peter's dome.\"", "", "Said Theocrite, \"Would God that I", "Might praise Him that great way, and die!\"", "", "Night passed, day shone,", "And Theocrite was gone.", "", "With God a day endures alway,", "A thousand years are but a day.", "", "God said in heaven, \"Nor day nor night", "Now brings the voice of my delight.\"", "", "Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth,", "Spread his wings and sank to earth;", "", "Entered, in flesh, the empty cell,", "Lived there, and played the craftsman well;", "", "And morning, evening, noon, and night,", "Praised God in place of Theocrite.", "", "And from a boy, to youth he grew:", "The man put off the stripling's hue:", "", "The man matured and fell away", "Into the season of decay:", "", "And ever o'er the trade he bent,", "And ever lived on earth content.", "", "(He did God's will; to him, all one", "If on the earth or in the sun.)", "", "God said, \"A praise is in mine ear;", "There is no doubt in it, no fear:", "", "\"So sing old worlds, and so", "New worlds that from my footstool go.", "", "\"Clearer loves sound other ways:", "I miss my little human praise.\"", "", "Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell", "The flesh disguise, remained the cell.", "", "'Twas Easter day: he flew to Rome,", "And paused above Saint Peter's dome.", "", "In the tiring-room close by", "The great outer gallery,", "", "With his holy vestments dight,", "Stood the new Pope, Theocrite:", "", "And all his past career", "Came back upon him clear,", "", "Since when, a boy, he plied his trade,", "Till on his life the sickness weighed;", "", "And in his cell, when death drew near,", "An angel in a dream brought cheer:", "", "And rising from the sickness drear,", "He grew a priest, and now stood here.", "", "To the East with praise he turned,", "And on his sight the angel burned.", "", "\"I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell,", "And set thee here; I did not well.", "", "\"Vainly I left my angel-sphere,", "Vain was thy dream of many a year,", "", "\"Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped--", "Creation's chorus stopped!", "", "\"Go back and praise again", "The early way, while I remain.", "", "\"With that weak voice of our disdain,", "Take up creation's pausing strain.", "", "\"Back to the cell and poor employ:", "Resume the craftsman and the boy!\"", "", "Theocrite grew old at home;", "A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome.", "", "One vanished as the other died:", "They sought God side by side." ], "linecount": "78" }, { "title": "The Italian in England", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "That second time they hunted me", "From hill to plain, from shore to sea,", "And Austria, hounding far and wide", "Her blood-hounds thro' the country-side,", "Breathed hot an instant on my trace,--", "I made, six days, a hiding-place", "Of that dry green old aqueduct", "Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked", "The fire-flies from the roof above,", "Bright creeping thro' the moss they love:", "--How long it seems since Charles was lost!", "Six days the soldiers crossed, and crossed", "The country in my very sight;", "And when that peril ceased at night,", "The sky broke out in red dismay", "With signal-fires. Well, there I lay", "Close covered o'er in my recess,", "Up to the neck in ferns and cress.", "Thinking on Metternich, our friend,", "And Charles's miserable end,", "And much beside, two days; the third,", "Hunger o'ercame me when I heard", "The peasants from the village go", "To work among the maize: you know,", "With us in Lombardy, they bring", "Provisions packed on mules, a string,", "With little bells that cheer their task,", "And casks, and boughs on every cask", "To keep the sun's heat from the wine;", "These I let pass in jingling line;", "And, close on them, dear noisy crew,", "The peasants from the village, too;", "For at the very rear would troop", "Their wives and sisters in a group", "To help, I knew. When these had passed,", "I threw my glove to strike the last,", "Taking the chance: she did not start,", "Much less cry out, but stooped apart,", "One instant rapidly glanced round,", "And saw me beckon from the ground.", "A wild bush grows and hides my crypt;", "She picked my glove up while she stripped", "A branch off, then rejoined the rest", "With that; my glove lay in her breast:", "Then I drew breath; they disappeared:", "It was for Italy I feared.", "", " An hour, and she returned alone", "Exactly where my glove was thrown.", "Meanwhile came many thoughts: on me", "Rested the hopes of Italy.", "I had devised a certain tale", "Which, when 'twas told her, could not fail", "Persuade a peasant of its truth;", "I meant to call a freak of youth", "This hiding, and give hopes of pay,", "And no temptation to betray.", "But when I saw that woman's face,", "Its calm simplicity of grace,", "Our Italy's own attitude", "In which she walked thus far, and stood,", "Planting each naked foot so firm,", "To crush the snake and spare the worm--", "At first sight of her eyes, I said,", "\"I am that man upon whose head", "They fix the price, because I hate", "The Austrians over us; the State", "Will give you gold--oh, gold so much!--", "If you betray me to their clutch.", "And be your death, for aught I know,", "If once they find you saved their foe.", "Now, you must bring me food and drink,", "And also paper, pen and ink,", "And carry safe what I shall write", "To Padua, which you'll reach at night", "Before the duomo shuts; go in,", "And wait till Tenebrae begin;", "Walk to the third confessional,", "Between the pillar and the wall,", "And kneeling whisper,Whence comes peace?