Life poems
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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.
Pan and Luna
© Robert Browning
Si credere dignum est.--Virgil, Georgics, III, 390
Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was,
Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines!
No question, that adventure came to pass
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!
Respectability
© Robert Browning
I.Dear, had the world in its caprice
Deigned to proclaim ``I know you both,
``Have recognized your plighted troth,
Am sponsor for you: live in peace!''---
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,
Cristina
© Robert Browning
I.She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty ... men, you call such,
I suppose ... she may discover
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!
Mesmerism
© Robert Browning
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?
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!
Nationality In Drinks
© Robert Browning
My heart sank with our Claret-flask,
Just now, beneath the heavy sedges
That serve this Pond's black face for mask
And still at yonder broken edges
O' the hole, where up the bubbles glisten,
After my heart I look and listen.
Among the Rocks
© Robert Browning
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
For the ripple to run over in its mirth;
Youth and Art
© Robert Browning
1 It once might have been, once only:
2 We lodged in a street together,
3 You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,
4 I, a lone she-bird of his feather.
Before
© Robert Browning
Let them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far.
God must judge the couple: leave them as they are
---Whichever one's the guiltless, to his glory,
And whichever one the guilt's with, to my story!
From 'Pauline'
© Robert Browning
O God, where does this tendthese struggling aims?
What would I have? What is this sleep, which seems
To bound all? can there be a waking point
Of crowning life? The soul would never rule
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.
Holy-Cross Day
© Robert Browning
ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO
ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON
IN ROME.
