{"1": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2990", "width": "1924", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0001.jp2"}, "2": {"fulltext": "LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.\\nChap. Copyright Ko..\\nShelt-..tC4\\n1^00\\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0002.jp2"}, "3": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0003.jp2"}, "4": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0004.jp2"}, "5": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0005.jp2"}, "6": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0006.jp2"}, "7": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0007.jp2"}, "8": {"fulltext": "^^^^^^^^HP^^^^^^\\n^^^H\\n^^^^^^L\\n^i-H\\nm9\\nl^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^3^ i^^^H\\nRobert Broavning.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0008.jp2"}, "9": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0009.jp2"}, "10": {"fulltext": "r\\n3(i094\\nLibiriii of Concirese\\nIwo Copies Receuco\\nAUG 18 1900\\nCopyright wtry\\nSECOND COPY.\\nOel ver\u00c2\u00abd te\\nORDER DIVISION,\\nSEP 8 190U\\nCopyright, 1900, by W. B. Conkey Company.\\n74358", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0010.jp2"}, "11": {"fulltext": "DEDICATED TO\\nALFRED TENNYSON\\nIN POETRY ILLUSTRIOUS AND CONSUMMATE\\nIN FRIENDSHIP NOBLE AND SINCERE", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0011.jp2"}, "12": {"fulltext": "In the present selection from my poetry, there is an\\nattempt to escape from the embarrassment of appearing\\nto pronounce upon what myself may consider the best\\nof It. I adopt another principle and by simply string-\\ning together certain pieces on the thread of an imagi-\\nnary personality, I present them in succession, rather\\nas the natural development of a particular experience\\nthan because I account them the most noteworthy por-\\ntion of my work. Such an attempt was made in the\\nvolume of selections from the poetry of Elizabeth Bar-\\nrett Browning: to which\u00e2\u0080\u0094 in outward uniformity, at\\nleast my own would venture to become a companion.\\nA few years ago, had such an opportunity presented\\nitself, I might have been tempted to say a word in reply\\nto the objections my poetry was used to encounter.\\nTime has kindly co-operated with my disinclination to\\nwrite the poetry and the criticism besides. The read-\\ners I am at last privileged to expect, meet me fully half-\\nway and if, from the fitting standpoint, they must still\\ncensure me in their wisdom, they have previously\\nawakened their senses that they may the better\\njudge. Nor do I apprehend any more charges of be-\\ning wilfully obscure, unconscientiously careless, or per-\\nversely harsh. Having hitherto done my utmost in the\\nart to which my life is a devotion, I cannot engage to\\nincrease the effort; but I conceive that there may be\\nhelpful light, as well as re-assuring warmth, in the at-\\ntention and sympathy I gratefully acknowledge.\\nLondon, May 14, 1872. R. B.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0012.jp2"}, "13": {"fulltext": "CONTENTS.\\nPAGE.\\nMy star 7\\nA Face 7\\nMy Last Duchess 8\\nSong from Pippa Passes lo\\nCristina 1 1\\nCount Gismond 13\\nEurydice to Orpheus 19\\nThe Glove 19\\nSong 25\\nA Serenade at the Villa 26\\nYouth and Art 29\\nThe Flight of the Duchess 32\\nSong from Pippa Passes 65\\nHow they Brought the Good News from Ghent to\\nAix 65\\nSong from Paracelsus 6^\\nThrough the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr 70\\nIncident of the French Camp 71\\nThe Lost Leader 73\\nIn a Gondola 75\\nA Lovers Quarrel 83\\nEarth s Immortalities 89\\nThe Last Ride Together 90\\nMesmerism 94\\nBy the Fireside 99^\\nAny Wife to Any Husband iii\\nIn a Year 117\\nSong from James Lee 120\\nA Woman s Last Word 120\\nMeeting at Night 122\\nParting at Morning 123\\nWomen and Roses 123\\nMisconceptions 125\\n5", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0013.jp2"}, "14": {"fulltext": "6 CONTENTS.\\nPAGE\\nA Pretty Woman 126\\nA Light Woman 129\\nLove in a Life 1-^2\\nLife in a Love 133\\nThe Laboratory 133\\nGold Hair 136\\nThe Statue and the Bust 143\\nLove Among the Ruins 153\\nTime s Revenges 157\\nWaring 159\\nHome Thoughts from Abroad 167\\nThe Italian in England 168\\nThe Englishman in Italy 173\\nUp at a Villa Down in the City 182\\nPictor Ignotus 187\\nFra Lippo Lippi 190\\nAndrea del Sarto 205\\nThe Bishop Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed s\\nChurch 215\\nA Toccata of Galuppi s 219\\nHow it Strikes a Contemporary 223\\nProteus 227\\nMaster Hugues of Saxe-Gotha 229\\nAbt Vogler 237\\nTwo in the Campagna 243\\nDe Gustibus 246\\nThe Guardian Angel 247\\nEvelyn Hope 250\\nMemorabilia 252\\nApparent Failure 253\\nProspice 255\\nChilde Roland to the Dark Tower Came 257\\nA Grammarian s Funeral 266\\nCleon 271\\nInstans Tyrannus 284\\nAn Epistle 286\\nCaliban upon Setebos 297\\nSaul 308\\nRabbi Ben Ezra 329\\nEpilogue 338", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0014.jp2"}, "15": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS,\\nMY STAR.\\nAll that I know\\nOf a certain star\\nIs, it can throw\\n(Like the angled spar)\\nNow a dart of red,\\nNow a dart of blue\\nTill my friends have said\\nThey would fain see, too,\\nMy star that dartles the red and the blue!\\nThen it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs\\nfurled\\nThey must solace themselves with the Sat-\\nurn above it.\\nWhat matter to me if their star is a world?\\nMine has opened its soul tome; therefore, I\\nlove it.\\nA FACE.\\nIf one could have that little head of hers\\nPainted upon a background of pale gold,\\nSuch as the Tuscan s early art prefers!\\nNo shade encroaching on the matchless mould\\nOf those two lips, which should be opening soft\\nIn the pure profile not as when she laughs,\\n7", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0015.jp2"}, "16": {"fulltext": "8 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nFor that spoils all but rather as if aloft\\nYon hyacinth, she love so, leaned its staff s\\nBurthen of honey-colored buds, to kiss\\nAnd capture twixt the lips apart for this.\\nThen her lithe neck, three fingers might sur-\\nround.\\nHow it should waver, on the pale gold ground,\\nUp to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!\\nI know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts\\nOf heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb\\nBreaking its outline, burning shades absorb\\nBut these are only massed there, I should\\nthink,\\nWaiting to see some wonder momently\\nGrow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky,\\n(That s the pale ground you d see this sweet\\nface by)\\nAll heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye\\nWith fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.\\nMY LAST DUCHESS.\\nFERRARA.\\nThat s my last Duchess painted on the wall,\\nLooking as if she were alive. I call\\nThat piece a wonder, now Fra Pandolf s hands\\nWorked busily a day, and there she stands\\nWill t please you sit and look at her? I said\\nFra Pandolf by design: for never read\\nStrangers like you that pictured countenance.\\nThe depth and passion of its earnest glance,\\nBut to myself they turned (since none puts by\\nThe curtain I have drawn for you, but I)\\nAnd seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0016.jp2"}, "17": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 9\\nHow such a glance came there; so, not the first\\nAre you to turn and ask thus. Sir, twas not\\nHer husband s presence only, called that spot\\nOf joy into the Duchess* cheek perhaps\\nFra Pandolf chanced to say Her mantle laps\\nOver my lady s wrist too much, or Paint\\nMust never hope to reproduce the faint\\nHalf-flush that dies along her throat: such\\nstuff\\nWas courtesy, she thought, and cause enough\\nFor calling up that spot of joy. She had\\nA heart how shall I say? too soon made glad,\\nToo easily impressed; she liked whate er\\nShe looked on, and her looks went everywhere.\\nSir, twas all one! My favor at her breast,\\nThe dropping of the daylight in the West,\\nThe bough of cherries some officious fool\\nBroke in the orchard for her, the white mule\\nShe rode with round the terrace\u00e2\u0080\u0094 all and each\\nWould draw from her alike the approving\\nspeech.\\nOr blush, at least. She thanked men, good!\\nbut thanked\\nSomehow I know not how as if she ranked\\nMy gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name\\nWith anybody s gift. Who d stoop to blame\\nThis sort of trifling? Even had you skill\\nIn speech (which I have not) ^to make your\\nwill\\nQuite clear to such an one, and say, Just this\\nOr that in you disgusts me; here you miss,\\nOr there exceed the mark and if she let\\nHerself be lessoned so, nor plainly set\\nHer wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,\\n2 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0017.jp2"}, "18": {"fulltext": "10 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nE en then would be some stooping; and I\\nchoose\\nNever to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,\\nWhene er I passed her but who passed without\\nMuch the same smile? This grew; I gave\\ncommands;\\nThen all smiles stopped together. There she\\nstands\\nAs if alive. Will t please you rise? We ll\\nmeet\\nThe company below, then. I repeat,\\nThe Count your master s known munificence\\nIs ample warrant that no just pretence\\nOf mine for dowry will be disallowed;\\nThough his fair daughter s self, as I avowed\\nAt starting, is my object. Nay, we ll go\\nTogether down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,\\nTaming a sea-horse, thought a rarity.\\nWhich Glaus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for\\nme?\\nSONG FROM PIPPA PASSES.\\nGive her but a least excuse to love me\\nWhen where\\nHow can this arm establish her above me,\\nIf fortune fixed her as my lady there,\\nThere already, to eternally reprove me?\\nHist! said Kate the queen;\\nBut Oh, cried the maiden, binding her tres-\\nses,\\nTis only a page that carols unseen.\\n*\\\\Crumbling your hounds their messes!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0018.jp2"}, "19": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 11\\nIs she wronged? To the rescue of her honor,\\nMy heart!\\nIs she poor? What costs it to become a donor?\\nMerely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.\\nBut that fortune should have thrust all this\\nupon her!\\nNay, list! bade Kate the queen;\\nAnd still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,\\nTis only a page that carols unseen,\\nFitting your hawks their jesses!\\nCRISTINA.\\nShe should never have looked at me if she\\nmeant I should not love her!\\nThere are plenty men, you call such, I\\nsuppose she may discover\\nAll her soul, too, if she pleases, and yet leave\\nmuch as she found them\\nBut I m not so, and she knew it when she fixed\\nme, glancing round them.\\nII\\nWhat? To fix me thus meant nothing? But I\\ncan t tell (there s my weakness)\\nWhat her look said! no vile cant, sure, about\\nneed to strew the bleakness\\nOf come lone shore with its pearl seed, that\\nthe sea feels no strange yearning\\nThat such souls have, most to lavish where\\nthere s chance of least returning.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0019.jp2"}, "20": {"fulltext": "12 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIll\\nOh, we ve sunk enough here, God knows! but\\nnot quite so sunk that moments,\\nSure tho seldom, are denied us, when the\\nspirit s true endowments\\nStand out plainly from its false ones, and ap-\\npraise it if pursuing\\nOr the right way or the wrong way, to its tri-\\numph or undoing.\\nIV\\nThere are flashes stuck from midnights, there\\nare fire-flames noondays kindle,\\nWhereby piled-up honors perish, whereby\\nswollen ambitions dwindle,\\nWhile just this or that poor impulse, which for\\nonce had play unstifled,\\nSeems the sole work of a life-time that away\\nthe rest have trifled.\\nDoubt you if, in some such moment, as she\\nfixed me, she felt clearly.\\nAges past the soul existed, here an age tis\\nresting merely.\\nAnd hence fleets again for ages: while the true\\nend, sole and single.\\nIt stops here for is, this love-way, with some\\nother soul to mingle?\\nVI\\nElse it loses what it lived for, and eternally\\nmust lose it:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0020.jp2"}, "21": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 13\\nBetter ends may be in prospect deeper blisses\\n(if you choose it),\\nBut this life s end and this love-bliss have been\\nlost here. Doubt you whether\\nThis she felt as, looking at me, mine and her\\nsouls rushed together?\\nVII\\nOh, observe! Of course, next moment, the\\nworld s honors, in derision,\\nTrampled out the light forever. Never fear\\nbut there s provision\\nOf the devil s to quench knowledge, lest we\\nwalk the earth in rapture\\nMaking those who catch God s secret, just so\\nmuch more prize their capture\\nVIII\\nSuch am I: the secret s mine now! She has\\nlost me, I have gained her;\\nHer soul s mine: and thus, grown perfect, I\\nshall pass my life s remainder.\\nLife will just hold out the proving both our\\npowers, alone and blended:\\nAnd then, come next life quickly! This\\nworld s use will have been ended.\\nCOUNT GISMOND.\\nAIX IV PROVENCE.\\nI\\nChrist God who savest man, save most\\nOf men Count Gismond who saved me I\\nCount Gauthier, when he chose his post,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0021.jp2"}, "22": {"fulltext": "14 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nChose time and place and company\\nTo suit it when he struck at length\\nMy honor, twas with all his strength.\\nII\\nAnd doubtlessly, ere he could draw\\nAll points to one, he must have schemed\\nThat miserable morning saw\\nFew half so happy as I seemed,\\nWhile being dressed in queen s array\\nTo give our tourney prize away.\\nIll\\nI thought they loved me, did me grace\\nTo please themselves; twas all their deed\\nGod makes, or fair or foul, our face\\nIf showing mine so caused to bleed\\nMy cousins hearts, they should have dropped\\nA word, and straight the play had stopped.\\nIV\\nThey, too, so beauteous Each a queen\\nBy virtue of her brow and breast\\nNot needing to be crowned, I mean.\\nAs I do. E en when I was dressed,\\nHad either of them spoke, instead\\nOf glancing sideways with still head\\nBut no: they let me laugh, and sing\\nMy birthday song quite through, adjust\\nThe last rose in my garland, fling\\nA last look on the mirror, trust", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0022.jp2"}, "23": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 15\\nMy arms to each an arm of theirs,\\nAnd so descend the castle-stairs\\nVI\\nAnd come out on the morning troop\\nOf merry friends who kissed my cheek,\\nAnd called me queen, and made me stoop\\nUnder the canopy (a streak\\nThat pierced it, of the outside sun,\\nPowdered with gold its gloom s soft dun)\\nVII\\nAnd they could let me take my state\\nAnd foolish throne amid applause\\nOf all come there to celebrate\\nMy queen s-day Oh I think the cause\\nOf much was, they forgot no crowd\\nMakes up for parents in their shroud!\\nVIII\\nHowever that be, all eyes were bent\\nUpon me, when my cousins cast\\nTheirs down, twas time I should present\\nThe victor s crown, but there, twill last\\nNo long time the old mist again\\nBlinds me as then it did. How vain\\nIX\\nSee! Gismond s at the gate, in talk\\nWith his two boys: I can proceed.\\nWell, at that moment, who should stalk\\nForth boldly to mv face, indeed\\nBut Gauthier? and he thundered Stay!\\nAnd all stayed. Bring no crowns, I say!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0023.jp2"}, "24": {"fulltext": "16 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nBring torches! Wind the penance-sheet\\nAbout her! Let her shun the chaste,\\nOr lay herself before their feet!\\nShall she, whose body I embraced\\n**A night long, queen it in the day?\\n**For honor s sake no crowns, I say!\\nXI\\nI? What I answered? As I live,\\nI never fancied such a thing\\nAs answer possible to give.\\nWhat says the body when they spring\\nSome monstrous torture-engine s whole\\nStrength on it? No more says the soul.\\nXII\\nTill out strode Gismond then I knew\\nThat I was saved. I never met\\nHis face before, but at first view,\\nI felt quite sure that God had set\\nHimself to Satan who would spend\\nA minute s mistrust on the end?\\nXIII\\nHe strode to Gauthier, in his throat\\nGave him the lie, then struck his mouth\\nWith one back-handed blow that wrote\\nIn blood men s verdict there. North, South,\\nEast, West, I looked. The lie was dead,\\nAnd damned, and truth stood up instead.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0024.jp2"}, "25": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. n\\nXIV\\nThis glads me most, that I enjoyed\\nThe heart o the joy, with my content\\nIn watching Gismond unalloyed\\nBy any doubt of the event\\nGod took that on him I was bid\\nWatch Gismond for my part I did.\\nXV\\nDid I not watch him while he let\\nHis armourer just brace his greaves,\\nRivet his hauberk, on the fret\\nThe while His foot my memory leaves\\nNo least stamp out, nor how anon\\nHe pulled his ringing gauntlets on.\\nXVI\\nAnd e en before the trumpet s sound\\nWas finished, prone lay the false knight,\\nProne as his lie, upon the ground:\\nGismond flew at him, used no sleight\\nO the sword, but open-breasted drove,\\nCleaving till out the truth he clove.\\nXVII\\nWhich done, he dragged him to my feet\\nAnd said, *Here die, but end thy breath\\nIn full confession, lest thou fleet\\nFrom my first, to God s second death!\\n**Say, hast thou lied? And, I have lied\\n**To God and her, he said, and died.\\n2", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0025.jp2"}, "26": {"fulltext": "18 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXVIII\\nThen Gismond, kneeling to me, asked\\nWhat safe my heart holds, though no word\\nCould I repeat now, if I tasked\\nMy powers for ever, to a third\\nDear even as you are. Pass the rest\\nUntil I sank upon his breast.\\nXIX\\nOver my head his arm he flung\\nAgainst the world; and scarce I felt\\nHis sword (that dripped by me and swung)\\nA little shifted in its belt:\\nFor he began to say the while\\nHow South our home lay many a mile.\\nXX\\nSo, mid the shouting multitude\\nWe two walked forth to never more\\nReturn. My cousins have pursued\\nTheir life, untroubled as before\\nI vexed them. Gauthier s dwelling-place\\nGod lighten May his soul find grace\\nXXI\\nOur elder boy has got the clear\\nGreat brow; tho when his brother s black\\nFull eye shows scorn, it Gismond here?\\nAnd have you brought my tercel back?\\nI was just telling Adela\\nHow many birds it struck since May.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0026.jp2"}, "27": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 19\\nEURYDICE TO ORPHEUS.\\nA PICTURE BY FREDERICK LEIGHTON, R. A.\\nBut give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the\\nbrow\\nLet them once more absorb me One look now\\nWill lap me round forever, not to pass\\nOut of its light, though darkness lie beyond:\\nHold me but safe again within the bond\\nOf one immortal look All woe that was,\\nForgotten, and all terror that may be,\\nDefied, no past is mine, no future look at me\\nTHE GLOVE.\\n(peter ronsard loquitur.)\\nHeigho, yawned one day King Francis,\\nDistance all value enhances!\\nWhen a man s busy, why, leisure\\nStrikes him as wonderful pleasure\\nFaith, and as leisure once is he?\\nStraightway he wants to be busy.\\nHere we ve got peace; and aghast I m\\nCaught thinking war the true pastime.\\nIs there a reason in metre?\\nGive us your speech, master Peter?\\nI who, if mortal dare say so,\\nNe er am at loss with my Naso,\\nSire, I replied, joys prove cloudlets:\\nMen are the merest Ixions\\nHere the King whistled aloud, Let s\\nHeigho go look at our lions!\\nSuch are the sorrowful chances\\nIf you talk fine to King Francis.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0027.jp2"}, "28": {"fulltext": "20 BROWNINGS POEMS.\\nAnd so, to the courtyard proceeding,\\nOur company, Francis was leading,\\nIncreased by new followers tenfold\\nBefore he arrived at the penfold\\nLords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen\\nAt sunset the western horizon.\\nAnd Sir de Lorge pressed mid the foremost\\nWith the dame he professed to adore most\\nOh, what a face One by fits eyed\\nHer, and the horrible pitside;\\nFor the penfold surrounded a hollow\\nWhich led where the eye scarce dared follow,\\nAnd shelved to the chamber secluded\\nWhere Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.\\nThe King hailed his keeper, an Arab\\nAs glossy and black as a scarab,\\nAnd bade him make sport at once stir\\nUp and out of his den the old monster.\\nThey opened a hole in the wire- work\\nAcross it, and dropped there a firework,\\nAnd fled: one s heart beating redoubled;\\nA pause, while the pit s mouth was troubled,\\nThe blackness and silence so utter,\\nBy the firework s slow sparkling and sputter;\\nThen earth in a sudden contortion\\nGave out to our gaze her abortion.\\nSuch a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot\\n(Whose experience of nature s but narrow,\\nAnd whose faculties move in no small mist\\nWhen he versifies David the Psalmist)\\nI should study that brute to describe you\\nIlium Juda Leoneni de Tribu,\\nOne s whole blood grew curdling and creepy", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0028.jp2"}, "29": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 21\\nTo see the black mane, vast and heapy,\\nThe tail in the air stiff and straining,\\nThe wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning,\\nAs over the barrier which bounded\\nHis platform, and us who surrounded\\nThe barrier, they reached and they rested\\nOn space that might stand him in best stead\\nFor he knew, he thought, what the amaze-\\nment,\\nThe eruption of clatter and blaze meant,\\nAnd if, in this minute of wonder.\\nNo outlet, mid lightning and thunder,\\nLay broad, and, his shackles all shivered,\\nThe lion at last was delivered?\\nAy, that was the open sky o erhead!\\nAnd you saw by the flash on his forehead.\\nBy the hope in those eyes wide and steady,\\nHe was leagues in the desert already.\\nDriving the flocks up the mountain,\\nOr catlike crouched hard by the fountain\\nTo waylay the date-gathering negress:\\nSo guarded he entrance or egress.\\nHow he stands! quoth the King: we may\\nw^ell swear,\\nNo novice, we ve won our spurs elsewhere\\nAnd so can afford the confession,)\\nWe exercise wholesome discretion\\nIn keeping aloof from his threshold,\\nOnce hold you, those jaws want no fresh\\nhold,\\nTheir first would too pleasantly purloin\\nThe visitor s brisket or sirloin:\\nBut who s he would prove so foolhardy?\\nNot the best man of Marignan, pardie!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0029.jp2"}, "30": {"fulltext": "22 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThe sentence no sooner was uttered,\\nThan over the rails a glove fluttered,\\nFell close to the lion, and rested:\\nThe dame t was, who flung it and jested\\nWith life so, De Lorge had been wooing\\nFor months past, he sat there pursuing\\nHis suit, weighing out with nonchalance\\nFine speeches like gold from a balance.\\nSound the trumpet, no true knight s a tarrier!\\nDe Lorge made one leap at the barrier,\\nWalked straight to the glove, while the lion\\nNe er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on\\nThe palm-tree-edged desert-spring s sapphire,\\nAnd the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,\\nPicked it up, and as calmly retreated.\\nLeaped back where the lady was seated\\nAnd full in the face of its owner\\nFlung the glove.\\nYour heart s queen, you dethrone her?\\n**So should I! cried the King twas mere\\nvanity,\\nNot love, set that task to humanity!\\nLords and ladies alike turned with loathing\\nFrom such a proved wolf in sheep s clothing.\\nNot so, I for I caught an expression\\nIn her brow s undisturbed self-possession\\nAmid the Court s scoffing and merriment,\\nAs if from no pleasing experiment\\nShe rose, yet of pain not much heedful\\nSo long as the process was needful,\\nAs if she had tried, in a crucible,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0030.jp2"}, "31": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 23\\nTo what speeches like gold were reducible,\\nAnd, finding the finest proof coiDper,\\nFelt smoke in her face was not proper;\\nTo know what she had not to trust to,\\nV7as worth all the ashes and dust too.\\nShe went out mid hooting and laughter;\\nClement Marot stayed I followed after,\\nAnd asked, as a grace, what it all meant?\\nIf she washed not the rash deed s recallment?\\nFor I so I spoke am a poet:\\nHuman nature behoves that I know it!**\\nShe told me, Too long had I heard\\nOf the deed proved atone by the word:\\nFor my love what De Lorge w^ould not\\ndare\\nWith my scorn what De Lorge could com-\\npare\\nAnd the endless descriptions of death\\nHe would brave when my lip formed a\\nbreath,\\nI must reckon as braved, or of course,\\nDoubt his word and moreover, perforce,\\nFor such gifts as no lady could spurn,\\nMust offer my love in return.\\nWhen I looked on your lion, it brought\\nAll the dangers at once to my thought,\\nEncountered by all sorts of men,\\nBefore he was lodged in his den,\\nFrom the poor slave whose club or bare\\nhands\\n**Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands,\\nWith no King and no Court to applaud,\\nBy no shame should he shrink, overawed,\\nYet to capture the creature made shift,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0031.jp2"}, "32": {"fulltext": "24 BROWNING S POEMS.\\n**That his rude boys might laugh at the gift,\\nTo the page who last lea- -^d o er the fence\\nOf the pit, on no greater p. tence\\n**Than to get back the bonnet he dropped,\\n**Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.\\nSo, wiser I judged it to make\\nOne trial what death for my sake\\nReally meant, while the power was yet mine\\nThan to wait until time should define\\n**Such a phrase not so simply as I,\\nWho took it to mean just to die.\\nThe blow a glove gives is but weak:\\nDoes the mark yet discolor my cheek?\\nBut when the heart suffers a blow,\\nWill the pain pass so soon, do you know?\\nI looked, as away she was sweeping,\\nAnd saw a youth eagerly keeping\\nAs close as he dared to the doorway.\\nNo doubt that a noble should more weigh\\nHis life than befits a plebeian\\nAnd yet, had our brute been Nemean\\n(I judge by a certain calm fervor\\nThe youth stepped with, forward to serve her)\\nHe d have scarce thought you did him the\\nworst turn\\nIf you whispered, Friend, what you d get,\\nfirst earn!\\nAnd when, shortly after, she carried\\nHer shame from the court, and they married.\\nTo that marriage some happiness, maugre\\nThe voice of the Court, I dared auger.\\nFor De Lorge, he made women with men vie,\\nThose in wonder and praise, these in envy;", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0032.jp2"}, "33": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 25\\nAnd, in short, stood so plain a head taller\\nThat he wooed ^j^id won how do you call\\nher? -t^-;\\nThe beauty, that rose in the sequel\\nTo the King s love, who loved her a week\\nwell.\\nAnd t was noticed he never would honor\\nDe Lorge (who looked daggers upon her)\\nWith the easy commission of stretching\\nHis legs in the service, and fetching\\nHis wife, from her chamber, those straying\\nSad gloves she was always mislaying.\\nWhile the King took the closet to chat in,\\nBut of course this adventure came pat in.\\nAnd never the King told the story.\\nHow bringing a glove brought such glory,\\nBut the wife smiled,\\nHis nerves are grown firmer:\\nMine he brings now and utters no murmur.\\nVe?iie?tti occurrite morbof\\nWith which moral I drop my theorbo.\\nSONG.\\nNay but you, who do not love her.\\nIs she not pure gold, my mistress?\\nHolds earth aught speak truth above her?\\nAught like this tress, see, and this tress,\\nAnd this last fairest tress of all,\\nSo fair, see, ere I let it fall?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0033.jp2"}, "34": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS.\\nBecause j^ou spend your lives in praising;\\nTo praise, you search the wide world over;\\nThen why not witness, calmly gazing,\\nIf earth holds aught speak truth above\\nher?\\nAbove this tress, and this, I touch\\nBut cannot praise, I love so much\\nA SERENADE AT THE VILLA.\\nThat was I, you heard last night.\\nWhen there rose no moon at all.\\nNor, to pierce the strained and tight\\nTent of heaven, a planet small:\\nLife was dead, and so was light.\\nNot a twinkle from the fly,\\nNot a glimmer from the worm,\\nWhen the crickets stopped their cry,\\nWhen the owls forebore a term,\\nYou heard music that was I.\\nIll\\nEarth turned in her sleep with pain,\\nSultrily suspired for proof:\\nIn at heaven, and out again,\\nLightning! where it broke the roof,\\nBloodlike, some few drops of rain.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0034.jp2"}, "35": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 27\\nIV\\nWhat they could my words expressed,\\nOf my love, my all, my one!\\nSinging helped the verses best,\\nAnd when singing s best was done,\\nTo my lute I left the rest\\nV\\nSo wore night the East was gray,\\nWhite the broad-faced hemlock flowers\\nThere would be another day;\\nEre its first of heavy hours\\nFound me, I had passed away.\\nVI\\nWhat became of all the hopes.\\nWords and song and lute as well?\\nSay, this struck you: When life gropes\\nFeebly for the path where fell\\nLight last on the evening slopes,\\nVII\\n*One friend in that path shall be,\\nTo secure my step from wrong;\\nOne to count night day for me,\\nPatient through the watches long,\\nServing most with none to see.\\nVIII\\nNever say as something bodes\\nSo, the worst has yet a worse!\\n**When life halts neath double loads,\\nBetter the task-master s curse\\nThan such music on the roads!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0035.jp2"}, "36": {"fulltext": "28 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIX\\n**When no moon succeeds the sun,\\nNor can pierce the midnight s tent\\nAny star, the smallest one,\\nWhile some drops, where lightning rent,\\nShow the final storm begun\\nWhen the fire-fly hides its spot,\\nWhen the garden-voices fail\\nIn the darkness thick and hot,\\nShall another voice avail,\\nThat shape be where these are not?\\nXI\\nHas some plague a longer lease,\\nProffering its help uncouth?\\nCan t one even die in peace?\\nAs one shuts one s eye on youth,\\nIs that face the last one seen?\\nXII\\nOh how dark your villa was,\\nWindows fast and obdurate!\\nHow the garden grudged me grass\\nWhere I stood the iron gate\\nGround its teeth to let me pass!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0036.jp2"}, "37": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 29\\nYOUTH AND ART.\\nIt once mig-ht have been, once only:\\nWe lodged in a street together,\\nYon, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,\\nI, a lone she-bird of his feather.\\nYour trade was with sticks and clay,\\nYou thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,\\nThen laughed They will see, some day,\\nSmith made, and Gibson demolished.\\nIll\\nMy business was song, song, song,\\nI chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered;\\nKate Brown s on the boards ere long,\\nAnd Grisi s existence embittered:\\nIV\\nI earned no more by a warble\\nThan you by a sketch in plaster;\\nYou wanted a piece of marble,\\nI needed a music-master.\\nWe studied hard in our styles,\\nChipped each at a crust like Hindoos,\\nFor air, looked out on the tiles,\\nFor fun, watched each other s windows.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0037.jp2"}, "38": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS\\nVI\\nYou lounged, like a boy of the South,\\nCap and blouse nay, a bit of beard t(\\nOr you got it, rubbing your mouth\\nWith fingers the clay adhered to.\\nVII\\nAnd I soon managed to find\\nWeak points in the flower-fence facing,\\nWas forced to put up a blind\\nAnd be safe in my corset-lacing.\\nVIII\\nNo harm It was not my fault\\nIf you never turned your eye s tail up\\nAs I shook upon E in alt.\\nOr ran the chromatic scale up\\nIX\\nFor spring bade the sparrows pair,\\nAnd the boys and girls gave guesses,\\nAnd stalls in our street looked rare\\nWith bulrush and watercresses.\\nWhy did not you pinch a flower\\nIn a pellet of clay and fling it?\\nWhy did not I put a power\\nOf thanks in a look, or sing it?\\nXI\\nI did look, sharp as a lynx,\\n(And yet the memory rankles)", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0038.jp2"}, "39": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 31\\nWhen models arrived, some minx\\nTripped upstairs, she and her ankles.\\nXII\\nBut I think I gave you as good\\n*That foreign fellow, who can know\\nHow she pays, in a playful mood,\\nFor his tuning her that piano?\\nXIII\\nCould you say no, and never say\\nSuppose we join hands and fortunes,\\nAnd I fetch her from over the way,\\nHer, piano, and long tunes and short\\ntunes?\\nXIV\\nNo, no; you would not be rash.\\nNor I rasher and something over;\\nYou ve to settle yet Gibson s hash,\\nAnd Grisi yet lives in clover.\\nXV\\nBut you meet the Prince at the Board,\\nI m queen myself at bals-pares^\\nI ve marred a rich old lord.\\nAnd you re dubbed knight and an R. A.\\nXVI\\nEach life s unfulfilled, you see;\\nIt hangs still, patchy and scrappy:\\nWe have not sighed deep, laughed free,\\nStarved, feasted, despaired, ^been happy.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0039.jp2"}, "40": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXVII\\nAnd nobody calls you a dunce,\\nAnd people suppose me clever;\\nThis could but have happened once,\\nAnd we missed it, lost it forever.\\nTHE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS.\\nYou re my friend:\\nI was the man the Duke spoke to;\\nI helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;\\nSo, here s the tale from beginning to end.\\nMy friend\\nOurs is a great wild country:\\nIf you climb to our castle s top,\\nI don t see where your eye can stop;\\nFor when you ve passed the corn-field country\\nWhere vineyards leave off, flocks are packed,\\nAnd sheep-range leads to cattle-track.\\nAnd cattle-track to open-chase.\\nAnd open -chase to the very base\\nO the mountain where, at a funeral pace,\\nRound about, solemn and slow.\\nOne by one, row after row,\\nUp and up the pine-trees go,\\nSo, like black priests, up and so\\nDown the other side again\\nTo another greater, wilder country.\\nThat s one vast red drear burnt-up plain,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0040.jp2"}, "41": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 33\\nBranched through and through with many a\\nvein\\nWhence iron s dug, and copper s dealt;\\nLook right, look left, look straight before,\\nBeneath they mine, above they smelt,\\nCopper-ore and iron-ore.\\nAnd forge and furnace mould and melt,\\nAnd so on, more and ever more,\\nTill at the last, for a bounding belt,\\nComes the salt sand hoar of the great seashore,\\nAnd the whole is our Duke s country.\\nIll\\nI was born the day this present Duke was\\n(And O, says the song, ere I was old\\nIn the castle where the other Duke was\\n(When I was happy and young, not old!)\\nI in the kennel, he in the bower:\\nWe are of like age to an hour.\\nMy father was huntsman in that day;\\nWho has not heard my father say\\nThat, when a boar was brought to bay,\\nThree times, four times out of five,\\nWith his huntspear he d contrive\\nTo get the killing-place transfixed,\\nAnd pin him true, both eyes betwixt?\\nAnd that s why the old Duke would rather\\nHe lost a salt-pit than my father,\\nAnd loved to have him ever in call;\\nThat s why my father stood in the hall\\nWhen the old Duke brought his infant out\\nTo show the people, and while they passed\\nThe wondrous bantling round about,\\nWas first to start at the outside blast\\n3 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0041.jp2"}, "42": {"fulltext": "34 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAs the Kaiser s courier blew his horn,\\nJust a month after the babe was born.\\nAnd, quoth the Kaiser s courier, since\\nThe Duke has got an heir, our Prince\\nNeeds the Duke s self at his side:\\nThe Duke looked down and seemed to wince,\\nBut he thought of wars o er the world wide,\\nCastles a-fire, men on their march,\\nThe toppling tower, the crashing arch\\nAnd up he looked, and awhile he eyed\\nThe row of crests and shields and banners\\nOf all achievements after all manners.\\nAnd ay, said the Duke with a surly pride.\\nThe more was his comfort when he died\\nAt next year s end, in a velvet suit,\\nWith a gilt glove on his hand, his foot\\nIn a silken shoe for a leather boot,\\nPetticoated like a herald.\\nIn a chamber next to an ante room,\\nWhere he breathed the breath of page and\\ngroom,\\nWhat he called stink, and they, perfume:\\nThey should have set him on red Berold\\nMad with pride, like fire to manage!\\nThey should have got his cheek fresh tannage\\nSuch a day as to-day in the merry sunshine\\nHad they stuck on his fist a rough-foot merlin!\\n(Hark, the wind s on the heath at its game!\\nOh, for a noble falcon-lanner\\nTo flap each broad wing like a banner.\\nAnd turn in the wind, and dance like flame!)\\nHad they broached a cask of white beer from\\nBerlin!\\nOr if you incline to prescribe mere wine", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0042.jp2"}, "43": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 35\\nPut to his lips when they saw him pine,\\nA cup of our own ^loldavia fine,\\nCotnar for instance, green as May sorrel\\nAnd ropy with sweet, we shall not quarrel.\\nIV\\nSo, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess\\nWas left with the infant in her clutches,\\nShe being the daughter of God knows who\\nAnd now was the time to revisit her tribe.\\nAbroad and afar they went, the two,\\nAnd let our people rail and gibe\\nAt the empty hall and extinguished fire,\\nAs loud as we liked, but ever in vain,\\nTill after long years we had our desire.\\nAnd back came the Duke and his mother again.\\nAnd he came back the pertest little ape\\nThat ever affronted human shape;\\nFull of his travel, struck at himself.\\nYou d say he despised our bluff old ways?\\nNot he For in Paris they told the elf\\nThat our rough North land was the Land of\\nLays.\\nThe one good thing left in evil daj^s\\nSince the Mid- Age was the Heroic Time,\\nAnd only in wild nooks like ours\\nCould you taste of it yet as in its prime,\\nAnd see true castles with proper towers,\\nYoung-hearted women, old-minded men.\\nAnd manners now as manners were then.\\nSo, all that the old Dukes had been, without\\nknowing it,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0043.jp2"}, "44": {"fulltext": "36 BROWI^IING S POEMS.\\nThis Duke would fain know he was, without\\nbeing it\\n*Twas not for the joy s self, but the joy of his\\nshowing it,\\nNor for the pride s self but the pride of our\\nseeing it,\\nHe revived all usages thoroughly worn-out.\\nThe souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of\\nthem torn-out;\\nAnd chief in the chase his neck he periled.\\nOn a lathy horse, all legs and length,\\nWith blood for bone, all speed, no strength\\nThey should have set him on red Berold\\nWith the red eye slow consuming in fire,\\nAnd the thin stiff ear like an abbey spire!\\nVI\\nWell, such as he was, he must marry, we heard:\\nAnd out of a convent, at the word,\\nCame the lady, in time of spring.\\nOh, old thoughts they cling, they cling!\\nThat day, I know, with a dozen oaths\\nI clad myself in thick hunting-clothes\\nFit for the chase of urox or buffle\\nIn winter-time when you need to muffle.\\nBut the Duke had a mind we should cut a\\nfigure,\\nAnd so we saw the lady arrive\\nMy friend, I have seen a white crane bigger!\\nShe was the smallest lady alive,\\nMade in a piece of nature s madness.\\nToo smart, almost, for the life and gladness\\nThat over-filled her, as some hive\\nOut of the bears reach on the high trees", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0044.jp2"}, "45": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 37\\nIs crowded with its safe merry bees.*\\nIn truth, she was not hard to please\\nUp she looked, down she looked, round at the\\nmead,\\nStraight at the castle, that s best indeed\\nTo look at from outside the walls:\\nAs for us, styled the serfs and thralls,\\nShe as much thanked me as if she had said it,\\n(With her eyes, do you understand?)\\nBecause I patted her horse while I led it;\\nAnd Max, who rode on her other hand,\\nSaid, no bird flew past but she inquired\\nWhat its true name was, nor ever seemed\\ntired\\nIf that was an eagle she saw hover,\\nAnd the green and grey bird on the field was\\nthe plover.\\nWhen suddenly appeared the Duke:\\nAnd as down she sprung, the small foot pointed\\nOn to my hand, as with a rebuke,\\nAnd as if his backbone were not jointed.\\nThe Duke stepped rather aside than forward,\\nAnd welcomed her with his grandest smile\\nAnd, mind you, his mother all the while\\nChilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor ward\\nAnd up, like a weary yawn, with its pullies\\nWent, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis;\\nAnd, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies,\\nThe lady s face stopped its play,\\nAs if her first hair had grown grey;\\nFor such things must begin som.e one day.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0045.jp2"}, "46": {"fulltext": "38 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nVII\\nIn a day or two she was well again;\\nAs who should say, You labor in vain!\\nThis is all a jest against God, who meant\\nI should ever be, as I am, content\\nAnd glad in his sight; therefore, glad I will\\nbe.\\nSo, smiling as at first went she.\\nVIII\\nShe was active, stirring, all fire\\nCould not rest, could not tire\\nTo a stone she might have given life!\\n(I myself loved once, in my day)\\nFor a shepherd s, miner s, huntsman s wife,\\n(I had a wife, I know what I say)\\nNever in all the world such an one\\nAnd here was plenty to be done,\\nAnd she that could do it, great or small,\\nShe was to do nothing at all.\\nThere was already this man in his post,\\nThis in his station, and that in his office,\\nAnd the Duke s plan admitted a wife, at most,\\nTo meet his eye with the other trophies,\\nNow outside the hall, now in it.\\nTo sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen.\\nAt the proper place in the proper minute,\\nAnd die away the life between.\\nAnd it was amusing enough, each infraction\\nOf rule (but for after-sadness that came)\\nTo hear the consummate self-satisfaction\\nWith which the young Duke and the old dame\\nWould let her advise, and criticise,\\nAnd, being a fool, instruct the wise.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0046.jp2"}, "47": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 39\\nAnd, child-like, parcel out praise or blame.