ROBERT BROWNING

1812-1889

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[From Pippa Passes]

THE year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven ;

The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn:

God's in his heaven

All's right with the world!

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER

GR — R — R — there go, my heart's abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!

If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God's blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims —
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!

At the meal we sit together:

Salve tibi! I must hear

Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year :

Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely

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Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt:

What's the Latin name for 'parsley'?

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What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout?

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we're furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial

Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps —
Marked with L for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,

Steeping tresses in the tank,

Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
Can't I see his dead eye glow,

Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's? (That is, if he'd let it show!)

When he finishes refection,
Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu's praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,

Drinking watered orange-pulp-
In three sips the Arian frustrate;
While he drains his at one gulp.

Oh, those melons! If he's able

We're to have a feast! so nice!

One goes to the Abbot's table,

All of us get each a slice.

How go on your flowers? None double?
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?

Strange! And I, too, at such trouble

Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails :
If I trip him just a-dying,

Sure of heaven as sure can be,

Spin him round and send him flying
Off to hell, a Manichee?

Or, my scrofulous French novel
On gray paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel

Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:
If I double down its pages

At the woeful sixteenth print, When he gathers his greengages, Ope a sieve and slip it in't?

Or, there's Satan !

one might venture

Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave

Such a flaw in the indenture

As he'd miss till past retrieve, Blasted lay that rose-acacia

We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine. 'St, there's Vespers ! Plena gratiâ, Ave, Virgo! Gr—r—r— - you

swine!

MY LAST DUCHESS

FERRARA

THAT'S my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

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Will't 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 husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, ' Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much,' or 'Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat :' such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart- how shall I
say ? - too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace-all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

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Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but thanked
Somehow I know not how — as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech (which I have not) — to make
Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark' — and if she let

your

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will

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,

- E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

'CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME'

My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travelers who might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh
Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare.