Misconceptions

This is a spray the Bird clung to,
Making it blossom with pleasure,
Ere the high tree-top she sprang to,
Fit for her nest and her treasure.
Oh, what a hope beyond measure
Was the poor sprays, which the flying feet hung to,
So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!

This is a heart the Queen leant on,
Thrilled in a minute erratic,
Ere the true bosom she bent on,
Meet for loves regal dalmatic.
Oh, what a fancy ecstatic
Was the poor hearts, ere the wanderer went on
Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!

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

To Edward Fitzgerald

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

In A Gondola

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

Heap Cassia, Sandal-Buds And Stripes

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.

A Pretty Woman

I.
That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,
And the blue eye
Dear and dewy,
And that infantine fresh air of hers!

II.
To think men cannot take you, Sweet,
And enfold you,
Ay, and hold you,
And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!

III.
You like us for a glance, you know
For a words sake
Or a swords sake,
Alls the same, whateer the chance, you know.

IV.
And in turn we make you ours, we say
You and youth too,
Eyes and mouth too,
All the face composed of flowers, we say.

V.
Alls our own, to make the most of, Sweet
Sing and say for,
Watch and pray for,
Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!

VI.
But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,
Though we prayed you,
Paid you, brayed ...

Robert Browning

Garden-Fancies - I. The Flowers Name

I.

Heres 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!
She must have reached this shrub ere she turned,
As back with that murmur the wicket swung;
For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned,
To feed and forget it the leaves among.

II.

Down this side ofthe gravel-walk
She went while her robes edge brushed the box:
And here she paused in her gracious talk
To point me a moth on the milk-white flox.
Roses, ranged in valiant row,
I will never think that she passed you by!
She loves you noble roses, I know;
But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie!

III.

This flower she stopped at, finger on lip,
Stoope...

Robert Browning

Songs From Pippa Passes

Day! Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last:
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

All service ranks the same with God:
If now, as formerly He trod
Paradise, His presence fills
Our earth, each only as God wills
Can work God's puppets, best and worst,
Are we: there is no last nor first.

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn:
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pea...

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

Humility

What girl but, having gathered flowers,
Stript the beds and spoilt the bowers,
From the lapful light she carries
Drops a careless bud? nor tarries
To regain the waif and stray:
Store enough for home shell say.

So say I too: give your lover
Heaps of loving, under, over,
Whelm him, make the one the wealthy!
Am I all so poor who, stealthy
Work it was! picked up what fell:
Not the worst bud, who can tell?

Robert Browning

Flute-Music, With An Accompaniment

He.    Ah, the bird-like fluting
Through the ash-tops yonder,
Bullfinch-bubblings, soft sounds suiting
What sweet thoughts, I wonder?
Fine-pearled notes that surely
Gather, dewdrop-fashion,
Deep-down in some heart which purely
Secretes globuled passion,
Passion insuppressive,
Such is piped, for certain;
Love, no doubt, nay, love excessive
Tis your ash-tops curtain.

Would your ash-tops open
We might spy the player,
Seek and find some sense which no pen
Yet from singer, sayer,
Ever has extracted:
Never, to my knowledge,
Yet has pedantry enacted
That, in Cupids College,
Just this variation
Of the old, old yearning
Should by plain speech have salvation,
Yield new men new learning.

Love! but what love, ...

Robert Browning