\\nThey bore it all in complacent guise.\\nAs though an artificer, after contriving\\nA wheel- work image as if it were living,\\nShould find with delight it could motion to\\nstrike him\\nSo found the Duke, and his mother like him\\nThe lady hardly got a rebuff\\nThat had not been contemptuous enough,\\nWith his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause,\\nAnd kept off the old mother-cat s claws.\\nIX\\nSo, the little lady grew silent and thin,\\nPaling and ever paling,\\nAs the way is with a hid chagrin\\nAnd the Duke perceived that she was ailing.\\nAnd said in his heart, Tis done to spite me,\\nBut I shall find in my power to right me!\\nDon t swear, friend! The old one, many a year,\\nIs in hell, and the Duke s self you shall\\nhear.\\nWell, early in autumn, at first winter-warning,\\nWhen the stag had to break with his foot, of a\\nmorning\\nA drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice,\\nThat covered the pond till the sun, in a trice.\\nLoosening it, let out a ripple of gold.\\nAnd another and another, and faster and faster.\\nTill, dimpling to blindness, the wide water\\nrolled,\\nThen it so chanced that thf^ Duke our master", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0047.jp2"}, "48": {"fulltext": "40 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAsked himself what were the pleasures in\\nseason,\\nAnd found, since the calendar bade him be\\nhearty,\\nHe should do the Middle Age no treason\\nIn resolving on a hunting-party.\\nAlways provided, old books showed the way of\\nit!\\nWhat meant old poets by their strictures?\\nAnd when old poets had said their say of it,\\nHow taught old painters in their pictures?\\nWe must revert to the proper channels.\\nWorkings in tapestry, paintings on panels,\\nAnd gather up woodcraft s authentic traditions.\\nHere was food for our various ambitions,\\nAs on each case, exactly stated\\nTo encourage your dog, now, the prospect\\nchirrup,\\nOr best prayer to St. Hubert on mounting your\\nstirrup\\nWe of the household took thought and debated.\\nBlessed was he whose back ached with the\\njerkin\\nHis sire was wont to do forest- work in;\\nBlesseder he who nobly sunk ohs\\nAnd ahs while he tugged on his grandsire s\\ntrunk-hose\\nWhat signified hats if they had no rims on.\\nEach slouching before and behind like the\\nscallop.\\nAnd able to serve at sea for a shallop,\\nLoaded with lacquer and looped with crimson?\\nSo that the deer now, to make a short rhyme\\non t,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0048.jp2"}, "49": {"fulltext": "BROWNINCx S POEMS. 41\\nWhat with our Venerers, Prickers and Ver-\\nderers,\\nMight hope for real hunters at length and not\\nmurderers,\\nAnd oh the Duke s tailor, he had a hot time\\non t!\\nXI\\nNow you must know that when the first diz-\\nziness\\nOf flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots\\nsubsided,\\nThe Duke put this question, The Duke s part\\nprovided,\\nHad not the Duchess some share in the\\nbusiness!\\nFor out of the mouth of two or three witnesses\\nDid he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses:\\nAnd, after much laying of heads together,\\nSomebody s cap got a notable feather.\\nBy the announcement with proper unction\\nThat he had discovered the lady s function;\\nSince ancient authors gave this tenet,\\nWhen horns wind a mort and the deer is at\\nsiege,\\nLet the dame of the castle prick forth on her\\njennet,\\nAnd with water to wash the hands of her\\nliege\\nIn a clean ewer with a fair toweling,\\nLet her preside at the disemboweling.\\nNow, my friend, if you had so little religion\\nAs to catch a hawk, some falcon-lanner.\\nAnd thrust her broad wings like a banner\\n4 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0049.jp2"}, "50": {"fulltext": "42 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nInto a coop for a vulgar pigeon\\nAnd if day by day and week by week\\nYou cut her claws, and sealed her eyes,\\nAnd clipped her wings, and tied her beak,\\nWould it cause you any great surprise\\nIf, when you decided to give her an airing,\\nYou found she needed a little preparing?\\nI say, should you be such a curmudgeon.\\nIf she clung to the perch, as to take it in\\ndudgeon?\\nYet when the Duke to his lady signified,\\nJust a day before, as he judged most dignified.\\nIn what a pleasure she was to participate,\\nAnd, instead of leaping wide in flashes,\\nHer eyes just lifted their long lashes.\\nAs if pressed by fatigue even he could not dis-\\nsipate,\\nAnd duly acknowledged the Duke s fore-\\nthought,\\nBut spoke of her health, if her health were\\nworth aught.\\nOf the weight by day and the watch by night,\\nAnd much wrong now that used to be right,\\nSo, thanking him, declined the hunting,\\nWas conduct ever more affronting?\\nWith all the ceremony settled\\nWith the towel ready, and the sewer\\nPolishing up his oldest ewer.\\nAnd the jennet pitched upon a pieballed,\\nBlack-barred, cream-coated and pink eye-\\nballed,\\nNo wonder if the Duke was nettled\\nAnd when she persisted nevertheless,\\nWell, I suppose here s the time to confess", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0050.jp2"}, "51": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 43\\nThat there ran half round our lady s chamber\\nA balcony none of the hardest to clamber:\\nAnd that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in\\nwaiting,\\nStayed in call outside, what need of relating?\\nAnd since Jacynth was like a June rose, why,\\na fervent\\nAdorer of Jacynth of course was your servant;\\nAnd if she had the habit to peep through the\\ncasement.\\nHow could I keep at any vast distance?\\nAnd so, as I say, on the lady s persistence.\\nThe Duke, dumb stricken with amazement,\\nStood for a while in a sultry smother.\\nAnd then, with a smile that partook of the\\nawful,\\nTurned her over to his yellow mother\\nTo learn what was decorous and lawful\\nAnd the mother smelt blood with a cat-like\\ninstinct,\\nAs her cheek quick whitened thro all its\\nquince-tinct.\\nOh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once\\nWhat meant she? Who was she? Her duty\\nand station.\\nThe wisdom of age and the folly of youth at\\nonce,\\nIts decent regard and its fitting relation\\nIn brief, my friends, set all the devils in hell\\nfree\\nAnd turn them out to carouse in a belfry\\nAnd treat the priests to a fifty-part canon.\\nAnd then you may guess how that tongue of\\nhers ran on", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0051.jp2"}, "52": {"fulltext": "44 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWell, somehow or other it ended at last,\\nAnd, licking her whiskers, out she passed;\\nAnd after her, making (he hoped) a face\\nLike Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin,\\nStalked the Duke s self with the austere grace\\nOf ancient hero or modern paladin,\\nFrom door to staircase oh such a solemn\\nUnbending of the vertebral column\\nXII\\nHowever, at sunrise our company mustered\\nAnd here was the huntsman bidding unkennel,\\nAnd there neath his bonnet the pricker blus-\\ntered\\nWith feather dank as a bough of wet fennel\\nFor the court-yard walls were filled with fog\\nYou might cut as an axe chops a log\\nLike so much wool for color and bulkiness;\\nAnd out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness.\\nSince, before breakfast, a man feels but queas-\\nily.\\nAnd a sinking at the lower abdomen\\nBegins the day with indifferent omen.\\nAnd lo, as he looked around uneasily.\\nThe sun ploughed the fog up and drove it\\nasunder\\nThis way and that, from the valley under;\\nAnd, looking through the court-yard arch,\\nDown in the valley, what should meet him\\nBut a troop of Gipsies on their march,\\nNo doubt with the annual gifts to greet him.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0052.jp2"}, "53": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 45\\nXIII\\nNow, in your land, Gipsies reach you, only\\nAfter reaching all lands beside\\nNorth they go. South they go, trooping or\\nlonely,\\nAnd still, as they travel far and wide.\\nCatch they and keep now a trace here, a trace\\nthere,\\nThat puts you in mind of a place here, a place\\nthere.\\nBut with us, I believe they rise out of the\\nground.\\nAnd nowhere else, I take it, are found\\nWith the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned;\\nBorn, no doubt, like insects which breed on\\nThe very fruit they are meant to feed on.\\nFor the earth not a use to which they don t\\nturn it,\\nThe ore that grows in the mountain s womb,\\nOr the sand in the pits like a honeycomb,\\nThey sift and soften it, bake it and burn it\\nWhether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle\\nWith side-bars never a brute can baffle\\nOr a lock that s a puzzle of wards within\\nwards\\nOr, if your colt s forefoot inclines to curve in-\\nvards.\\nHorseshoes they hammer which turn on a\\nswivel\\nAnd won t allow the hoof to shrivel.\\nThen they cast bells like the shell of the winkle\\nThat keep a stout heart in the ram with theit\\ntinkle", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0053.jp2"}, "54": {"fulltext": "46 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nBut the sand they pinch and pound it like\\notters;\\nCommend me to Gipsy glass-makers and pot-\\nters!\\nGlasses they ll blow you, crystal-clear,\\nWhere just a faint cloud of rose shall appear,\\nAs if in pure water you dropped and let die\\nA bruised black-blooded mulberry\\nAnd that other sort, their crowning pride,\\nWith long white threads distinct inside.\\nLike the lake-flower s fibrous roots which dan-\\ngle\\nLoose such a length and never tangle,\\nWhere the bold sword-lily cuts the clear\\nwaters,\\nAnd the cup-lily couches with all the white\\ndaughters;\\nSuch are the works they put their hand to.\\nThe uses they turn and twist iron and sand to.\\nAnd these made the troop, which our Duke\\nsaw sally\\nToward his castle from out of the valley.\\nMen and women, like new-hatched spiders,\\nCome out with the morning to greet our riders.\\nAnd up they wound till they reached the ditch,\\nWhereat all stopped save one, a witch\\nThat I knew, is she hobbled from the group,\\nBy her gait directly and her stoop,\\nI, whom Jacynth was used to importune\\nTo let that same witch tell us our fortune.\\nThe oldest Gipsy then above ground\\nAnd, sure as the autumn season came round,\\nShe paid us a visit for profit or pastime,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0054.jp2"}, "55": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 47\\nAnd every time, as she swore, for the last\\ntime.\\nAnd presently she was seen to sidle\\nUp to the Duke till she touched his bridle.\\nSo that the horse of a sudden reared up\\nAs under its nose the old witch peered up\\nWith her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holes\\nOf no use now but to gather brine,\\nAnd began a kind of level whine\\nSuch as they use to sing to their viols\\nWhen their dities they go grinding\\nUp and down with nobody minding.\\nAnd then, as of old, at the end of the humming\\nHer usual presents were forthcoming\\nA dog-whistle blowing the fiercest of tre-\\nbles,\\n(Just a sea-shore stone holding a dozen fine\\npebbles),\\nOr a porcelain mouth-piece to screw on a pipe-\\nend,\\nAnd so she awaited her annual stipend.\\nBut this time, the Duke would scarcely vouch-\\nsafe\\nA word in reply; and in vain she felt\\nWith twitching fingers at her belt\\nFor the purse of sleek pine-martin pelt,\\nReady to put what he gave in her pouch safe,\\nTill, either to quicken his apprehension,\\nOr possibly with an after intention,\\nShe was come, she said, to pay her duty\\nTo the new Duchess, the youthful beauty.\\nNo sooner had she named his lady,\\nThan a shine lit up the face so shady.\\nAnd its smirk returned with a novel meaning:", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0055.jp2"}, "56": {"fulltext": "48 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nFor it struck him, the babe just wanted wean-\\ning;\\nIf one gave her a taste of what life was and\\nsorrow\\nShe, foolish to-day, would be wiser to-morrow\\nAnd who so fit a teacher of trouble\\nAs this sordid crone bent well-nigh double?\\nSo, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture,\\n(If such it was, for they grow so hirsute\\nThat their own fleece serves for natural fur-\\nsuit)\\nHe was contrasting, twas plain from his ges-\\nture.\\nThe life of the lady so flower-like and delicate\\nWith the loathsome squalor of this helicat.\\nI, in brief, was the man the Duke beckoned\\nFrom out of the throng; and while I drew near\\nHe told the crone as I since have reckoned\\nBy the way he bent and spoke into her ear\\nWith circumspection and mystery\\nThe main of the lady s history,\\nHer forwardness and ingratitude\\nAnd for all the crone s submissive attitude\\nI could see round her mouth the loose plaits\\ntightening,\\nAnd her brow with assenting intelligence\\nbrightening.\\nAs though she engaged with hearty good- will\\nWhatever he now might enjoin to fulfil.\\nAnd promised the lady a thorough frightening.\\nAnd so, just giving her a glimpse\\nOf a purse, with the air of a man who imps\\nThe wing of the hawk that shall fetch the\\nhernshaw,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0056.jp2"}, "57": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 49\\nHe bade me take the Gipsy mother\\nAnd set her telling some story or other\\nOf hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw\\nTo while away a weary hour\\nFor the lady left alone in her bower,\\nWhose mind and body craved exertion,\\nAnd yet shrank from all better diversion.\\nXIV\\nThen clapping heel to his horse, the mere cur-\\nveter,\\nOut rode the Duke, and after his hollo\\nHorses and hounds swept, hunstman and ser-\\nvitor,\\nAnd back I turned and bade the crone follow.\\nAnd what makes me confident what s to be\\ntold you\\nHad all along been of this crone s devising.\\nIs, that, on looking round sharply, behold you.\\nThere was a novelty quick as surprising\\nFor first, she had shot up a full head in stature,\\nAnd her step kept pace with mine nor fal-\\ntered,\\nAs if age had forgone its usurpature.\\nAnd the ignoble mien was wholly altered,\\nAnd the face looked quite of another nature,\\nAnd the change reached, too, whatever the\\nchange meant,\\nHer shaggy wolf-skin cloak s arrangement:\\nFor where its tatters hung loose like sedges.\\nGold coins were glittering on the edges,\\nLike the band-roll strung with tomans\\nWhich proves the veil a Persian woman s;\\nAnd under her brow, like a snail s horns newly\\n4", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0057.jp2"}, "58": {"fulltext": "50 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nCome out as after the rain he paces,\\nTwo unmistakable eye-points duly\\nLive and aware looked out of their places.\\nSo, we went and found Jacynth at the entry,\\nOf the lady s chamber standing sentry.\\nI told the command and produced my compan-\\nion,\\nAnd Jacynth rejoiced, she said, to admit any\\none,\\nFor since last night, by the same token.\\nNot a single word had the lady spoken.\\nThey went in both to the presence together,\\nWhile I in the balcony watched the weather.\\nxV\\nAnd now, what took place at the very first of\\nall,\\nI cannot tell, as I never could learn it:\\nJacynth constantly wished a curse to fall\\nOn that little head of hers and burn it\\nIf she knew how she came to drop so soundly\\nAsleep of a sudden, and there continue\\nThe whole time, sleeping as profoundly\\nAs one of the boars my father would pin you\\nTwixt the eyes where life holds garrison,\\nJacynth, forgive me, the comparison!\\nBut vvhere I begin my own narration\\nIs a little after I took my station\\nTo breathe the fresh air from the balcony,\\nAnd, having in those days a falcon eye,\\nTo follow the hunt thro the open country,\\nFrom where the bushes thinlier crested\\nThe hillocks, to a plain where s not one tree.\\nWhen, in a moment, my ear was arrested", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0058.jp2"}, "59": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 51\\nBy\u00e2\u0080\u0094 was it singing, or was it saying,\\nOr a strange musical instrument playing\\nIn the chamber?\u00e2\u0080\u0094 and, to be certain,\\nI pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain,\\nAnd there lay Jacynth asleep,\\nYet as if a watch she tried to keep,\\nIn a rosy sleep along the floor\\nWith her head against the door;\\nWhile in the midst, on the seat of state.\\nWas a queen the Gipsy woman late,\\nWith head and face downbent\\nOn the lady s head and face intent:\\nFor, coiled at her feet like a child at ease.\\nThe lady sat between her knees,\\nAnd o er them the lady clasped hands met,\\nAnd on those hands her chin was set,\\nAnd her upturned face met the face of the crone\\nWherein the eyes had grown and grown\\nAs if she could double and quadruple\\nAt pleasure the play of either pupil\\nVery like, by her hands slow fanning.\\nAs up and down like a gor-crow s flappers\\nThey moved to measure, or like bell-clappers.\\nI said, Is it blessing, is it banning,\\nDo they applaud you or burlesque you\\nThose hands and fingers with no flesh on?\\nBut, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue.\\nAt once I was stopped by the lady s expression:\\nFor it was life her eyes were drinking\\nFrom the crone s wide pair above unwinking,\\nLife s pure fire, received without shrinking,\\nInto the heart and breast whose heaving\\nTold you no single drop they were leaving,\\nLife, that filling her, passed redoundant", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0059.jp2"}, "60": {"fulltext": "52 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nInto her very hair, back swerving\\nOver each shoulder, loose and abundant.\\nAs her head thrown back showed the white\\nthroat curving;\\nAnd the very tresses shared in the pleasure,\\nMoving to the mystic measure.\\nBounding as the bosom bounded.\\nI stopped short, more and more confounded.\\nAs still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened,\\nAs she listened and she listened.\\nWhen all at once a hand detained me,\\nThe selfsame contagion gained me.\\nAnd I kept time to the wondrous chime.\\nMaking out words and prose and rhyme.\\nTill it seemed that the music furled\\nIts wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped\\nFrom under the words it first had propped.\\nAnd left them midway in the world.\\nWord took word as hand takes hand,\\nI could hear at last, and understand\\nAnd when I held the unbroken thread,\\nThe Gipsy said\\nAnd so at last we find my tribe,\\nAnd so I set thee in the midst,\\nAnd to one and all of them describe\\nWhat thou saidst and what thou didst,\\nOur long and terrible journey through,\\nAnd all thou art ready to say and do\\nIn the trials that remain.\\nI trace them the vein and the other vein\\nThat meet on thy brow and part again\\nMaking our rapid mystic mark;\\nAnd I bid my people prove and probe", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0060.jp2"}, "61": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 53\\nEach eye s profound and glorious globe\\nTill they detect the kindred spark\\nIn those depths so dear and dark,\\nLike the spots that snap and burst and flee,\\nCircling over the midnight sea.\\nAnd on that round young cheek of thine\\nI make them recognize the tinge,\\nAs when of the costly scarlet wine\\nThey drip so much as will impinge\\nAnd spread in a thinnest scale afloat\\nOne thick gold drop from the olive s coat\\nOver a silver plate whose sheen\\nStill thro the mixture shall be seen.\\nFor so I prove thee, to one and all,\\nFit, when my people ope their breast,\\nTo see the sign, and hear the call,\\nAnd take the vow, and stand the test\\nWhich adds one more child to the rest\\nWhen the breast is bare and the arms are\\nwide,\\nAnd the world is left outside.\\nFor there is probation to decree,\\nAnd many and long must the trials be\\nThou shalt victoriously endure,\\nIf that brow is true and those eyes are sure.\\nLike a jewel-finder s fierce assay\\nOf the prize he dug from its mountain-tomb,\\nLet once the vindicating ray\\nLeap out amid the anxious gloom,\\nAnd steel and fire have done their part,\\nAnd the prize falls on its finder s heart:\\nSo, trial after trial past,\\nWilt thou fall at the very last\\nBreathless, half in trance", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0061.jp2"}, "62": {"fulltext": "64 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWith the thrill of the j^freat deliverance,\\nInto our arms for evermore;\\nAnd thou shalt know, those arms once curled\\nAbout thee, what we knew before,\\nHow love is the only good in the world.\\nHenceforth be loved as heart can love,\\nOr brain devise, or hand approve!\\nStand up, look below,\\nIt is our life at thy feet we throw\\nTo step with into light and joy;\\nNot a power of life but we employ\\nTo satisfy thy nature s want.\\nArt thou the tree that props the plant,\\nOr the climbing plant that seeks the tree\\nCanst thou help us, must we help thee?\\nIf any two creatures grew into one,\\nThey would do more than the world has done\\nThough each apart were never so weak,\\nYet through the world should we vainly seek\\nFor the sum of knowledge and the might\\nWhich in such union grew their right:\\nSo, to approach at least that end,\\nAnd blend, as much as may be, blend\\nThee with us or us with thee,\\n**As climbing plant or propping tree,\\nShall some one deck thee over and down,\\nUp and about, with blossoms and leaves?\\nFix his heart s fruit for thy garland-crown,\\nCling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves,\\nDie on thy boughs and disappear\\nWhile not a leaf of thine is sere?\\nOr is the other fate in store,\\nAnd art thou fitted to adore,\\n**To give thy wondrous self away,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0062.jp2"}, "63": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 55\\nAnd take a stronger nature s sway?\\nI foresee and I could foretell\\nThy future portion, sure and well:\\nBut those passionate eyes speak true, speak\\ntrue,\\nLet them say what thou shalt do!\\nOnly be sure thy daily life,\\nIn its peace or in its strife,\\nNever shall be unobserved;\\nWe pursue thy whole career,\\nAnd hope for it, or doubt, or fear,\\nLo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved,\\nWe are beside thee in all thy ways,\\nWith our blame, with our praise,\\nOur shame to feel, our pride to show,\\nGlad, angry but indifferent, no!\\nWhether it be thy lot to go,\\nFor the good of us all, w^here the haters\\nmeet,\\nIn the crowded city s horrible street;\\nOr thou step alone through the lone morass\\nWliere never sound yet was\\nSave the dry quick clap of the stork s bill,\\nFor the air is still, and the water still,\\nWhen the blue breast of the dripping coot\\nDives under, and all is mute.\\nSo, at the last shall come old age,\\nDecrepit as befits that stage;\\nHow else wouldst thou retire apart\\nWith the hoarded memories of thy heart,\\nAnd gather all to the very least\\nOf the fragments of life s earlier feast,\\nLet fall through eagerness to find\\nThe crowning dainties yet behind?", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0063.jp2"}, "64": {"fulltext": "56 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nPonder on the entire past\\nLaid together thus at last,\\nWhen the twilight helps to fuse\\nThe first fresh with the faded hues,\\nAnd the outline of the whole,\\nAs round eve s shades their framework roll,\\nGrandly fronts for once thy soul!\\nAnd then as, mid the dark, a gleam\\nOf yet another morning breaks,\\nAnd like the hand which ends a dream,\\nDeath, with the might of his sunbeam,\\nTouches the flesh, and the soul awakes,\\nThen\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nAy, then indeed something would\\nhappen\\nBut what? For here her voice changed like a\\nbird s;\\nThere grew more of the music and less of tha\\nwords.\\nHad Jacynth only been by me to clap pen\\nTo paper and put you down every syllable\\nWith these clever clerky fingers,\\nAll I ve forgotten as well as what lingers\\nIn this old brain of mine that s but ill able\\nTo give you even the poorest version\\nOf the speech I spoil, as it were, with stam-\\nmering I\\nMore fault of those who had the hammering\\nOf prosody into me and syntax.\\nAnd did it, not with hobnails but tintacks!\\nBut to return from this excursion,\\nJust, do you mark, when the song was sweet-\\nest.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0064.jp2"}, "65": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 67\\nThe piece most deep and the charm completest,\\nThere came, shall I say, a snap\\nAnd the charm vanished\\nAnd my sense returned, so strangely banished,\\nAnd, starting as from a nap,\\nI knew the crone was bewitching my lady,\\nWith Jacynth asleep; and but one spring\\nmade I\\nDown from the casement, round to the por-\\ntal,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nAnother minute and I had entered,\\nW^hen the door opened, and more than mortal\\nStood, with a face where to my mind centred\\nAll beauties I ever saw or shall see.\\nThe Duchess I stopped as if struck by palsy.\\nShe was so different, happy and beautiful,\\nI felt at once that all was best.\\nAnd that I had nothing to do, for the rest.\\nBut wait her commands, obey and be dutiful.\\nNot that, in fact, there was any commanding;\\nI saw the glory of her eye,\\nAnd the brow s height and the breast s ex-\\npanding,\\nAnd I was hers to live or to die.\\nAs for finding what she wanted,\\nYou know God Almighty granted\\nSuch little signs should serve wild creatures\\nTo tell one another all their desires.\\nSo that each knows what his friend requires,\\nAnd does its bidding without teachers.\\nI preceded her; the crone\\nFollowed silent and alone;\\nI spoke to her, but she merely jabbered\\nIn the old style both her eyes had slunk", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0065.jp2"}, "66": {"fulltext": "58 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nBack to their pits; her stature shrunk;\\nIn short, the soul in its body sunk\\nLike a blade sent home to its scabbard.\\nWe descended, I preceding;\\nCrossed the court with nobody heeding;\\nAll the world was at the chase,\\nThe court-yard like a desert place,\\nThe stable emptied of its small fry.\\nI saddled myself the very palfry\\nI remember patting while it carried her.\\nThe day she arrived and the Duke married\\nher,\\nAnd, do you know, though it s easy deceiving\\nOneself in such matters, I can t help believing\\nThe lady had not forgotten it either.\\nAnd knew the poor devil so much beneath her\\nWould have been only too glad, for her ser-\\nvice.\\nTo dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk\\ndervise,\\nBut, unable to pay proper duty where owing it,\\nWas reduced to that pitiful method of showing\\nit.\\nFor thouofh, the moment I began setting\\nHis saddle on my own nag of Berold s begetting,\\n(Not that I meant to be obtrusive)\\nShe stopped me, while his rug was shifting,\\nBy a single rapid finger s lifting.\\nAnd, with a gesture kind but conclusive,\\nAnd with a little shake of the head, refused\\nme,\\nI say, although she never used me,\\nYet when she was mounted, the Gipsy behind\\nher.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0066.jp2"}, "67": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 59\\nAnd I ventured to remind her,\\nI suppose with a voice of less steadiness\\nThan usual, for my feeling exceeded me,\\nSomething to the effect that I was in read-\\niness\\nWhenever God should please she needed m.e,\\nThen, do you know, her face looked down on\\nme\\nWith a look, a look that placed a crown on me.\\nAnd she felt in her bosom, \u00e2\u0080\u0094mark, her bosom\\nAnd, as a fiower-tree drops its blossom,\\nDropped me ah, had it been a purse\\nOf silver, my friend, or gold, that s worse,\\nAVhy, you see, as soon as 1 found myself\\nSo understood, that a true heart so may gain\\nSuch a reward, I should have gone home\\nagain,\\nKissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself!\\nIt was a little plait of hair\\nSuch as friends in a convent make\\nTo wear, each for the other s sake,\\nThis, see, which at my breast I wear,\\nEver did (rather to Jacynth s grudgment),\\nAnd ever shall, till the Day of Judgment.\\nAnd then, and then,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 to cut short, this is\\nidle,\\nThese, are feelings it is not good to foster,\\nI pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle,\\nAnd the palfrey bounded,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 and so we lost her.\\nXVI\\nWhen the liquor s out why clink the cannikin?\\nI did think to describe you the panic in", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0067.jp2"}, "68": {"fulltext": "60 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThe redoubtable breast of our master the\\nmannikin,\\nAnd what was the pitch of his mother s yel-\\nlowness,\\nHow she turned as a shark to snap the spare-\\nrib\\nClean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving\\nCarib,\\nWhen she heard what she called the flight of\\nthe feloness\\nBut it seems such child s play,\\nWhat they said and did with the lady away!\\nAnd to dance on, when we ve lost the music,\\nAlways made me and no doubt makes you\\nsick.\\nNay, to my mind, the world s face looked so\\nstern\\nAs that sweet form disappeared through the\\npostern.\\nShe that kept it in constant good humor.\\nIt ought to have stopped; there seemed noth-\\ning to do more.\\nBut the world thought otherwise and went on.\\nAnd my head s one that its spite was spent\\non:\\nThirty years are fled since that morning,\\nAnd with them all my head s adorning.\\nNor did the old Duchess die outright.\\nAs you expect, of suppressed spite.\\nThe natural end of every adder\\nNot suffered to empty its poison-bladder:\\nBut she and her son agreed, I take it,\\nThat no one should touch on the story to wake\\nit.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0068.jp2"}, "69": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 61\\nFor the wound in the Duke s pride rankled\\nfiery;\\nSo, they made no search and small inquiry:\\nAnd when fresh Gipsies had paid us a visit,\\nI ve\\nNoticed the couple were never inquisitive,\\nBut told them they re folks the Duke don t\\nwant here.\\nAnd bade them make haste and cross the\\nfrontier.\\nBrief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke\\nwas glad of it,\\nAnd the old one was in the young one s stead,\\nAnd took, in her place, the household s head,\\nAnd a blessed time the household had of it!\\nAnd were I not, as a man may say, cautious\\nHow I trench, more than needs, on the nause-\\nous,\\nI could favor you with sundry touches\\nOf the paint-smutches with which the Duchess\\nHeightened the mellowness of her cheek s yel-\\nlowness\\n(To get on faster) until at last her\\nCheek grew to be one master-plaster\\nOf mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse:\\nIn short, she grew from scalp to udder\\nJust the object to make you shudder.\\nXVII\\nYou re my friend\\nWhat a thing friendship is, world without end!\\nHow it gives the heart and soul a stir-up\\nAs if somebody broached you a glorious runlet.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0069.jp2"}, "70": {"fulltext": "62 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sun-\\nlit,\\nOur green Moldavia, the streaky syrup,\\nCotnar as old as the time of the druids\\nFriendship may match with that monarch of\\n.fluids;\\nEach supplies a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-\\nouts,\\nGives your life s hour-glass a shake when the\\nthia sand doubts\\nWhether to run on or stop short, and guaran-\\ntees\\nAge is not all made of stark sloth and arrant\\nease.\\nI have seen my little lady once more,\\nJacynth, the Gipsy, Berold, and the rest of it,\\nFor to me spoke the Duke, as I told you be-\\nfore;\\nI always wanted to make a clean breast of it:\\nAnd now it is made why, my heart s blood,\\nthat went trickle,\\nTrickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets,\\nIs pumped up brisk now, through the main\\nventricle.\\nAnd genially floats me about the giblets.\\nI ll tell you what I intend to do:\\nI must see this fellow his sad life through\\nHe is our Duke, after all,\\nAnd I, as he says, but a serf and thrall.\\nMy father was born here, and I inherit\\nHis fame, a chain he bound his son with;\\nCould I pay in a lump I should prefer it.\\nBut there s no mine to blow up and get done\\nwith:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0070.jp2"}, "71": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 63\\nSo, I must stay till the end of the chapter.\\nFor, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter.\\nBe it a thing to be glad on or sorry on,\\nSome day or other his head in a morion\\nAnd breast in a hauberk, his heels he ll kick\\nup\\nSlain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup.\\nAnd then, when red doth the sword of our\\nDuke rust,\\nAnd its leathern sheath lie o ergrown with a\\nblue crust.\\nThen I shall scrape together my earnings;\\nFor, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth re-\\nposes.\\nAnd our children all went the way of the\\nroses\\nIt s a long lane that knows no turnings.\\nOne needs but little tackle to travel in\\nSo, just one stout cloak shall I indue:\\nAnd for a staff, what beats the javelin\\nWith which his boars my father pinned you?\\nAnd then, for a purpose you shall hear pres-\\nently.\\nTaking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful,\\nI shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly:\\nSorrow is vain and despondency sinful.\\nWhat s a man s age? He must hurry more,\\nthat s all;\\nCram in a day, what his youth took a year to\\nhold:\\nWhen we mind labor, then, then only we re\\ntoo old\\nWhat age had Methusalem when he begat\\nSaul?", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0071.jp2"}, "72": {"fulltext": "64 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd at last, as its haven some buffeted ship\\nsees,\\n(Come all the way from the north-parts with\\nsperm oil)\\nI hope to get safely out of the turmoil\\nAnd arrive one day at the land of the Gipsies,\\nAnd find my lady, or hear the last news of her\\nFrom some old thief and son of Lucifer,\\nHis forehead chapleted green with wreathy\\nhop,\\nSunburned all over like an ^thiop.\\nAnd when my Cotnar begins to operate\\nAnd the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper\\nrate.\\nAnd our wine-skin, tight once, shows each\\nflaccid dent,\\nI shall drop in with as if by accident\\nYou never knew then, how it all ended,\\nWhat fortune good or bad attended\\nThe little lady our Queen befriended?\\nAnd when that s told me, what s remaining?\\nThis world s too hard for my explaining.\\nThe same wise judge of matters equine\\nWho still preferred some slim four-year-old\\nTo the big-boned stock of mighty Berold,\\nAnd, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak\\nwine,\\nHe also must be such a lady s scorner!\\nSmooth Jacob still robs homely Esau\\nNow up, now down, the world s one see saw.\\nSo, I shall find out some snug corner\\nUnder a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight.\\nTurn myself round and bid the world good-\\nnight;", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0072.jp2"}, "73": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 65\\nAnd sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet s\\nblowing\\nWakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)\\nTo a world where will be no further throwing\\nPearls before swine that can t value them\\nAmen!\\nSONG FROM PIPPA PASSES.\\nThe year s at the spring,\\nAnd day s at the morn\\nMorning s at seven;\\nThe hill-side s dew-pearled;\\nThe lark s on the wing;\\nThe snail s on the thorn;\\nGod s in His heaven\\nAll s right with the world.\\n^\u00e2\u0080\u00a2HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD\\nNEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX.\\n[i6-.]\\nI\\nI sprang to the stirrup, and J oris, and he\\nI galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all\\nthree\\n**Good speed! cried the watch, as the gate-\\nbolts undrew\\nSpeed! echoed the wall to us galloping\\nthrough\\nBehind shut the postern, the lights sank to\\nrest,\\nAnd into the midnight we galloped abreast.\\n5 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0073.jp2"}, "74": {"fulltext": "66 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nII\\nNot a word to each other we kept the great\\npace\\nNeck by neck, stride by stride, never changing\\nour place\\nI turned in my saddle and made its girths\\ntight.\\nThen shortened each stirrup, and set the pique\\nright,\\nRebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the\\nbit,\\nNor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.\\nIll\\nTwas moonset at starting; but while we drew\\nnear\\nLokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned\\nclear\\nAt Boom, a great yellow star came out to see\\nAt Duff eld, twas morning as plain as could be\\nAnd from Mecheln church-steeple we heard\\nthe half-chime.\\nSo, Joris broke silence with, Yet there is\\ntime!\\nIV\\nAt Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,\\nAnd against him the cattle stood black every\\none,\\nTo stare through the mist at us galloping past,\\nAnd I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,\\nWith resolute shoulders, each butting away\\nThe haze, as some bluff river headland its\\nspray", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0074.jp2"}, "75": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 67\\nAnd his low head and crest, just one sharp ear\\nbent back\\nFor my voice, and the other pricked out on his\\ntrack\\nAnd one eye s black intelligence, ever that\\nglance\\nO er its white edge at me, his own master,\\naskance\\nAnd the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye\\nand anon\\nHis fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.\\nVI\\nBy Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris,\\nStay spur!\\nYour Roos galloped bravely, the fault s not\\nin her,\\nWe ll remember at Aix for one heard the\\nquick wheeze\\nOf her chest, saw the stretched neck and stag-\\ngering knees,\\nAnd sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,\\nAs down on her haunches she shuddered and\\nsank.\\nVII\\nSo, we were left galloping, Joris and I,\\nPast Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the\\nsky;\\nThe broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,\\nNeath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble\\nlike chaff:", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0075.jp2"}, "76": {"fulltext": "68 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nTill over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang\\nwhite,\\nAnd Gallop, gasped Joris, for Aix is in\\nsight\\nVIII\\nHow they ll greet us! and all is a moment\\nhis roan\\nRolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a\\nstone\\nAnd there was my Roland to bear the whole\\nweight\\nOf the news which alone could save Aix from\\nher fate.\\nWith his nostrils like pits full of blood to the\\nbrim.\\nAnd with circles of red for his eye-sockets\\nrim.\\nIX\\nThen I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let\\nfall,\\nShook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and\\nall,\\nStood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear.\\nCalled my Roland his pet-name, my horse\\nwithout peer;\\nClapped my hands, laughed and sang, any\\nnoise, bad or good.\\nTill at length into Aix Roland galloped and\\nstood.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0076.jp2"}, "77": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 69\\nAnd all I remember is, friends flocking round\\nAs I sat with his head twixt m)^ knees on the\\nground\\nAnd no voice but was praising this Roland of\\nmine,\\nAs I poured down this throat our last measure\\nof wine,\\nWhich (the burgesses voted by common con-\\nsent)\\nWas no more than his due who brought good\\nnews from Ghent.\\nSONG FROM PARACELSUS.\\nI\\nHeap cassia, sandal -buds and stripes\\nOf labdanum, and aloe-balls,\\nSmeared with dull nard an Indian wipes\\nFrom out her hair: such balsam falls\\nDown sea-side mountain pedestals,\\nFrom tree-tops where tired winds are fain,\\nSpent with the vast and howling main,\\nTo treasure half their island gain.\\nII\\nAnd strew faint sweetness from some old\\nEgyptian s fine worm-eaten shroud\\nWhich breaks to dust when once unrolled;\\nOr shredded perfume, like a cloud\\nFrom closet long to quiet vowed,\\nWith mothed and dropping arras hung.\\nMouldering her lute and books among,\\nAs when a queen, long dead, was young.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0077.jp2"}, "78": {"fulltext": "70 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nTHROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-\\nKADR.\\n1842.\\nI\\nAs I ride, as I ride,\\nWith a full heart for my guide,\\nSo its tide rocks my side,\\nAs I ride, as I ride.\\nThat, as I were double-eyed.\\nHe, in whom our Tribes confide,\\nIs descried, ways untried\\nAs I ride, as I ride.\\nAs I ride, as I ride,\\nTo our Chief and his Allied,\\nWho dares chide my heart s pride\\nAs I ride, as I ride?\\nOr are witnesses denied\\nThrough the desert waste and wide\\nDo I glide unespied\\nAs I ride, as I ride?\\nIll\\nAs I ride, as I ride.\\nWhen an inner voice has cried,\\nThe sands slide, nor abide\\n(As I ride, as I ride)\\nO er each visioned homicide\\nThat came vaunting (has he lied?)\\nTo reside where he died.\\nAs I ride, as I ride.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0078.jp2"}, "79": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 71\\nIV\\nAs I ride, as I ride,\\nNe er has spur my swift horse plied,\\nYet his hide, streaked and pied.\\nAs I ride, as I ride,\\nShows where sweat has sprung- anddried,\\nZebra-footed, ostrich-thighed\\nHow has vied stride with stride\\nAs I ride, as I ride.\\nAs I ride, as I ride.\\nCould I loose what Fate has tied,\\nEre I pried, she should hide\\n(As I ride, as I ride)\\nAll that s meant me satisfied\\nWhen the Prophet and the Bride\\nStop veins I d have subsifle\\nAs I ride, as I ride\\nINCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP.\\nYou know, we French stormed Ratisbon:\\nA mile or so away\\nOn a little mound. Napoleon\\nStood on our storming-day\\nWith neck out- thrust, you fancy how,\\nLegs wide, arms locked behind,\\nAs if to balance the prone brow\\nOppressive with its mind.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0079.jp2"}, "80": {"fulltext": "72 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nII\\nJust as perhaps he mused My plans\\nThat soar, to earth may fall,\\nLet once my army leader Lannes\\nWaver at yonder wall\\nOut twixt the battery smokes there flew\\nA rider, bound on bound\\nFull-galloping; nor bridle drew\\nUntil he reached the mound.\\nIll\\nThen off there flung in smiling joy,\\nAnd held himself erect\\nBy just his horse s mane, a boy:\\nYou hardly could suspect\\n(So tight he kept his lips compressed,\\nScarce any blood came through)\\nYou looked twice ere you saw his breast\\nWas all but shot in two.