_", "Say it a second time, then cease;", "And if the voice inside returns,", "_From Christ and Freedom; what concerns", "The cause of Peace?_--for answer, slip", "My letter where you placed your lip;", "Then come back happy we have done", "Our mother service--I, the son,", "As you the daughter of our land!\"", "", " Three mornings more, she took her stand", "In the same place, with the same eyes:", "I was no surer of sun-rise", "Than of her coming. We conferred", "Of her own prospects, and I heard", "She had a lover--stout and tall,", "She said--then let her eyelids fall,", "\"He could do much\"--as if some doubt", "Entered her heart,--then, passing out,", "\"She could not speak for others, who", "Had other thoughts; herself she knew;\"", "And so she brought me drink and food.", "After four days, the scouts pursued", "Another path; at last arrived", "The help my Paduan friends contrived", "To furnish me: she brought the news.", "For the first time I could not choose", "But kiss her hand, and lay my own", "Upon her head--\"This faith was shown", "To Italy, our mother; she", "Uses my hand and blesses thee.\"", "She followed down to the sea-shore;", "I left and never saw her more.", "", " How very long since I have thought", "Concerning--much less wished for--aught", "Beside the good of Italy,", "For which I live and mean to die!", "I never was in love; and since", "Charles proved false, what shall now convince", "My inmost heart I have a friend?", "However, if I pleased to spend", "Real wishes on myself--say, three--", "I know at least what one should be.", "I would grasp Metternich until", "I felt his red wet throat distil", "In blood thro' these two hands. And next,", "--Nor much for that am I perplexed--", "Charles, perjured traitor, for his part,", "Should die slow of a broken heart", "Under his new employers. Last", "--Ah, there, what should I wish? For fast", "Do I grow old and out of strength.", "If I resolved to seek at length", "My father's house again, how scared", "They all would look, and unprepared!", "My brothers live in Austria's pay", "--Disowned me long ago, men say;", "And all my early mates who used", "To praise me so--perhaps induced", "More than one early step of mine--", "Are turning wise: while some opine", "\"Freedom grows license,\" some suspect", "\"Haste breeds delay,\" and recollect", "They always said, such premature", "Beginnings never could endure!", "So, with a sullen \"All's for best,\"", "The land seems settling to its rest.", "I think then, I should wish to stand", "This evening in that dear, lost land,", "Over the sea the thousand miles,", "And know if yet that woman smiles", "With the calm smile; some little farm", "She lives in there, no doubt: what harm", "If I sat on the door-side bench,", "And while her spindle made a trench", "Fantastically in the dust,", "Inquired of all her fortunes--just", "Her children's ages and their names,", "And what may be the husband's aims", "For each of them. I'd talk this out,", "And sit there, for an hour about,", "Then kiss her hand once more, and lay", "Mine on her head, and go my way.", "", " So much for idle wishing--how", "It steals the time! To business now." ], "linecount": "162" }, { "title": "Abt Vogler: After he has been extemporizing upon the musical instrument of his invention", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,", " Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,", "Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed", " Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,", "Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim,", " Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,--", "Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,", " And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!", "", "Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,", " This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise!", "Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine,", " Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!", "And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell,", " Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things,", "Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,", " Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.", "", "And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was,", " Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest,", "Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass,", " Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest:", "For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire,", " When a great illumination surprises a festal night--", "Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire)", " Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.", "", "In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth,", " Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;", "And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth.", " As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky:", "Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine.", " Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star;", "Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,", " For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.", "", "Nay more; for there wanted not who walked, in the glare and glow,", " Presences plain in the place; or, fresh, from the