Great poems
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Aix In Provence
© Robert Browning
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.
The Statue and the Bust
© Robert Browning
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.
Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha
© Robert Browning
Hist, but a word, fair and soft!
Forth and be judged, Master Hugues!
Answer the question I've put you so oft:
What do you mean by your mountainous fugues?
See, we're alone in the loft,---
Heretic's Tragedy, The
© Robert Browning
(It would seem to be a glimpse from the
burning of Jacques du Bourg-Mulay, at Paris,
A. D. 1314; as distorted by the refraction from
Flemish brain to brain, during the course of
a couple of centuries.)
Cleon
© Robert Browning
"As certain also of your own poets have said"--
(Acts 17.28)
Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea
And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")--
To Protus in his Tyranny: much health!
Abt Vogler
© Robert Browning
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,
The Flight Of The Duchess
© Robert Browning
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!
Old Pictures In Florence
© Robert Browning
I.The morn when first it thunders in March,
The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch
Of the villa-gate this warm March day,
Garden Francies
© Robert Browning
I. THE FLOWER'S NAMEHere's the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss
Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!
The Glove
© Robert Browning
``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.
Saul
© Robert Browning
``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 beat
``Were now raging to torture the desert!''
The Boy And the Angel
© Robert Browning
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,
Evelyn Hope
© Robert Browning
I.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,
Andrea del Sarto
© Robert Browning
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?
Fra Lippo Lippi
© Robert Browning
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!
What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds,
By The Fire-Side
© Robert Browning
How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark autumn-evenings come:
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In life's November too!
Another Way Of Love
© Robert Browning
I.June was not over
Though past the fall,
And the best of her roses
Had yet to blow,
Caliban upon Setebos or, Natural Theology in the Island
© Robert Browning
'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.
In Three Days
© Robert Browning
I.So, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, but nights are short,
Then two long hours, and that is morn.
See how I come, unchanged, unworn!
A Grammarian's Funeral
© Robert Browning
SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF
LEARNING IN EUROPE.Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
