Poems by Robert Browning

[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene:

If one could have that little head of hers

I am indeed the personage you know.

Shortly after the Revival of Learning in Europe

I.

Some people hang portraits up

I.

A simple ring with a single stone,

I.

I.

What a pretty tale you told me

I

O the old wall here! How I could pass

I.

(After he has been extemporizing upon the musical instrument of his invention)

Take the cloak from his face, and at first

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth,

Karshish, the picker-up of learning’s crumbs,

But do not let us quarrel any more,

I.

I

“We shall soon lose a celebrated building.”

Such a starved bank of moss

And so you found that poor room dull,

A.

I am a Goddess of the ambrosial courts,

TO MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON

Referring to the third verse of this poem, the Pall Mall Gazette of February 1, 1890, said: “One evening, just before his death-illness, the poet was reading this from a proof to his daughter-in-law and sister. He said: ‘It almost looks like bragging

“The Poet’s age is sad: for why?

The figure that thou here seest . . . Tut!

Last night I saw you in my sleep:

You in the flesh and here,

This was my dream: I saw a Forest

It happened thus: my slab, though new,

This strange thing happened to a painter once:

I.

“Would a man ’scape the rod?”

We were two lovers; let me lie by her,

No more wine? then we’ll push back chairs and talk.

I.

“Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.”

I.

I.

I.

Ogni cencio vuol entrare in bucato.

My first thought was, he lied in every word,

I.

“As certain also of your own poets have said”

What is he buzzing in my ears?

AIX IN PROVENCE

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,

I.

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,

Only the prism’s obstruction shows aright

My father was a scholar and knew Greek.

I.

Ah, my Giacinto, he’s no ruddy rogue,

I will be happy if but for once:

Fame

I.

FIRST SPEAKER, as David

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!

I.

Here’s my case. Of old I used to love him,

A Reminiscence of A.D. 1676

He. Ah, the bird-like fluting

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!

I.

I.

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?

I.

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I’d meet.)

Heap Cassia, sandal-buds and stripes

Browning contributed the money he earned by this poem to the people of Paris suffering from the Franco-Prussian War. Hervé Riel appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for March, 1871, and the publisher, Mr. George Smith, paid one hundred pounds for the po

ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN ROME.

I.

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;

Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?

I only knew one poet in my life:

I.

What girl but, having gathered flowers,

What it was struck the terror into me?

First part

He sings.

I.

So, I shall see her in three days

We two stood simply friend-like side by side,

I.

I.

New Year's Day at Asolo in the Trevisan

I. James Lee’s Wife Speaks at the Window

There's heaven above, and night by night

Had I God’s leave, how I would alter things!

Escape me?

I.

Room after room,

There’s Heaven above, and night by night,

The rain set early in to-night,

Flower, I never fancied, jewel, I profess you!

Man I am and man would be, Love, merest man and nothing more.

Hist, but a word, fair and soft!

I.

I

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,

I.

This is a spray the Bird clung to,

Now, don’t, sir! Don’t expose me!

Frowned the Laird on the Lord: “So, red-handed I catch thee?

FERRARA

All that I know

I.

All I can say is, I saw it!

Never the time and the place

Out of your whole life give but a moment!

Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile!

O' Lyric Love, half angel and half bird,

I

I.

I.

To E. B. B.

Over the sea our galleys went,

“The poets pour us wine”

Oh, the old wall here! How I could pass

Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was,

Scene. Würzburg; a garden in the environs. 1512.

Scene. Constantinople; the house of a Greek Conjurer. 1521.

Scene. Basil; a chamber in the house of Paracelsus. 1526.

Scene. Colmar in Alsatia: an Inn. 1528.

Scene. Salzburg; a cell in the Hospital of St. Sebastian. 1541.

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,

Pauline, mine own, bend o’er me thy soft breast

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock!

I could have painted pictures like that youth’s

Scene. Up the Hill-side, inside the Shrub-house. Luca's wife, Ottima, and her paramour, the German Sebald.

Scene. Over Orcana. The house of Jules, who crosses its threshold with Phene: she is silent, on which Jules begins

Scene. Inside the Turret on the Hill above Asolo. Luigi and his Mother entering.

Scene. Inside the Palace by the Duomo. Monsignor, dismissing his Attendants.

The year's at the spring,

I

“So say the foolish!” Say the foolish so, Love?

I am just seventeen years and five months old,

Stop rowing! This one of our bye-canals

I.

The rain set early in to-night,

Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat,

Among these latter busts we count by scores,

I.

Suggested by a very early recollection of a prose story by the noble woman and imaginative writer, Jane Taylor, of Norwich, (more correctly, of Ongar].

Dear, had the world in its caprice

I know there shall dawn a day

He gazed and gazed and gazed and gazed,

Woe, he went galloping into the war,

I.

I

Said Abner, “At last thou art come!

So, friend, your shop was all your house!

I.

I.

Day! Faster and more fast,

Eyes, calm beside thee, (Lady, could’st thou know!)

Is it the same Sordello in the dusk

TO J. MILSAND, OF DIJON.

Meantime Ferrara lay in rueful case;

The woods were long austere with snow: at last

The thought of Eglamor's least like a thought,

And the font took them: let our laurels lie!

Others may need new life in Heaven,

No protesting, dearest!

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:

True, Excellency as his Highness says,

He was the man, Pope Sixtus, that Fifth, that swineherd’s son:

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!

Here were the end, had anything an end:

Morning, evening, noon and night,

Browning wrote this poem in 1842 for Macready’s son, who was ill. He had also written the Pied Piper of Hamelin at the same time.

SPAIN.

PIANO DI SORRENTO

I.

PETER RONSARD loquitur.

A PICTURE AT FANO.

A MIDDLE-AGE INTERLUDE.

That second time they hunted me

ANCIEN RÉGIME.

She. Yet womanhood you reverence,

I.

I.

I.

Another day that finds her living yet,

AN OLD STORY.

A CHILD’S STORY.

Like to Ahasuerus, that shrewd prince,

What, he on whom our voices unanimously ran,

Do you see this Ring?

There’s a palace in Florence, the world knows well,

“Give” and “It-shall-be-given-unto-you.”

I.

I

I.

I’ve a Friend, over the sea;

I chanced upon a new book yesterday;

I.

A Poem In Twelve Books

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst

I

(As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality)

Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair

I.

So, the three Court-ladies began

If you and I could change to beasts, what beast should either be?

"Why?" Because all I haply can and do,

I.

You'll love me yet! and I can tarry

I.