Protoplast,", "Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,", " Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last:", "Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed thro' the body and gone,", " But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new:", "What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;", " And what is,--shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.", "", "All thro' my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,", " All thro' my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,", "All thro' music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,", " Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth:", "Had I written the same, made verse--still, effect proceeds from cause,", " Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;", "It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,", " Painter and poet are proud, in the artist-list enrolled:--", "", "But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,", " Existent behind all laws, that made them, and, lo, they are!", "And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,", " That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.", "Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is naught;", " It is everywhere in the world--loud, soft, and all is said:", "Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought,", " And, there! Ye have heard and seen; consider and bow the head!", "", "Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;", " Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;", "For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,", " That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.", "Never to be again! But many more of the kind", " As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me?", "To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind", " To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.", "", "Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name?", " Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands!", "What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same?", " Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands?", "There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;", " The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound;", "What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;", " On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.", "", "All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;", " Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power", "Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist,", " When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.", "The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard.", " The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,", "Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;", " Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by.", "", "And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence", " For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?", "Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?", " Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized?", "Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,", " Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe:", "But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear;", " The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.", "", "Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:", " I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.", "Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,", " Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,--yes,", "And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,", " Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep:", "Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,", " The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep." ], "linecount": "96" }, { "title": "Rabbi Ben Ezra", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Grow old along with me!", "The best is yet to be,", "The last of life, for which the first was made:", "Our times are in His hand", "Who saith \"A whole I planned,", "Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!\"", "", "Not that, amassing flowers,", "Youth sighed, \"Which rose make ours,", "Which lily leave and then as best recall!\"", "Not that, admiring stars,", "It yearned \"Nor Jove, nor Mars;", "Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!\"", "", "Not for such hopes and fears", "Annulling youth's brief years,", "Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!", "Rather I prize the doubt", "Low kinds exist without,", "Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.", "", "Poor vaunt of life indeed,", "Were man but formed to feed", "On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:", "Such feasting ended, then", "As sure an end to men;", "Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?", "", "Rejoice we are allied", "To That which doth provide", "And not partake, effect and not receive!", "A spark disturbs our clod;", "Nearer we hold of God.", "Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.", "", "Then, welcome each rebuff", "That turns earth's smoothness rough,", "Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!", "Be our joys three-parts pain!", "Strive, and hold cheap the strain;", "Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!", "", "For thence,--a paradox", "Which comforts while it mocks,--", "Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:", "What I aspired to be,", "And was not, comforts me:", "A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.", "", "What is he but a brute", "Whose flesh has soul to suit,", "Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?", "To man, propose this test--", "Thy body at its best,", "How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?", "", "Yet gifts should prove their use:", "I own the Past profuse", "Of power each side, perfection every turn:", "Eyes, ears took in their dole,", "Brain treasured up the whole;", "Should not the heart beat once \"How good to live and learn?