Home-Thoughts, From The Sea

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;
In the dimmest North-east 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 to praise and pray,
While Joves planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

Robert Browning

Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His work was initially harshly criticized, but he gained recognition later in life. He is best known for works such as "The Ring and the Book" and "Men and Women" which exhibit his deep understanding of human character and psychological insight.

Robert Browning

The Statue And The Bust

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

Pictor Ignotus

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

To Edward Fitzgerald

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

The Last Ride Together

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Love Among The Ruins

I.

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.

II.

Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our countrys very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.

III.

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)

IV.

Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires
Oer the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all
Made of marbl...

Robert Browning

Home-Thoughts, From Abroad

I.

Oh, to be in England
Now that Aprils 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!!

II.

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops, at the bent sprays edge,
Thats 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,...

Robert Browning

Over The Sea Our Galleys Went

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

A gallant armament:
Each bark built out of a forest-tree,

Left leafy and rough as first it grew,
And nailed all over the gaping sides,
Within and without, with black bull-hides,
Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,
To bear the playful billows' game:
So, each good ship was rude to see,
Rude and bare to the outward view,

But each upbore a stately tent
Where cedar-pales in scented row
Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,
And an awning drooped the mast below,
In fold on fold of the purple fine,
That neither noontide nor star-shine
Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,

Might pierce the regal tenement.
When the su...

Robert Browning

Three Songs From Paracelsus

I

I hear a voice, perchance I heard
Long ago, but all too low,
So that scarce a care it stirred
If the voice was real or no:
I heard it in my youth when first
The waters of my life outburst:
But now their stream ebbs faint, I hear
That voice, still low but fatal-clear
As if all Poets, God ever meant
Should save the world, and therefore lent
Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused
To do His work, or lightly used
Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavour,
So, mourn cast off by Him for ever,
As if these leaned in airy ring
To take me; this the song they sing.

Lost, lost! yet come,
With our wan troop make thy home.
Come, come! for we
Will not breathe, so much as breathe
Reproach to thee!
Knowing what thou sinkst bene...

Robert Browning

Parting At Morning

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountains rim
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

Robert Browning

The Dying Patriot

Day breaks on England down the Kentish hills,
Singing in the silence of the meadow-footing rills,
Day of my dreams, O day!
I saw them march from Dover, long ago,
With a silver cross before them, singing low,
Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas break in foam,
Augustine with his feet of snow.

Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town,
- Beauty she was statue cold - there's blood upon her gown:
Noon of my dreams, O noon!
Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago,
With her towers and tombs and statues all arow,
With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there,
And the streets where the great men go.

Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales,
When the first star shivers and the last wave pales:
O evening dreams!

James Elroy Flecker