\\nIV\\nWell, cried he, Emperor, by God s\\ngrace\\nWe ve got you Ratisbon!\\nThe Marshal s in the market-place,\\nAnd you ll be there anon\\nTo see your flag-bird flap his vans\\nWhere I, to heart s desire,\\nPerched him! The chief s eye flashed;\\nhis plans\\nSoared up again like fire.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0080.jp2"}, "81": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 73\\nThe chief s eye flashed; but presently-\\nSoftened itself, as sheathes\\nA film the mother-eagle s eye\\nWhen her bruised eaglet breathes.\\nYou re wounded! Nay, the soldier s\\npride\\nTouched to the quick, he said\\nI m killed, sire! And his chief beside,\\nSmiling the boy fell dead.\\nTHE LOST LEADER.\\nJust for a handful of silver he left us.\\nJust for a riband to stick in his coat\\nFound the one gift of which fortune bereft us,\\nLost all the others, she lets us devote;\\nThey, with the gold to give, doled him out sil-\\nver,\\nSo much was theirs who so little allowed\\nHow all our copper had gone for his service!\\nRags were they purple, his heart had been\\nproud\\nWe that had loved him so, followed him, hon-\\nored him,\\nLived in his mild and magnificent eye.\\nLearned his great language, caught his clear\\naccents,\\nMade him our pattern to live and to die!\\nShakespeare was of us, Milton was for us.\\nBurns, Shelley, were with us, they watch\\nfrom their graves!\\n6 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0081.jp2"}, "82": {"fulltext": "74 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nHe alone breaks from the van and the freemen,\\nHe alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!\\nII\\nWe shall march prospering, not thro his\\npresence\\nSongs may inspirit us, not from his lyre;\\nDeeds will be done, while he boasts his quies-\\ncence,\\nStill bidding crouch whom the rest bade as,\\npire.\\nBlot out his name, then, record one lost soul\\nmore.\\nOne task more declined, one more footpath\\nuntrod.\\nOne more devil s triumph and sorrow for\\nangels,\\nOne wrong more to man, one more insult to\\nGod!\\nLife s night begins; let him never come back\\nto us!\\nThere would be doubt, hesitation and pain,\\nForced praise on our part the glimmer of twi-\\nlight.\\nNever glad confident morning again\\nBest fight on well, for we taught him strike\\ngallantly,\\nMenace our heart ere we master his own;\\nThen let him receive the new knowledge and\\nwait us.\\nPardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0082.jp2"}, "83": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 75\\nIN A GONDOLA.\\nHe sings.\\nI send my heart up to thee, all my heart\\nIn this my singing.\\nFor the stars help me, and the sea bears part;\\nThe very night is clinging\\nCloser to Venice s streets to leave one space\\nAbove me, whence thy face\\nMay light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-\\nplace.\\nShe speaks.\\nSay after me, and try to say\\nMy very words, as if each word\\nCame from you of your own accord.\\nIn your own voice, in your own way:\\nThis woman s heart and soul and brain\\nAre mine as much as this gold chain\\nShe bids me wear; which (say again)\\nI choose to make by cherishing\\nA precious thing, or choose to fling\\nOver the boat-side, ring by ring.\\nAnd yet once more say no word more!\\nSince words are only words. Give o er!\\nUnless you call me, all the same,\\nFamiliarly by my pet name.\\nWhich if the Three should hear you call,\\nAnd me reply to, would proclaim\\nAt once our secret to them all.\\nAsk of me, too, command me, blame\\nDo, break down the partition- wall\\nTwixt us, the daylight world beholds", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0083.jp2"}, "84": {"fulltext": "76 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nCurtained in dusk and splendid folds!\\nWhat s left but all of me to take?\\nI am the Three s: prevent them, slake\\nYour thirst! Tis said, the Arab sage\\nIn practicing with gems, can loose\\nTheir subtle spirit in his cruce\\nAnd leave but ashes; so, sweet mage,\\nLeave them my ashes when thy use\\nSucks out my soul, thy heritage!\\nHe sings.\\nPast we glide, and past, and past!\\nWhat s that poor Agnese doing\\nWhere they make the shutters fast?\\nGrey Zanobi s just a- wooing\\nTo his couch the purchased bride:\\nPast we glide\\nPast we glide, and past, and past!\\nWhy s the Pucci Palace flaring\\nLike a beacon to the blast?\\nGuests by hundreds, not one caring\\nIf the dear host s neck were wried:\\nPast we glide\\nShe sings.\\nThe moth s kiss, first!\\nKiss me as if you made believe\\nYou were not sure, this eve,\\nHow my face, your flower, had pursed", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0084.jp2"}, "85": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 77\\nIts petals up so, here and there\\nYou brush it, till I grow aware\\nWho wants me, and wide ope I burst.\\nThe bee s kiss, now!\\nKiss me as if you entered gay\\nMy heart at some noonday,\\nA bud that dares not disallow\\nThe claim, so, all is rendered up,\\nAnd passively its shattered cup\\nOver your head to sleep I bow.\\nHe sings.\\nWhat are we two?\\nI am a Jew,\\nAnd carry thee, farther than friends can pur-\\nsue.\\nTo a feast of our tribe\\nWhere they need thee to bribe\\nThe devil that blasts them unless he imbibe\\nThy Scatter the vision forever! And now.\\nAs of old, I am I, thou art thou\\nSay again, what we are?\\nThe sprite of a star,\\nI lure thee above where the destinies bar\\nMy plumes their full play\\nTill a ruddier ray\\nThan my pale one announce there is withering\\naway", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0085.jp2"}, "86": {"fulltext": "78 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nSome Scatter the vision forever! And\\nnow,\\nAs of old, I am I, thou art thou\\nHe muses.\\nOh, which were best, to roam or rest?\\nThe land s lap or the water s breast?\\nTo sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,\\nOr swim in lucid shallows, just\\nEluding water-lily leaves.\\nAn inch from Death s black fingers, thrust\\nTo lock you, whom release he must;\\nWhich life were best on Summer eves?\\nHe speaks, musing.\\nLie back could thought of mine improve you?\\nFrom this shoulder let there spring\\nA wing from this, another wing\\nWings; not legs and feet, shall move you;\\nSnow-white must they spring, to blend\\nWith your flesh, but I intend\\nThey shall deepen to the end.\\nBroader, into burning gold.\\nTill both wings crescent- wise enfold\\nYour perfect self, from neath your feet\\nTo o er your head, where, lo, they meet\\nAs if a million sword-blades hurled\\nDefiance from you to the world!\\nRescue me thou, the only real\\nAnd scare away this mad ideal\\nThat came, nor motions to depart!\\nThanks Now, stay ever as thou art", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0086.jp2"}, "87": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 79\\nStill he muses.\\nWhat if the Three should catch at last\\nThy serenader? While there s cast\\nPaul s cloak about my head, and fast\\nGian pinions me, Himself has past\\nHis stylet through my back; I reel;\\nAnd is it thou I feel?\\nThey trail me, these three godless knaves,\\nPast every church that saints and saves.\\nNor stop till, where the cold sea raves\\nBy Lido s wet accursed graves,\\nThey scoop mine, roll me to its brink,\\nAnd on thy breast I sink\\nShe replies, musing.\\nI\\nDip your arm o er the boat side, elbow-deep,\\nAs I do; thus; were death so unlike sleep,\\nCaught this way? Death s to fear from flame\\nor steel,\\nOr poison doubtless but from water feel\\nII\\nGo find the bottom! Would you stay me?\\nThere\\nNow pluck a great blade of that ribbon grass\\nTo plait in where the foolish jewel was,\\nI flung away since you have praised my hair,\\n*Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0087.jp2"}, "88": {"fulltext": "80 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nHe speaks.\\nRow home? must we row home? Too surely\\nKnow I where its front s demurely\\nOver the Guidecca piled\\nWindow just with window mating,\\nDoor on door exactly waiting,\\nAll s the set face of a child:\\nBut behind it, where *s trace\\nOf the staidness and reserve.\\nAnd formal lines without a curve,\\nIn the same child s playing-face?\\nNo two windows look one way\\nO er the small sea-water thread\\nBelow them. Ah, the autumn day\\nI, passing, saw you overhead!\\nFirst, out a cloud of curtain blew,\\nThen a sweet cry, and last came you\\nTo catch your lory that must needs\\nEscape just then, of all times then,\\nTo peck a tall plant s fleecy seeds\\nAnd make me happiest of men.\\nI scarce could breathe to see you reach\\nSo far back o er the balcony,\\nTo catch him ere he climbed too high\\nAbove you in the Smyrna peach,\\nThat quick the round smooth cord of gold,\\nThis coiled hair on your head, unrolled.\\nFell down you like a gorgeous snake\\nThe Roman girls were wont, of old.\\nWhen Rome there was, for coolness sake\\nTo let lie curling o er their bosoms.\\nDear lory, may his beak retain\\nEver its delicate rose stain.\\nAs if the wounded lotus-blossoms", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0088.jp2"}, "89": {"fulltext": "We would try and trace one another s face. Page 84.\\nBrowning s Poems.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0089.jp2"}, "90": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0090.jp2"}, "91": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 81\\nHad marked their thief to know again.\\nStay longer yet, for others sake\\nThan mine! What should your chamber do?\\nWith all its rarities that ache\\nIn silence while day last, but wake\\nAt night-time and their life renew,\\nSuspended just to pleasure you\\nWho brought against their will together\\nThese objects, and, while day lasts, weave\\nAround them such a magic tether\\nThat dumb, they look your harp, believe\\nWith all the sensitive tight strings\\nWhich dare not speak, now to itself\\nBreathes slumbrously, as if some elf\\nWent in and out the chords, his wings\\nMake murmur, wheresoe er they graze,\\nAs an angel may, between the maze\\nOf midnight palace-pillars, on\\nAnd on, to sow God s plagues, have gone\\nThrough guilty glorious Babylon.\\nAnd while such murmurs flow, the nymph\\nBends o er the harp-top from her shell\\nAs the dry limpet for the lymph\\nCome with a tune he knows so well.\\nAnd how your statues hearts must swell!\\nAnd how your pictures must descend\\nTo see each other, friend with friend\\nOh, could you take them by surprise,\\nYou d find Schidone s eager Duke\\nDoing the quaintest courtesies\\nTo that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke!\\nAnd, deeper into her rock den,\\nBold Castelfranco s Magdalen\\nYou d find retreating from the ken", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0091.jp2"}, "92": {"fulltext": "82 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nOf that robed counsel-keeping Ser\\nAs if the Tizian thinks of her,\\nAnd is not, rather, gravely bent\\nOn seeing for himself what toys\\nAre these, his progeny invent,\\nWhat litter now the board employs\\nAVhereon he signed a document\\nThat got him murdered! Each enjoys\\nIts night so well, you cannot break\\nThe sport up: so, indeed must make\\nMore stay with me, for others sake.\\nShe speaks.\\nTo-morrow, if a harp-string, say,\\nIs used to tie the jasmine back\\nThat overfloods my room with sweets,\\nContrive your Zorzi somehow meets\\nIsly Zanze! If the ribbon s black,\\nThe Three are watching: keep away!\\nYour gondola let Zorzi wreathe\\nA mesh of water-weeds about\\nIts prow, as if he unaware\\nHad struck some quay or bridge- foot stair!\\nThat I may throw a paper out\\nAs you and he go underneath.\\nThere s Zanze s vigilant taper; safe are we.\\nOnly one minute more to-night with me?\\nResume your past self of a month ago\\nBe you the bashful gallant, I will be\\nThe lady with the colder breast than snow.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0092.jp2"}, "93": {"fulltext": "BROWNLNG S POEMS. 83\\nNow bow 3^ou, as becomes, nor touch my hand\\nMore than I touch yours when I step to land.\\nJust say, All thanks, Siora!\\nHeart to heart\\nAnd lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,\\nClasp me, and make me thine, as mine thou\\nart!\\nHe is surprised and stabbed.\\nIt was ordained to be so, sweet! and best\\nComes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy\\nbreast,\\nStill kiss me! Care not for the cowards!\\ny Care\\nOnly to put aside thy beauteous hair\\nMy blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn\\nTo death, because they never lived but I\\nHave lived indeed, and so (yet one more\\nkiss) can die!\\nA LOVER S QUARREL.\\nOh, what a dawn of day!\\nHow the March sun feels like May!\\nAll is blue again\\nAfter last night s rain,\\nAnd the South dries the hawthorn-spray.\\nOnly, my Love s away!\\nI d as lief that the blue were gray.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0093.jp2"}, "94": {"fulltext": "84 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nII\\nRunnels, which rillets swell,\\nMust be dancing down the dell.\\nWith a foaming head\\nOn the beryl bed\\nPaven smooth as a hermit s cell:\\nEach with a tale to tell,\\nCould my love but attend as well.\\nDearest, three months ago!\\nWhen we lived blocked-up with snow,\\nWhen the wind would edge\\nIn and in his wedge,\\nIn, as far as the point could go\\nNot to our ingle, though.\\nWhere we loved each the other so!\\nIV\\nLaughs with so little cause\\nWe devised games out of straws.\\nWe would try and trace\\nOne another s face\\nIn the ash, as an artist draws;\\nFree on each other s flaws.\\nHow we chattered like two church daws!\\nWhat sin the Times? a scold\\nAt the Emperor deep and cold\\nHe has taken a bride\\nTo his gruesome side,\\nThat s as fair as himself is iDold:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0094.jp2"}, "95": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 85\\nThere they sit ermine-stoled,\\nAnd she powders her hair with gold.\\nVI\\nFancy the Pampas sheen\\nMiles and miles of gold and green\\nWhere the sunflowers blow\\nIn a solid glow,\\nAnd to break now and then the screen\\nBlack neck and eyeballs keen,\\nUp a wild horse leaps between\\nVII\\nTry, will our table turn?\\nLay your hands there light, and yearn\\nTill the yearning slips\\nThro the finger tips\\nIn a fire which a few discern.\\nAnd a very few feel burn.\\nAnd the rest, they may live and learn.\\nVIII\\nThen we would up and pace.\\nFor a change, about the place.\\nEach with arm o er neck:\\nTis our quarter-deck,\\nWe are seamen in woful case.\\nHelp in the ocean-space!\\nOr, if no help, we ll embrace.\\nIX\\nSee how she looks now, dressed\\nIn a sledging cap and vest!\\nT is a huGfe fur cloak", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0095.jp2"}, "96": {"fulltext": "86 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nLike a reindeer s roke\\nFalls the lappet along- the breast:\\nSleeves for her arms to rest,\\nOr to hang, as my Love likes best.\\nTeach me to flirt a fan\\nAs the Spanish ladies can.\\nOr I tint your lip\\nWith a burnt stick s tip\\nAnd you turn into such a man!\\nJust the two spots that span\\nHalf the bill of the young male swan.\\nXI\\nDearest, three months ago,\\nWhen the mesmerizer Snow\\nWith his hand s first sweep\\nPut the earth to sleep,\\nT was a time when the heart could show\\nAll how was earth to know,\\nNeath the mute hand s to-and-for?\\nXII\\nDearest, three months ago,\\nWhen we loved each other so.\\nLived and loved the same\\nTill an evening came\\nWhen a shaft from the devil s bow\\nPierced to our ingle-glow,\\nAnd the friends were friend and foe!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0096.jp2"}, "97": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 87\\nXIII\\nNot from the heart beneath\\nT was a bubble born of breath,\\nNeither sneer nor vaunt,\\nNor reproach nor taunt.\\nSee a word, how it severeth\\nOh, power of life and death\\nIn the tongue, as the Preacher saith!\\nXIV\\nWoman, and will you cast\\nFor a word, quite off at last\\nMe, your own, 5^our You,\\nSince, as truth is true,\\nI was You all the happy past\\nMe do you leave aghast\\nWith the memories We amassed?\\nXV\\nLove, if you knew the light\\nThat your soul casts in my sight,\\nHow I look to you\\nFor the pure and true.\\nAnd the beauteous and the right,\\nBear with a moment s spite\\nWhen a mere mote threats the white!\\nXVI\\nWhat of a hasty word?\\nIn the fleshy heart not stirred\\nBy a worm s pin-prick\\nWhere its roots are quick?", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0097.jp2"}, "98": {"fulltext": "88 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nSee the eye, by a fly s foot blurred\\nEar, when a straw is heard\\nScratch the brain s coat of curd!\\nXVII\\nFoul be the world or fair\\nMore or less, how can I care?\\n*T is the world the same\\nFor my praise or blame,\\nAnd endurance is easy there.\\nWrong in the one thing rare\\nOh, it is hard to bear!\\nXVIII\\nHere s the spring back or close,\\nWhen the almond-blossom blows;\\nWe shall have the word\\nIn a minor third\\nThere is none but the cuckoo knows:\\nHeaps of the guelder rose\\nI must bear with it, I suppose.\\nXIX\\nCould but November come,\\nWere the noisy birds struck dumb\\nAt the warning slash\\nOf his driver s-lash\\nI would laugh like the valiant Thumb\\nFacing the castle glum\\nAnd the giant s fee-faw-fum!\\nXX\\nThen, were the world well-stripped\\nOf the gear wherein equipped", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0098.jp2"}, "99": {"fulltext": "BROWNIKG S POEMS. 89\\nWe can stand apart,\\nHeart dispense with heart\\nIn the sun, with the flowers unnipped,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nOh, the world s hang-ings ripped,\\nWe were both in a bare- walled crypt!\\nXXI\\nEach in the crypt would cry\\nBut one freezes here! and why?\\nWhen a heart, as chill,\\nAt my own would thrill\\nBack to life, and its fires out-fly?\\nHeart, shall we live or die?\\nThe rest settle by-and-by!\\nXXII\\nSo, she d efface the score,\\nAnd forgive me as before.\\nIt is twelve o clock:\\nI shall hear her knock\\nIn the worst of a storm s uproar:\\nI shall pull her through the door,\\nI shall have her for evermore\\nEARTH S IMMORTALITIES.\\nFAME.\\nSee, as the prettiest graves will do in time,\\nOur poet s wants the freshness of its prime;\\nSpite of the sexton s browsing horse, the sods\\nHave struggled through its binding osier rods;\\nHeadstone and half -sunk footstone lean awry,\\nWanting the brick-work promised by-and-by;\\nHow the minute grey lichens, plate o er plate,", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0099.jp2"}, "100": {"fulltext": "90 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nHave softened down the crisp-cut name and\\ndate\\nLOVE.\\nSo, the year s done with!\\n(Love me for ever!)\\nAll March begun with,\\nApril s endeavor;\\nMay- wreaths that bound me,\\nJune needs must sever;\\nNow snows fall round me,\\nQuenching June s fever\\n(Love me for ever!)\\nTHE LAST RIDE TOGETHER.\\nI said Then, dearest, since t is so,\\nSince now at length my fate I know.\\nSince nothing all my love avails.\\nSince all, my life seemed meant for, fails,\\nSince this was written and needs must be-\\nMy whole heart rises up to bless\\nYour name in pride and thankfulness!\\nTake back the hope 3 ou gave, I claim\\nOnly a memory of the same,\\nAnd this beside, if you will not blame,\\nYour leave for one more last ride with me.\\nMy mistress bent that brow of hers\\nThose deep dark eyes where pride demurs\\nWhen pity would be softening through.\\nFixed me a breathing-while or two", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0100.jp2"}, "101": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 91\\nWith life or death in the balance right\\nThe blood replenished me again;\\nMy last thought was at least not vain\\nI and my mistress, side by side\\nShall be together, breathe and ride,\\nSo, one day more am I deified.\\nWho knows but the world may end to-night?\\nIll\\nHush if you saw some western cloud\\nAll billowy-bosomed, over-bowed\\nBy many benedictions sun s\\nAnd moon s and evening star s at once\\nAnd so, you, looking and loving best.\\nConscious grew, your passion drew\\nCloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too,\\nDown on you, near and yet more near,\\nTill flesh must fade for heaven was here!\\nThus leant she and lingered joy and fear!\\nThus lay she a moment on my breast.\\nIV\\nThen we began to ride. My soul\\nSmoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll\\nFreshening and fluttering in the wind.\\nPast hopes already lay behind.\\nWhat need to strive with a life awry?\\nHad I said that, had I done this.\\nSo might I gain, so might I miss.\\nMight she have loved me? just as well\\nShe might have hated, who can tell!\\nWhere had I been now if the worst befell?\\nAnd here we are riding, she and I.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0101.jp2"}, "102": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS.\\nFail I alone, in words and deeds?\\nWhy, all men strive and who succeeds?\\nWe rode it seemed my spirit flew,\\nSaw other regions, cities new,\\nAs the world rushed by on either side.\\nI thought, All labor, yet no less\\nBear up beneath their unsuccess.\\nLook at the end of work, contrast\\nThe petty done, the undone vast,\\nThis present of theirs with the hopeful past!\\nI hoped she would love me here we ride.\\nVI\\nW hat hand and brain went ever paired?\\nWhat heart alike conceived and dared?\\nWhat act proved all its thought had been?\\nW^hat will but felt the fleshy screen?\\nW^e ride and I see her bosom heave.\\nThere s many a crown for who can reach.\\nTen lines, a statesman s life in each!\\nThe flag stuck on a heap of bones,\\nA soldier s doing! what atones?\\nThey scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.\\nMy riding is better, by their leave.\\nVII\\nWhat doth it all mean, poet? Well,\\nYour brains beat into i*bythm, you tell\\nWhat we felt only; you expressed\\nYou hold things beautiful the best.\\nAnd pace them in rhyme so, side by side.\\nT is something, nay t is much: but then.\\nHave you yourself what s best for men?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0102.jp2"}, "103": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 93\\nAre you poor, sick, old ere your time\\nNearer one whit your own sublime\\nThan we who have never turned a rhyme!\\nSing, riding s a joy! For me, I ride.\\nVIII\\nAnd you, great sculptor so, you gave\\nA score of years to Art, her slave.\\nAnd that s your Venus, whence we turn\\nTo yonder girl that fords the burn\\nYou acquiesce, and shall I repine?\\nWhat, man of music, you grown grey\\nWith notes and nothing else to say,\\nIs this your sole praise from a friend,\\nGreatly his opera s strains intend,\\nBut in music we know how fashions end!\\nI gave my youth but we ride, in fine.\\nIX\\nWho knows what s fit for us? Had fate\\nProposed bliss here should sublimate\\nMy being had I signed the bond\\nStill one must lead some life beyond.\\nHave a bliss to die with, dim-descried.\\nThis foot once planted on the goal.\\nThis glory-garland round my soul,\\nCould I descry such? Try and test!\\nI sink back shuddering from the quest.\\nEarth being so good, would heaven seem best?\\nNow, heaven and she are beyond this ride.\\nAnd yet she has not spoke so long!\\nWhat if heaven be that, fair and strong", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0103.jp2"}, "104": {"fulltext": "94 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAt life s best, with our eyes upturned\\nWhither life s flower is first discerned,\\nWe, fixed so, ever should so abide?\\nWhat if we still ride on, we two.\\nWith life for ever old yet new.\\nChanged not in kind but in degree.\\nThe instant made eternity,\\nAnd heaven just prove that I and she\\nRide ride together, forever ride?\\nMESMERISM.\\nAll I believed is true\\nI am able yet\\nAll I want, to get\\nBy a method as strange as new:\\nDare I trust the same to you?\\nII\\nIf at night, when doors are shut,\\nAnd the wood-worm picks,\\nAnd the death-watch ticks,\\nAnd the bar has a flag of smut.\\nAnd a cat s in the water-butt\\nIII\\nAnd the socket floats and flares.\\nAnd the house-beams groan,\\nAnd a foot unknown\\nIs surmised on the garret-stairs,\\nAnd the locks slip unawares", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0104.jp2"}, "105": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 95\\nIV\\nAnd the spider, to serve his ends,\\nBy a sudden thread,\\nArms and legs outspread.\\nOn the table s midst descends.\\nComes to find, God knows what friends!-\\nIf since eve drew in, I say,\\nI have sat and brought\\n(So to speak) my thought\\nTo bear on the woman away,\\nTill I felt my hair turn grey\\nVI\\nTill I seemed to have and hold,\\nIn the vacancy\\nTwixt the wall and me\\nFrom the hair-plait s chestnut-gold\\nTo the foot in its muslin fold\\nVII\\nHave and hold, then and there.\\nHer, from head to foot\\nBreathing and mute,\\nPassive and yet aware,\\nIn the grasp of my steady stare\\nVIII\\nHold and have, there and then,\\nAll her body and soul\\nThat completes my whole,\\nAll that women add to men,\\nIn the clutch of my steady ken", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0105.jp2"}, "106": {"fulltext": "96 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIX\\nHaving and holding, till\\nI imprint her fast\\nOn the void at last\\nAs the sun does whom he will\\nBy the calotypist s skill-\\nThen, if my heart s strength serve\\nAnd through all and each\\nOf the veils I reach\\nTo her soul and never swerve\\nKnitting an iron nerve\\nXI\\nCommand her soul to advance\\nAnd inform the shape\\nWhich has made escape\\nAnd before my countenance\\nAnswers me glance for glance\\nXII\\nI, still with a gesture fit\\nOf my hands that best\\nDo my soul s behest,\\nPointing the power from it,\\nWhile myself do steadfast sit\\nXIII\\nSteadfast and still the same\\nOn my object bent,\\nWhile the hands give vent\\nTo my ardor and my aim\\nAnd break into very flame", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0106.jp2"}, "107": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 97\\nXIV\\nThen I reach, I must believe,\\nNot her soul in vain,\\nFor to me again\\nIt reaches, and past retrieve\\nIs wound in the toils I weave\\nXV\\nAnd must follow as I require,\\nAs befits a thrall,\\nBringing flesh and all.\\nEssence and earth-attire,\\nTo the source of the tractile fire\\nXVI\\nTill the house called hers, not mine,\\nWith a growing weight\\nSeems to suffocate\\nIf she break not its leaden line\\nAnd escape from its close confine.\\nXVII\\nOut of doors into the night\\nOn to the maze\\nOf the wild wood- ways.\\nNot turning to left nor right\\nFrom the pathway, blind with sight-\\nXVIII\\nMaking thro rain and wind\\nO er the broken shrubs,\\nTwixt the stems and stubs,\\nWith a still, composed, strong mind,\\nNot a care for the world behind\\n7 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0107.jp2"}, "108": {"fulltext": "98 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXIX\\nSwifter and still more swift,\\nAs the crowding peace\\nDoth to joy increase\\nIn the wide blind eyes uplift\\nThro* the darkness and the drift\\nXX\\nWhile I to the shape, I too\\nFeel my soul dilate\\nNor a whit abate.\\nAnd relax not a gesture due.\\nAs I see my belief come true.\\nXXI\\nFor, there have I drawn or no\\nLife to that lip?\\nDo my fingers dip\\nIn a flame which again they throw\\nOn the cheek that breaks a-glow?\\nXXII\\nHa! was the hair so first?\\nWhat, unfilleted,\\nMade alive, and spread\\nThrough the void with a rich outburst,\\nChestnut gold-interspersed?\\nXXIII\\nLike the doors of a casket-shrine,\\nSee, on either side.\\nHer two arms divide\\nTill the heart betwixt makes sign,\\nTake me, for I am thine?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0108.jp2"}, "109": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 99\\nXXIV\\n*Now now the door is heard!\\nHark, the stairs! and near\\nNearer and here\\nNow! and, at call the third,\\nShe enters without a word.\\nXXV\\nOn doth she march and on\\nTo the fancied shape\\nIt is, past escape.\\nHerself, now the dream is done\\nAnd the shadow and she are one.\\nXXVI\\nFirst, I will pray. Do thou\\nThat ownest the soul,\\nYet wilt grant control\\nTo another, nor disallow\\nFor a time, restrain me now!\\nXXVII\\nI admonish me while I may,\\nNot to squander guilt,\\nSince require Thou wilt\\nAt my hand its price one day!\\nWhat the price is, who can say?\\nBY THE FIRESIDE.\\nHow well I know what I mean to do\\nWhen the long dark autumn evenings come\\nLofC.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0109.jp2"}, "110": {"fulltext": "100 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?\\nWith the music of all thy voices, dumb\\nIn life s November too!\\nI shall be found by the fire, suppose,\\nO er a great wise book, as beseemeth age;\\nWhile the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows,\\nAnd I turn the page, and I turn the page,\\nNot verse now, only prose\\nIll\\nTill the young ones whisper, finger on lip,\\nThere he is at it, deep in Greek\\nNow then, or never, out we slip\\nTo cut from the hazels by the creek\\nA mainmast for our ship!\\nIV\\nI shall be at it indeed, my friends\\nGreek puts already on either side\\nSuch a branch-work forth as soon extends\\nTo a vista opening far and wide.\\nAnd I pass out where it ends.\\nThe outside frame, like your hazel-trees\\nBut the inside-archway widens fast,\\nAnd a rarer sort succeeds to these.\\nAnd we slope to Italy at last\\nAnd youth, by green degrees.", "height": "2786", "width": "1856", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0110.jp2"}, "111": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 101\\nVI\\nI follow wherever I am led,\\nKnowing so well the leader s hand\\nOh woman-country, wooed not wed,\\nLoved all the more by earth s male-lands,\\nLaid to their hearts instead\\nVII\\nLook at the ruined chapel again\\nHalf-way up in the Alpine gorge!\\nIs that a tower, I point you plain.\\nOr is it a mill, or an iron forge\\nBreaks solitude in vain?\\nVIII\\nA turn, and we stand in the heart of things;\\nThe woods are round us, heaped and dim\\nFrom slab to slab how it slips and springs.\\nThe thread of water single and slim.\\nThrough the ravage some torrent brings!\\nIX\\nDoes it feed the little lake below?\\nThe speck of white just on its marge\\nIs Pella; see, in the evening-glow.\\nHow sharp the silver spear-heads charge\\nWhen Alp meets heaven in snow\\nX\\nOn our other side is the straight-up rock;\\nAnd a path is kept twixt the gorge and it\\nBy boulder-stones where lichens mock\\nThe marks on a moth, and small ferns fit\\nTheir teeth to the polished block.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0111.jp2"}, "112": {"fulltext": "102 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXI\\nOh the sense of the yellow mountain-flowers,\\nAnd thorny balls, each three in one,\\nThe chestnuts throw on our path in showers!\\nFor the drop of the woodland fruit s begun.\\nThese early November hours,\\nXII\\nThat crimson the creeper s leaf across\\nLike a splash of blood, intense, abrupt.\\nO er a shield else gold from rim to boss.\\nAnd lay it for show on the fairy-cupped\\nElf-needled mat of moss,\\nXIII\\nBy the rose-flush mushrooms, undivulged\\nLast evening nay, in to-day s first dew\\nYon sudden coral nipple bulged,\\nWhere a freaked fawn-colored flaky crew\\nOf toad-stools peep indulged.\\nXIV\\nAnd yonder, at the foot of the fronting ridge\\nThat takes the turn to a range beyond.\\nIs the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge,\\nWhere the water is stopped in a stagnant\\npond\\nDanced over by the midge.\\nXV\\nThe chapel and bridge are of stone alike,\\nBlackish-grey and mostly wet\\nCut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow dyke.", "height": "2786", "width": "1856", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0112.jp2"}, "113": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 103\\nSee here again, how the lichens fret\\nAnd the roots of the ivy strike\\nXVI\\nPoor little place, where its one priest comes\\nOn a festa-day, if he comes at all.\\nTo the dozen folk from their scattered homes,\\nGathered within that precinct small\\nBy the dozen ways one roams\\nXVII\\nTo drop from the charcoal-burners huts,\\nOr climb from the hemp-dresser s low shed.\\nLeave the grange where the woodman stores\\nhis huts,\\nOr the wattled cote where the fowlers spread\\nTheir gear on the rock s bare juts.\\nXVIII\\nIt has some pretension too, this front,\\nWith its bit of fresco half-moon-wise\\nSet over the porch, Art s early wont\\nTis John in the Desert, I surmise,\\nBut has borne the weather s brunt\\nXIX\\nNot from the fault of the builder, though,\\nFor a pent-house properly projects\\nWhere three carved beams make a certain\\nshow.\\nDating\u00e2\u0080\u0094 good thought of our architect s\\nFive, six, nine, he lets you know.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0113.jp2"}, "114": {"fulltext": "104 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXX\\nAnd all day long a bird sings there,\\nAnd a stray sheep drinks at the pond at\\ntimes\\nThe place is silent and aware\\nIt has its scenes, its joys and crimes,\\nBut that is its own affair.\\nXXI\\nMy perfect wife, my Leonor,\\nOh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too.\\nWhom else could I dare look forward for,\\nWith whom beside should I dare pursue\\nThe path grey heads abhor?\\nXXII\\nFor it leads to a crag s sheer edge with them;\\nYouth, flowery all the way, there stops\\nNot they; age threatens and they contemn,\\nTill they reach the gulf wherein youth drops,\\nOne inch from our life s safe hem!\\nXXIII\\nWith me, youth led I will speak now,\\nNo longer watch you as you sit\\nReading by fire-light, that great brow\\nAnd the spirit-small hand propping it,\\nMutely, my heart knows how\\nXXIV\\nWhen, if I think but deep enough,\\nYou are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme\\nAnd you, too, find without rebuff", "height": "2786", "width": "1856", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0114.jp2"}, "115": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 105\\nResponse your soul seeks many a time,\\nPiercing its fine flesh -stuff.\\nXXV\\nMy own, confirm me If I tread\\nThis path back, is it not in pride\\nTo think how little I dreamed it led\\nTo an age so blest that, by its side,\\nYouth seems the waste ipstead?\\nXXVI\\nMy own, see where the years conduct\\nAt first, twas something our two souls\\nShould mix as mists do; each is sucked\\nIn each now on, the new stream rolls.\\nWhatever rocks obstruct.\\nXXVII\\nThink, when our one soul understands\\nThe great Word which makes all things new.\\nWhen earth breaks up and heaven expands,\\nHow will the change strike me and you\\nIn the house not made with hands?\\nXXVIII\\nOh, I must feel your brain prompt mine.\\nYour heart anticipate my heart,\\nYou must be just before, in fine.\\nSee and make me see, for your part.\\nNew depths of the divine\\nXXIX\\nBut who could have expected this\\nWhen we two drew together first\\n8 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0115.jp2"}, "116": {"fulltext": "106 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nJust for the obvious human bliss,\\nTo satisfy life s daily thirst\\nWith a thing men seldom miss?\\nXXX\\nCome back with me to the first of all,\\nLet us lean and love it over again,\\nLet us now forget and now recall,\\nBreak the rosary in a pearly rain,\\nAnd gather what we let fall!\\nXXXI\\nWhat did I say? that a small bird sings\\nAll day long, save when a brown pair\\nOf hawks from the wood float with wide wings\\nStrained to a bell gainst noon-day glare\\nYou count the streaks and rings.\\nXXXII\\nBut at afternoon or almost eve\\nTis better; then the silence grows\\nTo that degree, you half believe\\nIt must get rid of what it knows,\\nIts bosom does so heave.\\nXXXIII\\nHither we walked then, side by side.\\nArm in arm and cheek to cheek,\\nAnd still I questioned or replied.\\nWhile my heart, convulsed to really speak.\\nLay choking in its pride.", "height": "2786", "width": "1856", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0116.jp2"}, "117": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 107\\nXXXIV\\nSilent the crumbling bridge we cross\\nAnd pity and praise the chapel sweet\\nAnd care about the fresco s loss,\\nAnd wish for our souls a like retreat,\\nAnd wonder at the moss.\\nXXXV\\nStoop and kneel on the settle under.\\nLook through the window s grated square\\nNothing to see For fear of plunder,\\nThe cross is down and the altar bare,\\nAs if thieves don t fear thunder.\\nXXXV]\\nWe stoop and look in through the grate.\\nSee the little porch and rustic door.\\nRead duly the dead builder s date;\\nThen cross the bridge that we crossed\\nbefore.\\nTake the path again but wait\\nXXXVII\\nOh, moment one and infinite!\\nThe water slips o er stock and stone;\\nThe West is tender, hardly bright\\nHow grey at once is the evening grown\\nOne star, its chrysolite I\\nXXXVIII\\nWe two stood there with never a third,\\nBut each by each, as each knew well:\\nThe sights we saw and the sounds we heard,", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0117.jp2"}, "118": {"fulltext": "108 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThe lights and the shades made up a spell\\nTill the trouble grew and stirred.\\nXXXIX\\nOh, the little more, and how much it is\\nAnd the little less, and what worlds away\\nHow a sound shall quicken content to bliss,\\nOr a breath suspend the blood s best play,\\nAnd life be a proof of this\\nXL\\nHad she willed it, still had stood the screen\\nSo slight, so sure, twixt my love and her:\\nI could fix her face with a guard between,\\nAnd find her soul as when friends confer,\\nFriends lovers that might have been.\\nXLI\\nFor my heart had a touch of the woodland\\ntime,\\nWanting to sleep now over its best.\\nShake the whole tree in the summer-prime.\\nBut bring to the last leaf no such test\\nHold the last fast! runs the rhyme.\\nXLII\\nFor a chance to make your little much,\\nTo gain a lover and lose a friend,\\nVenture the tree and a myriad such,\\nWhen nothing you mar but the year can\\nmend:\\nBut a last leaf fear to touch!", "height": "2786", "width": "1856", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0118.jp2"}, "119": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 109\\nXLIII\\nYet should it unfasten itself and fall\\nEddying down till it find your face\\nAt some slight wind best chance of all!\\nBe your heart henceforth its dwelling-place\\nYou trembled to forestall\\nXLIV\\nWorth how well, those dark grey eyes,\\nThat hair so dark and dear, how worth\\nThat a man should strive and agonize,\\nAnd taste a veriest hell on earth\\nFor the hope of such a prize\\nXLV\\nYou might have turned and tried a man,\\nSet him a space to weary and wear.\\nAnd prove which suited more your plan,\\nHis best of hope or his worst despair,\\nYet end as he began.\\nXLVI\\nBut you spared me this, like the heart you are,\\nAnd filled my empty heart at a word.\\nIf two lives join, there is oft a scar,\\nThey are one and one, with a shadowy third\\nOne near one is too far.\\nXLVII\\nA moment after, and hands unseen\\nWere hanging the night around us fast;\\nBut we knew that a bar was broken between\\nLife and life we were mixed at last\\nIn spite of the mortal screen.", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0119.jp2"}, "120": {"fulltext": "110 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXLVIII\\nThe forests had done it; there they stood;\\nWe caught for a moment the powers at play:\\nThey had mingled us so, for once and good,\\nTheir work was done we might go or stay,\\nThey relapsed to their ancient mood.\\nXLIX\\nHow the world is made for each of us!\\nHow all we perceive and know in it\\nTends to some moment s product thus,\\nWhen a soul declares itself to-wit.\\nBy its fruit, the thing it does!\\nL\\nBe hate that fruit or love that fruit\\nIt forwards the general deed of man\\nAnd each of the Many helps to recruit\\nThe life of the race by a general plan;\\nEach living his own, to boot.\\nLI\\nI am named and known by that moment s feat;\\nThere took my station and degree\\nSo grew my own small life complete,\\nAs nature obtained her best of me\\nOne born to love you, sweet!\\nLII\\nAnd to watch you sink by the fireside now\\nBack again, as you mutely sit\\nMusing by firelight, that great brow\\nAnd the spirit-small hand propping it.\\nYonder, my heart knows how", "height": "2786", "width": "1856", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0120.jp2"}, "121": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. Ill\\nLIII\\nSo, earth has gained by one man the more,\\nAnd the gain of earth must be heaven s gain,\\ntoo;\\nAnd the whole is well worth thinking o er\\nWhen autumn comes; which I mean to do\\nOne day, as I said before.\\nANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND.\\nMy love, this is the bitterest, that thou\\nW^ho art all truth, and who dost love me now\\nAs thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to\\nsay\\nShouldst love so truly, and couldst love me\\nstill\\nA whole long life through, had but love its\\nwill.\\nWould death, that leads me from thee, brook\\ndelay.\\nII\\nI have but to be by thee, and thy hand\\nW^ill never let mine go, nor heart withstand\\nThe beating of my heart to reach its place.\\nW^hen shall I look for thee and feel thee gone?\\nWhen cry for the old comfort and find none?\\nNever, I know Thy soul is in thy face.\\nIll\\nOh, I should fade tis willed so! Might I save,\\nGladly I would, whatever beauty gave", "height": "2786", "width": "1762", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0121.jp2"}, "122": {"fulltext": "112 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nJoy to thy sense, for that was precious, too.\\nIt is not to be gn*anted. But the soul\\nWhence the love comes, all ravage leaves that\\nwhole\\nVainly the flesh fades soul makes all things\\nnew.\\nIV\\nIt would not be because my eye grew dim\\nThod couldst not find ftie love there, thanks to\\nHim\\nWho never is dishonored in the spark\\nRe gave us from his fire of fires, and bade\\nRemember whence it sprang, nor be a-fraid\\nWhile that burns on, though all the rest grow\\ndark.\\nSo, how thou wouldst be perfect, white and\\nclean\\nOutside as inside, soul and soul s demesne\\nAlike, this body given to show it by\\nOh, three-parts through the worst of life s\\nabyss.\\nWhat plaudits from the next world after this,\\nCouldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky\\nVI\\nAnd is it not the bitterer to think\\nThat, disengage our hands and thou wilt sink\\nAlthough thy love was love in very deed?\\nI know that nature! Pass a festive day,\\nTohu dost not throw its relic-flower away\\nNor bid its music s loitering echo speed.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0122.jp2"}, "123": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 113\\nVII\\nThou let st the stranger s glove lie where it\\nfell;\\nIf old things remain old things all is well,\\nFor thou art grateful as becomes man best\\nAnd hadst thou only heard me play one tune,\\nOr viewed me from a window, not so soon\\nWith thee would such things fade as with the\\nrest.