\"", "", "Not once beat \"Praise be Thine!", "I see the whole design,", "I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:", "Perfect I call Thy plan:", "Thanks that I was a man!", "Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shall do!\"", "", "For pleasant is this flesh;", "Our soul, in its rose-mesh", "Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:", "Would we some prize might hold", "To match those manifold", "Possessions of the brute,--gain most, as we did best!", "", "Let us not always say,", "\"Spite of this flesh to-day", "I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!\"", "As the bird wings and sings,", "Let us cry \"All good things", "Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!\"", "", "Therefore I summon age", "To grant youth's heritage,", "Life's struggle having so far reached its term:", "Thence shall I pass, approved", "A man, for aye removed", "From the developed brute; a God tho' in the germ.", "", "And I shall thereupon", "Take rest, ere I be gone", "Once more on my adventure brave and new:", "Fearless and unperplexed,", "When I wage battle next,", "What weapons to select, what armour to indue.", "", "Youth ended, I shall try", "My gain or loss thereby;", "Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:", "And I shall weigh the same,", "Give life its praise or blame:", "Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.", "", "For, note when evening shuts,", "A certain moment cuts", "The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:", "A whisper from the west", "Shoots--\"Add this to the rest,", "Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.\"", "", "So, still within this life,", "Tho' lifted o'er its strife,", "Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,", "\"This rage was right i' the main,", "That acquiescence vain:", "The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.\"", "", "For more is not reserved", "To man, with soul just nerved", "To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:", "Here, work enough to watch", "The Master work, and catch", "Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.", "", "As it was better, youth", "Should strive, thro' acts uncouth,", "Toward making, than repose on aught found made:", "So, better, age, exempt", "From strife, should know, than tempt", "Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be afraid!", "", "Enough now, if the Right", "And Good and Infinite", "Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,", "With knowledge absolute,", "Subject to no dispute", "From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.", "", "Be there, for once and all,", "Severed great minds from small,", "Announced to each his station in the Past!", "Was I, the world arraigned,", "Were they, my soul disdained,", "Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!", "", "Now, who shall arbitrate?", "Ten men love what I hate,", "Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;", "Ten, who in ears and eyes", "Match me: we all surmise,", "They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?", "", "Not on the vulgar mass", "Called \"work,\" must sentence pass,", "Things done, that took the eye and had the price;", "O'er which, from level stand,", "The low world laid its hand,", "Found straight way to its mind, could value in a trice:", "", "But all, the world's coarse thumb", "And finger failed to plumb,", "So passed in making up the main account:", "All instincts immature,", "All purposes unsure,", "That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:", "", "Thoughts hardly to be packed", "Into a narrow act,", "Fancies that broke thro' language and escaped:", "All I could never be,", "All, men ignored in me,", "This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.", "", "Ay, note that Potter's wheel,", "That metaphor! and feel", "Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,--", "Thou, to whom fools propound,", "When the wine makes its round,", "\"Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!\"", "", "Fool! All that is, at all,", "Lasts ever, past recall;", "Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:", "What entered into thee,", "_That_ was, is, and shall be:", "Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.", "", "He fixed thee mid this dance", "Of plastic circumstance,", "This Present, thou forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:", "Machinery just meant", "To give thy soul its bent,", "Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.", "", "What tho' the earlier grooves", "Which ran the laughing loves", "Around thy base, no longer pause and press?", "What tho' about thy rim,", "Scull-things in order grim", "Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?", "", "Look not thou down but up!", "To uses of a cup", "The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,", "The new wine's foaming flow,", "The Master's lips a-glow!", "Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?", "", "But I need, now as then,", "Thee, God, who mouldest