Robert Browning

[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene: It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth, Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek,

If one could have that little head of hers Painted upon a background of pale gold, Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers!

I am indeed the personage you know. As for my wife, what happened long ago You have a right to question me, as I

Shortly after the Revival of Learning in Europe Let us begin and carry up this corpse, Singing together.

I. So far as our story approaches the end, Which do you pity the most of us three?

Some people hang portraits up In a room where they dine or sup: And the wife clinks tea-things under,

I. Oh, what a dawn of day! How the March sun feels like May!

A simple ring with a single stone, To the vulgar eye no stone of price: Whisper the right word, that alone,

I. That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers, And the blue eye

I. That was I, you heard last night, When there rose no moon at all,

What a pretty tale you told me Once upon a time Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)

I Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find! I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;

O the old wall here! How I could pass Life in a long midsummer day, My feet confined to a plot of grass,

I. Let's contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep:

(After he has been extemporizing upon the musical instrument of his invention) I. Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,

Take the cloak from his face, and at first Let the corpse do its worst! How he lies in his rights of a man!

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet

Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, The not-incurious in God's handiwork (This man's-flesh he hath admirably made,

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.

I. June was not over Though past the fall,

I My love, this is the bitterest, that thou Who art all truth and who dost love me now

'We shall soon lose a celebrated building.' - Paris Newspaper. I.

Such a starved bank of moss Till, that May-morn, Blue ran the flash across:

And so you found that poor room dull, Dark, hardly to your taste, my dear? Its features seemed unbeautiful:

A. You blame me that I ran away? Why, Sir, the enemy advanced:

I am a Goddess of the ambrosial courts, And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed By none whose temples whiten this the world.

TO MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON To whom but you, dear Friend, should I dedicate verses'some few written, all of them supervised, in the comfort of your presence, and with yet another experience of the gracious hospitality now bestowed on me since so many a year,'adding a charm even to my residences at Venice, and leaving me little regret for the surprise and delight at my visits to Asolo in bygone days? I unite, you will see, the disconnected poems by a title-name popularly ascribed to the inventiveness of the ancient secretary of Queen Cornaro whose palace-tower still over-looks us: Asolare''to disport in the open air, amuse one's self at random.' The objection that such a word nowhere occurs in the works of the Cardinal is hardly important'Bembo was too thorough a purist to conserve in print a term which in talk he might possibly toy with: but the word is more likely derived from a Spanish source. I use it for love of the place, and in reqital of your pleasant assurance that an early poem of mine first attracted you thither'where and elsewhere, at Mura as C' Alvisi, may all happiness attend you!

Referring to the third verse of this poem, the Pall Mall Gazette of February 1, 1890, said: 'One evening, just before his death-illness, the poet was reading this from a proof to his daughter-in-law and sister. He said: 'It almost looks like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to cancel it; but it's the simple truth; and as it's truth, it shall stand.'' At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free,

'The Poet's age is sad: for why? In youth, the natural world could show No common object but his eye

The figure that thou here seest . . . Tut! Was it for gentle Shakespeare put? - B. JORSON. (Adapted.)

Last night I saw you in my sleep: And how your charm of face was changed! I asked, 'Some love, some faith you keep?'

You in the flesh and here, Your very self! Now, wait! One word! May I hope or fear?

This was my dream: I saw a Forest Old as the earth, no track nor trace Of unmade man. Thou, Soul, explorest,

It happened thus: my slab, though new, Was getting weather-stained, beside, Herbage, balm, peppermint, o'ergrew

This strange thing happened to a painter once: Viterbo boasts the man among her sons Of note, I seem to think: his ready tool

I. Let them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far. God must judge the couple: leave them as they are

'Would a man 'scape the rod?' Rabbi Ben Karshook saith, 'See that he turn to God

We were two lovers; let me lie by her, My tomb beside her tomb. On hers inscribe, 'I loved him; but my reason bade prefer

No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk. A final glass for me, tho'; cool, i'faith! We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.

I. How well I know what I mean to do When the long dark autumn-evenings come:

'Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.' - David, Psalms 50.21 ['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,

I. Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:

I. King Charles, and who'll do him right now? King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?

I. Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! Rescue my castle before the hot day

Ogni cencio vuol entrare in bucato. - Italian Proverb. Mr. Buxton Forman received the following self-explanatory letter from Browning:

My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie

I. Out of the little chapel I burst Into the fresh night air again.

'As certain also of your own poets have said' - (Acts 17.28) Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles,

What is he buzzing in my ears? 'Now that I come to die, Do I view the world as a vale of tears?'

