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 of it,
Only, Im dying!

II
Could I but live again
Twice my life over,
Would I once strive again?
Would not I cover
Quietly all of it,
Greed and ambition,
So, from the pall of it,
Pass to fruition?

Soft! Id say, Soul mine!
Three-score and ten years,
Let the blind mole mine
Digging out deniers!
Let the dazed hawk soar,
Claim the suns rights tool
Turf tis thy walks oer,
Foliage thy flights to.

Only a learner,
Quick one or slow one,
Just a discerner,
I would teach no one.
I am earths native:
No rearranging it!
I be creative,
Chopping and changing it?

March, men, my fellows!
Those who, above me,
(Distance so mellows)
Fancy you love me:
Those who, below me,
(Distance makes great so)
Free to forego me,
Fancy you hate so!

Praising, reviling,
Worst head and best head,
Past me defiling,
Never arrested,
Wanters, abounders,
March, in gay mixture,
Men, my surrounders!
I am the fixture.

So shall I fear thee,
Mightiness yonder!
Mock-sun, more near thee,
What is to wonder?
So shall I love thee,
Down in the dark, lest
Glowworm I prove thee,
Star that now sparklest

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

A Grammarians Funeral

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

Magical Nature

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

The Cardinal And The Dog

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

The Confessional

Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

English

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By The Fire-Side

I.

How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark autumn-evenings come:
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In lifes November too!

II.

I shall be found by the fire, suppose,
Oer a great wise book as beseemeth age,
While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows
And I turn the page, and I turn the page,
Not verse now, only prose!

III.

Till the young ones whisper, finger on lip,
There he is at it, deep in Greek:
Now then, or never, out we slip
To cut from the hazels by the creek
A mainmast for our ship!

IV.

I shall be at it indeed, my friends:
Greek puts already on either side
Such a branch-work forth as soon extends
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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...

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At The Mermaid

The figure that thou here seest . . . Tut!
Was it for gentle Shakespeare put?
- B. JORSON. (Adapted.)



I next poet? No, my hearties,
I nor am nor fain would be!
Choose your chiefs and pick your parties,
Not one soul revolt to me!
I, forsooth, sow song-sedition?
I, a schism in verse provoke?
I, blown up by bards ambition,
Burst, your bubble-king? You joke.

Come, be grave! The sherris mantling
Still about each mouth, mayhap,
Breeds you insight, just a scantling,
Brings me truth out, just a scrap.
Look and tell me! Written, spoken,
Heres my life-long work: and where
Wheres your warrant or my token
Im the dead kings son and heir?

Heres my work: does work discover,
What was rest from work, my life?

Robert Browning

Numpholeptos

Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile!
Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile,
Softening, sweetening, till sweet. and soft
Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft
I could believe your moonbeam-smile has past
The pallid limit, lies, transformed at last
To sunlight and salvation, warms the soul
It sweets, softens! Would you pass that goal,
Gain loves birth at the limits happier verge.
And, where an iridescence lurks, but urge
The hesitating pallor on to prime
Of dawn! true blood-streaked, sun-warmth, action-time,
By heart-pulse ripened to a ruddy glow
Of gold above my clay, I scarce should know
From golds self, thus suffused! For gold means love.
What means the sad slow silver smile above
My clay but pity, pardon? at the best,<...

Robert Browning

Mesmerism

I.
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?

II.
If at night, when doors are shut,
And the wood-worm picks,
And the death-watch ticks,
And the bar has a flag of smut,
And a cats in the water-butt,

III.
And the socket floats and flares,
And the house-beams groan,
And a foot unknown
Is surmised on the garret-stairs,
And the locks slip unawares,

IV.
And the spider, to serve his ends,
By a sudden thread,
Arms and legs outspread,
On the tables midst descends,
Comes to find, God knows what friends!

V.
If since eve drew in, I say,
I have sat and brought
(So to speak) my thought
To bear on the woman away,

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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