men!", "And since, not even while the whirl was worst,", "Did I,--to the wheel of life", "With shapes and colours rife,", "Bound dizzily,--mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst.", "", "So take and use Thy work,", "Amend what flaws may lurk,", "What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!", "My times be in Thy hand!", "Perfect the cup as planned!", "Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!" ], "linecount": "192" }, { "title": "One Word More: To E.B.B.", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "There they are, my fifty men and women", "Naming me the fifty poems finished!", "Take them, Love, the book and me together;", "Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.", "", "Rafael made a century of sonnets,", "Made and wrote them in a certain volume", "Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil", "Else he only used to draw Madonnas;", "These, the world might view--but one, the volume.", "Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.", "Did she live and love it all her lifetime?", "Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets,", "Die, and let it drop beside her pillow", "Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory,", "Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving--", "Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's,", "Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's?", "", "You and I would rather read that volume", "(Taken to his beating bosom by it),", "Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael,", "Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas--", "Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno,", "Her, that visits Florence in a vision,", "Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre--", "Seen by us and all the world in circle.", "", "You and I will never read that volume.", "Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple,", "Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it.", "Guido Reni dying, all Bologna", "Cried, and the world cried too, \"Ours, the treasure!\"", "Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.", "", "Dante once prepared to paint an angel:", "Whom to please? You whisper \"Beatrice.\"", "While he mused and traced it and retraced it", "(Peradventure with a pen corroded", "Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for,", "When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked,", "Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma,", "Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment,", "Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle,", "Let the wretch go festering through Florence)--", "Dante, who loved well because he hated,", "Hated wickedness that hinders loving,", "Dante, standing, studying his angel,--", "In there broke the folk of his Inferno.", "Says he--\"Certain people of importance\"", "(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to)", "\"Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet.\"", "Says the poet--\"Then I stopped my painting.\"", "", "You and I would rather see that angel,", "Painted by the tenderness of Dante,", "Would we not?--than read a fresh Inferno.", "", "You and I will never see that picture.", "While he mused on love and Beatrice,", "While he softened o'er his outlined angel,", "In they broke, those \"people of importance\":", "We and Bice bear the loss forever.", "", "What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture?", "This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not", "Once, and only once, and for one only,", "(Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language", "Fit and fair and simple and sufficient--", "Using nature that's an art to others,", "Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature.", "Ay, of all the artists living, loving,", "None but would forego his proper dowry,--", "Does he paint? he fain would write a poem,", "Does he write? he fain would paint a picture,--", "Put to proof art alien to the artist's,", "Once, and only once, and for one only,", "So to be the man and leave the artist,", "Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.", "", "Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement!", "He who smites the rock and spreads the water,", "Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him,", "Even he, the minute makes immortal,", "Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute,", "Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing.", "While he smites, how can he but remember,", "So he smote before, in such a peril,", "When they stood and mocked--\"Shall smiting help us?\"", "When they drank and sneered--\"A stroke is easy!\"", "When they wiped their mouths and went their journey,", "Throwing him for thanks--\"But drought was pleasant.\"", "Thus old memories mar the actual triumph;", "Thus the doing savors of disrelish;", "Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat;", "O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate,", "Carelessness or consciousness--the gesture.", "For he bears an ancient wrong about him,", "Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces,", "Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude--", "\"How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us?\"", "Guesses what is like to prove the sequel--", "\"Egypt's flesh-pots--nay, the drought was better.\"", "", "Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant!", "Theirs, the Sinai-forhead's cloven brilliance,", "Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat.", "Never dares the man put off the prophet.", "", "Did he love one face from out the thousands,", "(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely,", "Were she but the Æthiopian bondslave),", "He would envy yon dumb, patient camel,", "Keeping a reserve of scanty water", "Meant to save his own life in the desert;", "Ready in the desert to deliver", "(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened)", "Hoard and life together for his mistress.", "", "I shall never, in the years remaining,", "Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues.", "Make you music that should all-express me;", "So it seems; I stand on my attainment.", "This of verse alone, one life allows me;", "Verse and nothing else have I to give you;", "Other heights in other lives, God willing;", "All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love.", "", "Yet a semblance of resource avails us--", "Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.", "Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly,", "Lines I write the first time and the last time.", "He who works in fresco steals a hair-brush,", "Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,", "Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,", "Makes a strange art of an art familiar,", "Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets,", "He who blows through bronze may breathe through silver,", "Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess.", "He who writes, may write for once as I do.", "", "Love, you saw me gather men and women,", "Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy,", "Enter each and all, and use their service,", "Speak from every mouth,--the speech, a poem.", "Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,", "Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving:", "I am mine and yours--the rest be all men's,", "Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty.", "Let me speak this once in my true person,", "Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea,", "Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence:", "Pray you, look on these my men and women,", "Take and keep my fifty poems finished;", "Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!", "Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.", "", "Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!", "Here in London, yonder late in Florence,", "Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.", "Curving on a sky imbrued with color,", "Drifted over Fiesole by twilight,", "Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.", "Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato,", "Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder,", "Perfect till the nightingales applauded.", "Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished,", "Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs,", "Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver,", "Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.", "", "What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?", "Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal,", "Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy),", "All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos),", "She would turn a new side to her mortal,", "Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman,--", "Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace,", "Blind to Galileo on his turret.", "Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats--him, even!", "Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal--", "When she turns round, comes again in heaven,", "Opens out anew for worse or better!", "Proves she like some portent of an iceberg", "Swimming full upon the ship it founders,", "Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals?", "Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire,", "Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain?", "Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu", "Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest,", "Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.", "Like the bodied heaven in his clearness", "Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work,", "When they ate and drank and saw God also!", "", "What were seen? None knows, none ever will know.", "Only this is sure--the sight were other,", "Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence,", "Dying now impoverished here in London.", "God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures", "Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,", "One to show a woman when he loves her.", "", "This I say of me, but think of you, Love!", "This to you--yourself my moon of poets!", "Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder,", "Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you!", "There, in turn I stand with them and praise you--", "Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.", "But the best is when I glide from out them,", "Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,", "Come out on the other side, the novel", "Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,", "Where I hush and bless myself with silence.", "", "Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,", "Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno,", "Wrote one song--and in my brain I sing it,", "Drew one angel--borne, see, on my bosom!" ], "linecount": "201" }, { "title": "Mesmerism", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "All I believed is true!", " I am able yet", " All I want, to get", "By a method as strange as new:", "Dare I trust the same to you?", "", "If at night, when doors are shut,", " And the wood-worm picks,", " And the death-watch ticks,", "And the bar has a flag of smut,", "And a cat's in the water-butt--", "", "And the socket floats and flares,", " And the house-beams groan,", " And a foot unknown", "Is surmised on the garret-stairs,", "And the locks slip unawares--", "", "And the spider, to serve his ends,", " By a sudden thread,", " Arms and legs outspread,", "On the table's midst descends,", "Comes to find, God knows what friends!