Man I Am And Man Would Be, Love

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.

Now on earth to stand suffices, nay, if kneeling serves, to kneel:
Here you front me, here I find the all of heaven that earth can feel:
Sense looks straight, not over,under, perfect sees beyond appeal.

Good you are and wise, full circle: what to me were more outside?
Wiser wisdom, better goodness? Ah, such want the angel's wide
Sense to take and hold and keep them! Mine at least has never tried.

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

Misconceptions

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

Saul

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

Natural Magic

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

How It Strikes A Contemporary

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.

Pisgah-Sights

I
Over the ball of it,
Peering and prying,
How I see all of it,
Life there, outlying!
Roughness and smoothness,
Shine and defilement,
Grace and uncouthness:
One reconcilement.

Orbed as appointed,
Sister with brother
Joins, neer disjointed
One from the other.
Alls lend-and-borrow;
Good, see, wants evil,
Joy demands sorrow,
Angel weds devil!

Which things must, why be?
Vain our endeavor!
So shall things aye be
As they were ever.
Such things should so be!
Sage our desistence!
Rough-smooth let globe be,
Mixed, mans existence!

Man, wise and foolish,
Lover and scorner,
Docile and mulish,
Keep each his corner!
Honey yet gall of it!
Theres the life lying,
And I see all ...

Robert Browning

O' Lyric Love

O' Lyric Love, half angel and half bird,
And all a wonder and a wild desire,
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
And sang a kindred soul out to his face,
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart
When the first summons from the darkling earth
Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
And bared them of the glory to drop down,
To toil for man, to suffer or to die,
This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!
Never may I commence my song, my due
To God who best taught song by gift of thee,
Except with bent head and beseeching hand
That still, despite the distance and the dark,
What was, again may be; some interchange
Of grace, some splendor once thy ve...

Robert Browning

One Word More

To E. B. B.


I
There they are, my fifty men and women
Naming me the fifty poems finished!
Take them, Love, the book and me together:
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.

II
Rafael made a century of sonnets,
Made and wrote them in a certain volume
Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil
Else he only used to draw Madonnas:
These, the world might view, but one, the volume.
Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.
Did she live and love it all her lifetime
Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets,
Die, and let it drop beside her pillow
Where it lay in place of Rafaels glory,
Rafaels cheek so duteous and so loving,
Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painters,
Rafael?s cheek, her love had turned a poets?

Robert Browning

Any Wife To Any Husband

I

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou
Who art all truth and who dost love me now
As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say
Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still
A whole long life through, had but love its will,
Would death that leads me from thee brook delay!

II

I have but to be by thee, and thy hand
Would never let mine go, thy heart withstand
The beating of my heart to reach its place.
When should I look for thee and feel thee gone?
When cry for the old comfort and find none?
Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face.

III

Oh, I should fade, tis willed so! might I save,
Galdly I would, whatever beauty gave
Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too.
It is not to be granted. But the soul
Whence t...

Robert Browning

A Grammarians Funeral

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
Each in its tether
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
Thats the appropriate country; there, mans thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;
Clouds overcome it;
No! yonder sparkle is the citadels
Circling its summit.
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heigh...

Robert Browning

The Worst Of It

I.
Would it were I had been false, not you!
I that am nothing, not you that are all
I, never the worse for a touch or two
On my speckled hide; not you, the pride
Of the day, my swan, that a first flecks fall
On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!

II.
I had dipped in lifes struggle and, out again,
Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see,
When I found my swan and the cure was plain;
The dull turned bright as I caught your white
On my bosom: you saved me saved in vain
If you ruined yourself, and all through me!

III.
Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am,
Who taught you to stoop; you gave me yourself,
And bound your soul by the vows that damn:
Since on better thought you break, as you ought,
Vows words, no angel set down,...

Robert Browning