AIX IN PROVENCE I. Christ God who savest man, save most

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court, I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,

I. She should never have looked at me If she meant I should not love her!

I. Stop, let me have the truth of that! Is that all true? I say, the day

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, (If our loves remain) In an English lane,

Only the prism's obstruction shows aright The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light Into the jewelled bow from blankest white;

My father was a scholar and knew Greek. When I was five years old, I asked him once 'What do you read about?'

Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue, Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight? Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!

I will be happy if but for once: Only help me, Autumn weather, Me and my cares to screen, ensconce

Fame See, as the prettiest graves will do in time, Our poet's wants the freshness of its prime;

I. How very hard it is to be A Christian! Hard for you and me,

FIRST SPEAKER, as David I. On the first of the Feast of Feasts,

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow! Let them once more absorb me! One look now Will lap me round for ever, not to pass

I. Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! Sit and watch by her side an hour.

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,

A Reminiscence of A.D. 1676 'No, boy, we must not', so began My Uncle (he's with God long since),

He.    Ah, the bird-like fluting Through the ash-tops yonder, Bullfinch-bubblings, soft sounds suiting

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! You need not clap your torches to my face. Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk!

I. Here's the garden she walked across, Arm in my arm, such a short while since:

I. Plague take all your pedants, say I! He who wrote what I hold in my hand,

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright? Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell, So things disguise themselves, I cannot see

I. Oh, the beautiful girl, too white, Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea,

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you, Abate Panciatichi two good Tuscan names: Acciaiuoli ah, your ancestor it was,

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.) Be ruled by me and have a care o'the crowd: This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:

Heap Cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes

Browning contributed the money he earned by this poem to the people of Paris suffering from the Franco-Prussian War. Herv' Riel appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for March, 1871, and the publisher, Mr. George Smith, paid one hundred pounds for the poem. I On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,

ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN ROME. ['Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous table here in Rome should be, though but once yearly, cast to the famishing dogs, under-trampled and bespitten-upon beneath the feet of the guests. And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many of the besotted blind restif and ready-to-perish Hebrews! now maternally brought, nay (for He saith, 'Compel them to come in') haled, as it were, by the head and hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to partake of the heavenly grace. What awakening, what striving with tears, what working of a yeasty conscience! Nor was my lord wanting to himself on so apt an occasion; witness the abundance of conversions which did incontinently reward him: though not to my lord be altogether the glory.' Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600.] What the Jews really said, on thus being driven to church, was rather to this effect:-

I. Oh, to be in England Now that April's there,

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;

Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself? Do I live in a house you would like to see? Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?

I only knew one poet in my life: And this, or something like it, was his way. You saw go up and down Valladolid,

I. I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

What girl but, having gathered flowers, Stript the beds and spoilt the bowers, From the lapful light she carries

What it was struck the terror into me? This, Publius: closer! while we wait our turn I'll tell you. Water's warm (they ring inside)

First part Constance and Norbert Norbert

He sings. I send my heart up to thee, all my heart In this my singing.

I. Never any more, While I live,

So, I shall see her in three days And just one night, but nights are short, Then two long hours, and that is morn.

We two stood simply friend-like side by side, Viewing a twilight country far and wide, Till she at length broke silence. 'How it towers

I. You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: A mile or so away,

I. Of the million or two, more or less, I rule and possess,

New Year's Day at Asolo in the Trevisan Scene. A large mean airy chamber. A girl, Pippa, from the Silk-mills, springing out of bed. Day!

I. James Lee's Wife Speaks at the Window I. Ah, Love, but a day

There's heaven above, and night by night I look right through its gorgeous roof; No suns and moons though e'er so bright

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things! If I might read instead of print my speech, Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower

Escape me? Never Beloved!

I. Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles

Room after room, I hunt the house through We inhabit together.

There's Heaven above, and night by night, I look right through its gorgeous roof No sun and moons though e'er so bright

The rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

Flower, I never fancied, jewel, I profess you! Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower. Save but glow inside and jewel, I should guess you,

Man I am and man would be, Love, merest man and nothing more. Bid me seem no other! Eagles boast of pinions, let them soar! I may put forth angel's plumage, once unmanned, but not before.

Hist, but a word, fair and soft! Forth and be judged, Master Hugues! Answer the question I've put you so oft:

I. I wish that when you died last May, Charles, there had died along with you

I The grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low;

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you? And did you speak to him again?

I. All I believed is true! I am able yet

This is a spray the Bird clung to, Making it blossom with pleasure, Ere the high tree-top she sprang to,

Now, don't, sir! Don't expose me! Just this once! This was the first and only time, I'll swear, Look at me, see, I kneel, the only time,

Frowned the Laird on the Lord: 'So, red-handed I catch thee? Death-doomed by our Law of the Border! We've a gallows outside and a chiel to dispatch thee:

FERRARA That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

All that I know Of a certain star, Is, it can throw

I. My heart sank with our Claret-flask, Just now, beneath the heavy sedges

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,

Never the time and the place And the loved one all together! This path, how soft to pace!