--", "", "If since eve drew in, I say,", " I have sat and brought", " (So to speak) my thought", "To bear on the woman away,", "Till I felt my hair turn grey--", "", "Till I seemed to have and hold,", " In the vacancy", " 'Twixt the wall and me,", "From the hair-plait's chestnut gold", "To the foot in its muslin fold--", "", "Have and hold, then and there,", " Her, from head to foot", " Breathing and mute,", "Passive and yet aware,", "In the grasp of my steady stare--", "", "Hold and have, there and then,", " All her body and soul", " That completes my whole,", "All that women add to men,", "In the clutch of my steady ken--", "", "Having and holding, till", " I imprint her fast", " On the void at last", "As the sun does whom he will", "By the calotypist's skill--", "", "Then,--if my heart's strength serve,", " And through all and each", " Of the veils I reach", "To her soul and never swerve,", "Knitting an iron nerve--", "", "Command her soul to advance", " And inform the shape", " Which has made escape", "And before my countenance", "Answers me glance for glance--", "", "I, still with a gesture fit", " Of my hands that best", " Do my soul's behest,", "Pointing the power from it,", "While myself do steadfast sit--", "", "Steadfast and still the same", " On my object bent,", " While the hands give vent", "To my ardour and my aim", "And break into very flame--", "", "Then I reach, I must believe,", " Not her soul in vain,", " For to me again", "It reaches, and past retrieve", "Is wound in the toils I weave;", "", "And must follow as I require,", " As befits a thrall,", " Bringing flesh and all,", "Essence and earth-attire", "To the source of the tractile fire:", "", "Till the house called hers, not mine,", " With a growing weight", " Seems to suffocate", "If she break not its leaden line", "And escape from its close confine.", "", "Out of doors into the night!", " On to the maze", " Of the wild wood-ways,", "Not turning to left nor right", "From the pathway, blind with sight--", "", "Making thro' rain and wind", " O'er the broken shrubs,", " 'Twixt the stems and stubs,", "With a still, composed, strong mind,", "Nor a care for the world behind--", "", "Swifter and still more swift,", " As the crowding peace", " Doth to joy increase", "In the wide blind eyes uplift", "Thro' the darkness and the drift!", "", "While I--to the shape, I too", " Feel my soul dilate", " Nor a whit abate,", "And relax not a gesture due,", "As I see my belief come true.", "", "For, there! have I drawn or no", " Life to that lip?", " Do my fingers dip", "In a flame which again they throw", "On the cheek that breaks a-glow?", "", "Ha! was the hair so first?", " What, unfilleted,", " Made alive, and spread", "Through the void with a rich outburst,", "Chestnut gold-interspersed?", "", "Like the doors of a casket-shrine,", " See, on either side,", " Her two arms divide", "Till the heart betwixt makes sign,", "Take me, for I am thine!", "", "\"Now--now\"--the door is heard!", " Hark, the stairs! and near--", " Nearer--and here--", "\"Now!\" and at call the third", "She enters without a word.", "", "On doth she march and on", " To the fancied shape;", " It is, past escape,", "Herself, now: the dream is done", "And the shadow and she are one.", "", "First I will pray. Do Thou", " That ownest the soul,", " Yet wilt grant control", "To another, nor disallow", "For a time, restrain me now!", "", "I admonish me while I may,", " Not to squander guilt,", " Since require Thou wilt", "At my hand its price one day!", "What the price is, who can say?" ], "linecount": "135" }, { "title": "The Twins", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Grand rough old Martin Luther", " Bloomed fables-flowers on furze,", "The better the uncouther:", " Do roses stick like burrs?", "", "A beggar asked an alms", " One day at an abbey-door,", "Said Luther; but, seized with qualms,", " The abbot replied, \"We're poor!\"", "", "\"Poor, who had plenty once,", " When gifts fell thick as rain:", "But they give us nought, for the nonce,", " And now should we give again?\"", "", "Then the beggar, \"See your sins!", " Of old, unless I err,", "Ye had brothers for inmates, twins,", " Date and Dabitur.", "", "\"While Date was in good case", " Dabitur flourished too:", "For Dabitur's lenten face", " No wonder if Date rue.", "", "\"Would ye retrieve the one?", " Try and make plump the other!", "When Date's penance is done,", " Dabitur helps his brother.", "", "\"Only, beware relapse!