\\nVIII\\nI seem to see! We meet and part; tis brief;\\nThe book I opened keeps a folded leaf.\\nThe very chair I sat on, breaks the rank\\nThat is a portrait of me on the wall\\nThree lines, my face comes at so slight a call\\nAnd for all this, one little hour to thank\\nIX\\nBut now, because the hour through years was\\nfixed,\\nBecause our inmost beings met and mixed,\\nBecause thou once hast loved me wilt thou\\ndare\\nSay to thy soul and Who may list beside,\\nTherefore she is immortally my bride;\\nChance cannot change my love, nor time\\nimpair.\\nX\\n**So, what if in the dusk of life that s left,\\n**I, a tired traveler of my sun bereft,\\n**Look from my path when, mimicking the\\nsame,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0123.jp2"}, "124": {"fulltext": "114 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThe fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone?\\nWhere was it till the sunset? where anon\\n**It will be at the sunrise What s to blame?\\nXI\\nIs it so helpful to thee? Canst thou take\\nThe mimic up, nor, for the true thing s sake,\\nPut gently by such efforts at a beam?\\nIs the remainder of the way so long,\\nThou need st the little solace, thou the strong?\\nWatch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and\\ndream\\nXII\\nAh, but the fresher faces! Is it true,\\nThou lt ask, some eyes are beautiul and new?\\nSome hair, how can one choose but grasp\\nsuch wealth!\\nAnd if a man would press his lips to lips\\nFresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there\\nslips\\nThe dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth?\\nXIII\\nIt cannot change the love still kept for Her\\nMore than if such a picture I prefer\\nPassing a day with, to a room s bare side:\\nThe painted form takes nothing she possessed,\\nYet, while the Titian s Venus lies at rest,\\nA man looks. Once more, what is there to\\nchide?\\nXIV\\nSo must I see, from where I sit and watch,\\nMy own self sell myself, my hand attach", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0124.jp2"}, "125": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 115\\nIts warrant to the very thefts from me\\nThy singleness of soul that made me proud,\\nThy purity of heart I loved aloud,\\nThy man s-truth I was bold to bid God see!\\nXV\\nLove so, then, if thou wilt Give all thou canst\\nAway to the new faces disentranced.\\n(Say it and think it) obdurate no more.\\nRe-issue looks and words from the old mint,\\nPass them afresh, no matter whose the print\\nImage and superscription once they bore\\nXVI\\nRe-coin thyself and give it them to spend,\\nIt all comes to the same thing at the end,\\nSince mine thou wast, mine art, and mine\\nshalt be,\\nFaithful or faithless: sealing up the sum\\nOr lavish of my treasure, thou must come\\nBack to the heart s place here I keep for\\nthee!\\nXVII\\nOnly, why should it be with stain at all?\\nWhy must I, twixt the leaves of coronal,\\nPut any kiss of pardon on thy brow?\\nWhy need the other women know so much\\nAnd talk together, Such the look and such\\nThe smile he used to love with, then as\\nnow I\\nXIII\\nMight I die last and show thee Should I find\\nSuch hardships in the few years left behind,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0125.jp2"}, "126": {"fulltext": "116 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIf free to take and light my lamp, and go\\nInto thy tomb, and shut the door and sit,\\nSeeing thy face on those four sides of it\\nThe better that they are so blank, I know!\\nXIX\\nWhy, time was what I wanted, to turn o er\\nWithin my mind each look, get more and more\\nBy heart each word too much to learn at first\\nAnd join thee all the fitter for the pause\\nNeath the low doorway s lintel. That were\\ncause\\nFor lingering, though thou calledst, if I\\ndurst!\\nXX\\nAnd yet thou art the nobler of us two;\\nWhat dare I dream of, that thou canst not do,\\nOutstripping my ten small steps with one\\nstride?\\nI ll say then, here s a trial and a task;\\nIs it to bear? if easy, I ll not ask:\\nThough love fail, I can trust on in thy pride.\\nXXI\\nPride? when those eyes forestall the life be-\\nhind\\nThe death I have to go through! when I find,\\nNow that I want thy help most, all of thee\\nWhat did I fear? Thy love shall hold me fast\\nUntil the little minute s sleep is past\\nAnd I wake saved. \u00e2\u0080\u0094And yet it will not be", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0126.jp2"}, "127": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 117\\nIN A YEAR.\\nNever any more,\\nWhile I live,\\nNeed I hope to see his face\\nAs before.\\nOnce his love grown chill,\\nMine may strive\\nBitterly we re-embrace,\\nSingle still.\\nII\\nWas it something said,\\nSomething done,\\nVexed him? was it touch of hand.\\nTurn of head?\\nStrange that very way\\nLove begun\\nI as little understand\\nLove s decay.\\nIll\\nWhen I sewed or drew,\\nI recall\\nHow he looked as if I sung,\\nSweetly too.\\nIf I spoke a word,\\nFirst of all\\nUp his cheek the color sprung,\\nThen he heard.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0127.jp2"}, "128": {"fulltext": "118 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIV\\nSitting by my side,\\nAt my feet,\\nSo he breathed but air I breathed,\\nSatisfied!\\nI, too, at love s brim\\nTouched the sweet:\\nI would die if death bequeathed\\nSweet to him.\\nSpeak, I love thee best!\\nHe exclaimed:\\n\u00e2\u0080\u00a2*Let thy love my own foretell!\\nI confessed\\n**Clasp my heart on thine\\nNow unblamed,\\nSince upon thy soul as well\\nHangeth mine!\\nVI\\nWas it wrong to own,\\nBeing truth?\\nWhy should all the giving prove\\nHis alone?\\nI had wealth and ease\\nBeauty, youth:\\nSince my lover gave me love,\\nI gave these.\\nVII\\nThat was all I meant,\\nTo be just,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0128.jp2"}, "129": {"fulltext": "BROWNINGS POE^IS. 119\\nAnd the passion I had raised,\\nTo content.\\nSince he chose to change\\nGold for dust,\\nIf I gave him what he praised\\nWas it strange?\\nVIII\\nWould he loved me yet,\\nOn and on.\\nWhile I found some way undreamed\\nPaid my debt!\\nGave more life and more,\\nTill all gone.\\nHe should smile *She never seemed\\nMine before.\\nIX\\nWhat, she felt the while,\\nMust I think?\\nLove s so different with us men!\\nHe should smile:\\nDying for my sake\\nWhite and pink!\\n**Can t we touch these bubbles then\\nBut they break?\\nDear, the pang is brief,\\nDo thy part.\\nHave thy pleasure How perplexed\\nGrows belief!\\nWell, this cold clay clod\\nWas man s heart:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0129.jp2"}, "130": {"fulltext": "120 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nCrumble it, and what comes next?\\nIs it God?\\nSONG FROM JAMES LEE.\\nOh, good gigantic smile o the brown old earth,\\nThis autumn morning! How he sets his\\nbones\\nTo ba^ i the sun, and thrust out knees and\\nfeet\\nFor the ripple to run- over in its mirth\\nListening the while, where on the heap of\\nstones\\nThe white breast of the sea lark twitters sweet.\\nThat is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true\\nSuch is life s trial, as old earth smiles and\\nknows.\\nIf you loved only what were worth your love,\\nLove were clear gain, and wholly well for you.\\nMake the low nature better by your throes!\\nGive earth yourself, go up for gain above!\\nA WOMAN S LAST WORD.\\nLet s contend no more, Love,\\nStrive nor weep\\nAll be as before. Love,\\nOnly sleep!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0130.jp2"}, "131": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 121\\nWhat so wild as words are?\\nI and thou\\nIn debate, as birds are,\\nHawk on bough\\nIll\\nSee the creature stalking\\nWhile we speak\\nHush and hide t^e talking,\\nCheek on cheek.\\nIV\\nWhat so false as truth is,\\nFalse to thee?\\nWhere the serpent s tooth is,\\nShun the tree\\nWhere the apple reddens,\\nNever pry\\nLest we lose our Edens,\\nEve and I.\\nVI\\nBe a god and hold me\\nWith a charm\\nBe a man and fold me\\nWith thine arm\\nVII\\nTeach me, only teach, Love,\\nAs I ought", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0131.jp2"}, "132": {"fulltext": "122 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nI will speak thy speech, Love,\\nThink thy thought\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nVIII\\nMeet, if thou require it\\nBoth demands,\\nLaying flesh and spirit\\nIn thy hands.\\nIX\\nThat shall be to-morrow\\nNot to-night:\\nI must bury sorrow\\nOut of sight\\nMust a little weep, Love,\\n(Foolish me\\nAnd so fall asleep. Love,\\nLoved by thee.\\nMEETING AT NIGHT.\\nThe gray sea and the long black land\\nAnd the yellow half-moon large and low\\nAnd the startled little waves that leap\\nIn fiery ringlets from their sleep.\\nAs I gain the cove with pushing prow,\\nAnd quench its speed i the slushy sand.\\nII\\nThen a mile of warm sea-scented beach\\nThree fields to cross till a farm appears;\\ni", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0132.jp2"}, "133": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 123\\nA tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch\\nAnd blue spurt of a lighted match,\\nAnd a voice less loud, through joys and fears,\\nThen the two hearts beating each to each!\\nPARTING AT MORNING.\\nRound the cape of a sudden came the sea,\\nAnd the sun looked over the mountain s rim:\\nAnd straight was a path of gold for him,\\nAnd the need of a world of men for me.\\nWOMEN AND ROSES.\\nI dream of a red-rose tree.\\nAnd which of its roses three\\nIs the dearest rose to me?\\nRound and round, like a dance of snow\\nIn a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go\\nFloating the women faded for ages,\\nSculptured in stone, on the poet s pages.\\nThen follow women fresh and gay-\\nLiving and loving and loved to-day.\\nLast, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens,\\nBeauties yet unborn. And all, to one cadence,\\nThey circle their rose on my rose tree.\\nIll\\nDear rose, thy term is reached,\\nThy leaf hangs loose and bleached:\\nBees pass it unimpeached.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0133.jp2"}, "134": {"fulltext": "124 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIV\\nStay, then, stoop, since I cannot climb,\\nYou, great shapes of the antique time,\\nHow shall I fix you, fire you, freeze you.\\nBreak my heart at your feet to please you?\\nOh, to possess and be possessed!\\nHearts that beat neath each pallid breast!\\nOnce but of love, the poesy, the passion.\\nDrink but once and die! In vain, the same\\nfashion,\\nThey circle their rose on my rose tree.\\nDear rose, thy joy s undimmed:\\nThy cup is ruby-rimmed.\\nThy cup s heart nectar-brimmed.\\nVI\\nDeep, as drops from a statue s plinth\\nThe bee sucked in by the hyacinth,\\nSo will I bury me while burning.\\nQuench like him at a plunge my yearning,\\nEyes in your eyes, lips on your lips!\\nFold me fast where the cincture slips.\\nPrison all my soul in eternities of pleasure,\\nGirdle me for once! but no the old measure,\\nThey circle their rose on my rose tree.\\nVII\\nDear rose without a thorn.\\nThy bud s the babe unborn.\\nFirst streak of a new morn.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0134.jp2"}, "135": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 125\\nVIII\\nWings, lend wings for the cold, the clear!\\nWhat is far conquers what is near.\\nRoses will bloom nor want beholders,\\nSprung from the dust where our flesh mould-\\ners,\\nWhat shall arrive with the cycle s change?\\nA novel grace and a beauty strange.\\nI will make an Eve, be the Artist that began\\nher,\\nShaped her to his mind! Alas! in like man-\\nner\\nThey circle their rose on my rose tree.\\nMISCONCEPTIONS.\\nThis is a spray the bird clung to,\\nMaking it blossom with pleasure,\\nEre the high tree-top she sprung to,\\nFit for her nest and her treasure\\nOh, what a hope beyond measure\\nWas the poor spray s, which the flying feet\\nhung to,\\nSo to be singled out, built in, and sung to\\nII\\nThis is a heart the queen leant on,\\nThrilled in a minute erratic,\\nEre the true bosom she bent on.\\nMeet for love s regal dalmatic.\\nOh, what a fancy ecstatic", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0135.jp2"}, "136": {"fulltext": "126 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWas the poor heart s, ere the wanderer went\\non,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nLove to be saved for it, proffered to, spent\\non!\\nA PRETTY WOMAN.\\nI\\nThat fawn-skin dappled hair of hers,\\nAnd the blue eye\\nDear and dewy.\\nAnd that infantile fresh air of hers!\\nII\\nTo think that men cannot take you. Sweet,\\nAnd enfold you,\\nAy, and hold you.\\nAnd so keep you what they make you, Sweet!\\nIll\\nYou like us for a glance, you know\\nFor a word s sake\\nOr a sword s sake:\\nAll s the same, whate er the chance, you\\nknow.\\nIV\\nAnd in turn we make you ours, we say\\nYou and youth too.\\nEyes and mouth too.\\nAll the face composed of flowers, we say.\\nAll s our own, to make the most of. Sweet\\nSing and say for.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0136.jp2"}, "137": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 127\\nWatch and pray for,\\nKeep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!\\nVI\\nBut for loving, why, you would not. Sweet,\\nThough we prayed you,\\nPaid you, brayed you\\nIn a mortar for you could not, Sweet!\\nVII\\nSo, we leave the sweet face fondly there\\nBe its beauty\\nIts sole duty\\nLet all hope of grace beyond, lie there\\nVIII\\nAnd while the face lies quiet there,\\nWho shall wonder\\nThat I ponder\\nA conclusion? I will try it there.\\nIX\\nAs, why must one, for the love foregone\\nScout mere liking?\\nThunder-striking\\nEarth, the heaven, we looked above for,\\ngone!\\nWhy, with beauty, needs there money be,\\nLove with liking?\\nCrush the fly-king\\nIn his gauze, because no honey bee?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0137.jp2"}, "138": {"fulltext": "128 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXI\\nMay not liking be so simple-sweet,\\nIf love grew there\\nT would undo there\\nAll that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?\\nXII\\nIs the creature too imperfect, say?\\nWould you mend it\\nAnd so end it?\\nSince not all addition perfects aye\\nXIII\\nOr is it of its kind, perhaps,\\nJust perfection\\nWhence, rejection\\nOf a grace not to its mind, perhaps?\\nXIV\\nShall we burn up, tread that face at once\\nInto a tinder,\\nAnd to hinder\\nSparks from kindling all the place at once?\\nXV\\nOr else kiss away one s soul on her?\\nYour love fancies!\\nA sick man sees\\nTruer, when his hot eyes roll on her!\\nXVI\\nThus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,-\\nPlucks a mould-flower", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0138.jp2"}, "139": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 129\\nFor his gold flower,\\nUses fine things that efface the rose.\\nXVII\\nRosy rubies make its cup more rose,\\nPrecious metals\\nApe the petals,\\nLast, some old king locks it up, morose!\\nXVIII\\nThen how grace a rose? I know a way!\\nLeave it, rather.\\nMust you gather?\\nSmell, kiss, wear it at last, throw away.\\nA LIGHT WOMAN.\\nSo far as our story approaches the end.\\nWhich do you pity the most of us three?\\nMy friend, or the mistress of my friend\\nWith her wanton eyes, or me?\\nII\\nMy friend was already too good to lose.\\nAnd seemed in the way of improvement yet.\\nWhen she crossed his path with her hunting-\\nnoose\\nAnd over him drew her net.\\nIll\\nWhen I saw him tangled in her toils,\\nA shame, said I, if she adds just him\\n9 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0139.jp2"}, "140": {"fulltext": "130 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nTo her nine-and-ninety other spoils,\\nThe hundredth for a whim\\nIV\\nAnd before my friend be wholly hers,\\nHow easy to prove to him, I said,\\nAn eag-le s the game her pride prefers,\\nThough she snaps at a wren instead!\\nSo, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take.\\nMy hand sought hers as in earnest need.\\nAnd round she turned for my noble sake,\\nAnd gave me herself indeed.\\nVI\\nThe eagle am I, with my fame in the world.\\nThe wren is he, with his maiden face.\\nYou look away and your lip is curled?\\nPatience, a moment s space\\nVII\\nFor see, my friend goes shaking and white,\\nHe eyes me as the basilisk\\nI have turned, it appears, his day to night.\\nEclipsing his sun s disk.\\nVIII\\nAnd I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:\\nThough I love her that, he compre-\\nhends\\nOne should master one s passions, (love, in\\nchief)\\nAnd be loyal to one s friends!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0140.jp2"}, "141": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 131\\nIX\\nAnd she, she lies in my hand as tame\\nAs a pear late basking over a wall;\\nJust a touch to try, and off it came\\nT is mine, can I let it fall?\\nWith no mind to eat it, that s the worst!\\nWere it thrown in the road, would the case\\nassist?\\nT was quenching a dozen blue-flies thirst\\nWhen I gave its stalk a twist.\\nXI\\nAnd I, what I seem to my friend, you see;\\nWhat I soon shall seem to his love, you\\nguess\\nWhat I seem to myself, do you ask of me?\\nNo hero, I confess.\\nXII\\nTis an awkward thing to play with souls,\\nAnd matter enough to save one s own;\\nYet think of my friend, and the burning coals\\nHe played with for bits of stone\\nXIII\\nOne likes to show the truth for the truth\\nThat the woman was light is very true:\\nBut suppose she says, Never mind that\\nyouth\\nWhat wrong have I done to you?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0141.jp2"}, "142": {"fulltext": "132 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXIV\\nWell, anyhow, here the story stays,\\nSo far at least as I understand;\\nAnd, Robert Browning, you writer of plays\\nHere s a subject made to your hand!\\nLOVE IN A LIFE.\\nRoom after room,\\nI hunt the house through\\nWe inhabit together.\\nHeart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find\\nher\\nNext time, herself! not the trouble behind\\nher\\nLeft in the curtain, the couch s perfume!\\nAs she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed\\nanew;\\nYon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her\\nfeather.\\nII\\nYet the day wears.\\nAnd door succeeds door;\\nI try the fresh fortune\\nRange the wide house from the wing to the\\ncenter.\\nStill the same chance! she goes out as I enter.\\nSpend my whole day in the quest, who cares?\\nBut tis twilight, you see, with such suites to\\nexplore.\\nSuch closets to search, such alcoves to impor-\\ntune!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0142.jp2"}, "143": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 133\\nLIFE IN A LOVE.\\nEscape me?\\nNever\\nBeloved\\nWhile I am I, and you are you,\\nSo long as the world contains us both,\\nMe the loving and you the loth,\\nWhile the one eludes, must the other pursue.\\nMy life is a fault at last, I fear:\\nIt seems too much like a fate, indeed!\\nThough I do my best I shall scarce succeed.\\nBut what if I fail of my purpose here?\\nIt is but to keep the nerves at strain,\\nTo dry one s eyes and laugh at a fall,\\nAnd baffled, get up and begin again,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nSo the chase takes up one s life, that s all.\\nWhile, look but once from your farthest bound\\nAt me so deep in the dust and dark.\\nNo sooner the old hope goes to ground\\nThan a new one, straight to the self-same\\nmark,\\nI shape me\\nEver\\nRemoved\\nTHE LABORATORY.\\nANCIEN REGIME.\\nNow that I, tying thy glass mask tightly.\\nMay gaze thro these faint smokes curling\\nwhitely,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0143.jp2"}, "144": {"fulltext": "134 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAs thou pliest thy trade in this devil s-smithy\\nWhich is the poison to poison her, prithee?\\nHe is with her, and they know that I know\\nWhere they are, what they do: they believe\\nmy tears flow\\nWhile they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to\\nthe drear\\nEmpty church, to pray God in, for them I\\nam here.\\nIll\\nGrind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,\\nPound at thy powder,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 I am not in haste!\\nBetter sit thus and observe thy strange things,\\nThan go where men wait me, and dance at the\\nKing s.\\nVI\\nThat in the mortar you call it a gum.\\nAh, the brave tree whence such gold oozings\\ncome!\\nAnd yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue.\\nSure to taste sweetly, is that poison too?\\nHad I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,\\nWhat a wild crowd of invisible pleasures\\nTo carry pure death in an earring, a casket,\\nA signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0144.jp2"}, "145": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 135\\nVI\\nSoon, at the King s, a mere lozenge to give\\nAnd Pauline should have just thirty minutes to\\nlive!\\nBut to light a pastile, and Elise with her head\\nAnd her breast and her arms and her hands,\\nshould drop dead\\nVII\\nQuick\u00e2\u0080\u0094 is it finished? The color s too grim!\\nWhy not soft like the phial s, enticing and dim?\\nLet it brighten her drink, let her turn it and\\nstir.\\nAnd try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!\\nVIII\\nWhat a drop! She s not little, no minion like\\nme!\\nThat s why she ensnared him: this never will\\nfree\\nThe soul from those masculine eyes, say,\\nNo!\\nTo that pulse s magnificent come-and-go.\\nIX\\nFor only last night, as they whispered, I\\nbrought\\nMy own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought\\nCould I keep them one-half minute fixed, she\\nwould fall\\nShrivelled she fell not yet this does it all", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0145.jp2"}, "146": {"fulltext": "136 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nNot that I bid you spare her the pain\\nLet death be felt and the proof remain:\\nBrand, burn up, bite into its grace\\nHe is sure to remember her dying face!\\nXI\\nIs it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not\\nmorose\\nIt kills her, and this prevents seeing it close\\nThe delicate droplet, my whole fortune s fee!\\nIf it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?\\nXII\\nNow, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your\\nfill,\\nYou may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you\\nwill!\\nBut brush this dust off me, lest horror it\\nbrings\\nEre I know it next moment I dance at the\\nKing s!\\nGOLD HAIR:\\nA STORY OF PORNIC.\\nI\\nOh, the beautiful girl, too white,\\nWho lived at Pornic down by the sea.\\nJust where the sea and the Loire unite!\\nAnd a boasted name in Brittany\\nShe bore, which I will not write.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0146.jp2"}, "147": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 137\\nToo white, for the flower of life is red;\\nHer flesh was the soft seraphic screen\\nOf a soul that is meant (her parents said)\\nTo just see earth, and hardly be seen,\\nAnd blossom in heaven instead.\\nIll\\nYet earth saw one thing, one how fair!\\nOne grace that drew to its full on earth:\\nSmiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare,\\nAnd her waist went half a girdle s girth,\\nBut she had her great gold hair.\\nIV\\nHair, such a wonder of flix and floss,\\nFreshness and fragrance floods of it, too\\nGold, did I say? Nay, gold s mere dross:\\nHere, Life smiled, Think what I meant to\\ndo!\\nAnd Love sighed, Fancy my loss!\\nSo, when she died, it was scarce more strange,\\nThan that, when some delicate evening dies,\\nAnd you follow its spent sun s pallid range,\\nThere s a shoot of color startles the skies\\nWith sudden, violent change,\\nVI\\nThat, while the breath was nearly to seek\\nAs they put the little cross to her lips.\\nShe changed a spot came out on her cheek,\\n10 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0147.jp2"}, "148": {"fulltext": "138 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nA spark from her eye in mid-eclipse,\\nAnd she broke forth, I must speak!\\nVII\\n**Not my hair! made the girl her moan\\nAll the rest is gone or to go;\\nBut the last, last grace, my all, my own,\\nLet it stay in the grave, that the ghosts\\nmay know\\nLeave my poor gold hair alone!\\nVIII\\nThe passion thus vented, dead lay she\\nHer parents sobbed their worst on that,\\nAll friends joined in, nor observed degree\\nFor indeed the hair was to wonder at,\\nAs it spread not flowing free.\\nIX\\nBut curled around her brow, like a crown,\\nAnd coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap.\\nAnd calmed about her neck ay, down\\nTo her breast, pressed fiat, without a gap\\nI the gold, it reached her gown.\\nAll kissed that face, like a silver wedge,\\nMid the yellow wealth, nor disturbed its\\nhair:\\nE en the priest allowed death s prvilege.\\nAs he planted the crucifix with care\\nOn her breast, twixt edge and edge.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0148.jp2"}, "149": {"fulltext": "SEE WHAT 10c WILL DC\\nWe have just completed arrangements with one\\nof the largest -wholesale jewelry houses in the\\nUnited States^ whereby you can secure\\nA BEAITIFIL SOIJVENIR PIN\\nFOR 10 CENT5.\\nSomething that you will be\\nj very glad to receive, and a\\n3 Months Trial Subscription to\\nConkcy s Rome journal\\nWe want every purchaser of our publications to know of the\\n^*Journal* and the above unparalleled offer is made with the\\nsole purpose of bringing to the notice of as many\\npeople as possible the merits of the best\\nfamily magazine published.\\nQ/nrn^mhi^f ts secures a beautiful souvenir\\npin and **Conlcey*s Home Journal for\\nthree months.\\nAddress\\nConkey s Rome 3ournal,\\n\u00e2\u0080\u00a2\u00e2\u0080\u00a2^Chicago, TIL", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0149.jp2"}, "150": {"fulltext": ")a Jjfw Dor TAHw mft\\n/iq \u00c2\u00abi^3yi!0^ jin!Tij^3a\\nr*J ^mK+smc S\\ni^niuoC ^mofl z pimdf\\nI\\n8e:^tfabA", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0150.jp2"}, "151": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 139\\nXI\\nAnd thus was she buried, inviolate\\nOf body and soul, in the very space\\nBy the altar keeping saintly state\\nIn Pornic church, for her pride of race,\\nPure life and piteous fate.\\nXII\\nAnd in after-time would your fresh tear fall.\\nThough your mouth might twitch with a\\ndubious smile,\\nAs they told you of gold both robe and pall.\\nHow she prayed them leave it alone awhile,\\nSo it never was touched at all.\\nXIII\\nYears flew; this legend grew at last\\nThe life of the lady; all she had done,\\nAll been, in the memories fading fast\\nOf lover and friend, was suriimed in one\\nSentence survivors passed\\nXIV\\nTo wit, she was meant for heaven, not earth\\nHad turned an angel before the time:\\nYet, since she was mortal, in such dearth\\nOf frailty, all you could count a crime\\nWas she knew her gold hair s worth.\\nXV\\nAt little pleasant Pornic church,\\nIt chanced, the pavement wanted repair,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0151.jp2"}, "152": {"fulltext": "9\\n140 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWas taken to pieces left in the lurch,\\nA certain sacred space lay bare,\\nAnd the boys began research.\\nXVI\\nTwas the space where our sires would lay a\\nsaint,\\nA benefactor, a bishop, suppose,\\nA baron with armour-adornments quaint.\\nDame with chased ring and jewelled rose,\\nThings sanctity saves from taint;\\nXVII\\nSo we came to find them in after-days\\nWhen the corpse is presumed to have done\\nwith gauds\\nOf use to the living, in many ways:\\nFor the boys get pelf, and the town applauds\\nAnd the church deserves the praise.\\nXVIII\\nThey grubbed with a will: and at length\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\ncor\\nHumanum pectora ccBca, and the rest\\nThey found no gaud they were prying for,\\nNo ring, no rose, but who would have\\nguessed?\\nA double Louis-d or!\\nXIX\\nHere was a case for the priest: he heard,\\nMarked, inwardly digested, laid\\nFinger on nose, smiled, A little bird", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0152.jp2"}, "153": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 141\\nChirps in my ear: then, Bring a spade,\\nDig deeper! he gave the word.\\nXX\\nAnd lo, when they came to the coffin-lid,\\nOr rotten planks which composed it once,\\n*Why, there lay the girl s skull wedged amid\\nA mint of money, it served for the nonce\\nTo hold in its hair-heaps hid!\\nXXI\\nHid there? Why? Could the girl be wont\\n(She the stainless soul) to treasiire up\\nMoney, earth s trash and heaven s affront?\\nHad a spider found out the communion-cup?\\nWas a toad in the christening- font?\\nXXII\\nTruth is truth too true it was.\\nGold She hoarded and hugged it first,\\nLonged for it, leaned o er it, loved it alas\\nTill the humor grew to a head and burst,\\nAnd she cried, at the final pass,\\nXXIII\\nTalk not of God, my heart is stone!\\nNor lover, nor friend be gold for both!\\nGold I lack and, my all, my own,\\nIt shall hide in my hair.\\nI scarce die loth If they let my hair alone!\\nXXIV\\nLouis-d ors, some six times five,\\nAnd duly double, every piece.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0153.jp2"}, "154": {"fulltext": "142 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nNow, do you see? With the priest to shrive,\\nWith parents preventing her soul s release\\nBy kisses that kept alive,\\nXXV\\nWith heaven s gold gates about to ope,\\nWith friends praise, gold-like, lingering\\nstill,\\nAn instinct had bidden the girl s hand grope\\nFor gold, the true sort\\n*Gold in heaven, if you will;\\nBut I keep earth s too, I hope.\\nXXVI\\nEnough! The priest took the grave s grim\\nyield\\nThe parents, they eyed that price of sin\\nAs if thirty pieces lay revealed\\nOn the place to bury strangers in,\\nThe hideous Potter s Field.\\nxxvii\\nBut the priest bethought him: Milk that s\\nspilt\\nYou know the adage Watch and pray!\\nSaints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt!\\nIt would build a new altar; that, we may!\\nAnd the altar therewith was built.\\nXXVIII\\nWhy I deliver this horrible verse?\\nAs the text of a sermon, which now I preach.\\nEvil or good may be better or worse", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0154.jp2"}, "155": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. US\\nIn the human heart, but the mixture of each\\nIs a marvel and a curse.\\nXXIX\\nThe candid incline to surmise of late\\nThat the Christian faith may be false, I find;\\nFor our Essays-and-Reviews debate\\nBegins to tell on the public mind,\\nAnd Colenso s words have weight.\\nXXX\\nI still, to suppose it true, for my part,\\nSee reasons and reasons; this, to begin:\\nTis the faith that launched point-blank her\\ndart\\nAt the head of a lie taught Original Sin,\\nThe Corruption of Man s Heart.\\nTHE STATUE AND THE BUST.\\nThere s a palace in Florence, the world knows\\nwell,\\nAnd a statue watches it from the square,\\nAnd this story of both do our townsmen tell.\\nAges ago, a lady there,\\nAt the farthest window facing the East,\\nAsked, Who rides by with the royal air?\\nThe bridesmaids prattle around her ceased\\nShe leaned forth, one on either hand\\nThey saw how the blush of the bride in-\\ncreased", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0155.jp2"}, "156": {"fulltext": "144 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThey felt by its beats her heart expand\\nAs one at each ear and both in a breath\\nWhispered, the Great Duke Ferdinand.\\nThat self-same instant, underneath.\\nThe Duke rode past in his idle way,\\nEmpty and fine like a swordless sheath.\\nGay he rode, with a friend as gay.\\nTill he threw his head back Who is she?\\nA bride the Riccardi brings home to-day.\\nHair in heaps lay heavily\\nOver a pale brow spirit- pure\\nCarved like the heart of the coal-black tree,\\nCrisped like a war-steed s encolure\\nAnd vainly sought to dissemble her eyes\\nOf the blackest black our eyes endure.\\nAnd lo, a blade for a knight s emprise\\nFilled the fine empty sheath of a man,\\nThe Duke grew straightway brave and wise.\\nHe looked at her, as a lover can;\\nShe looked at him, as one who awakes\\nThe past was a sleep, and her life began.\\nNow, love so ordered for both their sakes,\\nA fea^t was held, that self-same night.\\nIn the pile which the mighty shadow makes.\\n(For Via Larga is three parts light.\\nBut the palace overshadows one,\\nBecause of a crime which may God requite!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0156.jp2"}, "157": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 145\\nTo Florence and God the wrong was done,\\nThrough the first republic s murder there\\nBy Cosimo and his cursed son.)\\nThe Duke (with the statue s face in the\\nsquare)\\nTurned, in the midst of his multitude,\\nAt the bright approach of the bridal pair.\\nFace to face the lovers stood\\nA single minute and no more,\\nWhile the bridegroom bent as a man sub-\\ndued\\nBowed till his bonnet brushed the floor\\nFor the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred,\\nAs the courtly custom was of yore.\\nIn a minute can lovers exchange a word?\\nIf a word did pass, which I do not think^\\nOnly one out of the thousand heard.\\nThat was the bridegroom. At day s brink\\nHe and his bride were alone at last\\nIn a bed-chamber by a taper s blink.\\nCalmly he said that her lot was cast.\\nThat the door she had passed was shut on her\\nTill the final catafalk repassed.\\nThe world meanwhile, its noise and stir,\\nThrough a certain window facing the East,\\nShe could watch like a convent s chronicler.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0157.jp2"}, "158": {"fulltext": "146 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nSince passing the door might lead to a feast,\\nAnd a feast might lead to so much beside,\\nHe, of many evils, chose the least.\\nFreely I choose too, said the bride:\\nYour window and its world suffice,\\nReplied the tongue, while the heart replied-\\nIf I spend the night with that devil twice,\\nMay his window serve as my loop of hell\\nWhence a damned soul looks on paradise!\\nI fly to the Duke who loves me well,\\nSit by his side and laugh at sorrow\\nEre I count another ave-bell.\\nTis only the coat of a page to borrow,\\nAnd tie my hair in a horse-boy s trim,\\nAnd I save my soul but not to-morrow\\n(She checked herself and her eye grew dim)\\nMy father tarries to bless my state:\\nI must keep it one day more for him.\\nIs one day more so long to wait?\\nMoreover the Duke rides past, I know;\\nWe shall see each other, sure as fate.\\nShe turned on her side and slept. Just so!\\nSo we resolve on a thing, and sleep\\nSo did the lady, ages ago.\\nThat night the Duke said, Dear or cheap\\nAs the cost of this cup of bliss may prove\\nTo body or soul, I will drain it deep.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0158.jp2"}, "159": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 147\\nAnd on the morrow, bold with love,\\nHe beckoned the bridegroom (close on call,\\nAs- his duty bade, by the Duke s alcove)\\nAnd smiled Twas a very funeral,\\nYour lady will think, this feast of ours,\\nA shame to efface, whate er befall!\\nWhat if we break from the Arno bowers,\\nAnd try if Petraja, cool and green,\\nCure last night s fault with this morning s\\nflowers?\\nThe bridegroom, not a thought to be seen\\nOn his steady brow and quiet mouth,\\nSaid Too much favor for me so mean!\\nBut, alas! my lady leaves the South;\\nEach wind that comes from the Apennine\\nIs a menace to her tender youth:\\nNor a way exists, the wise opine,\\nIf she quits her palace twice this year,\\nTo avert the flower of life s decline.\\nQuoth the Duke: A sage and a kindly fear.\\nMoreover Petraja is cold this spring:\\nBe our feast to-night as usual here!\\nAnd then to himself Which night shall\\nbring\\nThy bride to her lover s embraces, fool\\nOr I am the fool, and thou art the king!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0159.jp2"}, "160": {"fulltext": "148 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nYet my passion must wait a night, nor cool\\nFor to-night the Envoy arrives from France\\nWhose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool.\\nI need thee still and might miss perchance.\\nTo-day is not wholly lost, beside,\\nWith its hope of my lady s countenance:\\nFor I ride what should I do but ride?\\nAnd, passing her palace, if I list,\\nMay glance at its window well betide!\\nSo said, so done nor the lady missed\\nOne ray that broke from the ardent brow%\\nNor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed.\\nBe sure that each renewed the vow.\\nNo morrow s sun should arise and set\\nAnd leave them then as it left them now.\\nBut next day passed, and next day yet,\\nWith still fresh cause to wait one day more\\nEre each leaped over the parapet.\\nAnd still, as love s brief morning wore,\\nWith a gentle start, half smile, half sigh.\\nThey found love not as it seemed before.\\nThey thought it would work infallibly.\\nBut not in despite of heaven and earth:\\nThe rose would blow when the storm passed\\nby.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0160.jp2"}, "161": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 149\\nMeantime they could profit, in winter s dearth,\\nBy store of fruits that supplant the rose:\\nThe world and its ways have a certain worth\\nAnd to press a point where these oppose\\nWere simple policy; better wait:\\nWe lose no friends and we gain no foes.\\nMeantime, worse fates than a lover s fate,\\nWho daily may ride and pass and look\\nWhere his lady watches behind the grate\\nAnd she she watched the square like a book\\nHolding one picture and only one.\\nWhich daily to find she undertook:\\nWhen the picture was reached the book was\\ndone,\\nAnd she turned from the picture at night to\\nscheme\\nOf tearing it out for herself next sun.\\nSo weeks grew months, years gleam by gleam\\nThe glory dropped from their youth and\\nlove.\\nAnd both perceived they had dreamed a\\ndream\\nWhich hovered as dreams do, still above:\\nBut who can take a dream for a truth?\\nOh, hide our eyes from the next remove!\\nOne day as the lady saw her youth\\nDepart, and the silver thread that streaked\\nHer hair, and, worn by the serpent s tooth,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0161.jp2"}, "162": {"fulltext": "150 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThe brow so puckered, the chin so peaked,\\nAnd wondered who the woman was,\\nHollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked\\nFronting her silent in the glass\\nSummon here, she suddenly said,\\nBefore the rest of my old self pass,\\nHim, the Carver, a hand to aid,\\nWho fashions the clay no love will change,\\nAnd fixes a beauty never to fade.\\nLet Robbia s craft so apt and strange\\nArrest the remains of young and fair,\\nAnd rivet them while the seasons range.\\nMake me a face on the window there,\\nWaiting as ever, mute the while,\\nMy love to pass below in the square!\\nAnd let me think that it may beguile\\nDreary days which the dead must spend\\nDown in their darkness under the aisle,\\nTo say, What matters it at the end\\nI did no more while my heart was warm\\nThan does that image, my pale-faced friend.\\nWhere is the use of the lip s red charm,\\nThe heaven of hair, the pride of the brow,\\nAnd the blood that blues the inside arm\\nUnless we turn, as the soul knows how,\\nThe earthly gift to an end divine?\\nA lady of clay is as good, I trow.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0162.jp2"}, "163": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 151\\nBut long ere Robbia s cornice, fine\\nWith flowers and fruits which leaves enlace,\\nWas set where now is the empty shrine\\n(And, leaning out of a bright blue space,\\nAs a ghost might lean from a chink of sky,\\nThe passionate pale lady s face\\nEyeing ever, with earnest eye\\nAnd quick-turned neck at its breathless\\nstretch.\\nSome one who ever is passing by\\nThe Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch\\nIn Florence, Youth my dream escapes!\\nWill its record stay? And he bade them\\nfetch\\nSome subtle moulder of brazen shapes\\nCan the soul, the will, die out of a man\\nEre his body finds the grave that gapes?\\nJohn of Douay shall effect my plan,\\nSet me on horseback here aloft,\\nAlive, as the crafty sculptor can,\\nIn the very square I have crossed so oft:\\nThat men may admire, when future suns\\nShall touch the eyes to a purpose soft,\\nWhile the mouth and the brow stay brave in\\nbronze\\nAdmire and say, When he was alive\\nHow he would take his pleasure once!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0163.jp2"}, "164": {"fulltext": "152 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd it shall go hard but I contrive\\nTo listen the while, and laugh in my tomb\\nAt idleness which aspires to strive.\\nSo! While these wait the trump of doom,\\nHow do their spirits pass, I wonder,\\nNights and days in the narrow room?\\nStili, I suppose, they sit and ponder\\nWhat a gift life was, ages ago.\\nSix steps out of the chapel yonder.\\nOnly they see not God, I know,\\nNor all that chivalry of his.\\nThe soldier-saints who, row on row.\\nBurn upward each to his point of bliss\\nSince, the end of life being manifest,\\nHe had burned his way thro the world to this,\\nI hear you reproach, But delay was best,\\nFor their end was a crime. Oh, a crime\\nwill do\\nAs well, I reply, to serve for a test,\\nAs a virtue golden through and through.\\nSufficient to vindicate itself\\nAnd prove its worth at a moment s view!\\nMust a game be played for the sake of pelf?\\nWhere a button goes, twere an epigram\\nTo offer the stamp of the very Guelph.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0164.jp2"}, "165": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 153\\nThe true has no value beyond the sham\\nAs well the counter as coin, I submit,\\nWhen your table s a hat, and your prize a\\ndram.\\nStake your counter as boldly every whit.\\nVenture as warily, use the same skill.\\nDo your best, whether winning or losing it\\nIf you choose to play is my principle\\nLet a man contend to the uttermost\\nFor his life s set prize, be it what it will.\\nThe counter, our lovers staked, was lost\\nAs surely as if it were lawful coin\\nAnd the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost\\nIs, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,\\nThough the end in sight was a vice, I say.\\nYou of the virtue (we issue join)\\nHow strive you? De te, fabula!\\nLOVE AMONG THE RUINS.\\nI\\nWhere the quiet colored end of evening smiles,\\nMiles and miles,\\nOn the solitary pastures where our sheep\\nHalf-asleep\\nTinkle homeward thro the twilight, stray or\\nstop\\nAs they crop\\nW^as the site once of a city great and gay,\\n(So they say)", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0165.jp2"}, "166": {"fulltext": "154 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nOf our country s very capital, its prince,\\nAges since,\\nHeld his court in, gathered councils, wielding\\nfar\\nPeace or war.