The Lady And The Painter

She. Yet womanhood you reverence,
So you profess!

He. With heart and soul.

She. Of which fact this is evidence!
To help Art-study, for some dole
Of certain wretched shillings, you
Induce a woman, virgin too
To strip and stand stark-naked?

He. True.

She. Nor feel you so degrade her?

He. What
(Excuse the interruption), clings
Half-savage-like around your hat?

She. Ah, do they please you? Wild-bird-wings!
Next season, Paris-prints assert,
We must go feathered to the skirt:
My modiste keeps on the alert.
Owls, hawks, jays, swallows most approve.

He. Dare I speak plainly?

She. Oh, I trust!

He. Then, Lady Blanche, it less would move
In heart and soul of me disgust
Did you strip off those spoils you wear,
And stand, for thanks, not shillings, bare
To help Art like my Model there.
She well knew what absolved her, praise
In me for Gods surpassing good,
Who granted to my reverent gaze
A type of purest womanhood.
You, clothed with murder of his best
Of harmless beings, stand the test!
What is it you know?

She. That you jest!

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 Worst Of It

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Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

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Robert Browning, Simple Poetry

The Englishman In Italy

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 Light Woman

I.

So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?

II.

My friend was already too good to lose,
And seemed in the way of improvement yet,
When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose
And over him drew her net.

III.

When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim!

IV.

And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagles the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!

V.

So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
My hand sought hers as in earnest n...

Robert Browning

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 ...

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A Likeness

Some people hang portraits up
In a room where they dine or sup:
And the wife clinks tea-things under,
And her cousin, he stirs his cup,
Asks Who was the lady, I wonder?
T is a daub John bought at a sale,
Quoth the wife, looks black as thunder:
What a shade beneath her nose!
Snuff-taking, I suppose,
Adds the cousin, while Johns corns ail.

Or else, there s no wife in the case,
But the portrait s queen of the place,
Alone mid the other spoils
Of youth, masks, gloves and foils,
And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine,
And the long whip, the tandem-lasher,
And the cast from a fist (not, alas! mine,
But my masters, the Tipton Slasher),
And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,
And a satin shoe used for cigar-case,
And th...

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Pictor Ignotus

I could have painted pictures like that youths
Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar
Stayed me, ah, thought which saddens while it soothes!
Never did fate forbid me, star by star,
To outburst on your night, with all my gift
Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk
From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift
And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk
To the centre, of an instant; or around
Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan
The license and the limit, space and bound,
Allowed to Truth made visible in man.
And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw,
Over the canvas could my hand have flung,
Each face obedient to its passions law,
Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue:
Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood,
A tip-to...

Robert Browning

My Last Duchess

FERRARA


Thats my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolfs hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Willt please you sit and look at her? I said
Frà Pandolf by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, twas not
Her husbands presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say Her mantle laps
Over my ladys wrist too much, ...

Robert Browning

Lord Walter's Wife

I

'But where do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.

II

'Because I fear you,' he answered; 'because you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your golfd-coloured hair.'

III

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,
And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.'

IV

'Yet farewell so,' he answered; 'the sunstroke's fatal at times.
I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the limes.

V

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. You smell a rose through a fence:
If two should smell it what matter? who grumbles, and where's the pretense?

VI

Elizabeth Barrett Browning