\"", " The Abbot hung his head.", "This beggar might be perhaps", " An angel, Luther said." ], "linecount": "28" }, { "title": "Holy-Cross Day", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak!", "Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week.", "Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough,", "Stinking and savoury, smug and gruff,", "Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime", "Gives us the summons--'tis sermon-time!", "", "Boh, here's Barnabas! Job, that's you?", "Up stumps Solomon--bustling too?", "Shame, man! greedy beyond your years", "To handsel the bishop's shaving-shears?", "Fair play's a jewel! Leave friends in the lurch?", "Stand on a line ere you start for the church!", "", "Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie,", "Rats in a hamper, swine in a stye,", "Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve,", "Worms in a carcase, fleas in a sleeve.", "Hist! square shoulders, settle your thumbs", "And buzz for the bishop--here he comes.", "", "Bow, wow, wow--a bone for the dog!", "I liken his Grace to an acorned hog.", "What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass,", "To help and handle my lord's hour-glass!", "Didst ever behold so lithe a chine?", "His cheek hath laps like a fresh-singed swine.", "", "Aaron's asleep--shove hip to haunch,", "Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch!", "Look at the purse with the tassel and knob", "And the gown with the angel and thingumbob!", "What's he at, quotha? reading his text!", "Now you've his curtsey--and what comes next?", "", "See to our converts--you doomed black dozen--", "No stealing away--nor cog nor cozen!", "You five, that were thieves, deserve it fairly;", "You seven, that were beggars, will live less sparely;", "You took your turn and dipped in the hat,", "Got fortune--and fortune gets you; mind that!", "", "Give your first groan--compunction's at work", "And soft! from a Jew you mount to a Turk.", "Lo, Micah,--the selfsame beard on chin", "He was four times already converted in!", "Here's a knife, clip quick--it's a sign of grace--", "Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face.", "", "Whom now is the bishop a-leering at?", "I know a point where his text falls pat.", "I'll tell him to-morrow, a word just now", "Went to my heart and made me vow", "I meddle no more with the worst of trades--", "Let somebody else pay his serenades.", "", "Groan all together now, whee-hee-hee!", "It's a-work, it's a-work, ah, woe is me!", "It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed,", "Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist;", "Jew brutes, with sweat and blood well spent", "To usher in worthily Christian Lent.", "", "It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds,", "Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds:", "It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed", "Which gutted my purse would throttle my creed:", "And it overflows when, to even the odd,", "Men I helped to their sins help me to their God.", "", "But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock,", "And the rest sit silent and count the clock,", "Since forced to muse the appointed time", "On these precious facts and truths sublime,", "Let us fitly employ it, under our breath,", "In saying Ben Ezra's Song of Death.", "", "For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died,", "Called sons and sons' sons to his side,", "And spoke, \"This world has been harsh and strange;", "Something is wrong: there needeth change.", "But what, or where? at the last or first?", "In one point only we sinned, at worst.", "", "\"The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet,", "And again in his border see Israel set.", "When Judah beholds Jerusalem,", "The stranger-seed shall be joined to them:", "To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave.", "So the Prophet saith and his sons believe.", "", "\"Ay, the children of the chosen race", "Shall carry and bring them to their place:", "In the land of the Lord shall lead the same", "Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame,", "When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o'er", "The oppressor triumph for evermore?", "", "\"God spoke, and gave us the word to keep,", "Bade never fold the hands nor sleep", "'Mid a faithless world, at watch and ward,", "Till Christ at the end relieve our guard.", "By His servant Moses the watch was set:", "Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet.", "", "\"Thou! if thou wast He, who at mid-watch came,", "By the starlight, naming a dubious name!", "And if, too heavy with sleep--too rash", "With fear--O Thou, if that martyr-gash", "Fell on Thee coming to take thine own,", "And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne--", "", "\"Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus.", "But, the Judgment over, join sides with us!", "Thine too is the cause! and not more thine", "Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine,", "Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed!", "Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed!", "", "\"We withstood Christ then? Be mindful how", "At least we withstand Barabbas now!", "Was our outrage sore? But the worst we spared,", "To have called these--Christians, had we dared!", "Let defiance to them pay mistrust of Thee,", "And Rome make amends for Calvary!", "", "\"By the torture, prolonged from age to age,", "By the infamy, Israel's heritage,", "By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace,", "By the badge of shame, by the felon's place,", "By the branding-tool, the bloody whip,", "And the summons to Christian fellowship,--", "", "\"We boast our proof that at least the Jew", "Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew.", "Thy face took never so deep a shade", "But we fought them in it, God our aid!", "A trophy to bear, as we march, thy band,", "South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land!\"" ], "linecount": "120" } ]