\\nNow, the country does not even boast a tree,\\nAs you see.\\nTo distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rilla\\nFrom the hills\\nIntersect and give a name to (else they run\\nInto one).\\nWhere the domed and daring palace shot its\\nspires\\nUp like fires\\nO er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall\\nBounding all,\\nMade of marble, men might march on nor be\\npressed.\\nTwelve abreast.\\nIll\\nAnd such plenty and perfection, see, of grass\\nNever was!\\nSuch a carpet as, this summer-time, o er-\\nspreads\\nAnd embeds\\nEvery vestige of the city, guessed alone.\\nStock or stone\\nWhere a multitude of men breathed joy and\\nwoe\\nLong ago;", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0166.jp2"}, "167": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 155\\nLust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of\\nshame\\nStruck them tame\\nAnd that glory and that shame alike, the gold\\nBought and sold.\\nIV\\nNow, the single little turret that remains\\nOn the plains,\\nBy the caper over-rooted, by the gourd\\nOverscored,\\nWhile the patching houseleek s head of blos-\\nsom winks\\nThrough the chinks\\nMarks the basement whence a tower in ancient\\ntime\\nSprang sublime.\\nAnd a burning ring, all around, the chariots\\ntraced\\nAs they raced.\\nAnd the monarch and his minions and his\\ndames\\nViewed the games.\\nAnd I know while thus the quiet-colored eve\\nSmiles to leave\\nTo their folding, all our many tinkling fleece\\nIn such peace,\\nAnd the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray\\nMelt away\\nThat a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair\\nWaits me there", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0167.jp2"}, "168": {"fulltext": "156 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIn the turret whence the charioteers caught\\nsoul\\nFor the goal,\\nWhen the king looked, where she looks now,\\nbreathless, dumb\\nTill I come.\\nVI\\nBut he looked upon the city, every side,\\nFar and wide,\\nAll the mountains topped with temples, all the\\nglades,\\nColonnades,\\nAll the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, and then,\\nAll the men!\\nWhen I do come, she will speak not, she will\\nstand.\\nEither hand\\nOn my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace\\nOf my face.\\nEre we rush, ere we extinguish sight and\\nspeech\\nEach on each.\\nVII\\nIn one year they sent a million fighters forth\\nSouth and North,\\nAnd they built their gods a brazen pillar high\\nAs the sky,\\nYet reserved a thousand chariots in full force\\nGold, of course.\\nOh, heart! oh, blood that frees, blood that\\nburns!\\nEarth s returns", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0168.jp2"}, "169": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 157\\nFor whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!\\nShut them in,\\nWith their triumphs and their glories and the\\nrest!\\nLove is best.\\nTIME S REVENGES.\\nI ve a Friend, over the sea;\\nI like him, but he loves me.\\nIt all grew out of the books I write;\\nThey find such favor in his sight\\nThat he slaughters you with savage looks\\nBecause you don t admire my books.\\nHe does himself though, and if some vein\\nWere to snap to-night in this heavy brain.\\nTo-morrow month, if I lived to try,\\nRound should I just turn quietly.\\nOr out of the bedclothes stretch my hand\\nTill I found him, come from his foreign land\\nTo be my nurse in this poor place.\\nAnd make my broth and wash my face\\nAnd light my fire, and, all the while,\\nBear with his old good-humored smile\\nThat I told him Better have kept away\\nThan come and kill me, night and day,\\nWith, worse than fever throbs and shoots\\nThe creaking of his clumsy boots.\\nI am as sure that this he would do.\\nAs that Saint Paul s is striking two.\\nAnd I think I rather woe is me!\\nYes, rather would see him than not see\\nIf lifting a hand could seat him there\\nBefore me in the empty chair", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0169.jp2"}, "170": {"fulltext": "158 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nTo-night, when my head aches indeed,\\nAnd I can neither think nor read\\nNor make these purple fingers hold\\nThe pen; this garret s freezing cold!\\nAnd I ve a Lady there he wakes\\nThe laughing fiend and prince of snakes\\nWithin me, at her name, to pray\\nFate send som.e creature in the way\\nOf my love for her, to be down-torn,\\nUpthrust and outward-borne,\\nSo I might prove myself that sea\\nOf passion which I needs miust be\\nCall my thoughts false and my fancies quaint\\nAnd my style infirm and its figures faint,\\nAll the critics say, and more blame yet.\\nAnd not one angry word you get.\\nBut, please you, wonder I would put\\nMy cheek beneath that lady s foot\\nRather than trample under mine\\nThe laurels of the Florentine,\\nAnd you shall see how the devil spends\\nA fire God gave for other ends!\\nI tell you, I stride up and down\\nThis garret, crowned with love s best crown,\\nAnd feasted with love s perfect feast,\\nTo think I kill for her, at least.\\nBody and soul and peace and fame,\\nAlike youth s end and manhood s aim,\\nSo is my spirit, as flesh with vsin.\\nFilled full, eaten out and in\\nWith the face of her, the eyes of her.\\nThe lips, the little chin, the stir\\nOf shadows round her mouth and she", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0170.jp2"}, "171": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 159\\n\u00e2\u0080\u0094I ll tell you, calmly would decree\\nThat I should roast at a slow fire,\\nIf that would compass her desire\\nAnd make her one whom they invite\\nTo the famous ball to-morrow night.\\nThere may be heaven; there must be hell;\\nMeantime, there is our earth here well\\nWARING.\\nI\\nWhat s become of Waring\\nSince he gave us all the slip,\\nChose land-travel or seafaring,\\nBoots and chest or staff and scrip,\\nRather than pace up and down\\nAny longer London town?\\nWho d have guessed it from his lip\\nOr his brow s accustomed bearing,\\nOn the night he thus took ship\\nOr started landward? little caring\\nFor us, it seems, who supped together\\n(Friends of his, too, I remember)\\nAnd walked home thro the merry weather,\\nThe snowiest in all December.\\nI left his arm that night myself\\nFor what s-his-name s, the new prose-poet\\nWho wrote the book there on the shelf\\nHow, foresooth, was I to know it", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0171.jp2"}, "172": {"fulltext": "160 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIf Waring meant to glide away-\\nLike a ghost at break of day?\\nNever looked he half so gay!\\nIll\\nHe was prouder than the devil\\nHow he must have cursed our revel!\\nAy, and many other meetings,\\nIndoor visits, outdoor greetings,\\nAs up and down he paced this London,\\nWith no work done, but great works undone,\\nWhere scarce twenty knew his name.\\nWhy not, then, have earlier spoken,\\nWritten, bustled? Who s to blame\\nIf your silence kept unbroken?\\n**True, but there were sundry jottings,\\nStray-leaves, fragments, blurrs and blottings,\\nCertain first steps were achieved\\nAlready which (is that your meaning?)\\nHad well borne out whoe er believed\\nIn more to come! But who goes gleaning\\nHedge-side chance-blades, while full-sheaved\\nStand cornfields by him? Pride, o erweening;\\nPride alone, puts forth such claims\\nO er the day s distinguished names.\\nIV\\nMeantime, how much I loved him,\\nI find out now I ve lost him.\\nI who cared not if I moved him.\\nWho could so carelessly accost him\\nHenceforth never shall get free\\nOf his ghostly company.\\nHis eyes that just a little wink", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0172.jp2"}, "173": {"fulltext": "We conferred of her own prospects. Page 171.\\nBrowning s Por nis.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0173.jp2"}, "174": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0174.jp2"}, "175": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 161\\nAs deep I go into the merit\\nOf this and that distinguished spirit\\nHis cheeks raised colour, soon to sink,\\nAs long I dwell on some stupendous\\nAnd tremendous (Heaven defend us!)\\nMonstr -inform -ingens-horrend-ous\\nDemoniaco-seraphic\\nPenman s latest piece of graphic.\\nNay, my very wrist grows warm\\nWith his dragging weight of arm.\\nE en so, swimmingly appears,\\nThrough one s after-supper musings,\\nSome lost lady of old 5^ears,\\nWith her beauteous vain endeavor\\nAnd goodness unrepaid as ever;\\nThe face accustomed to refusings.\\nWe, puppies that we were Oh never\\nSurely, nice of con-science, scrupled.\\nBeing aught like false, forsooth, to?\\nTelling aught but honest truth t-o?\\nWhat a sin, had we centupled\\nIts possessor s grace and sweetness!\\nNo! she heard in its completeness\\nTruth, for truth s a weighty matter\\nAnd, truth at issue, we can t flatter!\\nWell, tis done with: she s exempt\\nFrom damning us thro such a sally;\\nAnd so she glides, as down a valley,\\nTaking up with her contempt.\\nPast our reach and in, the flowers\\nvShut her unregarded hours.\\n11 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0175.jp2"}, "176": {"fulltext": "162 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nOh, could I have him back once more,\\nThis Waring, but one-half day more!\\nBack, with the quiet face of yore,\\nSo hungry for acknowledgment\\nLike mine! Vd fool him to his bent.\\nFeed, should not he, to heart s content?\\nI d say, to only have conceived,\\nPlanned your great works, apart from pro-\\ngress,\\nSurpasses little works achieved!\\nI d lie so, I should be believed;\\nI d make such havoc of the claims\\nOf the day s distinguished names\\nTo feast with, as feasts an ogress\\nHer feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child\\nOr as one feasts a creature rarely\\nCaptured here, unreconciled\\nTo capture; and completely gives\\nIts pettish humors license, barely\\nRequiring that it lives.\\nVI\\nIchabod, Ichabod,The glory is departed!\\nTravels Waring East away?\\nWho, of knowledge, by hearsay,\\nReports a man upstarted\\nSomewhere as a god. Hordes grown European-\\nhearted,\\nMillions of the wild made tame\\nOn a sudden at his fame?\\nIn Vishnu-land what Avatar?\\nOr who in Moscow, towards the Czar,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0176.jp2"}, "177": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 163\\nWith the demurest of footfalls\\nOver the Kremlin s pavement bright\\nWith serpentine and syenite,\\nSteps, with five other Generals\\nThat simultaneously take snuff,\\nFor each to have pretext enough\\nAnd kerchief wise unfold his sash\\nWhich, softness self, is yet the stuff\\nTo hold fast where a steel chain snaps,\\nAnd leave the grand white neck no gash?\\nWaring in Moscow, to those rough\\nCold northern natures borne perhaps,\\nLike the lamb-white maiden dear\\nFrom the circle of mute kings\\nUnable to repress the tear.\\nEach at his sceptre down he flings.\\nTo Diana s fame at Taurica,\\nWhere now a captive priestess, she alway\\nMingles her tender grave Hellenic speech\\nWith theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten\\nbeach\\nAs pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands\\nRapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian\\nstrands\\nWhere breed the swallows, her melodious cry\\nAmid their barbarous twitter!\\nIn Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!\\nAy, most likely tis in Spain\\nThat we and Waring meet again\\nNow, while he turns down that cool narrow\\nlane\\nInto the blackness, out of grave Madrid\\nAll fire and shine, abrupt as when there s slid\\nIts stiff gold blazing pall", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0177.jp2"}, "178": {"fulltext": "164 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nFrom some black coffin-lid.\\nOr, best of all, I love to think\\nThe leaving us was just a feint;\\nBack here to London did he slink,\\nAnd now works on without a wink\\nOf sleep, and we are on the brink\\nOf something great in fresco-paint:\\nSome garret s ceiling, walls and floor,\\nUp and down and o er and o er\\nHe splashes, as none splashed before\\nSince great Caldara Polidore.\\nOr Music means this land of ours\\nSome favor yet, to pity won\\nBy Purcell from his Rosy Bowers,\\nGive me my so- long promised son,\\nLet Waring end what I begun!\\nThen down he creeps and out he steals,\\nOnly when the night conceals\\nHis face; in Kent tis cherry-time,\\nOr hops are picking or at prime\\nOf March he wanders as, too happy.\\nYears ago, when he was young,\\nSome mild eve when woods grew sappy\\nAnd the early moths had sprung\\nTo life from many a trembling sheath\\nWoven the warm boughs beneath;\\nWhile small birds said to themselves\\nWhat should soon be actual song,\\nAnd young gnats, by tens and twelves\\nMade as if they were the throng\\nThat crowd around and carry aloft\\nThe sound they have nursed, so sweet and\\npure,\\nOut of a myriad noises soft.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0178.jp2"}, "179": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 165\\nInto a tone that can endure\\nAmid the noise of a July noon\\nWhen all God s creatures crave their boon,\\nAll at once, and all in tune,\\nAnd get it, happy as Waring- then,\\nHaving first within his ken\\nWhat a man might do with men:\\nAnd far too glad, in the even-glow.\\nTo mix with the world he meant to take\\nInto his hand, he told you so\\nAnd out of it his world to make,\\nTo contract and to expand\\nAs he shut or oped his hand.\\nOh Waring, what s to really be?\\nA clear stage and a crowd to see!\\nSome Garrick say, out shall not he\\nThe heart of Hamlet s mystery pluck?\\nOr, when most unclean beasts are rife,\\nSome Junius am I right? shall tuck\\nHis sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife!\\nSome Chatterton shall have the luck\\nOf calling Rowley into life!\\nSomeone shall somehow run amuck\\nWith this old world for want of strife\\nSound sleep. Contrive, contrive\\nTo rouse us. Waring! Who s alive?\\nOur men scarce seem in earnest now.\\nDistinguished names! but tis, somehow,\\nAs if they played at being names\\nStill more distinguished, like the games\\nOf children. Turn our sport to earnest\\nWith a visage of the sternest!\\nBring the real times back, confessed\\nStill better than our very best.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0179.jp2"}, "180": {"fulltext": "166 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nII\\nWhen I last saw Waring\\n(How all turned to him who spoke!\\nYou saw Waring? Truth or joke?\\n(In land- travel or sea-faring?)\\nII\\nWe were sailing by Triest\\nWhere a day or two we harbored:\\nA sunset was in the West,\\nWhen, looking over the vessels side,\\nOne of our company espied\\nA sudden speck to larboard.\\nAnd as a sea-duck flies and swims\\nAt once, so came the light craft up,\\nWith its sole lateen sail that trims\\nAnd turns (the water round its rims\\nDancing, as round a sinking cup)\\nAnd by us like a fish it curled,\\nAnd drew itself up close beside,\\nIts great sail on the instant furled,\\nAnd o er its thwarts a shrill voice cried,\\n(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar s)\\nBuy wine of us, you English Brig?\\nOr fruit, tobacco and cigars?\\nA pilot for you to Triest?\\nWithout one, look you ne er so big,\\nThey ll never let you up the bay!\\nWe natives should know best.\\nI turned, and just those fellows way,\\nOur captain said, The long- shore thieves\\nAre laughing at us in their sleeves.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0180.jp2"}, "181": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 167\\nIII\\nIn truth, the boy leaned laughing back:\\nAnd one, half-hidden by his side\\nUnder the furled sail, soon I spied,\\nWith great grass hat and kerchief black,\\nWho looked up with his kingly throat,\\nSaid somewhat, while the other shook\\nHis hair back from his eyes to look\\nTheir longest at us; then the boat,\\nI know not how, turned sharply round,\\nLaying her whole side on the sea\\nAs a leaping fish does; from the lee\\nInto the weather, cut somehow\\nHer sparkling path beneath our bow,\\nAnd so went off, as with a bound,\\nInto the rosy and golden half\\nO the sky, to overtake the sun\\nAnd reach the shore, like the sea-calf\\nIts singing cave; yet I caught one\\nGlance ere away the boat quite passed,\\nAnd neither times nor toil could mar\\nThose features; so I saw the last\\nOf Waring! You? Oh, never star\\nWas lost here but it rose afar!\\nLook East, where whole new thousands are\\nIn Vishnu-land what Avatar?\\nHOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD.\\nOh, to be in England now that April s there,\\nAnd whoever wakes in England sees, some\\nmorning, unaware,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0181.jp2"}, "182": {"fulltext": "168 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThat the lowest boughs and the brushwood\\nsheaf\\nRound the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,\\nWhile the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough\\nIn England now!\\nAnd after April, when May follows\\nAnd the white-throat builds, and all the swal-\\nlows\\nHark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the\\nhedge\\nLeans to the field and scatters on the clover\\nBlossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray s\\nedge\\nThat s the wise thrush; he sings each song\\ntwice over\\nLest you should think he never could recapture\\nThe first fine careless rapture!\\nAnd, though the fields look rough with hoary\\ndew,\\nAll will be gay w^hen noontide wakes anew\\nThe buttercups, the little children s dower\\nFar brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!\\nTHE ITALL\\\\N IN ENGLAND.\\nThat second time they hunted me\\nFrom hill to plain, from shore to sea.\\nAnd Austria, hounding far and wide\\nHer blood-hounds thro the country-side,\\nBreathed hot and instant on my trace.\\nI made, six days, a hiding-place\\nOf that dry green old aqueduct\\nWhere I and Charks, when boys, have plucked\\nThe fire-flies from the roof above,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0182.jp2"}, "183": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 169\\nBright creeping thro the moss they love;\\nHow long it seems since Charles was lost!\\nSix days the soldiers crossed and crossed\\nThe country in my very sight\\nAnd when that peril ceased at night,\\nThe sky broke out in red dismay\\nWith signal-fires. Well, there I lay\\nClose covered o er in my recess,\\nUp to the neck in ferns and cress,\\nThinking on Aletternich our friend,\\nAnd Charles miserable end,\\nAnd much beside, tw9 days; the third.\\nHunger o ercame me when I heard\\nThe peasants from the village go\\nTo work among the maize: you know,\\nW^ith us in Lombardy, they bring\\nProvisions packad on mules, a string,\\nWith little bells that cheer their task,\\nAnd casks, and boughs on every cask\\nTo keep the sun s heat from the wine;\\nThese I let pass in jingling line,\\nAnd, close on them, dear noisy crew,\\nThe peasants from the village, too;\\nFor at the very rear would troop\\nTheir wives and sisters in a group\\nTo help, I knew; when these had passed,\\nI threw my glove to strike the last.\\nTaking the chance she did not start,\\nMuch less cry out, but stooped apart,\\nOne instant rapidly glanced round.\\nAnd saw me beckon from the ground.\\nA wild bush grows and bides my crypt;\\nShe picked my glove up while she stripped\\nA branch off, then rejoined the rest\\n12 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0183.jp2"}, "184": {"fulltext": "170 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWith that: my glove lay in her breast:\\nThen I drew breath; they disappeared:\\nIt was for Italy I feared.\\nAn hour, and she returned alone\\nExactly where my glove was thrown.\\nMeanwhile came many thoughts; on me\\nRested the hopes of Italy\\nI had devised a certain tale\\nWhich, when twas told her, could not fail\\nPersuade a peasant of its truth\\nI meant to call a freak of youth\\nThis hiding, and give hopes of pay,\\nAnd no temptation to betray.\\nBut when I saw that woman s face,\\nIts calm simplicity of grace,\\nOur Italy s own attitude\\nIn which she walked thus far, and stood,\\nPlanting each naked foot so firm.\\nTo crush the snake and spare the worm\\nAt first sight of her eyes, I said,\\nI am that man upon whose head\\n*They fix the price, because I hate\\nThe Austrians over us; the State\\nWill give you gold oh, gold so much!\\nIf you betray me to their clutch,\\nAnd be your death, for aught I know,\\nIf once they find you saved their foe.\\nNow, you must bring me food and drink,\\nAnd also paper, pen and ink,\\nAnd carry safe what I shall write\\nTo Padua, which you ll reach at night\\nBefore the duomo shuts; go in,\\nAnd wait till Tenebrae begin;\\nJ", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0184.jp2"}, "185": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 171\\nWalk to the third confessional,\\nBetween the pillar and the wall,\\nAnd kneeling whisper, Whence comes peace?\\nSay it a second time, then cease;\\nAnd if the voice inside returns,\\nFrom Christ and Freedom; what concerns\\nThe cause of Peace? for answer, slip\\nMy letter where you placed your lip;\\nThen come back happy we have done\\nOur mother service I, the son,\\nAs you the daugther of our land!\\nThree mornings more, she took her stand\\nIn the same place, with the same eyes;\\nI was no surer of sun-rise\\nThan of her coming: we conferred\\nOf her own prospects, and I heard\\nShe had a lover stout and tall.\\nShe said then let her eyelids fall,\\nHe could do much as if some doubt\\nEntered her heart, then, passing out,\\nShe could not speak for others, who\\nHad other thoughts; herself she knew:\\nAnd so she brought me drink and food.\\nAfter four days, the scouts pursued\\nAnother path at last arrived\\nThe help my Paduan friends contrived\\nTo furnish me: she brought the news.\\nFor the first time I could not choose\\nBut kiss her hand, and lay my own\\nUpon her head This faith was shown\\nTo Italy, our mother; she\\nUses my hand and blesses thee.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0185.jp2"}, "186": {"fulltext": "172 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nShe followed down to the sea-shore;\\nI left and never saw her more.\\nHow very long since I have thought\\nConcerning much less wished for aught\\nBeside the good of Italy,\\nFor which I live and mean to die!\\nI never was in love and since\\nCharles proved false, what shall now convince\\nMy inmost heart I have a friend?\\nHowever, if I pleased to spend\\nReal wishes on myself say, three\\nI know at least what one should be.\\nI would grasp Metternich until\\nI felt his red wet throat distill\\nIn blood thro these two hands. And next,\\nNor much for that am I perplexed\\nCharles, perjured traitor, for his part,\\nShould die slow of a broken heart\\nUnder his new employers. Last\\nAh, there, what should I wish? For fast\\nDo I grow old and out of strength.\\nIf I resolved to seek at length\\nMy father s house again, how scared\\nThey all would look, and unprepared!\\nMy brohers live in Austria s pay\\nDisowned me long ago, men say;\\nAnd all my early mates who used\\nTo praise me so perhaps induced\\nMore than one early step of mine\\nAre turning wise: while some opine\\nFreedom grows license, some suspect\\nHaste breeds delay, and recollect\\nThey always said, such premature", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0186.jp2"}, "187": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 173\\nBeginnings never could endure!\\nSo, with a sullen All s for best,\\nThe land seems settling to its rest,\\nI think then, I should wish to stand\\nThis evening in that dear, lost land,\\nOver the sea the thousand miles,\\nAnd know if yet that woman smiles\\nWith the calm smile some little farm\\nShe lives in there, no doubt what harm\\nIf I sat on the door-side bench,\\nAnd while her spindle made a trench\\nFantastically in the dust.\\nInquired of all her fortunes just\\nHer children s ages aud their names.\\nAnd what may be the husband s aims\\nFor each of them. I d talk this out,\\nAnd sit there, for an hour about,\\nThen kiss her hand once more, and lay\\nMine on her head, and go my way.\\nSo much for idle wishing how\\nIt steals the time To business now.\\nTHE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY.\\nPIANO DI SORRENTO.\\nFortu, Fortu, my beloved one, sit here by my\\nside,\\nOn m.y knees put up both little feet I am\\nsure, if I tried,\\nI could make you laugh spite of vScirocco. Now,\\nopen your eyes.\\nLet me keep you amused, till he vanish in\\nblack from the skies.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0187.jp2"}, "188": {"fulltext": "174 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWith telling my memories over, as you tell\\nyour beads\\nAll the Plain saw me gather, I garland the\\nflowers or the weeds.\\nTime for rain for your long hot dry Autumn\\nhad net-worked with brown\\nThe white skin of each grape on the bunches,\\nmarked like a quail s crown,\\nThose creatures you make such account of,\\nwhose heads, specked with white\\nOver brown like a great spider s back, as I told\\nyou last night\\nYour mother bites off for her supper. Red-ripe\\nas could be,\\nPomegranates were chapping and splitting in\\nhalves on the tree.\\nAnd betwixt the loose walls of great flint-stone,\\nor in the thick dust\\nOn the path or straight out of the rock-side,\\nwherever could thrust\\nSome burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower its\\nyellow face up,\\nFor the prize were great butterflies fighting,\\nsome five for one cup.\\nSo, I guessed, ere I got up this morning, what\\nchange was in store,\\nBy the quick rustle-down of the quail-nets\\nwhich woke me before\\nI could open my shutter, made fast with a\\nbough and a stone,\\nAnd look through the twisted dead wine-twigs,\\nsole lattice that s known.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0188.jp2"}, "189": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 175\\nQuick and sharp rang the rings down the net-\\npoles, while, busy beneath.\\nYour priest and his brother tugged at them,\\nthe rain in their teeth.\\nAnd out upon all the flat house-roofs, where\\nsplit figs lay drying.\\nThe girls took the frails under cover; nor use\\nseemed in trying\\nTo get out the boats and go fishing, for, under\\nthe cliff,\\nFierce the black water frothed o er the blind-\\nrock. No seeing our skiff\\nArrive about noon from Amalfi! our fisher\\narrive.\\nAnd pitch down his basket before us, all trem-\\nbling alive.\\nWith pink and gray jellies, your sea-fruit;\\nyou touch the strange lumps,\\nAnd mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner\\nof horns and of humps.\\nWhich only the fisher looks grave at, while\\nround him like imps,\\nCling, screaming the children as naked and\\nbrown as his shrimps\\nHimself, too, as bare to the middle you see\\nround his neck\\nThe string and its brass coin suspended, that\\nsaves him from wreck.\\nBut to-day not a boat reached Salerno: so\\nback, to a man,\\nCame our friends, with whose help in the vine-\\nyards grape-harvest began.\\nIn the vat, halfway up in our house-side, like\\nblood the juice spins,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0189.jp2"}, "190": {"fulltext": "176 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWhile your brother all bare-legged is dancing\\ntill breathless he grins\\nDead-beaten in effort on effort to keep the\\ngrapes under,\\nSince still, when he seems all but master, in\\npours he fresh plunder\\nFrom girls who keep coming and going with\\nbasket on shoulder,\\nAnd eyes shut against the rains driving your\\ngirls that are older,\\nFor under the hedges of aloe, and where, on\\nits bed\\nOf the orchard s black mould, the love-apple\\nlies pulpy and red.\\nAll the young ones are kneeling and filling\\ntheir laps with the snails\\nTempted out by this first rainy weather, your\\nbest of regales,\\nAs to-night will be proved to my sorrow, when,\\nsupping in state.\\nWe shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen,\\nthree over one plate)\\nWith lasagne so tempting to swallow in slip-\\npery ropes,\\nAnd gourds fried in great purple slices, that\\ncolor of popes.\\nMeantime, see the grape bunch they ve brought\\nyou: the rain-water slips\\nO er the heavy blue bloom on each globe which\\nthe wasp to your lips\\nStill follows with fretful persiste^ice. Nay,\\ntaste, while awake.\\nThis half of a curd-whit-e smooth cheese-ball\\nthat peels, flake by flake,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0190.jp2"}, "191": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 177\\nLike an onion, each smoother and whiter: next,\\nsip this weak wine\\nFrom the thin green glass flask^ with its stop-\\nper, a leaf of the vine\\nAnd end with the prickly pear s red flesh that\\nleaves thro* its juice\\nThe stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth.\\nScirocco is loose\\nHark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olives\\nwhich, thick in one s track,\\nTempt the stranger to pick up and bite them,\\ntho* not yet half black!\\nHow the old twisted olive trunks shudder, the\\nmedlars let fall\\nTheir hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees\\nsnap off, figs and all.\\nFor here comes the whole of the tempest no\\nrefuge, but creep\\nBack again to my side and my shoulder, and\\nlisten or sleep.\\nO how will your country show next week,\\nwhen all the vine-boughs\\nHave been stripped of their foliage to pasture\\nthe mules and the cows?\\nLast eve I rode over the mountains; your\\nbrother, my guide.\\nSoon left me, to feast on the myrtles that\\noffered, each side,\\nTheir fruit-balls, black, glossy, and luscious,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nor strip from the sorbs\\nA treasure, or, rosy and wondrous, those hairy\\ngold orbs!\\n12", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0191.jp2"}, "192": {"fulltext": "178 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nBut my mule picked his sure sober path out,\\njust stopping to neigh\\nWhen he recognized down in the valley his\\nmates on their way\\nWith the faggots and barrels of water. And\\nsoon we emerged\\nFrom the plain where the woods could scarce\\nfollow and still, as we urged\\nOur way, the woods wondered, and left us.\\nUp, up still we trudged,\\nThough the wild path grew wilder each instant,\\nand place was e en grudged\\nMid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones\\nlike the loose broken teeth\\nOf some monster which climbed there to die,\\nfrom the ocean beneath\\nPlace was grudged to the silver-gray fume-\\nweed that clung to the path,\\nAnd dark rosemary ever a-dying, that, spite\\nthe wind s wrath.\\nSo loves the salt rock s face to seaward: and\\nlentisks as staunch\\nTo the stone where they root and bear berries\\nand what shows a branch\\nCoral-colored, transparent, with circlets of pale\\nseagreen leaves;\\nOver all trod my mule with the caution of\\ngleaners o er sheaves.\\nStill, foot after foot like a lady, still, round\\nafter round.\\nHe climbed to the top of Calvano: and God s\\nown profound\\nWas above me, and round me the mountains,\\nand under, the sea,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0192.jp2"}, "193": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 179\\nAnd within me my heart to bear witness what\\nwas and shall be.\\nOh, heaven and the terrible crystal! no ram-\\npart excludes\\nYour eye from the life to be lived in the blue\\nsolitudes.\\nOh, those mountains, their infinite movement!\\nstill moving with you\\nFor, ever some new head and breast of them\\nthrusts into view\\nTo observe the intruder you see it, if quickly\\nyou turn\\nAnd, before they escape you, surprise them.\\nThey grudge you should learn\\nHow soft plains they look on, lean over and\\nlove (they pretend)\\nCower beneath them, the black sea-pine\\ncrouches, the wild fruit-trees bend.\\nE en the myrtle leaves curl, shriak and shut:\\nall is silent and grave\\nTis a sensual and timorous beauty, how fair!\\nbut a slave.\\nSo, I turned to the sea and there slumbered,\\nas greenly as ever\\nThose isles of the siren, your Galli. No ages\\ncan sever\\nThe Three, nor enable their sister to join\\nthem, halfway\\nOn the voyage, she looked at Ulysses no\\nfarther to-day!\\nTho the small one, just launched in the waves,\\nwatches breast-high and steady", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0193.jp2"}, "194": {"fulltext": "180 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nFrom under the rock her bold sister, swum\\nhalfway already.\\nFortu, shall we sail there together, and see,\\nfrom the sides,\\nQuite new rocks show their faces, new haunts\\nwhere the siren abides?\\nShall we sail round and round them, close over\\nthe rocks, tho unseen.\\nThat ruffle the gray glassy water to glorious\\ngreen?\\nThen scramble from splinter to splinter, reach\\nland, and explore,\\nOn the largest, the strange square black tur-\\nret with never a door.\\nJust a loop to admit the quick lizards? Then,\\nstand there and hear\\nThe birds quiet singing, that tells us what life\\nis, so clear?\\nThe secret they sang to Ulysses when, ages\\nago.\\nHe heard and he knew this life s secret, I hear\\nand I know.\\nAh, see! the sun breaks o er Calvano. He\\nstrikes the great gloom\\nAnd flutters it o er the mount s summit in airy\\ngold fume.\\nAll is over. Look out, see, the gipsy, our\\ntinker and smith,\\nHas arrived, set up bellows and forge, and\\ndown-squatted forthwith\\nTo his hammering under the wall there One\\neye keeps aloof,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0194.jp2"}, "195": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 181\\nThe urchins that itch to be putting his jews-\\nharp to proof,\\nWhile the other, thro locks of curled wire, is\\nwatching how sleek\\nShines the hog, come to share in the wind-fall.\\nChew, abbot s own cheek!\\nAll is over. Wake up and come out now, and\\ndown let us go,\\nAnd see the fine things got in order at church\\nfor the show\\nOf the Sacrament, set forth this evening. To-\\nmorrow s the Feast\\nOf the Rosary s Virgin, by no means of Virgins\\nthe least:\\nAs you ll hear in the off-hand discourse which\\n(all nature, no art)\\nThe Dominican brother, these three weeks,\\nwas getting by heart.\\nNot a pillar nor post but is dizened with red\\nand blue papers\\nAll the roof waves with ribbons, each altar\\nablaze with long tapers.\\nBut the great masterpiece is the scaffold rigged\\nglorious to hold\\nAll the fiddlers and fifers and drummers and\\ntrumpeters bold\\nNot afraid of Bellini nor Auber: who, when\\nthe priest s hoarse.\\nWill strike us up something that s brisk for the\\nfeast s second course.\\nAnd then will the flaxen-wigged Image be car-\\nried in pomp", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0195.jp2"}, "196": {"fulltext": "182 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThro the plain, while, in gallant procession,\\nthe priests mean to stomp.\\nAH round the glad church lie old bottles with\\ngunpowder stopped,\\nWhich will be, when the Image re-nters, relig-\\niously popped.\\nAnd at night from the crest of Calvano great\\nbonfires will hang\\nOn the plain will the trumpets join chorus, and\\nmore poppers bang.\\nAt all events, come to the garden, as far as\\nthe wall\\nSee me tap with a hoe on the plaster, till out\\nthere shall fall\\nA scorpion with wide angry nippers!\\nSuch trifles! you say?\\nFortu, in my England at home, men meet\\ngravely to-day\\nAnd debate, if abolishing Corn-laws be righte-\\nous and wise!\\nIf twere proper, Scirocco should vanish in\\nblack from the skies!\\nUP AT A VILLA\u00e2\u0080\u0094 DOWN IN THE CITY.\\n(as distinguished by an ITALIAN PERSON OF\\nQUALITY.)\\nHad I but plenty of money, money enough and\\nto spare,\\nThe house for me, no doubt, were a house in\\nthe city-square;", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0196.jp2"}, "197": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 183\\nAh, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the\\nwindow there\\nSomething to see, by Bacchus, something to\\nhere, at least\\nThere, the whole day long, one s life is a per-\\nfect feast;\\nWhile up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no\\nmore than a beast.\\nIll\\nWell now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn\\nof a bull\\nJust on a mountain edge as bare as the crea-\\nture s skull.\\nSave a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf\\nto pull\\nI scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the\\nhair s turned wool.\\nIV\\nBut the city, oh the city\u00e2\u0080\u0094 the square with the\\nhouses! Why?\\nThey are stone-faced, white as a curd, there s\\nsomething to take the eye\\nHouses in four straight lines, not a single front\\nawry;\\nYou watch who crosses and gossips, who saun-\\nters, who hurries by\\nGreen blinds, as a matter of course, to draw\\nwhen the sun gets high;\\nAnd the shops with fanciful signs which are\\npainted properly.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0197.jp2"}, "198": {"fulltext": "184 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWhat of a villa? Though winter be over in\\nMarch by rights,\\nTis May perhaps ere the snow shall have with-\\nered well off the-heights:\\nYou ve the brown ploughed land before, where\\nthe oxen steam and wheeze,\\nAnd the hills over-smoked behind by the faint\\ngray olive-trees..\\nVI\\nIs it better in May, I ask you? You ve summer\\nall at once\\nIn a day he leaps complete with a few strong\\nApril suns.\\nMid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce\\nrisen three fingers well,\\nThe wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its\\ngreat red bell\\nLike a thin clear bubble of blood, for the\\nchildren to pick and sell.\\nVII\\nIs it ever hot in the square? There s a fountain\\nto spaut and splash\\nIn the shade it sings and springs; in the shine\\nsuch foam-bows flash\\nOn the horses with curling fish-tails, that\\nprance and paddle and pash\\nRound the lady atop in her conch fifty\u00c2\u00bbgazers\\ndo not abash,\\nThough all that she wears is some, weeds round\\nher waist in a sort of sash.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0198.jp2"}, "199": {"fulltext": "\u00c2\u00b15R0WNIx\\\\G S POEMS. l85\\nVIII\\nAll the year long at the villa, nothing to see\\nthough you linger,\\nExcept yon cypress that points like death s\\nlean lifted forefinger.\\nSome think fireflies pretty, when they mix i\\nthe corn and mingle,\\nOr thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it\\nseem atingle.\\nLate August or early September, the stunning\\ncicala is shrill,\\nAnd the bees keep their tiresome whine round\\nthe resinous firs on the hill.\\nEnough of the seasons, I spare you the\\nmonths of the fever and chill.\\nIX\\nEre you open your eyes in the city, the blessed\\nchurch-bells begin\\nNo sooner the bells leave off than the diligence\\nrattles in:\\nYou get the pick of the news, and it costs you\\nnever a pin.\\nBy and by there s the traveling doctor gives\\npills, lets blood, draws teeth\\nOr the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the\\nmarket beneath.\\nAt the post-office such a scene- picture the new\\nplay, piping hot!\\nAnd a notice how, only this morning, three\\nliberal thieves were shot.\\nAbove it, behold the Archbishop s most\\nfatherly of rebukes,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0199.jp2"}, "200": {"fulltext": "186 BROWNING S POEMS.\\n1\\nAnd beneath, with his crown and his lion, some\\nlittle new law of the Duke s!\\nOr a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Rever-\\nend Don So-and-so\\nWho is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome\\nand Cicero,\\nAnd moreover, (the sonnet goes rhyming,)\\nthe skirts of St. Paul has reached,\\nHaving preached us those six Lent-lectures\\nmore unctuous than ever he preached.\\nNoon strikes, here sweeps the procession our\\nlady borne smiling and smart.\\nWith a pink gauze gown all spangles, and\\nseven swords stuck in her heart\\nBang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle- te-\\ntootle the fife; No keeping one s haunches\\nstill: it s the greatest pleasure in life.\\nBut bless you, it s dear! fowls, wine, at double\\nthe rate.\\nThey have clapped a new tax upon salt, and\\nwhat oil pays passing the gate\\nIt s a horror to think of. And so, the villa for\\nme, not the city!\\nBeggars can scarcely be choosers but still\\nah, the pity, the pity!\\nLook, two and two go to the priests, then the\\nmonks with cowls and sandals.\\nAnd the penitents dressed in white shirts,\\naholding the yellow candles;\\nOne, he carries a flag up straight, and another\\na cross with handles,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0200.jp2"}, "201": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 187\\nAnd the Duke s guard brings up the rear, for\\nthe better prevention of scandals:\\nBang- whang- whang goes the drum, tootle-te-\\ntootle the fife.\\nOh, a day in the city-square, there is no such\\npleasure in life!\\nPICTOR IGNOTUS.\\nFLORENCE, I 5\\nI could have painted pictures like that youth s\\nYe praise so. How my soul springs up! No\\nbar\\nStayed me ah, thought which saddens while\\nit soothes!\\nNever did fate forbid me, star by star.\\nTo outburst on your night, vnth all my gift\\nOf fires from God nor would my flesh have\\nshrunk\\nFrom seconding my soul, with eyes uplift\\nAnd wide to heaven, or, straight like thun-\\nder, sunk\\nTo the center, of an instant; or around\\nTurned calmly and inquisitive, to scan\\nThe license and the limit, space and bound,\\nAllowed to truth made visible in man.\\nAnd, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw,\\nOver the canvas could my hand have flung,\\nEach face obedient to its passion s law.\\nEach passion clear proclaimed without a\\ntongue.\\nWhether Hope rose at once in all the blood,\\nA-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0201.jp2"}, "202": {"fulltext": "188 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nOr Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her\\nbrood\\nPull down the nestling dove s heart to its\\nplace;\\nOr Confidence lit swift the forehead up,\\nAnd locked the mouth fast, like a castle\\nbraved,\\nO human faces, hath it split, my cup?\\nWhat did ye give me that I have not saved?\\nNor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!)\\nOf going I, in each new picture, forth,\\nAs, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell.\\nTo Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or\\nNorth,\\nBound for the calmly satisfied great State,\\nOr glad aspiring little burgh, it went,\\nFlowers cast upon the car which bore the\\nfreight,\\nThrough old streets named afresh from the\\nevent.\\nTill it reached home, where learned age should\\ngreet\\nMy face, and youth, the star not yet distinct\\nAbove his hair, lie learniug at my feet!\\nOh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked\\nW^ith love about, and praise, till life should end.\\nAnd then not go to heaven, but linger here.