Love In A Life

Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her
Next time, herself! not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couchs perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew,
Yon looking-glass gleaned at the wave of her feather.

Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! She goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest, who cares?
But tis twilight, you see, with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!

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

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English

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Life In A Love

Escape me?
Never
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry ones eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again,
So the chace takes up ones life thats all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground
Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me
Ever
Removed!

Robert Browning

Never The Time And The Place

Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path, how soft to pace!
This May, what magic weather!
Where is the loved one's face?
In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
I and...

Robert Browning

St. Martins Summer

No protesting, dearest!
Hardly kisses even!
Dont we both know how it ends?
How the greenest leaf turns serest,
Bluest outbreak, blankest heaven,
Lovers, friends?

You would build a mansion,
I would weave a bower
Want the heart for enterprise.
Walls admit of no expansion:
Trellis-work may haply flower
Twice the size.

What makes glad Lifes Winter?
New buds, old blooms after.
Sad the sighing How suspect
Reams would ere mid-Autumn splinter,
Rooftree scarce support a rafter,
Walls lie wrecked?

You are young, my princess!
I am hardly older:
Yet, I steal a glance behind!
Dare I tell you what convinces
Timid me that you, if bolder,
Bold, are blind?

Where we plan our dwelling
Glooms a graveyard sur...

Robert Browning

Cristina

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
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But Im not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them,

II.

What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I cant tell . . . theres my weakness . . .
What her look said! no vile cant, sure,
About need to strew the bleakness
Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed.
That the sea feels no strange yearning
That such souls have, most to lavish
Where theres chance of least returning.

III.

Oh, were sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so sunk that moments,
Sure tho seld...

Robert Browning

De Gustibus --

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 bean-flowers boon,
And the blackbirds 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 spirits bands,
And come again to the land of lands)
In a sea-side house to the farther South,
Where the baked cicala die...

Robert Browning

A Lovers Quarrel

I.

Oh, what a dawn of day!
How the March sun feels like May!
All is blue again
After last nights rain,
And the South dries the hawthorn-spray.
Only, my Loves away!
Id as lief that the blue were grey,

II.

Runnels, which rillets swell,
Must be dancing down the dell,
With a foaming head
On the beryl bed
Paven smooth as a hermits cell;
Each with a tale to tell,
Could my Love but attend as well.

III.

Dearest, three months ago!
When we lived blocked-up with snow,
When the wind would edge
In and in his wedge,
In, as far as the point could go,
Not to our ingle, though,
Where we loved each the other so!

IV.

Laughs with so little cause!
We devised games out of straws.
We...

Robert Browning