Out of your whole life give but a moment! All of your life that has gone before, All to come after it, so you ignore,

Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile! Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile, Softening, sweetening, till sweet. and soft

O' Lyric Love, half angel and half bird, And all a wonder and a wild desire, Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,

I Query: was ever a quainter Crotchet than this of the painter

I. The morn when first it thunders in March, The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say.

I. All June I bound the rose in sheaves. Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves

To E. B. B. I There they are, my fifty men and women

Over the sea our galleys went, With cleaving prows in order brave, To a speeding wind and a bounding wave,

'The poets pour us wine' Said the dearest poet I ever knew, Dearest and greatest and best to me.

Oh, the old wall here! How I could pass Life in a long midsummer day, My feet confined to a plot of grass,

Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was, Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines! No question, that adventure came to pass

Scene. W'rzburg; a garden in the environs. 1512. Festus, Paracelsus, Michal. Paracelsus.

Scene.    Constantinople; the house of a Greek Conjurer. 1521. Paracelsus. Paracelsus.

Scene. Basil; a chamber in the house of Paracelsus. 1526. Paracelsus, Festus. Paracelsus.

Scene. Colmar in Alsatia: an Inn. 1528. Paracelsus, Festus. Paracelsus

Scene.    Salzburg; a cell in the Hospital of St. Sebastian. 1541. Festus, Paracelsus. Festus.

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim And straight was a path of gold for him,

Pauline, mine own, bend o'er me thy soft breast Shall pant to mine bend o'er me thy sweet eyes, And loosened hair, and breathing lips, arms

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock! Gods of my birthplace, d'mons and heroes, honour to all! Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in praise

I could have painted pictures like that youth's Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar Stayed me, ah, thought which saddens while it soothes!

Scene. Up the Hill-side, inside the Shrub-house. Luca's wife, Ottima, and her paramour, the German Sebald. Sebald [sings]

Scene. Over Orcana. The house of Jules, who crosses its threshold with Phene: she is silent, on which Jules begins Do not die, Phene! I am yours now, you Are mine now; let fate reach me how she likes,

Scene. Inside the Turret on the Hill above Asolo. Luigi and his Mother entering. Mother If there blew wind, you'd hear a long sigh, easing

Scene. Inside the Palace by the Duomo. Monsignor, dismissing his Attendants. Monsignor Thanks, friends, many thanks! I chiefly desire life now, that I may recompense every one of you. Most I know something of already. What, a repast prepared?Benedicto benedicatur . . . ugh, ugh! Where was I? Oh, as you were remarking, Ugo, the weather is mild, very unlike winter-weather: but I am a Sicilian, you know, and shiver in your Julys here. To be sure, when 't was full summer at Messina, as we priests used to cross in procession the great square on Assumption Day, you might see our thickest yellow tapers twist suddenly in two, each like a falling star, or sink down on themselves in a gore of wax. But go, my friends, but go! [To the Intendant]

The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven;

I Over the ball of it, Peering and prying,

'So say the foolish!' Say the foolish so, Love? 'Flower she is, my rose' or else, 'My very swan is she' Or perhaps, 'Yon maid-moon, blessing earth below, Love,

I am just seventeen years and five months old, And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks; 'Tis writ so in the church's register,

Stop rowing! This one of our bye-canals O'er a certain bridge you have to cross That's named, 'Of the Angel:' listen why!

I. Stand still, true poet that you are! I know you; let me try and draw you.

The rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote

Among these latter busts we count by scores, Half-emperors and quarter-emperors, Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest,

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made:

Suggested by a very early recollection of a prose story by the noble woman and imaginative writer, Jane Taylor, of Norwich, (more correctly, of Ongar]. - R. B. How I lived, ere my human life began

Dear, had the world in its caprice Deigned to proclaim 'I know you both, 'Have recognized your plighted troth,

I know there shall dawn a day Is it here on homely earth? Is it yonder, worlds away,

He gazed and gazed and gazed and gazed, Amazed, amazed, amazed, amazed.

Woe, he went galloping into the war, Clara, Clara! Let us two dream: shall he 'scape with a scar?

I. I know a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives First, when he visits, last, too, when he leaves

I 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.

Said Abner, 'At last thou art come! 'Ere I tell, ere thou speak, 'Kiss my cheek, wish me well!' Then I wished it,

So, friend, your shop was all your house! Its front, astonishing the street, Invited view from man and mouse

I. GR-R-R there go, my heart's abhorrence! Water your damned flower-pots, do!

I. Nay but you, who do not love her, Is she not pure gold, my mistress?

Day! Faster and more fast, O'er night's brim, day boils at last: Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.