\\nHere on my earth, earth s every man my friend,\\nThe thought grew frightful, t was so wildly\\ndear!\\nBut a voice changed it. Glimpses of such\\nsights\\nHave scared me, like the revels through a\\ndoor", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0202.jp2"}, "203": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 189\\nOf some strange house of idols at its rites!\\nThis world seemed not the world it was,\\nbefore.\\nMixed with my loving trusting ones, there\\ntrooped\\nWho summoned those cold faces that\\nbegun\\nTo press on me and judge me? Though I\\nstooped\\nShrinking, as from the soldiery a nun,\\nThey drew me forth, and spite of me\\nenough!\\nThese buy and sell our pictures, take and\\ngive,\\nCount them for garniture and household stuff,\\nAnd where they live needs must our pictures\\nlive\\nAnd see their faces, listen to their prate.\\nPartakers of their daily pettiness.\\nDiscussed of, This I love, or this I hate,\\nThis likes me more, and this affects me\\nless!\\nWherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles\\nMy heart sinks, as monotonous I paint\\nThese endless cloisters and eternal aisles,\\nWith the same series, Virgin, Babe, and\\nSaint,\\nWith the same cold calm beautiful regard,\\nAt least no merchant traffics in my heart;\\nThe sanctuary s gloom at least shall ward\\nVain tongues from where my pictures stand\\napart\\nOnly prayer breaks the silence of the shrine\\nWhile, blackening in the daily candle-smoke,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0203.jp2"}, "204": {"fulltext": "190 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThey moulder on the damp wall s travertine.\\nMid echoes the light footstep never woke.\\nSo, die my pictures! surely, gently die!\\nO youth, men praise so, holds their praise\\nits worth?\\nBlown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry?\\nTastes sweet the water with such specks of\\nearth?\\nFRA LIPPO LIPPI.\\nI am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!\\nYou need not clap your torches to my face.\\nZooks, what s to blame? you think you see a\\nmonk\\nWhat, tis past midnight, and you go the\\nrounds.\\nAnd here you catch me at an alley s end\\nWhere sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?\\nThe Carmine s my cloister: hunt it up,\\nDo, harry out, if you must show your zeal,\\nWhatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole,\\nAnd nip each softling of a wee white mouse,\\nWeke, vv-eke, that s crept to keep him company!\\nAha, you know 5^our betters? Then you ll take\\nYour hand away that s fiddling on my throat,\\nAnd please to know me likewise. Who am I?\\nWhy, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend\\nThree streets off he s certain how d ye\\ncall?\\nMaster a Cosmo of the Medici,\\nI the house that caps the corner. Boh! you\\nwere best!\\nRemember and tell me, the day you re hanged,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0204.jp2"}, "205": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 191\\nHow you effected such a gullet s- gripe!\\nBut you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves\\nPick up a manner, nor discredit you\\nZooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the\\nstreets\\nAnd count fair prize that comes into their net?\\nHe s Judas to a tittle, that man is!\\nJust such a face! Why, sir, you make amends.\\nLord, I m not angry! Bid your hangdogs go\\nDrink out this quarter-florin to the health\\nOf the munificent House that harbors me\\n(And many more beside, lads more beside\\nAnd all s come square again. I d like his\\nface\\nHis, elbowing on his comrade in the door\\nWith the pike and lantern, for the slave that\\nholds\\nJohn Baptist s head a-dangle by the hair\\nWith one hand (Look you now, as who\\nshould say)\\nAnd his weapon in the other, yet unwiped\\nIt s not your chance to have a bit of chalk,\\nA wood-coal or the like? or you should see!\\nYes, I m the painter, since you style me so.\\nWhat, brother Lippo s doings, up and down.\\nYou know them, and they take you? like\\nenough\\nI saw the proper twinkle in your eye\\nTell you, I liked your looks at very first.\\nLet s sit and set things straight now, tip to\\nhaunch.\\nHere s spring come, and the nights one makes\\nup bands\\nTo roam the town and sing out carnival,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0205.jp2"}, "206": {"fulltext": "192 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd I ve been three weeks shut within my\\nmew,\\nA-painting for the great man, saints and saints\\nAnd saints again. I could not paint all night\\nOuf I leaned out of window for fresh air.\\nThere came a hurry of feet and little feet,\\nA sweep of lute-strings, laughs and whifts of\\nsong,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nFlower o the broom,\\nTake away love, and our earth is a tomb\\nFlower o the quince,\\nI let Lisa go, and what good in life since?\\nFlower o the thyme and so on. Round they\\nwent.\\nScarce had they turned the corner when a tit-\\nter\\nLike the skipping of rabbits by moonlight\\nthree slim shapes,\\nAnd a fiace that looked up zooks, sir, flesh\\nand blood,\\nThat s all I m made of! Into shreds it went.\\nCurtain and counterpane and coverlet,\\nAll the bed-furniture a dozen knots,\\nThere was a ladder Down I let myself\\nHands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so\\ndropped,\\nAnd after them. I came up with the fun\\nHard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, well\\nmet,\\nFlower o the rose.\\nIf I ve been merry, what matter who knows?\\nAnd so, as I was stealing back again.\\nTo get to bed and have a bit of sleep\\nEre I rise up to-morrow and go work", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0206.jp2"}, "207": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 193\\nOn Jerome knocking at his poor old breast\\nWith his great round stone to subdue the flesh,\\nYou snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see\\nThough your eye twinkle still, you shake your\\nhead\\nMine s shaved a monk, you say the sting s\\nin that!\\nIf Master Cosimo announced himself,\\nMum s the word naturally; but a monk!\\nCome, what am I a beast for? tell us, now!\\nI was a baby when my mother died\\nAnd father died and left me in the street,\\nI starved there, God knows how, a year or two\\nOn fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks,\\nRefuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day.\\nMy stomach being empty as your hat.\\nThe wind doubled me up and down I went.\\nOld Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand\\n(Its fellow was a stinger, as I knew)\\nAnd so along the wall, over the bridge,\\nBy the straight cut to the convent. Six words\\nthere.\\nWhile I stood munching my first bread that\\nmonth\\n**So, boy, you re minded, quoth the good fat\\nfather\\nWiping his own mouth, twas refection-time,\\nTo quit this very miserable world?\\nWill you renounce the mouthful of\\nbread? thought I:\\nBy no means! Brief, they made a monk of me;\\nI did renounce the world, its pride and greed,\\nPalace, farm, villa, shop and banking-house,\\nTrash, such as these poor devils of Medici\\n13 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0207.jp2"}, "208": {"fulltext": "194 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nHave given their hearts to all at eight years\\nold.\\nWell, sir, I found in time, you may be sure,\\n*Twas not for nothing the good bellyful.\\nThe warm serge and the rope that goes all\\nround,\\nAnd day-long blessed idleness beside\\nLet s see what the urchin s fit for that\\ncame next\\nNot overmuch their way, I must confess.\\nSuch a to-do They tried me with their books\\nLord, they d have taught me Latin in pure\\nwaste\\nFlower o the clove,\\nAll the Latin I construe is, Amo I love!\\nBut, mind you, when a boy starves in the\\nstreets\\nEight years together, as my fortune was.\\nWatching folk s faces to know who will fling\\nThe bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he de-\\nsires.\\nAnd who will curse or kick him for his pains,\\nWhich gentleman processional and fine,\\nHolding a candle to the Sacrament,\\nWill wink and let him lift a plate and catch\\nThe droppings of the wax to sell again.\\nOr holla for the Eight and have him\\nwhipped,\\nHow say I? nay, which dog bites, which lets\\ndrop\\nHis bone from the heap of offal in the street,\\nWhy, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike,\\nHe learns the look of things, and none the less\\nFor admonition from the hunger-pinch.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0208.jp2"}, "209": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 19S\\nI had a store of such remarks, be sure,\\nWhich, after I found leisure, turned to use\\nI drew men s faces on my copy-books,\\nScrawled them within the antiphonary s\\nmarge,\\nJoined legs and arms to the long music-notes.\\nFound eyes and nose and chin for A s and B s,\\nAnd made a string of pictures of the world\\nBetwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun,\\nOn the wall, the bench, the door. The monks\\nlooked black.\\nNa3r, quoth the Prior, turn him out, d ye\\nsay?\\nIn no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark.\\nWhat if at last we get our man of parts,\\nWe Carmelites, like those Camaldolese\\nAnd Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine\\nAnd put the front on it that ought to be!\\nAnd hereupon he bade me daub away.\\nThank you! my head being crammed, the\\nwalls a blank.\\nNever was such prompt disemburdening.\\nFirst every sort of monk, the black and white,\\nI drew them, fat and lean: then, folks at\\nchurch.\\nFrom good old gossips waiting to confess\\nTheir cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends,\\nTo the breathless fellow at the altar-foot.\\nFresh from his murder, safe and sitting there\\nWith the little children round him in a row\\nOf admiration, half for his beard, and half\\nFor that white anger of his victim s son\\nvShaking a fist at him with one fierce arm,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0209.jp2"}, "210": {"fulltext": "196 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nSigning himself with the other because of\\nChrist\\n(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this\\nAfter the passion of a thousand years)\\nTill some poor girl, her apron o er her head,\\n(Which the intense eyes looked through) came\\nat eve\\nOn tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf,\\nHer pair of ear-rings and a bunch of flowers\\n(The brute took growling) prayed, and so was\\ngone.\\nI painted all, then cried, Tis ask and have;\\nChoose for more s ready! laid the latter\\nflat.\\nAnd showed my covered bit of cloister-wall.\\nThe monks closed in a circle and praised loud\\nTill checked, taught what to see and not to\\nsee,\\nBeing simple bodies, That s the very man!\\nLook at the boy who stoops to pat the dog!\\nThat woman s like the Prior s niece who\\ncomes\\nTo care about his asthma: it s the life!\\nBut there my triumph s strav/-fire flared and\\nfunked\\nTheir betters took their turn to see and say:\\nThe Prior and the learned pulled a face\\nAnd stopped all that in no time. How!\\nwhat s here?\\nQuite from the mark of painting, bless us\\nall!\\nFaces, arms, legs and bodies like the true\\nAs much as pea and pea! it s devil s game!\\nYour business is not to catch men with show.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0210.jp2"}, "211": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 197\\nWith homage to the perishable clay,\\nBut lift them over it, ignore it all,\\nMake them forget there s such a thing as\\nflesh.\\nYour business is to paint the souls of men\\nMan s soul, and it s a fire, smoke no, it s\\nIt s vapor done up like a new-born babe\\n(In that shape when you die it leaves your\\nmouth)\\nIt s well, what matters talking, it s the\\nsoul\\nGive us no more of body than shows soul!\\nHere s Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God,\\nThat sets up praising, why not stop with\\nhim!\\nWhy put all thoughts of praise out of our\\nhead\\nWith wonder at lines, colors, and what not?\\nPaint the soul, never mind the legs and arms!\\nRub all out, try at it a second time!\\nOh, that white smallish female with the\\nbreasts,\\nShe s just my niece Herodias, I would\\nsay,\\nWho went and danced, and got men s heads\\ncut off!\\nHave it all out! Now, is this sense, I ask?\\nA fine way to paint soul, by painting body\\nSo ill, the eye can t stop there, must go fur-\\nther\\nAnd can t fare worse! Thus, yellow does for\\nwhite\\nWhen what you put for yellow s simply black,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0211.jp2"}, "212": {"fulltext": "198 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd any sort of meaning looks intense\\nWhen all beside itself means and looks\\nnought.\\nWhy can t a painter lift each foot in turn,\\nLeft foot and right foot, go a double step,\\nMake his flesh liker and his soul more like,\\nBoth in their order? Take the prettiest face,\\nThe Prior s niece patron-saint is it so\\npretty\\nYou can t discover if it means hope, fear.\\nSorrow or joy? won t beauty go with these?\\nSuppose I ve made her eyes all right and blue,\\nCan t I take breath and try to add life s flash.\\nAnd then add soul and heighten them three-\\nfold?\\nOr say there s beauty with no soul at all\\n(I never saw it put the case the same\\nIf you get simple beauty and nought else.\\nYou get about the best thing God invents:\\nThat s somewhat: and you ll find the soul you\\nhave missed,\\nWithin yourself, when you return him thanks.\\nRub all out! Well, well, there s my life,\\nin short.\\nAnd so the thing has gone on ever since.\\nI m grown a man, no doubt, I ve broken\\nbounds:\\nYou should not take a fellow eight years old\\nAnd make him swear to never kiss the girls.\\nI m my own master, paint now as I please\\nHaving a friend, you see, in the Corner-house?\\nLord, it s fast holding by the rings in front\\nThose great rings serve more purposes than\\njust", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0212.jp2"}, "213": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 19S\\nTo plant a flag in, or tie up a horse\\nAnd yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave\\neyes\\nAre peeping o er my shoulder as I work,\\nThe heads shake still It s art s decline, my\\nson!\\nYou re not of the true painters, great and\\nold:\\nBrother Angelico s the man, you ll find;\\nBrother Lorenzo stands his single peer:\\nFag on at flesh, you ll never make the\\nthird!\\nFlower o the pine,\\nYou keep your mistr manners, and I ll\\nstick to mine!\\nI m not the third, then: bless us, they must\\nknow!\\nDon t you think they re the likeliest to know.\\nThey with their Latin? So, I swallow my\\nrage,\\nClench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and\\npaint\\nTo please them sometimes do, and sometimes\\ndon t;\\nFor, doing most, there s pretty sure to come\\nA turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nA laugh, a cry, the business of the world\\n(Flower o the peach.\\nDeath for us all, and his own life for each\\nAnd my whole soul revolves, the cup runs\\nover,\\nThe world and life s too big to pass for a\\ndream,\\nAnd I do these wild things in sheer despite,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0213.jp2"}, "214": {"fulltext": "200 BROWNING S POEMS\\nAnd play the fooleries you catch me at,\\nIn pure rage The old mill-horse, out at grass\\nAfter hard years, throws up his stiff heels so,\\nAlthough the miller does not preach to him\\nThe only good of grass is to make chaff.\\nWhat would men liave? Do they like grass or\\nno\\nMay they or mayn t they? all I want s the\\nthing\\nSettled for ever one way. As it is,\\nYou tell too many lies and hurt yourself:\\nYou don t like what you only like too much.\\nYou do like w^hat, if given you at your word.\\nYou find abundantly detestable.\\nFor me, I think I speak as I was taught\\nI always see the garden, and God there\\nA-making man s wife and, my lesson learned,\\nThe value and significance of flesh,\\nI can t unlearn ten minutes afterwards.\\nYou understand me: I m a beast, I know.\\nBut see, now^ why, I see as certainly\\nAs that the morning-star s about to shine,\\nWhat will hap some day. We ve a youngster\\nhere\\nComes to our convent, studies what I do,\\nSlouches and stares and lets no atom drop:\\nHis name is Guidi he ll not mind the monks\\nThey call him Hulking Tom, he lets them\\ntalk-\\nHe picks my practice up he ll paint apace,\\nI hope so though I never live so long,\\nI know what s sure to follow. You be judge!\\nYou speak no Latin more than L belike", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0214.jp2"}, "215": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 201\\nHowever, you re my man, you ve seen the\\nworld\\nThe beauty and the wonder and the power,\\nThe shapes of things, their colors, lights and\\nshades.\\nChanges, surprises, and God made it all!\\nFor what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no.\\nFor this fair town s face, yonder river s line.\\nThe mountain round it and the sky above,\\nMuch more the figures of man, woman, child,\\nThese are the frame to? What s it all about?\\nTo be passed over, despised? or dwelt upon,\\nWondered at? oh, this last of course! you say.\\nBut why not do as well as say, paint these\\nJust as they are, careless what comes of it?\\nGod s works paint any one, and count it crime\\nTo let a truth slip. Don t object, His works\\nAre here already; nature is complete:\\nSuppose you reproduce her (which you\\ncan t)\\nThere s no advantage! you must beat her,\\nthen.\\ni^or, don t you mark? we re made so thai we\\nlove\\nFirst when we see them painted, things we\\nhave passed\\nPerhaps a hundred times nor cared to see\\nAnd so they are better, painted better to us.\\nWhich is the same thing. Art was given for\\nthat:\\nGod uses us to help each other so,\\nLending our minds out. Have you noticed,\\nnow.\\nYour cullion s hanging face? A bit of chalk,\\n14 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0215.jp2"}, "216": {"fulltext": "202 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd trust me but you should, though How\\nmuch more\\nIf I drew higher things with the same truth\\nThat were to take the Prior s pulpit- place,\\nInterpret God to all of you Oh, oh,\\nIt makes me mad to see what men shall do\\nAnd we in our graves This world s no blot\\nfor us\\nNor blank; it means intensely, and means\\ngood:\\nTo find its meaning is my meat and drink.\\nAy, but you don t so instigate to prayer!\\nStrikes in the Prior: when your meaning s\\nplain\\n**It does not say to folks remember matins,\\nOr, mind you fast next Friday! Why, for\\nthis\\nWhat need of art at all? A skull and bones,\\nTwo bits of stick nailed cross-wise, or, what s\\nbest,\\nA bell to chime the hour with, does as well.\\nA painted a St. Laurence six months since\\nAt Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style\\nHow looks my painting, now the scaffold s\\ndown?\\nI ask a brother: Hugely, he returns\\nAlready not one phiz of your three slaves\\nWho turn the Deacon off his toasted side,\\nBut *s scratched and prodded to our heart s\\ncontent,\\nThe pious people have so eased their own\\nWith coming to say prayers there in a rage:\\nWe get on fast to see the bricks beneath.\\nExpect another job this time next year,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0216.jp2"}, "217": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 203\\nFor pity and religion grow i the crowd\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\n/*Your painting serves its purpose! Hang\\nthe fools!\\nThat is you ll not mistake an idle word\\nSpoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot,\\nTasting the air this spicy night which turns\\nThe unaccustomed head like Chianti wine!\\nOh, the church knows! don t misreport me,\\nnow!\\nIt s natural a poor monk out of bounds\\nShould have his apt word to excuse himself:\\nAnd hearken how I plot to make amends\\nI have bethought me I shall paint a piece\\nThere s for you! Give me six months,\\nthen go, see\\nSomething in Sant Ambrogio s! Bless the\\nnuns!\\nThey want a cast o my office. I shall paint\\nGod in the midst, Madonna and her babe,\\nRinged by a bowery, flowery angel-brood,\\nLilies and vestments and white faces, sweet\\nAs puff on puff of grated orris-root\\nAVhen ladies crowd to church at rnidsummer.\\nAnd then i the front, of course a saint or\\ntwo\\nSt. John, because he saves the Florentines,\\nSt. Ambrose, who puts down in black and\\nwhite\\nThe convent s friends and gives them a long\\nday.\\nAnd Job, I must have him there past mistake,\\nThe man of Uz, (and Us without the z.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0217.jp2"}, "218": {"fulltext": "204 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nPainters who need his patience). Well, all\\nthese\\nSecured at their devotion, up shall come\\nOut of a corner when you least expect,\\nAs one by a dark stair into a great light,\\nMusic and talking, who but Lippo! I!\\nMazed, motionless and moon-struck I m the\\nman!\\nBack I shrink what is this I see and hear?\\nI, caught up with my monk s things by mis-\\ntake,\\nMy old serge gown and rope that goes all\\nround,\\nI, in this presence, this pure company!\\nWhere s a hole, where s a corner for escape?\\nThen steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing\\nForward, puts out a soft palm Not so fast!\\nAddresses the celestial presence, nay\\nHe made you and devised you, after all,\\nThough he s none of you! Could St. John\\nthere, draw\\nHis camel-hair make up a painting-brush?\\nWe come to brother Lippo for all that,\\nI ste per fecit opus r So, all smile\\nI shuffle sideways with my blushing face\\nUnder the cover of a hundred wings\\nThrown like a spread of kirtles when you re\\ngay\\nAnd play hot cockles, all the doors being shut,\\nTill, wholly unexpected, in there pops^\\nThe hothead husband Thus I scuttle off\\nTo some safe bench behind, not letting go\\nThe palm of her, the little lily thing\\nThat spoke the good word for me in the nick,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0218.jp2"}, "219": {"fulltext": "BR0WNING*S:P0EMS. 205\\nLike the Prior s niece Saint Lucy, I would\\nsay.\\nAnd so all s saved for me, and for the church\\nA pretty picture gained. Go, six months\\nhence!\\nYour hand, sir, and good-bye no lights, no\\nlights!\\nThe street s hushed, and I know my own way\\nback,\\nDon t fear me! There s the grey beginning.\\nZooks!\\nANDREA DEL SARTO.\\n(called the faultless painter.\\nBut do not let us quarrel any more.\\nNo, my Lucrezia! bear with me for once:\\nSit down and all shall happen as you wish.\\nYou turn your face, but does it bring your\\nheart?\\nI ll work then for your friend s friend, never\\nfear,\\nTreat his own subject after his own way.\\nFix his own time, accept too his own price.\\nAnd shut the money into this small hand\\nWhen next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?\\nOh, I ll content him, but to-morrow. Love!\\nI often am much wearier than you thiak.\\nThis evening more than usual and it seems\\nAs if forgive now should you let me sit\\nHere by the window, with your hand in mine,\\nAnd look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,\\nBoth of one mind, as married people use", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0219.jp2"}, "220": {"fulltext": "206 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nQuietly, quietly the evening through,\\nI might get up to-morrow to my work\\nCheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.\\nTo-morrow, how you shall be glad for this\\nYour soft hand is a woman of itself.\\nAnd mine, the man s bared breast she curls\\ninside.\\nDon t count the time lost, neither; you must\\nserve\\nFor each of the five pictures we require:\\nIt saves a model. So! keep looking so\\nMy serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!\\nHow could you ever prick those perfect ears,\\nEven to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet\\nMy face, my moon, m)^ everybody s moon.\\nWhich everybody looks on and calls his,\\nAnd, I suppose, is looked on by in turn.\\nWhile she looks no one s: very dear, no less.\\nYou smile? why, there s my picture ready\\nmade.\\nThere s what we painters call our harmony!\\nA common greyness silvers everything,\\nAll in a twilight, you and I alike\\nYou, at the point of your first pride in me\\n(That s gone, you know) but I, at every\\npoint\\nMy youth, my hope, my art, being all toned\\ndown\\nTo yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.\\nThere s the bell clinking from the chapel top;\\nThat length of convent-wall across the way\\nHolds the trees safer, huddled more inside\\nThe last monk leaves the garden; days\\ndecrease,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0220.jp2"}, "221": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 207\\nAnd autumn grows, autumn in everything.\\nEh? the whole seems to fall into a shape,\\nAs if I saw alike my work and self\\nAnd all that I was born to be and do,\\nA twilight-piece. Love, we are in God s hand.\\nHow strange now, looks the life he makes us\\nlead;\\nSo free we seem, so fettered fast we are\\nI feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!\\nThis chamber, for example turn your head\\nAll that s behind us! You don t understand\\nNor care to understand about my art,\\nBut you can hear at least when people speak:\\nAnd that cartoon, the second from the door\\nIt is the thing, Love so such things should\\nbe:\\nBehold Madonna! I am bold to say.\\nI can do with my pencil what I know.\\nWhat I see, what at bottom of my heart\\nI wish for, if I ever wish so deep\\nDo easily, too when I say, perfectly,\\nI do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge.\\nWho listened to the Legate s talk last week;\\nAnd just as much they used to say in France.\\nAt any rate tis easy, all of it!\\nNo sketches first, no studies, that s long past:\\nI do what many dream of, all their lives.\\nDream? strive to do, and agonise to do,\\nAnd fail in doing. I could count twenty such\\nOn twice your fingers, and not leave this town.\\nWho strive? you don t know how the others\\nstrive\\nTo paint a little thing like that you smeared\\nCarelessly passing with your robes afloat,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0221.jp2"}, "222": {"fulltext": "208 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nYet do much less, so much less, Some one says,\\n(I know his name, no matter) so much less!\\nWell, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.\\nThere burns a truer light of God in them.\\nIn their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up\\nbrain,\\nHeart, or whate er else, than goes on to\\nprompt\\nThis low-pulsed forthright craftsman s hand of\\nmine.\\nTheir works drop ground ward, but themselves,\\nI know\\nReach many a time a heaven that s shut to\\nme.\\nEnter and take their place there sure enough,\\nThough they come back and cannot tell the\\nworld.\\nMy works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.\\nThe sudden blood of these men! at a word\\nPraise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils\\ntoo.\\nI, painting from myself and to myself,\\nKnow what I do, am unmoved by men s blame\\nOr their praise either. Somebody remarks\\nMorello s outline there is wrongly traced,\\nHis hue mistaken; what of that? or else,\\nRightly traced and well ordered; what of that?\\nSpeak as they please, what does the mountain\\ncare?\\nAh, but a man s reach should exceed his grasp,\\nOr what s a heaven for? All is silver-grey.\\nPlacid and perfect with my art the worse\\nI know both what I want and what might gain\\nAnd yet how profitless to know, to sigh", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0222.jp2"}, "223": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 209\\nHad I been two, another and myself,\\nOur head would have o erlooked the world!\\nNo doubt.\\nYonder s a work now, of that famous youth\\nThe Urbinate who died five years ago.\\nTis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)\\nWell, I can fancy how he did it all,\\nPouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,\\nReaching, that heaven might so replenish him,\\nAbove and through his art for it gives way\\nThat arm is wrongly put and there again\\nA fault to pardon in the drawing s lines,\\nIts body, so to speak it soul is right,\\nHe means right that, a child may understand.\\nStill, what an arm and I could alter it\\nBut all the play, the insight and the stretch\\nOut of me, out of me! And wherefore out?\\nHad you enjoined them on me, given me soul.\\nWe might have risen to Rafael, I and you.\\nNay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think\\nMore than I merit, yes, by many times.\\nBut had you oh, with the same perfect brow,\\nAnd perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth.\\nAnd the low voice my soul hears, as a bird\\nThe fowler s pipe, and follows to the snare\\nHad you, with these the same, but brought a\\nmind\\nSome women do so. Had the mouth there urged\\nGod and the glory! never care for gain.\\n**The present by the future, what is that?\\n**Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!\\nRafael is waiting; up to God, all three!\\nI might have done it for you. So it seems\\nPerhaps not. All is as God over- rules.\\n14", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0223.jp2"}, "224": {"fulltext": "210 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nBeside, incentive comes from the soul s self;\\nThe rest avail not. Why do I need you?\\nWhat wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?\\nIn this world, who can do a thing, will not\\nAnd who would do it, cannot, I perceive\\nYet the will s somewhat somewhat too, the\\npower\\nAnd thus we half -men struggle. At the end,\\nGod, I conclude, compensates, punishes.\\nFor me, tis safer, if the award be strict,\\nThat I am something underrated here,\\nPoor this long while, despised, to speak the\\ntruth.\\nI dared not, do you know, leave home all day,\\nFor fear of chancing on the Paris lords.\\nThe best is when they pass and look aside\\nBut they speak sometimes; I must bear it all,\\nWell may they speak That Francis, that first\\ntime,\\nAnd that long festal year at Fontainebleau!\\nI surely then could sometimes leave the ground.\\nPut on the glory, Rafael s daily wear,\\nIn that humane great monarch s golden look,\\nOne finger in his beard or twisted curl\\nOver his mouth s good mark that made the\\nsmile,\\nOne arm about my shoulder, round my neck,\\nThe jingle of his gold chain in my ear,\\nI painting proudly with his breath on me.\\nAll his court round him, seeing with his eyes.\\nSuch frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls\\nProfuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,\\nAnd best of all, this, this, this face beyond,\\nThis in the background, waiting on my work,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0224.jp2"}, "225": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 211\\nTo crown the issue with a last reward\\nA good time, was it not, my kingly days?\\nAnd had yon not grown restless but I\\nknow\\nTis done and passed; twas right, my instinct\\nsaid\\nToo live the life grew, golden and not grey:\\nAnd I m the weak-eyed bat no sun should\\ntempt\\nOut of the grange whose four walls make his\\nworld.\\nHow could it end in any other way?\\nYou called me, and I came home to your heart.\\nThe triumph was, to have ended there then,\\nif\\nI reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?\\nLet my hands frame your face in your hair s\\ngold,\\nYou beautiful Lucrezia that are mine\\nRafael did this, Andrea painted that;\\nThe Roman s is the better when you pray,\\nBut still the other s Virgin was his wife\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\n\u00e2\u0080\u00a2Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge\\nBoth pictures in your presence clearer grows\\nMy better fortune, I resolve to think.\\nFor, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,\\nSaid one day Agnolo, his very self,\\nTo Rafael I have known it all these\\nyears\\n(When the young man was flaming out his\\nthoughts\\nUpon a palace-wall for Rome to see,\\nToo lifted up in heart because of it)\\nFriend, there s a certain sorry little scrub", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0225.jp2"}, "226": {"fulltext": "212 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nGoes up and down our Florence, none cares\\nhow,\\nWho, were he set to plan and execute\\nAs you are, pricked on by your popes and\\nkings,\\nWould bring the sweat into that brow of\\nyours!\\nTo Rafael s! And indeed the arm is wrong.\\nI hardly dare yet, only you to see,\\nGive the chalk here quick, thus the line should\\ngo!\\nAy, but the soul! he s Rafael, rub it out!\\nStill, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,\\n(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?\\nDo you forget already words like those?)\\nIf really there was such a chance so lost,\\nIs, whether you re not grateful but more\\npleased.\\nWell, let me think so. And you smile indeed\\nThis hour has been an hour! Another smile?\\nIf you would sit thus by me every night\\nI should work better, do you comprehend?\\nI mean that I should earn more, give you more.\\nSee, it is settled dusk now; there s a star;\\nMorello s gone, the watch-lights show the wall,\\nThe cue-owls speak the name we call them by.\\nCome from the window love, come in, at last.\\nInside the melancholy little house\\nWe built to be so gay with. God is just.\\nKing Francis may forgive me; oft at nights\\nWhen I look up from painting, eyes tired out,\\nThe walls become illumined, brick from brick\\nDistinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,\\nThat gold of his I did cement them with", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0226.jp2"}, "227": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 213\\nLet us but love each other. Must you go?\\nThat Cousin here again? he waits outside?\\nMust see you you, and not with me? Those\\nloans\\nMore gaming debts to pay? you smiled for\\nthat?\\nWell, let smiles buy me! have you more to\\nspend?\\nWhile hand and eye and something of a heart\\nAre left me, work s my ware, and what s it\\nworth?\\nI ll pay my fancy. Only let me sit\\nThe grey remainder of the evening out.\\nIdle, you call it, and muse perfectly\\nHow I could paint, were I but back in France,\\nOne picture, just one more the Virgin s face,\\nNot yours this time I want you at my side\\nTo hear them that is, Michel Agnolo\\nJudge all I do and tell you of its worth.\\nWill you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.\\nI take the subjects for his corridor,\\nFinish the portrait out of hand there, there.\\nAnd throw him in another thing or two\\nIf he demurs; the whole should prove enough\\nTo pay for this same Cousin s freak. Beside,\\nWhat s better and what s all I care about.\\nGet you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!\\nLove, does that please you? Ah, but what\\ndoes he.\\nThe Cousin! what does he to please you more?\\nI am grown peacerul as old age to-night.\\nI regret little, I would change still less,\\nSince there my past life lies, why alter it?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0227.jp2"}, "228": {"fulltext": "214 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThe very wrong to Francis! it is true\\nI took his coin, was tempted and complied,\\nAnd built this house and sinned, and all is said.\\nMy father and my mother died of want.\\nWell, had I riches of my own? you see\\nHow one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.\\nThey were born, poor, lived poor, and poor\\nthey died:\\nAnd I have labored somewhat in my time\\nAnd not been paid profusely. Some good son\\nPaint my two hundred pictures let him try!\\nNo doubt, there s something strikes a balance.\\nYes,\\nYou loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.\\nThis must suffice me here. What would one\\nhave?\\nIn heaven, perhaps, nev/ chances, one more\\nchance\\nFour great walls in the New Jerusalem,\\nMeted on each side by the angel s reed,\\nFor Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me\\nTo cover the tree first without a wife,\\nWhile I have mine So still they overcome\\nBecause there s still Lucrezia as I choose.\\nAgain the Cousin s whistle! Go, my Love.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0228.jp2"}, "229": {"fulltext": "BROWNIXG S POEMS. 215\\nTHE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT\\nSAINT PRAXED S CHURCH.\\nROME, 15\\nVanity, saith the preacher, vanity!\\nDraw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?\\nNephews sons mine ah, God, I know\\nnot! Well-\\nShe, men would have to be your mother once,\\nOld Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!\\nWhat s done is done, and she is dead beside.\\nDead long ago, and I am Bishop since.\\nAnd as she died so must we die ourselves.\\nAnd thence ye may perceive the world s a\\ndream.\\nLife, how and what is it? As here I He\\nIn this state-chamber, dying by degrees,\\nHours and long hours in the dead night, I ask\\n**Do I live, am I dead? Peace, peace seems\\nall.\\nSaint Praxed s ever was the church of peace;\\nAnd so, about this tomb of mine. I fought\\nWith tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:\\nOld Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;\\nShrewd was that snatch from out the corner\\nSouth\\nHe graced his carrion with, God curse the\\nsame!\\nYet still my niche is not so cramped but thence\\nOne sees the pulpit on the epistle-side,\\nAnd somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,\\nAnd up into the aery dome where live\\nThe angels, and a sunbeam s sure to lurk:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0229.jp2"}, "230": {"fulltext": "216 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd I shall fill my slab of basalt there,\\nAnd neath my tabernacle take my rest,\\nWith those nine columns round me, two and\\ntwo,\\nThe odd one at my feet where Anselm stands\\nPeach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe\\nAs fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.\\nOld Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,\\nPut me where I may look at him True peach.\\nRosy and flawless; how I earned the prize!\\nDraw close that conflagration of my church\\nWhat then? So much was saved if aught\\nwere missed\\nMy sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig\\nThe white-grape vineyard where the oil-press\\nstood.\\nDrop water gently till the surface sink,\\nAnd if ye find Ah, God, I know not,\\nI!\\nBedded in store of rotten figleaves soft.\\nAnd corded up in a tight olive-frail.\\nSome lump, ah, God, of lapis lazuli,\\n^ig as a Jew s head cut off at the nape,\\nBlue as a vein o er the Madonna s breast\\nSons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,\\nThat brave Frascati villa with its bath,\\nSo, let the blue lump poise between my knees,\\nLike God the Father s globe on both his hands\\nYe worship in the Jesu Church so gay\\nFor Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!\\nSwift as a weaver s shuttle fleet our years:\\nMan goeth to the grave, and where is he?\\nDid I say, basalt for my slab, sons? Black\\nTwas ever antique-black I meant! How else", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0230.jp2"}, "231": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 217\\nShall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?\\nThe bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,\\nThose Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and per-\\nchance\\nSome tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,\\nThe Saviour at his sermon on the mount.\\nSaint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan\\nReady to twitch the Nymph s last garment off,\\nAnd Moses with the tables but I know\\nYe mark me not! What do they whisper thee.\\nChild of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope\\nTo revel down my villas while I gasp\\nBricked o er with beggar s mouldy travertine\\nAVhich Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!\\nNay, boys, ye love me all of jasper, then!\\nTis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve\\nMy bath must needs be left behind, alas!\\nOne block, pure green as a pistachio-nut.\\nThere s plenty jasper somewhere in the world\\nAnd have I not Saint Praxed s ear to pray\\nHorses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts\\nAnd mistresses with g^eat smooth marbly\\nlimbs?\\nThat s if ye carve my epitaph aright,\\nChoice Latin, picked phrase, Tully s every\\nword.\\nNo gaudy ware like Gandolf s second line\\nTully, my masters? Upian serves his need!\\nAnd then how I shall lie through centuries,\\nAnd hear the blessed mutter of the mass.\\nAnd see God made and eaten all day long,\\nAnd feel the steady candle-flame, and taste\\nGood strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!\\nFor as I lie here, hours of the dead night,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0231.jp2"}, "232": {"fulltext": "218 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nDying- in state and by such slow degrees,\\nI fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,\\nAnd stretch my feet forth straight as stone can\\npoint,\\nAnd let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop\\nInto great laps and folds of sculptor s work:\\nAnd as yon tapers dwindle, and strange\\nthoughts\\nGrow, with a certain humming in my ears,\\nAbout the life before I lived this life.\\nAnd this life, too, popes, cardinals and priests,\\nSaint Praxed at his sermon on the mount.\\nYour tall pale mother with her talking eyes,\\nAnd new-found agate urns as fresh as day.\\nAnd marble s language, Latin pure, discreet,\\nAha, elucescebat quoth our friend?\\nNo Tully, said 1, Ulpian at the best!\\nEvil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.\\nAll lapis, all, sons Else I give the Pope\\nMy villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?\\nEver your eyes were as a lizard s quick,\\nThey glitter like your mother s for my soul,\\nOr ye would heighten my impoverished frieze.\\nPiece out its starved design, and fill my vase\\nWith grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,\\nAnd to the tripod ye would tie a lynx\\nThat in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,\\nTo comfort me on my entablature\\nWhereon I am to lie till T must ask\\nDo I live, am I dead? There, leave me,\\nthere\\nFor ye have stabbed me with ingratitude\\nTo death ye wish it God, ye wish it Stone", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0232.jp2"}, "233": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 219\\nGritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which\\nsweat\\nAs if the corpse they keep were oozing\\nthrough\\nAnd no more lapis to delight the world!\\nWell, go I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,\\nBut in a row; and, going, turn your backs\\n\u00e2\u0080\u0094Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,\\nAnd leave me in my church, the church for\\npeace\\nThat I may watch at leisure if he leers-\\nOld Gandolf at me, from his onion-stone,\\nAs still he envied me, so fair she was!\\nA TOCCATA OF GALUPPI S.\\nOh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to\\nfind!\\nI can hardly misconceive you it would prove\\nme deaf and blind\\nBut although I take your meaning, tis with\\nsuch a heavy mind!\\nII\\nHere you come with your old music, and here s\\nall the good it brings.\\nWhat, they lived once thus at Venice where\\nthe merchants were the kings,\\nWhere St. Mark s is, where the Doges used to\\nwed the sea with rings?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0233.jp2"}, "234": {"fulltext": "220 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIll\\nAy, because the sea s the street there; and tis\\narched by what you call\\nShylock s bridge with houses on it, where\\nthey kept the carnival\\nI was never out of England it s as if I saw it\\nall.\\nIV\\nDid young people take their pleasure when the\\nsea was warm in May?\\nBalls and masks begun at midnight, burning\\never to midday,\\nWhen they made up fresh adventures for the\\nmorrow, do you say?\\nWas a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and\\nlips so red,\\nOn her neck the small face buoyant, like a\\nbell-flower on its bed,\\nO er the breast s superb abundance where a\\nman might base his head?\\nVI\\nWell, and it was graceful of them; they d\\nbreak talk off and afford\\nShe, to bite her mask s black velvet, he, to\\nfinger on his sword.\\nWhile you sat and played Toccatas, stately at\\nthe clavichord?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0234.jp2"}, "235": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 221\\nVII\\nWhat? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths\\ndiminished, sigh on sigh,\\nTold them something? Those suspensions,\\nthose solutions Must we die?\\nThose commiserating sevenths *Life might\\nlast! we can but try!\\nVIII\\nWere you happy? Yes. And are you\\nstill as happy? Yes. And you?\\nThen, more kisses Did I stop them,\\nwhen a million seemed so few?\\nHark, the dominant s persistence till it must be\\nanswered to!\\nIX\\nSo, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they\\npraised you, I dare say!\\nBrave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at\\ngrave and gay!\\nI can always leave off talking when I hear a\\nmaster play!\\nThen they left you for their pleasure till in\\ndue time, one by one.\\nSome with lives that came to nothing, some\\nwith deeds as well undone.\\nDeath stepped tacitly and took them where\\nthey never see the sun.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0235.jp2"}, "236": {"fulltext": "222 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXI\\nBut when I sit down to reason, think to take\\nmy stand nor swerve,\\nWhile I triumph o er a secret wrung from\\nnature s close reserve,\\nIn you come with your cold music till I creep\\nthro every nerve.\\nXII\\nYes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where\\na house was burned\\n*Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice\\nspent what Venice earned.\\nThe soul, doubtless, is immortal where a\\nsoul can be discerned.\\nXIII\\nYours, for instance: you know physics, some-\\nthing of geology,\\nMathematics are your pastime; souls shall\\nrise in their degree;\\nButterflies may dread extinction, you ll not\\ndie, it cannot be\\nXIV\\n**As for Venice and her people, merely born\\nto bloom and drop,\\n**Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth\\nand folly were the crop\\nWhat of soul was left, I wonder, when the\\nkissing had to stop?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0236.jp2"}, "237": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 223\\nXV\\nDust and ashes! So you creak it, and I\\nwant the heart to scold.\\nDear dead woman, with such hair, too\\nwhat s become of all the gold\\nUsed to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel\\nchilly and grown old.\\nHOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY.\\nI only knew one poet in my life:\\nAnd this, or something like it, was his way.\\nYou saw go up and down Valladolid,\\nA man of mark, to know next time you saw.\\nHis very serviceable suit of black\\nWas courtly once and conscientious still.\\nAnd many might have worn it, though none\\ndid:\\nThe cloak, that somewhat shone and showed\\nthe threads.\\nHad purpose, and the ruff, significance.\\nHe walked, and tapped the pavement with his\\ncane.\\nScenting the world, looking it full in face\\nAn old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels.\\nThey turned up, now, the alley by the church,\\nThat leads no whither; now, they breathed\\nthemselves\\nOn the main promenade just at the wrong\\ntime.\\nYou d come upon his scrutinizing hat,\\nMaking a peaked shade blacker than itself", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0237.jp2"}, "238": {"fulltext": "224 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAgainst the single window spared some house\\nIntact yet with its mouldered Moorish work,\\nOr else surprise the ferrel of his stick\\nTrying the mortar s temper tween the chinks\\nOf some new shop a-building, French and fine.\\nHe stood and watched the cobbler at his trade.\\nThe man who slices lemon into drink,\\nThe coffee-roaster s brazier, and the boys\\nThat volunteer to help him turn its winch.\\nHe glanced o er books on stalls with half an\\neye,\\nAnd fly-leaf ballads on the vendor s string,\\nAnd broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall.\\nHe took such cognizance of men and things,\\nIf any beat a horse, you felt he saw\\nIf any cursed a woman, he took note\\nYet stared at nobody, you stared at him.\\nAnd found, less to your pleasure than surprise,\\nHe seemed to know you and expect as much.\\nSo, next time that neighbor s tongue was\\nloose,\\nIt marked the shameful and notorious fact\\nWe had among us, not so much a spy\\nAs a recording chief- inquisitor.\\nThe town s true master if the town but knew!\\nWe merely kept a governor for form.\\nWhile this man walked about and took account\\nOf all thought, said and acted, then went home,\\nAnd wrote it fully to our Lord the King,\\nWho has an itch to know things, he knows\\nwhy,\\nAnd reads them in his bed-room of a night.\\nOh, you might smile there wanted not a touch\\nA tang of well, it was not wholly ease,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0238.jp2"}, "239": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 225\\nAs back into your mind the man s look came.\\nStricken in years a little, such a brow\\nHis eyes had to live under! clear as flint\\nOn either side o the formidable nose\\nCurved, cut and colored like an eagle s claw.\\nHad he to do with A. s surprising fate?\\nWhen altogether old B. disappeared\\nAnd young C. got his mistress, was t our\\nfriend,\\nHis letter to the King, that did it all?\\nWhat paid the bloodless man for so much\\npains?\\nOur Lord the King has favorites manifold,\\nAnd shifts his ministry some once a month\\nOur city gets new governors at whiles,\\nBut never word or sign, that I could hear,\\nNotified, to this man about the streets.\\nThe King s approval of those letters conned\\nThe last thing duly at the dead of night.\\nDid the man love his office? Frowned our\\nLord,\\nExhorting when none heard Beseech me\\nnot!\\n**Too far above my people, beneath me!\\nI set the watch, how should the people\\nknow?\\nForget them, keep me all the more in mind!\\nWas some such understanding twixt the two?\\nI found no truth in one report at least\\nThat if you tracked him to his home, down\\nlanes\\nBeyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace,\\nYou found he ate his supper in a room\\n15 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0239.jp2"}, "240": {"fulltext": "226 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nBlazing with lights, four Titians on the wall,\\nAnd twenty naked girls to change his plate!\\nPoor man, he lived another kind of life\\nIn that new stuccoed third house by the bridge,\\nFresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise\\nThe whole street might o erlook him as he sat,\\nLeg crossing leg, one foot on the dog s back.\\nPlaying a decent cribbage with his maid\\n(Jacynth you re sure her name was) o er the\\ncheese\\nAnd fruit, three red halves of starved winter-\\npears,\\nOr treat of radishes in April. Nine,\\nTen, struck the church clock, straight to bed\\nwent he.\\nMy father, like the man of sense he was,\\nWould point him out to me a dozen times;\\nSt\u00e2\u0080\u0094 St, he d whisper, the Corregidor!\\nI had been used to think that personage\\nWas one with lacquered breeches, lustrous belt,\\nAnd feathers like a forest in his hat.\\nWho blew a trumpet and proclaimed the news.\\nAnnounced the bull-fights, gave each church\\nits turn,\\nAnd memorized the miracle in vogue\\nHe had a great observance from us boys:\\nWe were in error; that was not the man.\\nI d like now, yet had haply been afraid.\\nTo have just looked, when this man came to\\ndie,\\nAnd seen who lined the clean gay garret sides,\\nAnd stood about the neat low truckle-bed.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0240.jp2"}, "241": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 227\\nWith the heavenly manner of relieving guard.\\nHere had been, mark, the general-in-chief,\\nThro a whole campaign of the world s life and\\ndeath.\\nDoing the King s work all the dim day long,\\nIn his old coat and up to knees in mud,\\nSmoked like a herring, dining on a crust,\\nAnd, now the da}^ was won, relieved at once!\\nNo further show or need of that old coat,\\nYou are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all\\nthe while\\nHow sprucely we are dressed out, you and I\\nA second, and the angels alter that.\\nWell, I could never write a verse, could you?\\nLet s to the Prado and make the most of time.\\nPROTUS.\\nAmong these latter busts we count by scores,\\nHalf-emperors and quarter-emperors.\\nEach with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged\\nvest,\\nLoric and low-browed Gorgon on the breast\\nOne loves a baby face, with violets there,\\nViolets instead of laurel in the hair,\\nAs those were all the little locks could bear\\nNow read here. Protus ends a period\\nOf empery beginning with a god:\\nBorn in the porphyry chamber at Byzant,\\nQueens by his cradle, proud and ministrant;\\nAnd if he quickened breath there, twould\\nlike fire\\nPantingly through the dim vast realm trans-\\npire.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0241.jp2"}, "242": {"fulltext": "228 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nA fame that he was missing, spread afar:\\nThe world, from its four corners, rose in war,\\nTill he was borne out on a balcony\\nTo pacify the world when it should see.\\nThe captains ranged before him, one, his\\nhand\\nMade baby points at, gained the chief com-\\nmand.\\nAnd day by day more beautiful he grew\\nIn shape, all said, in feature and in hue,\\nWhile young Greek sculptors gazing on the\\nchild\\nBecame, with old Greek sculpture, reconciled.\\nAlready sages labored to condense\\nIn easy tomes a life s experience:\\nAnd artists took grave counsel to impart\\nIn one breath and one hand-sweep, all their\\nart,\\nAnd make his graces propt as blossoming\\nOf plentifully-watered palms in spring:\\nSince well beseems it, whoso mounts the\\nthrone,\\nFor beauty, knowledge, strength, should\\nstand alone,\\nAnd mortals love the letters of his name.\\n\u00e2\u0080\u0094Stop! Have you turned two pages? Still the\\nsame.\\nNew reign, same date. The scribe goes on to\\nsay\\nHow that same year, on such a month and day,\\nJohn the Pannonian, groundedly believed\\nA blacksmith s bastard, whose hard hand\\nreprieved", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0242.jp2"}, "243": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 229\\nThe Empire from its fate the year before,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nCame, had a mind to take the crown, and\\nwore\\nThe same for six years (during which the\\nHuns\\nKept off their fingers from us), till his sons\\nPut something in his liquor and so forth.\\nThen a new reign. Stay\u00e2\u0080\u0094 Take at its just\\nworth\\n(Subjoins an annotator) what I give\\nAs heresay. Some think, John let Protus live\\nAnd slip away. Tis said, he reached man s\\nage\\nAt some blind northern court made, first a\\npage,\\nThen tutor to the children last, of use\\nAbout the hunting stables. I deduce\\nHe wrote the little tract On worming dogs,\\nWhereof the name in sundry catalogues\\nIs extant yet. A Protus of the race\\nIs rumored to have died a monkin Thrace,\\nAnd, if the same, he reached senility.\\nHere sjohn the Smith s rough-hammered head.\\nGreat eye.\\nGross jaw and griped lips do what granite can\\nTo give you the crown-grasper. What a man\\nMASTER HUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA.\\nHist, but a word, fair and soft\\nForth and be judged. Master Hugues!\\nAnswer the question I ve put you so oft:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0243.jp2"}, "244": {"fulltext": "230 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWhat do you mean by your mountainous\\nfugues?\\nSee, we re alone in the loft,\\nI, the poor organist here,\\nHugues, the composer of note\\nDead though, and done with, this many a year:\\nLet s have a coloquy, something to quote,\\nMake the world prick up its ear!\\nIll\\nSee, the church empties apace:\\nFast they extinguish the lights,\\nHallo there, sacristan! Five minutes grace\\nHere s a crank pedal wants setting to rights.\\nBaulks one of holding the base.\\nIV\\nSee, our huge house of the sounds,\\nHushing its hundreds at once.\\nBids the last loiterer back to his bounds!\\nO you may challenge them, not a response\\nGet the church-saints on their rounds!\\n(Saints go their rounds, who shall doubt\\nMarch, with the moon to admire.\\nUp nave, down chancel, turn transept about,\\nSupervise all betwixt pavement and spire.\\nPut rats and mice to the rout", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0244.jp2"}, "245": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 231\\nVI\\nAloys and Jurien and Just\\nOrder things back to their place,\\nHave a sharp eye lest the candlesticks rust,\\nRub the church-plate, darn the sacrament\\nlace,\\nClear the desk- velvet of dust.)\\nVII\\nHere s your book, younger folks shelve!\\nPlayed I not off-hand and runningly,\\nJust now, your masterpiece, hard number\\ntwelve?\\nHere s what should strike, could one handle\\nit cunningly:\\nHelp the axe, give it a helve\\nVIII\\nPage after page as I played,\\nEvery bar s rest, where one wipes\\nSweat from one s brow, I looked up and sur-\\nveyed.\\nO er my three claviers, you forest of pipes\\nWhence you still peeped in the shade.\\nIX\\nSure you were wishful to speak.\\nYou, with brow ruled like a score.\\nYes, and eyes buried in pits on each cheek.\\nLike two great breves, as they wrote them\\nof yore.\\nEach side that bar, your straight beak!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0245.jp2"}, "246": {"fulltext": "232 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nSure you said Good, the mere notes!\\nStill, couldst thou take my intent,\\nKnow what procured me our Company s\\nvotes\\nA master were lauded and sciolists shent,\\nParted the sheep from the goats!\\nXI\\nWell, then, speak up, never flinch\\nQuick, ere my candle s a snuff\\nBurnt, do you see? to its uttermost inch\\nI believe in you, but that s not enough:\\nGive my conviction a clinch!\\nXII\\nFirst you deliver your phrase\\nNothing propound, that I see.\\nFit in itself for much blame or much praise\\nAnswered no less, where no answer needs be\\nOff start the Two on their ways.\\nXIII\\nStraight must a Third interpose.\\nVolunteer needlessly help\\nIn strikes a Fourth, a Fifth thrusts in his nose,\\nSo the cry s open, the kennel s a yelp.\\nArgument s hot to the close.\\nXIV\\nOne dissertates, he is candid\\nTwo must discept, has distinguished;\\nThree helps the couple, if ever yet man did;", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0246.jp2"}, "247": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 233\\nFour protests Five makes a dart at the thing\\nwished\\nBack to One, goes the case bandied.\\nXV\\nOne saysjhis say with a difference;\\nMore ok expounding, explaining!\\nAll now is wrangle, abuse and vociferance\\nNow there s a truce, all s subdued, self -re-\\nstraining\\nFive, though, stands out all the stiffer hence.\\nXVI\\nOne is incisive, corrosive;\\nTwo retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant;\\nThree makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive\\nFour overbears them all, strident and strep-\\nitant:\\nFive O Danaides, O Sieve!\\nXVII\\nNow, they ply axes and crowbars\\nNow, they prick pins at a tissue\\nFine as a skein of the casuist Escobar s\\nWorked on the bone of a lie. To what issue?\\nWhere is our gain at the Two-bars?\\nXVIII\\nEstfuga, volvitur rota.\\nOn we drift: where looms the dim port?\\nOne, Two, Three, Four, Five, contribute their\\nquota\\n16 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0247.jp2"}, "248": {"fulltext": "234 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nSomething is gained, if one caught but the\\nimport\\nShow it us, Hugues of Saxe-Gotha!\\nXIX\\nWhat with affirming, denying,\\nHolding, risposting, subjoining,\\nAll s like it s like for an instance\\nI m trying\\nThere See our roof, its gilt moulding and\\ngroining\\nUnder those spider-webs lying!\\nXX\\nSo your fugue broadens and thickens,\\nGreatens and deepens and lengthens,\\nTill we exclaim, But where s music, the\\ndickens?\\nBlot ye the gold, while your spider-web\\nstrengthens\\nBlacked to the stoutest of tickens?*\\nXXI\\nI for man s effort am zealous:\\nProve me such censure unfounded!\\nSeems it surprising a lover grows jealous\\nHopes twas for something, his organ pipes\\nsounded\\nTiring three boys at the bellows?\\nXXII\\nIs it your moral of Life?\\nSuch a web, simple and subtle,\\nWeave we on earth here in impotent strife,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0248.jp2"}, "249": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 235\\nBackward and forward each throwing his\\nshuttle,\\nDeath ending all with a knife?\\nXXIII\\nOver our heads truth and nature\\nStill our life s zigzags and dodges,\\nIns and outs, weaving a new legislature\\nGod s gold just shining its last where that\\nlodges,\\nPalled beneath man s usurpature.\\nXXIV\\nSo we o ershroud stars and roses.\\nCherub and trophy and garland;\\nNothings grow something which quietly closes\\nHeaven s earnest eye: not a glimpse of the\\nfar land\\nGets through our comments and glozes.\\nXXV\\nAh, but traditions, inventions,\\n(Say we and make up a visage)\\nSo many men with such various intentions,\\nDown the past ages, must know more than\\nthis age!\\nLeave me the web its dimensions!\\nXXVI\\nWho thinks Hugues wrote for the deaf,\\nProved a mere mountain in labor?\\nBetter submit try again; what s the clef\\nFaith, tis no trifle for pipe and for tabor-\\nFour flats, the minor in F.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0249.jp2"}, "250": {"fulltext": "236 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXXVII\\nFriend, your fugue taxes the finger:\\nLearning it once, who would lose it?\\nYet all the while a misgiving will linger,\\nTruth s golden o er us although we refuse\\nit-\\nNature, thro cobwebs we string her.\\nXXVIII\\nHugues I advise mea poena\\n(Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon)\\nBid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the\\narena\\nSay the word, straight I unstop the full-\\norgan,\\nBlare out the mode Palestrina.\\nXXIX\\nWhile in the roof, if I m right there,\\nLo you, the wick in the socket\\nHallow, you sacristan, show us a light there!\\nDown it dips, gone like a rocket.\\nWhat, you want, do you, to come unawares.\\nSweeping the church up for first morning-\\nprayers.\\nAnd find a poor devil has ended his cares\\nAt the foot of your rotten-runged rat-riddled\\nstairs?\\nDo I carry the moon in my pocket?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0250.jp2"}, "251": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 237\\nABT VOGLER.\\n(after he has been extemporizing upon the\\nMUSICAL instrument OF HIS INVENTION.)\\nWould that the structure brave, the manifold\\nmusic I build,\\nBidding- my organ obey, calling its keys to\\ntheir work.\\nClaiming each slave of the sound, at a touch,\\nas when Solomon willed\\nArmies of angels that soar, legions of demons\\nthat lurk,\\nMan, brute, reptile fly, alien of end and of\\naim,\\nAdverse, each from the other heaven-high,\\nhell-deep removed,\\nShould rush into sight at once as he named the\\nineffable Name,\\nAnd pile him a palace straight, to pleasure\\nthe princess he loved!\\nWould it might tarry like his, the beautiful\\nbuilding of mine,\\nThis which my keys in a crowd pressed and\\nimportuned to raise!\\nAh, one and all, how they helped, would dis-\\npart now and now combine,\\nZealous to hasten the work, heighten their\\nmaster his praise\\nAnd one would bury his brow with a blind\\nplunge down to hell,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0251.jp2"}, "252": {"fulltext": "238 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nBurrow awhile and build, broad on the roots\\nof things,\\nThen up again swim into sight, having based\\nme my palace well,\\nFounded it, fearless of flame, flat on the\\nnether springs.\\nIll\\nAnd another would mount and march, like\\nthe excellent minion he was.\\nAy, another and yet another, one crowd but\\nwith many a crest.\\nRaising my rampired walls of gold as trans-\\nparent as glass,\\nEager to do and die, yield each his place to\\nthe rest:\\nFor higher still and higher (as a runner tips\\nwith fire.\\nWhen a great illumination surprises a festal\\nnight\\nOutlining round and round Rome s dome from\\nspace to spire)\\nUp, the pinnacled glory reached, and the\\npride of my soul was in sight.\\nIV\\nIn sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was cer-\\ntain, to match man s birth.\\nNature in turn conceived, obeying an\\nimpulse as I\\nAnd the emulous heaven yearned down, made\\neffort to reach the earth.\\nAs the earth had done her best, in my pas-\\nsion, to scale the sky:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0252.jp2"}, "253": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 239\\nNovel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and\\ndwelt with mine,\\nNot a point nor peak but found, but fixed its\\nwandering star\\nMeteor-moons, balls of blaze and they did not\\npale nor pine.\\nFor earth had attained to heaven, there was\\nno more near nor far.\\nNay more for there wanted not who walked\\nin the glare and glow,\\nPresences plain in the place; or, fresh from\\nthe Protoplast,\\nFurnished for ages to come, when a kindlier\\nwind should blow.\\nLured now to begin and live, in a house to\\ntheir liking at last\\nOr else the wonderful Dead who have passed\\nthrough the body and gone.\\nBut were back once more to breathe in an\\nold world worth their new\\nWhat never had been, was now what was, as\\nit shall be anon\\nAnd what is, shall I say, matched both? for\\nI was made perfect too.\\nVI\\nAll through my keys that gave their sounds to\\na wish of my soul.\\nAll through my soul that praised as its wish\\nflowed visibly forth,\\nAll through music and me! For think, had I\\npainted the whole,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0253.jp2"}, "254": {"fulltext": "240 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWhy, there it had stood, to see, nor the\\nprocess so wonder- worth.\\nHad I written the same, made verse still,\\neffect proceeds from cause,\\nYe know why the forms are fair, ye hear\\nhow the tale is told\\nIt is all triumphant art, but art in obedience\\nto laws,\\nPainter and poet are proud, in the artist-list\\nenrolled\\nVII\\nBut here is the finger of God, a flash of the\\nwill that can.\\nExistent behind all laws: that made them,\\nand, lo, they are!\\nAnd I know not if, save in this, such gift be\\nallowed to man,\\nThat out of three sounds he frame, not a\\nfourth sound, but a star.\\nConsider it well: each tone of our scale iji itself\\nis nought;\\nIt is everywhere in the world loud, soft,\\nand all is said\\nGive it to me to use I mix it with two in my\\nthought.\\nAnd, there Ye have heard and seen con-\\nsider and bow the head\\nVIII\\nWell, it is gone at last, the palace of music I\\nreared\\nGone! and the good tears start, the praises\\nthat come too slow", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0254.jp2"}, "255": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 241\\nFor one is assured at first, one scarce can say-\\nthat he feared,\\nThat he even gave it a thought, the gone\\nthing was to go.\\nNever to be again But many more of the kind\\nAs good, nay, better perchance is this your\\ncomfort to me?\\nTo me, who must be saved because I cling\\nwith my mind\\nTo the same, same self, same love, same\\nGod ay, what was, shall be.\\nIX\\nTherefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the\\nineffable Name?\\nBuilder and maker, thou, of houses not made\\nwith hands!\\nWhat, have fear of change from thee who art\\never the same?\\nDoubt that thy power can fill the heart that\\nthy power expands?\\nThere shall never be one lost good! What\\nwas, shall live as before\\nThe evil is null, is nought, is silence imply-\\ning sound\\nWhat was good, shall be good, with, for evil,\\nso much good more\\nOn the earth the broken arcs in the heaven,\\na perfect round.\\nAll we have willed or hoped or dreamed of\\ngood, shall exist;\\n16", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0255.jp2"}, "256": {"fulltext": "242 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nNot its semblance, but itself; no beauty,\\nnor good, nor power\\nWhose voice has gone forth, but each survives\\nfor the melodist.\\nWhen eternity affirms the conceptions of an\\nhour.\\nThe high that proved too high, the heroic for\\nearth too hard.\\nThe passion that left the ground to lose itself\\nin the sky,\\nAre music sent up to God by the lover and the\\nbard;\\nEnough that he heard it once we shall hear\\nit by-and-by.\\nXI\\nAnd what is our failure here but a triumph s\\nevidence\\nFor the fulness of the days? Have we with-\\nered or agonized?\\nWhy else was the pause prolonged but that\\nsinging might issue thence?\\nWhy rushed the discords in, but that har-\\nmony should be prized?\\nSorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to\\nclear,\\nEach sufferer says his say, his scheme of the\\nweal and woe:\\nBut God has a few of us whom he whispers in\\nthe ear;\\nThe rest may reason and welcome; tis we\\nmusicians know.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0256.jp2"}, "257": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 243\\nXII\\nWell, it is earth with me silence resumes her\\nreign\\nI will be patient and proud, and soberly\\nacquiesce.\\nGive me the keys. I feel for the common\\nchord again,\\nSliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,\\n\u00e2\u0080\u0094yes.\\nAnd I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on\\nalien ground.\\nSurveying awhile the heights I rolled from\\ninto the deep:\\nWhich, hark, I have dared and done, for my\\nresting-place is found.\\nThe C Major of this life: so, now I will try\\nto sleep.\\nTWO IN THE CAMPAGNA.\\nI wonder do you feel to-day\\nAs I have felt since, hand in hand,\\nWe sat down on the grass, to stray\\nIn spirit better through the land,\\nThis morn of Rome and May?\\nII\\nFor me, I touched a thought, I know,\\nHas tantalized me many times,\\n(Like turns of thread the spiders throw\\nMocking across our path) for rhymes\\nTo catch at and let go.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0257.jp2"}, "258": {"fulltext": "244 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIll\\nHelp me to hold it! First it left\\nThe yellowing fennel, run to seed\\nThere, branching from the brickwork s cleft,\\nSome old tomb s ruin: yonder weed\\nTook up the floating weft,\\nIV\\nWhere one small orange cup amassed\\nFive beetles, blind and green they grope\\nAmong the honey-meal: and last,\\nEverywhere on the grassy slope,\\nI traced it. Hold it fast!\\nThe champaign with its endless fleece\\nOf feathery grasses everywhere\\nSilence i.nd passion, joy and peace.\\nAnd everlasting wash of air\\nRome s ghost since her decease.\\nVI\\nSuch life here, through such lengths of hours,\\nSuch miracles performed in play.\\nSuch primal naked forms of flowers.\\nSuch letting nature have her way\\nWhile heaven looks from its towers!\\nVII\\nHow say you? Let us, O my dove,\\nLet us be unashamed of soul,\\nAs earth lies bare to heaven above!\\nHow is it under our control\\nTo love or not to love?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0258.jp2"}, "259": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 245\\nVIII\\nI would that you were all to me,\\nYou that are just so much, no more.\\nNor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free\\nWhere does the fault lie? What the core\\nO the wound, since wound must be?\\nIX\\nI would T could adopt your will.\\nSee with your eyes, and set my heart\\nBeating by yours, and drink my fill\\nAt your soul s springs, your part, my part\\nIn life, for good and ill.\\nNo. I yearn upward, touch you close.\\nThen stand away. I kiss your cheek.\\nCatch your soul s warmth, I pluck the rose\\nAnd love it more than tongue can speak\\nThen the good minute goes.\\nXI\\nAlready how am I so far\\nOut of that minute? Must I go\\nStill like the thistle-ball, no bar.\\nOnward, wherever light winds blow,\\nFixed by no friendly star?\\nXII\\nJust when I seemed about to learn!\\nWhere is the thread now? Off again.\\nThe old trick! Only I discern\\nInfinite passion, and the pain\\nOf finite hearts that yearn.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0259.jp2"}, "260": {"fulltext": "246 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nDE GUSTIBUS\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nYour ghost will walk, you lover of trees,\\n(If your lovers remain)\\nIn an English lane,\\nBy a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.\\nHard, those two in the hazel coppice\\nA boy and a girl, if the good fates please,\\nMaking love, say,\\nThe happier they!\\nDraw yourself up from the light of the moon,\\nAnd let them pass, as they will too soon.\\nWith the beanflower s boon,\\nAnd the blackbird s tune,\\nAnd May, and June!\\nWhat I love best in all the world\\nIs a castle, precipice-encurled.\\nIn a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.\\nOr look for me, old fellow of mine,\\n(If I get my head from out the mouth\\nO the grave, and loose my spirit s bands\\nAnd come again to the land of lands)\\nIn a sea-side house to the farther South,\\nWhere the baked cicala dies of drouth,\\nAnd one sharp tree tis a cypress stands,\\nBy the many hundred years red-rusted,\\nRough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o ercrusted,\\nMy sentinel to guard the sands\\nTo the water s edge. For, what expands\\nBefore the house, but the great opaque\\nBlue breadth of sea without a break?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0260.jp2"}, "261": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 247\\nWhile, in the house, for ever crumbles\\nSome fragment of the frescoed walls,\\nFrom blisters where a scorpion sprawls.\\nA girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles\\nDown on the pavement, green- flesh melons,\\nAnd says there s news to-day the king\\nWas shot at, touched in the liver-wing,\\nGoes with his Bourbon arm in a sling\\nShe hopes they have not caught the felons.\\nItaly, my Italy!\\nQueen Mary s saying serves for me\\n(When fortune s malice\\nLost her, Calais)\\nOpen your heart and you will see\\nGraved inside of it, Italy.\\nSuch lovers old are I and she\\nSo it always was, so shall ever be.\\nTHE GUARDIAN-ANGEL.\\nA PICTURE AT FANO.\\nDear and great Angel, wouldst thou not leave\\nThat child, when thou hast done with him,\\nfor me\\nLet me sit all the day here, that when eve\\nShall find performed thy special ministry.\\nAnd time come for departure, thou, suspending\\nThy flight, may st see another child for tending,\\nAnother still to quiet and retrieve.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0261.jp2"}, "262": {"fulltext": "248 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThen I shall feel thee step one step, no more,\\nFrom where thou standest now, to where I\\ngaze.\\nAnd suddenly my head is covered o er\\nWith those wings, white above the child who\\nprays\\nNow on that tomb and I shall feel thee\\nguarding\\nMe, out of all the world for me, discarding\\nYon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its\\ndoor.\\nIll\\nI would not look up thither past thy head\\nBecause the door opens, like that child, I\\nknow.\\nFor I should have thy gracious face instead,\\nThou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me\\nlow\\nLike him, and lay, like his, my hands together.\\nAnd lift them up to pray, and gently tether\\nMe, as thy lamb there, with thy garments\\nspread?\\nIV\\nIf this was ever granted, I would rest\\nMy head beneath thine, while thy healing\\nhands\\nClose-covered both my eyes beside thy breast.\\nPressing the brain which too much thought\\nexpands.\\nBack to its proper size again, and smoothing\\nDistortion down till every nerve had soothing,\\nAnd all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0262.jp2"}, "263": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 249\\nHow soon all wordly wrong would be repaired\\nI think how I should view the earth and skies\\nAnd sea, when once again my brow was bared\\nAfter thy healing, with such different eyes.\\nO world, as God has made it! All is beauty:\\nAnd knowing this is love, and love is duty.\\nWhat further may be sought for or declared?\\nVI\\nGuercino drew this angel I saw teach\\n(Alfred, dear friend!)\u00e2\u0080\u0094 that little child to\\npray,\\nHolding the little hands up, each to each\\nPressed gently, with his own head turned\\naway\\nOver the earth where so much lay before him\\nOf work to do, though heaven was opening o er\\nhim,\\nAnd he was left at Fane by the beach.\\nVII\\nWe were at Fano, and three times we went\\nTo sit and see him in his chapel there\\nAnd drink his beauty to our soul s content\\nMy angel with me, too; and since I care\\nFor dear Guercino s fame (to which in power\\nAnd glory comes this picture for a dower,\\nFraught with a pathos so magnificent),\\nVIII\\nAnd since he did not work thus earnestly\\nAt all times, and has else endured some\\nwrong", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0263.jp2"}, "264": {"fulltext": "250 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nI took one thought his picture struck from me,\\nAnd spread it out, translating it to song,\\nMy love is here. Where are you, dear old\\nfriend?\\nHow rolls the Wairoa at your world s far end?\\nThis is Ancona, yonder is the sea.\\nEVELYN HOPE.\\nBeautiful Evelyn Hope is dead\\nSit and watch by her side an hour.\\nThat is her book-shelf, this her bed\\nShe plucked that piece of geranium-flower,\\nBeginning to die, too, in the glass;\\nLittle has yet been changed, I think:\\nThe shutters are shut, no light may pass\\nSave two long rays thro the hinge s chink.\\nSixteen years old when she died\\nPerhaps she had scarcely heard my name\\nIt was not her time to love beside.\\nHer life had many a hope and aim,\\nDuties enough and little cares,\\nAnd now was quiet, now astir.\\nTill God s hand beckoned unawares,\\nAnd the sweet white brow is all of her.\\nIll\\nIs it too late then, Evelyn Hope?\\nWhat, your soul was pure and true.\\nThe good stars met in your horoscope,\\nMade you of spirit, fire and dew", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0264.jp2"}, "265": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 251\\nAnd, just because I was thrice as old\\nAnd our paths in the world diverged so wide,\\nEach was nought to each, must I be told?\\nWe were fellow mortals, nought beside?\\nIV\\nNo, indeed! for God above\\nIs great to grant, as mighty to make,\\nAnd creates the love to reward the love\\nI claim you still, for my own love s sake!\\nDelay it may be for more lives yet,\\nThrough worlds I shall traverse, not a few:\\nMuch is to learn, much to forget\\nEre the time to come for taking you.\\nBut the time will come, at last it will,\\nWhen, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)\\nIn the lower earth, in the years long still.\\nThat body and soul so pure and gay?\\nWhy your hair was amber, I shall divine.\\nAnd 5^our mouth of your own geranium s red\\nAnd what you would do with me, in fine,\\nIn the new life come in the old one s stead.\\nVI\\nI have lived (I shall say) so much since then.\\nGiven up myself so many times.\\nGained me the gains of various men.\\nRansacked the ages, spoiled the climes:\\nYet one thing, one, in my soul s full scope,\\nEither I missed or itself missed me\\nAnd I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!\\nWhat is the issue? let us see!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0265.jp2"}, "266": {"fulltext": "252 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nVII\\nI loved you, Evelyn, all the while\\nMy heart seemed full as it could hold\\nThere was place and to spare for the frank\\nyoung smile.\\nAnd the red young mouth, and the hair s\\nyoung gold.\\nSo hush I will give you this leaf to keep\\nSee, I shut it mside the sweet cold hand!\\nThere, that is our secret: go to sleep!\\nYou will vv^ake, and remember, and under-\\nstand.\\nMEMORABILIA.\\nAh, did you once see Shelley plain.\\nAnd did he stop and speak to you,\\nAnd did you speak to him again\\nHow strange it seems, and new!\\nBut you were living before that,\\nAnd also you are living after;\\nAnd the memory I started at\\nMy starting moves your laughter!\\nIll\\nI crossed a moor, with a name of its own\\nAnd a certain use in the world, no doubt,\\nYet a hand s breadth of it shines alone\\nMid the blank miles round about:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0266.jp2"}, "267": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 253\\nIV\\nFor there I picked up on the heather\\nAnd there I put inside my breast\\nA moulted feather, an eagle-feather!\\nWell, I forget the rest.\\nAPPARENT FAILURE.\\nWe shall soon lose a celebrated building.\\nParis Newspaper.\\nI\\nNo, for I ll save it! Seven years since,\\nI passed through Paris, stopped a day\\nTo see the baptism of your Prince\\nSaw, made my bow, and went my way.\\nWalking the heat and headache off,\\nI took the Seine-side, you surmise.\\nThought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,\\nCavour s appeal and Buol s replies,\\nSo sauntered till what met my eyes?\\nOnly the Doric little Morgue!\\nThe dead-house where you show your\\ndrowned\\nPetrarch s Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue.\\nYour Morgue has made the Seine renowned.\\nOne pays one s debt in such a case\\nI plucked up heart and entered, stalked.\\nKeeping a tolerable face\\nCompared with some whose cheeks were\\nchalked\\nLet them! No Briton s to be baulked!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0267.jp2"}, "268": {"fulltext": "254 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nm\\nFirst came the silent gazers next,\\nA screen of glass, we re thankful for:\\nLast, the sight s self, the sermon s text.\\nThe three men who did most abhor\\nTheir life in Paris yesterday.\\nSo killed themselves: and now, enthroned\\nEach on his copper couch, they lay\\nFrontiag me, waiting to be owned.\\nI thought, and think, their sin s atoned.\\nIV\\nPoor men, God made, and all for that\\nThe reverence struck me; o er each head\\nReligiously was htmg its hat.\\nEach coat dripped by the owner s bed.\\nSacred from touch: each had his berth.\\nHis bounds, his proper place of rest.\\nWho last night tenanted on earth\\nSome arch, where twelve such slept abreast,\\nUnless the plain asphalte seemed best.\\nHow did it happen, my poor boy?\\nYou wanted to be Buonaparte\\nAnd have the Tuileries for toy.\\nAnd could not, so it broke your heart.\\nYou, old one by his side, I judge,\\nWere, red as blood, a socialist,\\nA leveler! Does the Empire grudge\\nYou ve gained what no Republic missed?\\nBe quiet, and unclench your fist", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0268.jp2"}, "269": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 255\\nVI\\nAnd this why, he was red in vain,\\nOr black, poor fellow that is blue!\\nWhat fancy was it turned your brain?\\nOh, women were the prize for you\\nMoney gets women, cards and dice\\nGet money, and ill-luck gets just\\nThe copper couch and one clear nice\\nCool squirt of water o er your bust,\\nThe right thing to extinguish lust\\nVII\\nIt s wiser being good than bad;\\nIt s safer being meek than fierce\\nIt s fitter being sane than mad.\\nMy own hope is a sun will pierce\\nThe thickest cloud earth ever stretched\\nThat, after Last, returns the First,\\nThough a wide compass round be fetched\\nThat what began best, can t end worst,\\nNor what God blessed once, prove accurst.\\nPROSPICE.\\nFear death? to feel the fog in my throat,\\nThe mist in my face.\\nWhen the snows begin, and the blasts denote\\nI am nearing the place.\\nThe power of the night, the press of the storm.\\nThe post of the foe\\nWhere he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible\\nform.\\nYet the strong man must go", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0269.jp2"}, "270": {"fulltext": "256 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nFor the journey is done and the summit at-\\ntained,\\nAnd the barriers fall,\\nThough a battle s to fight ere the guerdon be\\ngained,\\nThe reward of it all.\\nI was ever a fighter, so one fight more,\\nThe best and the last\\nI would hate that death bandaged my eyes,\\nand forbore,\\nAnd bade me creep past.\\nNo let me taste the whole of it, fare like my\\npeers\\nThe heroes of old,\\nBear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life s\\narrears\\nOf pain, darkness and cold.\\nFor sudden the worst turns the best to the\\nbrave.\\nThe black minute s at end.\\nAnd the elements rage, the fiend-voices that\\nrave,\\nShall dwindle, shall blend.\\nShall change, shall become first a peace out of\\npain.\\nThen a light, then thy breast,\\nO thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee\\nagain.\\nAnd with God be the rest!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0270.jp2"}, "271": {"fulltext": "Acquiescingly I did turn as he pc\\nBrowning s Poems.\\nPage 257,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0271.jp2"}, "272": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0272.jp2"}, "273": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 257\\nCHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK\\nTOWER CAME.\\n(See Edgar s song in Lear.\\nMy first thought was, he lied in every word,\\nThat hoary cripple, with malicious eye\\nAskance to watch the working of his lie\\nOn mine, and mouth scarce able to afford\\nSuppression of the glee, that pursed and scored\\nIts edge, at one more victim gained thereby.\\nII\\nWhat else should he be set for, with his staff?