Eyes, calm beside thee, (Lady, could'st thou know!) May turn away thick with fast-gathering tears: I glance not where all gaze: thrilling and low

Is it the same Sordello in the dusk As at the dawn? merely a perished husk Now, that arose a power fit to build

Meantime Ferrara lay in rueful case; The lady-city, for whose sole embrace Her pair of suitors struggled, felt their arms

The woods were long austere with snow: at last Pink leaflets budded on the beech, and fast Larches, scattered through pine-tree solitudes,

The thought of Eglamor's least like a thought, And yet a false one, was, "Man shrinks to nought "If matched with symbols of immensity;

And the font took them: let our laurels lie! Braid moonfern now with mystic trifoly Because once more Goito gets, once more,

TO J. MILSAND, OF DIJON. Who will, may hear Sordello's story told: His story? Who believes me shall behold

Others may need new life in Heaven, Man, Nature, Art, made new, assume! Man with new mind old sense to leaven,

No protesting, dearest! Hardly kisses even! Don't we both know how it ends?

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:

True, Excellency as his Highness says, Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched Symmetrical beside the other two;

He was the man, Pope Sixtus, that Fifth, that swineherd's son: He knew the right thing, did it, and thanked God when 't was done: But of all he had to thank for, my fancy somehow leans

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews, sons mine . . . ah God, I know not! Well,

Here were the end, had anything an end: Thus, lit and launched, up and up roared and soared A rocket, till the key o' the vault was reached,

Morning, evening, noon and night, 'Praise God!; sang Theocrite. Then to his poor trade he turned,

Browning wrote this poem in 1842 for Macready's son, who was ill. He had also written the Pied Piper of Hamelin at the same time. Crescenzio, the Pope's Legate at the High Council, Trent, Year Fifteen hundred twenty-two, March Twenty-five, intent

SPAIN. I. It is a lie, their Priests, their Pope,

PIANO DI SORRENTO Fort', Fort', my beloved one, Sit here by my side,

I. You're my friend: I was the man the Duke spoke to;

PETER RONSARD loquitur. 'Heigho!' yawned one day King Francis, 'Distance all value enhances!

A PICTURE AT FANO. I. Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave

A MIDDLE-AGE INTERLUDE. I. PREADMONISHETH THE ABBOT DEODAET.

That second time they hunted me From hill to plain, from shore to sea, And Austria, hounding far and wide

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely, As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy—

She. Yet womanhood you reverence, So you profess! He. With heart and soul.

I. I said, Then, dearest, since 'tis so, Since now at length my fate I know,

I. Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat

I. All's over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes?

Another day that finds her living yet, Little Pompilia, with the patient brow And lamentable smile on those poor lips,

AN OLD STORY. I. It was roses, roses, all the way,

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick, By famous Hanover city; The river Weser, deep and wide,

Like to Ahasuerus, that shrewd prince, I will begin, as is, these seven years now, My daily wont, and read a History

What, he on whom our voices unanimously ran, Made Pope at our last Conclave? Full low his life began: His father earned the daily bread as just a fisherman.

Do you see this Ring? 'Tis Rome-work, made to match (By Castellani's imitative craft)

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.

'Give' and 'It-shall-be-given-unto-you.' I. Grand rough old Martin Luther

I. Would it were I had been false, not you! I that am nothing, not you that are all

I I hear a voice, perchance I heard Long ago, but all too low,

I. As I ride, as I ride, With a full heart for my guide,

I've a Friend, over the sea; I like him, but he loves me; It all grew out of the books I write;

I chanced upon a new book yesterday; I opened it, and, where my finger lay 'Twixt page and uncut page, these words I read,

I. Here was I with my arm and heart And brain, all yours for a word, a want

A Poem In Twelve Books Stop playing, poet! may a brother speak? 'Tis you speak, that's your error. Song's our art:

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst Of soul, ye bards! Quoth Bard the first:

I I wonder do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand,

(As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality) I. Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,

Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair Wealth that never yet was but might be, all that verse-making were If the life would but lengthen to wish, let the mind be laid bare.

I. I. What's become of Waring

So, the three Court-ladies began Their trial of who judged best In esteeming the love of a man:

If you and I could change to beasts, what beast should either be? Shall you and I play Jove for once? Turn fox then, I decree! Shy wild sweet stealer of the grapes! Now do your worst on me!

"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

I. I dream of a red-rose tree. And which of its roses three

You'll love me yet! and I can tarry Your love's protracted growing: June reared that bunch of flowers you carry

I. It once might have been, once only: We lodged in a street together,