\\nWhat, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare\\nAll travelers who might find him posted\\nthere,\\nAnd ask the road? I guessed what skull-like\\nlaugh\\nWould break, what crutch gin write, my epi-\\ntaph\\nFor pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,\\nIII\\nIf at his counsel I should turn aside\\nInto that ominous tract which, all agree.\\nHides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly\\nI did turn as he pointed: neither pride\\nNor hope rekindling at the end descried,\\nSo much as gladness that some end might be.\\nIV\\nFor what with my whole world-wide wander-\\ning,\\n17 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0273.jp2"}, "274": {"fulltext": "258 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWhat with my search drawn out thro* years,\\nmy hope\\nDwindled into a ghost not fit to cope\\nWith that obstreperous joy success would\\nbring,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nI hardly tried now to rebuke the spring\\nMy heart made, finding failure in its scope.\\nAs when a sick man very near to death\\nSeems dead indeed, and feels begin and end\\nThe tears and takes the farewell of each\\nfriend,\\nAnd hears one bid the other go, draw breath\\nFreelier outside since all is o er, he saith,\\nAnd the blow fallen no grieving can\\namend;\\nVI\\nWhile some discuss if near the other graves\\nBe room enough for this, and when a day\\nSuits best for carrying the corpse away,\\nWith care about the banners, scarves and\\nstaves\\nAnd still the man hears all, and only craves\\nHe may not shame such tender love and stay.\\nVII\\nThus, I had so long suffered in this quest,\\nHeard failure prophesied so oft, been writ\\nSo many times among The Band to- wit,\\nThe knights who to the Dark Tower s search\\naddressed", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0274.jp2"}, "275": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 259\\nTheir steps that just to fail as they, seemed\\nbest,\\nAnd all the doubt was now should I be fit?\\nVIII\\nSo, quiet as despair, I turned from him,\\nThat hateful cripple, out of his highway\\nInto the path he pointed. All the day\\nHad been a dreary one at best, and dim\\nWas settling to its close, yet shot one grim\\nRed leer to see the plain catch its estray.\\nIX\\nFor mark no sooner was I fairly found\\nPledged to the plain, after a pace or two,^\\nThan, pausing to throw backward a last view\\nO er the safe road, twas gone; grey plain all\\nround\\nNothing but plain to the horizon s bound.\\nI might go on nought else remained to do.\\nSo, on I went. I think I never saw\\nSuch starved ignoble nature nothing throve\\nFor flowers as well expect a cedar grove\\nBut cockle, spurge, according to their law\\nMight propagate their kind, with none to awe.\\nYou d think; a burr had been a treasure\\ntrove.\\nXI\\nNo penury, inertness and grimace.\\nIn sorne strange sort, were the land s por-\\ntion. See", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0275.jp2"}, "276": {"fulltext": "260 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nOr shut your eyes, said Nature peevishly,\\n*It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:\\nTis the Last Judgment s fire must cure this\\nplace,\\nCalcine its clods and set my prisoners free.\\nXII\\nIf there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk\\nAbove its mates, the head was chopped; the\\nbents\\nWere jealous else. What made those holes\\nand rents\\nIn the dock s harsh swarth leaves, bruised as\\nto baulk\\nAll hope of greenness? tis a brute must walk\\nPushing their life out, with a brute s intents.\\nXIII\\nAs for the grass, it grew as scant as hair\\nIn leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud\\nWhich underneath looked kneaded up with\\nblood.\\nOne stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,\\nStood stupefied, however he came there\\nThrust out past service from the devil s stud!\\nXIV\\nAlive? he might be dead for aught I know.\\nWith that red gaunt and colloped neck\\na-strain.\\nAnd shut eyes underneath the rusty mane\\nSeldom went such grotesqueness which such\\nwoe;\\nI never saw a brute I hated so;\\nHe must be wicked to deserve such pain.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0276.jp2"}, "277": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 261\\nXV\\nI shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.\\nAs a man calls for wine before he fights,\\nI asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,\\nEre fitly I could hope to play my part.\\nThink first, fight afterwards the soldier s art:\\nOne taste of the old time sets all to rights.\\nXVI\\nNot it! I fancied Cuthbert s reddening face\\nBeneath its garniture of curly gold,\\nDear fellow, till I almost felt him fold\\nAn arm in mine to fix me to the place,\\nThat way he used. Alas, one night s disgrace!\\nOut went my heart s new fire and left it cold.\\nXVII\\nGiles then, the soul of honor there he stands\\nFrank as ten years ago when knighted first.\\nWhat honest man should dare (he said) he\\ndurst\\nGood but the scene shifts faugh what hang-\\nman hands\\nPin to his breast a parchment? His own bands\\nRead it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst\\nXVIII\\nBetter this present than a past like that\\nBack therefore to my darkening path again\\nNo sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.\\nWill the night send a howlet or a bat?\\nI asked; when something on the dismal flat\\nCame to arrest my thoughts and change their\\ntrain.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0277.jp2"}, "278": {"fulltext": "262 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXIX\\nA sudden little river crossed my path\\nAs unexpected as a serpent comes.\\nNo sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;\\nThis, as it frothed by, might have been a bath\\nFor the fiend s glowing hoof to see the wrath\\nOf its black eddy bespate with flakes and\\nspumes.\\nXX\\nSo pretty yet so spiteful All along,\\nLow scrubby alders kneeled down over it\\nDrenched willows flung them headlong in a\\nfit\\nOf mute despair, a suicidal throng\\nThe river which had done them all the wrong,\\nWhate er that was, rolled by, deterred no\\nwhit.\\nXXI\\nWhich, while I forded, good saints, how I\\nfeared\\nTo set my foot upon a dead man s cheek,\\nEach step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek\\nFor hollows, tangled in his hair or beard\\nIt may have been a water-rat I speared,\\nBut, ugh! it sounded like a baby s shriek.\\nXXII\\nGlad was I when I reached the other bank.\\nNow for a better country. Vain presage\\nWho were the strugglers, what war did they\\nwage", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0278.jp2"}, "279": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 263\\nWhose savage trample thus could pad the dank\\nSoil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,\\nOr wild cats in a red-hot iron cage\\nXXIII\\nThe fight must so have seemed in that fell\\ncirque.\\nWhat penned them there, with all the plain\\nto choose?\\nNo foot-print leading to that horrid mews,\\nNone out of it. Mad brewage set to work\\nTheir brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the\\nTurk\\nPits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.\\nXXIV\\nA.nd more than that a furlong on why,\\nthere!\\nWhat bad use was that engine for, that\\nwheel,\\nOr brake, not wheel that harrow fit to reel\\nMen s bodies out like silk? with all the air\\nOf Tophet s tool, on earth left unaware.\\nOr brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.\\nXXV\\nThen came a bit of stubbed ground, once a\\nwood,\\nNext a marsh, it would seem, and now mere\\nearth\\nDesperate and done with; (so a fool finds\\nmirth.\\nMakes a thing and then mars it, till his mood\\nChanges and off he goes!) within a rood", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0279.jp2"}, "280": {"fulltext": "264 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nBog, clay, and rubble, sand and stark black\\ndearth.\\nXXVI\\nNow blotches rankling, colored gay and grim,\\nNow patches where some leanness of the\\nsoil s\\nBroke into moss or substances like boils;\\nThen came some palsied oak, a cleft in him\\nLike a distorted mouth that splits its rim\\nGaping at death, and dies while it recoils.\\nXXVII\\nAnd just as far as ever from the end.\\nNought in the distance but the evening,\\nnought\\nTo point my footsteps further! At the\\nthought,\\nA great black bird, Apollyon s bosom-friend.\\nSailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-\\npenned\\nThat brushed my cap perchance the guide I\\nsought.\\nXXVIII\\nFor, looking up, aware I somehow grew,\\nSpite of the dusk, the plain had given place\\nAll round to mountains with such name to\\ngrace\\nMere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in\\nview.\\nHow thus they had surprised me, solve it,\\nyou!\\nHow to get from them was no clearer case.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0280.jp2"}, "281": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 265\\nXXIX\\nYet half I seemed to recognize some trick\\nOf mischief happened to me, God knows\\nwhen\\nIn a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,\\nProgress this way. When, in the very nick\\nOf giving up, one time more, came a click\\nAs when a trap shuts you re inside the den.\\nXXX\\nBurningly it came on me all at once,\\nThis was the place those two hills on the\\nright.\\nCouched like two bulls locked horn in horn\\nin fight,\\nWhile, to the left, a tall scalped mountain\\nDunce,\\nDotard, a- dozing at the very nonce.\\nAfter a life spent training for the sight!\\nXXXI\\nWhat in the midst lay but the Tower itself?\\nThe round squat turret, blind as the fool s\\nheart,\\nBuilt of brown stone, without a counterpart\\nIn the whole world. The tempest s mocking elf\\nPoints to the shipman thus the unseen shelf\\nHe strikes on, only when the timbers start.\\nXXXII\\nNot see? because of night perhaps? why, day\\nCame back again for that! before it left.\\nThe dying sunset kindled through a cleft:\\nThe hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,\\n18 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0281.jp2"}, "282": {"fulltext": "266 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nChin upon hand, to see the game at bay,\\nNow stab and end the creature to the\\nheft!\\nXXXIII\\nNot hear? when noise was everywhere! it\\ntolled\\nIncreasing like a bell. Names in my ears\\nOf all the lost adventurers my peers,\\nHow such a one was strong, and such was\\nbold,\\nAnd such was fortunate, yet each of old\\nLost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of\\nyears.\\nThere they stood, ranged along the hill-sides,\\nmet\\nTo view the last of me, a living frame\\nFor one more picture in a sheet of flame\\nI saw them and I knew them all. And yet\\nDauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set.\\nAnd blew Childe Roland to the Dark Towef\\ncame.\\nA GRAMMARIAN S FUNERAL.\\nSHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN\\nEUROPE.\\nLet us begin and carry up this corpse,\\nSinging together.\\nLeave we the common crofts, the vulgar\\nthorpes.\\nEach in its tether\\nSleeping safe in the bosom of the plain,\\nCared-tor till cock-crow", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0282.jp2"}, "283": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 267\\nLook out if yonder be not day again\\nRimming the rock-row\\nThat s the appropriate country; there, man s\\nthought,\\nRarer, intenser,\\nSelf- gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,\\nChafes in the censer.\\nLeave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop\\nSeek we sepulture\\nOn a tall mountain, citied to the top,\\nCrowded with culture\\nAll the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;\\nClouds overcome it\\nNo, yonder sparkle is the citadel s\\nCircling its summit.\\nThither our path lies wind we up the heights\\nWait ye the warning?\\nOur low life was the level s and the nights:\\nHe s for the morning.\\nStep to a tune, square chests, erect each head,\\nWare the beholders!\\nThis is our master, famous, calm and dead.\\nBorne on our shoulders.\\nSleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe\\nand croft\\nSafe from the weather\\nHe, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,\\nSinging together.\\nHe was a man born with thy face and throat,\\nLyric Apollo\\nLong he lived nameless: how should spring\\ntake note\\nWinter would follow?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0283.jp2"}, "284": {"fulltext": "268 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nTill lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!\\nCramped and diminished,\\nMoaned he, New measures, other feet anon!\\nMy dance is finished?\\nNo, that s the world s way; (keep the moun-\\ntain-side,\\nMake for the city!)\\nHe knew the signal, and stepped on with pride\\nOver men s pity;\\nLeft play for work, and grappled with the world\\nBenton escaping:\\nWhat s in the scroll, quoth he, thou keep-\\nest furled?\\nShow me their shaping,\\nTheirs who most studied man, the bard and\\nsage,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nGive! So, he gowned him.\\nStraight got by heart that book to its last page\\nLearned, we found him.\\nYea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead.\\nAccents uncertain\\nTime to taste life, another would have said,\\nUp with the curtain\\nThis man said rather, Actual life comes next?\\nPatience a moment!\\nGrant I have mastered learning s crabbed\\ntext,\\nStill there s the comment.\\nLet me know all! Prate not of most or least,\\nPainful or easy!\\nEven to the crumbs I d fain eat up the feast,\\nAy, nor feel queasy.\\nOh, such a life as he resolved to live,\\nWhen he had learned it.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0284.jp2"}, "285": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 289\\nWhen he had gathered all books had to give\\nSooner, he spurned it.\\nImage the whole, then execute the parts\\nFancy the fabric\\nQuite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from\\nquartz.\\nEre mortar dab brick\\n(Here s the town-gate reached; there s the\\nmarket-place\\nGaping before us.)\\nYea, this in him was the peculiar grace\\n(Hearten our chorus!)\\nThat before living he d learn how to live\\nNo end to learning:\\nEarn the means first God surely will contrive\\nUse for our earning.\\nOthers mistrust and say, *But time escapes!\\nLive now or never!\\nHe said, What s time? Leave Now for dogs\\nand apes!\\nMan has Forever.\\nBack to his book then: deeper drooped his\\nhead:\\nCalculus racked him\\nLeaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead\\nTussis attacked him.\\n**Now, master, take a little rest! not he!\\n(Caution redoubled\\nStep two a-breast, the way winds narrowly!)\\nNot a whit troubled,\\nBack to his studies, fresher than at first,\\nFierce as a dragon\\nHe (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0285.jp2"}, "286": {"fulltext": "270 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nSucked at the flagon.\\nOh, if we draw a circle premature,\\nHeedless of far gain.\\nGreedy for quick returns of profit, sure\\nBad is our bargain\\nWas it not great? did not he throw on God\\n(He loves the burthen)\\nGod s task to make the heavenly period\\nPerfect the earthen?\\nDid not he magnify the mind, show clear\\nJust what it all meant?\\nHe would not discount life, as fools do here,\\nPaid by instalment.\\nHe ventured neck or nothing heaven s success\\nFound, or earth s failure:\\n**Wilt thou trust death or not? He answered\\nYes!\\nHence with life s pale lure!\\nThat low man seeks a little thing to do.\\nSees it and does it\\nThis high man, with a great thing to pursue,\\nDies ere he knows it.\\nThat low man goes on adding one to one,\\nHis hundred s soon hit:\\nThis high man, aiming at a Thillion,\\nMisses an unit.\\nThat, has the world here should he need the\\nnext,\\nLet the world mind him\\nThis, throws himself on God, and unperplexed\\nSeeking shall find him.\\nSo, with the throttling hands of death at strife,\\nGround he at grammar;\\nStill, thro the rattle, parts of speech were rife", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0288.jp2"}, "287": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 271\\nWhile he could stammer\\nHe settled Hoti s business let it be\\nProperly based Oun\\nGave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,\\nDead from the waist down.\\nWell, here s the platform, here s the proper\\nplace\\nHail to your purlieus,\\nAll ye highfliers of the feathered race,\\nSwallows and curlews!\\nHere s the top-peak; the multitude below\\nLive, for they can, there:\\nThis man decided not to Live but Know\\nBury this man there?\\nHere here s his place, where meteors shoot,\\nclouds form.\\nLightnings are loosened,\\nStars come and go! Let joy break with the\\nstorm.\\nPeace let the dew send\\nLofty designs must close in like effects:\\nLoftily lying.\\nLeave him still loftier than the world suspects.\\nLiving and dying.\\nCLEON.\\n**As certain also of your own poets have said\\nCleon the poet, from the sprinkled isles,\\nLily on lily, that o erlace the sea.\\nAnd laugh their pride when the light wave\\nlisps Greece\\nTo Protus in his Tyranny much health", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0289.jp2"}, "288": {"fulltext": "272 BROWNING S POExMS.\\nThey give thy letter to me, even now:\\nI read and seem as if I heard thee speak.\\nThe master of thy gallery still unlades\\nGift after gift; they block my court at last\\nAnd pile themselves along its portico\\nRoyal with sunset, like a thought of thoe\\nAnd one white she-slave, from the group dis-\\npersed\\nOf black and white slaves (like the chequer-\\nwork\\nPavement, at once my nation s work and gift,\\nNow covered with this settle-down of doves)\\nOne lyric woman, in her crocus vest\\nWoven of sea-wools, with her two white hands\\nCommends to me the strainer and the cup\\nThy lip hath bettered ere it blesses mine.\\nWell-counseled, king, in thy munificence!\\nFor so shall men remark, in such an act\\nOf love for him whose song gives life its joy,\\nThy recognition of the use of life:\\nNor call thy spirit barely adequate\\nTo help on life in straight ways, broad enough\\nFor vulgar souls, by ruling and the rest.\\nThou, in the daily building of thy tower,\\nWhether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil,\\nOr through dim lulls of unapparent growth,\\nOr when the general work mid good acclaim.\\nClimbed with the eye, to cheer the architect,\\nDid st ne er engage in work for mere work s\\nsake:\\nHadst ever in thy heart the luring hope\\nOf some eventual rest a-top of it.\\nWhence, all the tumult of the building hushed.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0290.jp2"}, "289": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 273\\nThou first of men mightst look out to the East:\\nThe vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun.\\nFor this, I promise on thy festival\\nTo pour libation, looking o er the sea,\\nMaking this slave narrate thy fortunes, speak\\nThy great words and describe thy royal face\\nWishing thee wholly where Zeus lives the most,\\nWithin the eventual element of calm.\\nThy letter s first requirement meets me here.\\nIt is as thou hast heard in one short life\\nI, Cleon, have effected all those things\\nThou wonderingly dost enumerate.\\nThat epos on thy hundred plates of gold\\nIs mine, and also mine the little chant\\nSo sure to rise from every fishing bark\\nWhen, lights at prow, the seamen haul their\\nne t.\\nThe image of the sun-god on the phare,\\nMen turn from the sun s self to see, is mine;\\nThe Poecile, o er-storied its whole length.\\nAs thou didst hear, with painting, is mine too,\\nI know the true proportions of a man\\nAnd woman also, not observed before\\nAnd I have written three books on the soul,\\nProving absurd all written hitherto,\\nAnd putting us to ignorance again.\\nFor music, why, I have combined the moods,\\nInventing one. In brief, all arts are mine\\nThus much the people know and recognize.\\nThroughout our seventeen islands. Marvel\\nnot!\\nWe of these latter days, with greater mind\\nThan our forerunners, since more composite,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0291.jp2"}, "290": {"fulltext": "274 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nLook not so great, beside their simple way,\\nTo a judge who only sees one way at once,\\nOne mind-point and no other at a time,\\nCompares the small part of a man of us\\nWith some whole man of the heroic age,\\nGreat in his way not ours, nor meant for ours\\nAnd ours is greater, had we skill to know.\\nFor, what we call this life of men on earth,\\nThis sequence of the soul s achievements here,\\nBeing, as I find much reason to conceive.\\nIntended to be viewed eventually\\nAs a great whole, not analysed to parts,\\nBut each part having reference to all,\\nHow shall a certain part, pronounced complete,\\nEndure effacement by another part?\\nWas the thing done? then, what s to do again?\\nSee, in the chequered pavement opposite.\\nSuppose the artist made a perfect rhomb,\\nAnd next a lozenge, then a trapezoid\\nHe did not overlay them, superimpose\\nThe new upon the old and blot it out.\\nBut laid them on a level in his work.\\nMaking at last a picture there it lies.\\nSo first the perfect separate forms were made,\\nThe portions of mankind and after, so.\\nOccurred the combination of the same.\\nFor where had been a progress, otherwise?\\nMankind, made up of all the single men,\\nIn such a synthesis the labor ends.\\nNow mark me those divine men of old time\\nHave reached, thou sayest well, each at one\\npoint\\nThe outside verge that rounds our faculty", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0292.jp2"}, "291": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 275\\nAnd where they reached, who can do more than\\nreach?\\nIt takes but little water just to touch\\nAt some one point the inside of a sphere,\\nAnd, as we turn the sphere, touch all the rest\\nIn due succession but the finer air\\nWhich not so palpably nor obviously.\\nThough no less universally, can touch\\nThe whole circumference of that emptied\\nsphere,\\nFills it more fully than the water did\\nHolds thrice the weight of water in itself\\nResolved into a subtler element.\\nAnd yet the vulgar call the sphere first full\\nUp to the visible height and after, void;\\nNot knowing air s more hidden properties.\\nAnd thus our soul, misknown, cries out to Zeus\\nTo vindicate his purpose in our life\\nWhy stay we on the earth unless to grow?\\nLong since, I imaged, wrote the fiction out,\\nThat he or other god descended here\\nAnd, once for all, showed simultaneously\\nWhat, in its nature, never can be shown\\nPiecemeal or in succession showed, I say.\\nThe worth both absolute and relative\\nOf all his children from the birth of time,\\nHis instruments for all appointed work.\\nI now go on to image might we hear\\nThe judgment which should give the due to\\neach.\\nShow where the labor lay and where the ease,\\nAnd prove Zeus self, the latent everywhere!\\nThis is a dream but no dream, let us hope.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0293.jp2"}, "292": {"fulltext": "276 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThat years and days, the summers and the\\nsprings,\\nFollow each other with unwaning powers.\\nThe grapes which dye thy wine, are richer far\\nThrough culture, than the wild wealth of the\\nrock\\nThe suave plum than the savage-tasted drupe;\\nThe pastured honey-bee drops choicer sweet\\nThe flowers turn double, and the leaves turn\\nflowers\\nThat young and tender crescent moon, thy\\nslave,\\nSleeping upon her robe as if on clouds,\\nRefines upon the women of my youth.\\nWhat, and the soul alone deteriorates?\\nI have not changed verse like Homer, no\\nNor swept string like Terpander, no nor\\ncarved\\nAnd painted men like Phidias and his friend:\\nI am not great as they are, point by point.\\nBut I have entered into sympathy\\nWith these four, running these into one soul.\\nWho, separate, ignored each other s arts.\\nSay, is it nothing that I know them all?\\nThe wild flower was the larger; I have\\ndashed\\nRose-blood from its petals, picked its cup s\\nHoney with wine, and driven its seed to fruit,\\nAnd show a better flower if not so large\\nI stand myself. Refer this to the gods\\nWhose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare\\n(All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext\\nThat such a gift by chance lay in my hand,\\nDiscourse of lightly or depreciate?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0294.jp2"}, "293": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 277\\nIt might have fallen to another s hand: what\\nthen?\\nI pass too surely let at least truth stay\\nAnd next, of what thou followest on to ask.\\nThis being with me, as I declare, O king,\\nMy works in all these varicolored kinds,\\nSo done by me, accepted so by men\\nThou askest, if (my soul thus in men s hearts)\\nI must not be accounted to attain\\nThe very crown and proper end of life?\\nInquiring thence how, now life closeth up,\\nI face death with success in my right hand\\nWhether I fear death less than dost thyself\\nThe fortunate of men? For (writest thou)\\nThou leaveth much behind, while I leave\\nnought.\\nThy life stays in the poems men shall sing,\\nThe pictures men shall study; while my life,\\nComplete and whole now in its power and\\njoy,\\nDies altogether with my brain and arm,\\nIs lost indeed; since, what survives myself?\\nThe brazen statue to o erlook my grave,\\nSet on the promontory which I named.\\nAnd that some supple courtier of my heir\\nShall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps\\nTo fix the robe to, which best drags it down,\\nI go then: triumph thou, who dost not go!\\nNay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole\\nmind.\\nIs this apparent when thou turn st to muse\\nUpon the scheme of earth and man in chief,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0295.jp2"}, "294": {"fulltext": "278 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThat admiration grows as knowledge grows?\\nThat imperfection means perfection hid,\\nReserved in part, to grace the after- time?\\nIf, in the morning of philosophy,\\nEre aught had been recorded, nay perceived,\\nThou, with the light now in thee, couldst have\\nlooked\\nOn all earth s tenantry, from worm to bird,\\nEre man, her last, appeared upon the stage\\nThou wouldst have seen them perfect, and\\ndeduced\\nThe perfectness of others yet unseen.\\nConceding which, had Zeus then questioned\\nthee\\nShall I go on a step, improve on this,\\n**Do more for visible creatures than is done?\\nThou wouldst have answered, Ay, by making\\neach\\n**Grow conscious in himself by that alone.\\nAll s perfect else; the shell sucks fast the\\nrock,\\n**The fish strikes through the sea, the snake\\nboth swims\\nAnd slides, forth range the beasts, the birds\\ntake flight,\\nTill life s mechanics can no further go\\nAnd all this joy in natural life, is put,\\n**Like fire from off thy finger into each,\\nSo exquisitely perfect is the same.\\nBut tis pure fire, and they mere matter are:\\nIt has them not they it; and so I choose\\nFor man, thy last premeditated work,\\n*(If I might add a glory to the scheme)", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0296.jp2"}, "295": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 279\\nThat a third thing should stand apart from\\nboth,\\nA quality arise within his soul,\\nWhich, intro-active, made to supervise\\nAnd feel the force it has, may view itself,\\nAnd so be happy. Man might live at first\\nThe animal life; but is there nothing more?\\nIn due time, let him critically learn\\nHow he lives; and, the more he gets to know\\nOf his own life s adaptabilities,\\nThe more joy-giving will his life become.\\nThus man, who hath this quality, is best.\\nBut thou, king, hadst more reasonably said:\\nLet progress end at once man make no step\\nBeyond the natural man, the better beast,\\nUsing his senses, not the sense of sense!\\nIn man there s failure, only since he left\\nThe lower and inconscious forms of life.\\nWe called it in advance, the rendering plain\\nMan s spirit might grow conscious of man s life,\\nAnd, by new lore so added to the old,\\nTake each step higher over the brute s head.\\nThis grew the only life, the pleasure-house.\\nWatch-tower and treasure-fortress of the soul,\\nWhich whole surrounding flats of natural life\\nSeemed only fit to yield subsistence to\\nA tower that crowns a country. But alas,\\nThe soul now climbs it just to perish there!\\nFor thence we have discovered tis no dream\\nWe know this, which we had not else perceived)\\nThat there s a world of capability\\nFor joy spread round about us, meant for us,\\nInviting us and still the soul craves all,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0297.jp2"}, "296": {"fulltext": "280 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd still the flesh replies, Take no jot more\\nThan ere thou clombst the tower to look\\nabroad\\nNay, so much less as that fatigue has brought\\nDeduction to it. We struggle, fain to en-\\nlarge\\nOur bounded physical recipiency.\\nIncrease our power, supply fresh oil to life,\\nRepair the waste of age and sickness; no,\\nIt skills not! life s inadequate to joy,\\nAs the soul seeks joy, tempting life to take.\\nThey praise a fountain in my garden here\\nWherein a Naiad sends the water-bow\\nThin from her tube; she smiles to see it rise.\\nW^hat if I told her, it is just a thread\\nFrom that great river which the hills shut up.\\nAnd mock her with my leave to take the same?\\nThe artificer has given her one sm^ll tube\\nPast power to widen or exchange what boots\\nTo know she might spout oceans if she could?\\nShe cannot lift beyond her first thin thread:\\nAnd so a man can use but a man s joy\\nWhile he sees God s. Is it for Zeus to boast\\nSee, man, how happy I live, and despair\\nThat I may be still happier for thy use!\\nIf this were so, we could not thank our lord,\\nAs hearts beat on to doing; tis not so\\nMalice it is not. Is it carelessness?\\nStill, no. If care where is the sign? I ask,\\nAnd get no answer, and agree in sum,\\nO king, with thy profound discouragement,\\nWho seest the wider but to sigh the more.\\nMost progress is most failure; thou sayest\\nwell.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0298.jp2"}, "297": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 281\\nThe last point now. Thou dost accept a\\ncase\\nHolding joy not impossible to one\\nWith artist-gifts to such a man as I\\nWho leave behind me living works indeed;\\nFor, such a poem, such a painting lives.\\nWhat? dost thou verily trip upon a word,\\nConfound the accurate view of what joy is\\n(Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than\\nthine)\\nWith feeling joy? confound the knowing how\\nAnd showing how to live (my faculty)\\nWith actually living? Otherwise\\nWhere is the artist s vantage o er the king?\\nBecause in my great epos I display\\nHow divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can\\nact\\nIs this as though I acted? if I paint,\\nCarve the young Phoebus, am I therefore\\nyoung?\\nMethinks I m older that I bowed myself\\nThe many years of pain that taught me art\\nIndeed, to know is something, and to prove\\nHow all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more\\nBut, knowing nought, to enjoy is something\\ntoo,\\nYon rower, with the moulded muscles there,\\nLowering the sail, is nearer it than I.\\nI can write love-odes: thy fair slave s an ode.\\nI get to sing of love, when grown too grey\\nFor being beloved: she turns to that young\\nman,\\nThe muscles all a-ripple on his back.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0299.jp2"}, "298": {"fulltext": "282 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nI know the joy of kingship: well, thou art\\nking!\\nBut, sayest thou (and I marvel, I repeat,\\nTo find thee tripping on a mere word) what\\nThou writest, paintest, stays; that does not\\ndie:\\nSappho survives, because we sing her songs,\\nAnd ^schylus, because we read his plays!\\nWhy, if they live still, let them come and take\\nThy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup.\\nSpeak in my place. Thou diest while I sur-\\nvive?\\nSay rather that my fate is deadlier still,\\nIn this, that every day my sense of joy\\nGrows more acute, my soul (intensified\\nBy power and insight) more enlarged, more\\nkeen;\\nWhile every day my hair falls more and more,\\nMy hand shakes, and the heavy years increase\u00e2\u0080\u0094.\\nThe horror quickening still from year to year,\\nThe consummation coming past escape,\\nWhen I shall know most, and yet least enjoy\u00e2\u0080\u0094.\\nWhen all my works wherein I prove my worth,\\nBeing present still to mock me in men s\\nmouths,\\nAlive still, in the phrase of such as thou,\\nI, I the feeling, thinking, acting man,\\nThe man who loved his life so over-much,\\nShall sleep in my urn. It is so horrible,\\nI dare at times imagine to my need\\nSome future state revealed to us by Zeus,\\nUnlimited in capability\\nFor joy, as this is in desire for joy,\\nTo seek which, the joy- hunger forces us:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0300.jp2"}, "299": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 283\\nThat, stung by straitness of our life, made\\nstrait\\nOn purpose to make prized the life at large\\nFreed by the throbbing impulse we call death,\\nWe burst there as the worm into the fly.\\nWho, while a worm still, wants his wings. But\\nno\\nZeus has not yet revealed it; and alas,\\nHe must have done so, were it possible\\nLive long and happy, and in that thought\\ndie,\\nGlad for what was! Farewell. And for the\\nrest,\\nI cannot tell thy messenger aright\\nWhere to deliver what he bears of thine\\nTo one called Paulus we have heard his fame\\nIndeed, if Christus be not one with him\\nI know not, nor am troubled much to know.\\nThou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew\\nAs Paulus proves to be, one circumcised,\\nHath access to a secret shut from us?\\nThou wrongest our philosophy, O king,\\nIn stooping to inquire of such an one,\\nAs if his answer could impose at all!\\nHe writeth, doth he? well, and he may write.\\nOh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves\\nWho touched on this same isle, preached him\\nand Christ;\\nAnd (as I gathered from a bystander)\\nTheir doctrine could be held by no sane man.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0301.jp2"}, "300": {"fulltext": "284 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nINSTANS TYRANNUS.\\nOf the million or two, more or less,\\nI rule and possess,\\nOne man, for some cause undefined,\\nWas least to my mind.\\nI struck him, he groveled of course\\nFor, what was his force?\\nI pinned him to earth with my weight\\nAnd persistence of hate\\nAnd he lay, would not moan, would not curse,\\nAs his lot might be worse.\\nIll\\nWere the object less mean, would he stand\\nAt the swing of my hand!\\nFor obscurity helps him, and blots\\nThe hole where he squats.\\nSo, I set my five wits on the stretch\\nTo inveigle the wretch.\\nAll in vain Gold and jewels I threw,\\nStill he couched there perdue;\\nI tempted his blood and his flesh.\\nHid in roses my mesh,\\nChoicest cates and the flagon s best spilth:\\nStill he kept to his filth.\\nIV\\nHad he kith now or kin, were access\\nTo his heart, did I press:\\nJust a son or a mother to seize!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0302.jp2"}, "301": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 285\\nNo such booty as these.\\nWere it simply a friend to pursue\\nMid my million or two,\\nWho could pay me, in person or pelf,\\nWhat he owes me himself!\\nNo; I could not but smile through my chafe:\\nFor the fellow lay safe\\nAs his mates do, the midge and the nit,\\nThrough minuteness, to-wit.\\nThen a humor more great took its place\\nAt the thought of his face:\\nThe droop, the low cares of the mouth,\\nThe trouble uncouth\\nTwixt the brows, all that air one is fain\\nTo put out of its pain.\\nAnd no! I admonished myself,\\nIs one mocked by an elf,\\nIs one baffled by toad or by rat?\\nThe gravamen s in that!\\nHow the lion, who crouches to suit\\nHis back to my foot,\\nWould admire that I stand in debate!\\nBut the small turns the great\\nIf it vexes you, that is the thing!\\nToad or rat vex the king?\\nThough I waste half my realm to unearth\\nToad or rat, t is well worth!\\nVI\\nSo, I soberly laid my last plan\\nTo extinguish the man.\\nRound his creep-hole, with never a break", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0303.jp2"}, "302": {"fulltext": "286 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nRan my fires for his sake;\\nOver-head, did my thunder combine\\nWith my under-ground mine\\nTill I looked from my labor content\\nTo enjoy the event.\\nVII\\nWhen sudden how think ye, the end?\\nDid I say without friend?\\nSay rather, from marge to blue marge\\nThe whole sky grew his targe\\nWith the sun s self for visible boss,\\nWhile an Arm ran across\\nWhich the earth heaved beneath like a breast\\nWhere the wretch was safe prest!\\nDo you see Just my vengeance complete.\\nThe man sprang to his feet.\\nStood erect, caught at God s skirts, and prayed!\\nSo, I was afraid.\\nAN EPISTLE.\\nCONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE\\nOF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN.\\nKarshish, the picker-up of learning s crumbs.\\nThe not-incurious in God s handiwork\\n(This man s-flesh he hath admirably made,\\nBlown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste.\\nTo coop up and keep down on earth a space\\nThat puff of vapor from his mouth, man s soul)\\nTo Abib, all-sagacious in our art,\\nBreeder in me of what poor skill I boast,\\nLike me inquisitive how pricks and cracks", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0304.jp2"}, "303": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 287\\nBefall the flesh through too much stress and\\nstrain,\\nWhereby the wily vapor fain would slip\\nBack and rejoin its source before the term,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nAnd aptest in contrivance (under God)\\nTo baffle it by deftly stopping such:\\nThe vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home\\nSends greeting (health and knowledge, fame\\nwith peace)\\nThree samples of true snake-stone rarer still.\\nOne of the other sort, the melon-shaped,\\n(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than\\ndrugs)\\nAnd writeth now the twenty-second time.\\nMy journeyings were brought to Jerico:\\nThus I resume. Who studious in our art\\nShall count a little labor unrepaid?\\nI have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone\\nOn many a flinty furlong of this land.\\nAlso, the country-side is all on fire\\nWith rumors of a marching hitherward\\nSome say Vespasian cometh, some, his son.\\nA black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear:\\nLust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls:\\nI cried and threw my staff and he was gone.\\nTwice have the robbers stripped and beaten\\nme,\\nAnd once a town declared me for a spy;\\nBut at the end, I reach Jerusalem,\\nSince this poor covert where I pass the night,\\nThis Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence\\nA man with plague-sores at the third degree\\nRuns till he drops down dead. Thou laughest\\nhere!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0305.jp2"}, "304": {"fulltext": "288 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nSooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe,\\nTo void the stuffing of my travel-scrip\\nAnd share with thee whatever Jewry yields.\\nA viscid choler is observable\\nIn tertians, I was nearly bold to say;\\nAnd falling-sickness hath a happier cure\\nThan our school wots of: there s a spider here\\nWeaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,\\nSprinkled with mottles on an ash-grey back\\nTake five and drop them but who knows\\nhis mind.\\nThe Syrian run-a-gate I trust this to?\\nHis service payeth me a sublimate\\nBlown up his nose to help the ailing eye.\\nBest wait I reach Jerusalem at morn,\\nThere set in order my experiences.\\nGather what most deserves, and give thee all-;-\\nOr I might add, Judsea s gum-tragacanfh\\nScales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-\\ngrained,\\nCracks twixt the pestle and the porphyry,\\nIn fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease\\nConfounds me, crossing so with leprosy\\nThou hadst admired one sort I gained at\\nZoar\\nBut zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.\\nYet stay! my Syrian blinketh gratefully,\\nProtesteth his devotion is my price\\nSuppose I write what harms not, though he\\nsteal?\\nI have resolve to tell thee, ye.t I blush,\\nWhat set me off a-writing first of all.\\nAn itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!\\nFor, be it this town s barrenness or else", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0306.jp2"}, "305": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 289\\nThe Man had something in the look of him\\nHis case has struck me far more than tis\\nworth.\\nSo, pardon if (lest presently I lose,\\nIn the great press of novelty at hand,\\nThe care and pains this somehow stole from\\nme)\\nI bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind,\\nAlmost in sight for, wilt thou have the truth?\\nThe very man is gone from me but now,\\nWhose ailment is the subject of discourse,\\nThus then, and let thy better wit help all!\\nTis but a case of mania: subinduced\\nBy epilepsy, at the turning-point\\nOf trance prolonged unduly some three days\\nWhen, by the exhibition of some drug\\nOr spell, exorcisation, stroke of art\\nUnknown to me and which t were well to\\nknow.\\nThe evil thing, out-breaking, all at once,\\nLeft the man whole and sound of body in-\\ndeed,\\nBut, flinging (so to speak) life s gates too\\nwide,\\nMaking a clear house of it too suddenly,\\nThe first conceit that entered might inscribe\\nWhatever it was minded on the wall\\nSo plainly at that vintage, as it were,\\n(First come, first served) that nothing subse-\\nquent\\nAttaineth to erase those fancy- scrawls\\nThe just-returned and new-established soul\\nHath gotten now so thoroughly by heart\\nThat henceforth she will read or these or none.\\n19 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0307.jp2"}, "306": {"fulltext": "290 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd first the man s own firm conviction rests\\nThat he was dead (in fact they buried him)\\nThat he was dead and then restored to life\\nBy a Nazarene physician of his tribe\\nSayeth, the same bade Rise, and he did\\nrise.\\nSuch cases are diurnal, thou wilt cry.\\nNot so this figment! not, that such a fume,\\nInstead of giving way to time and health,\\nShould eat itself into the life of life,\\nAs saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all!\\nFor see, how he takes up the after-life.\\nThe man\u00e2\u0080\u0094 -it is one Lazarus a Jew,\\nSanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,\\nThe body s habit wholly laudable,\\nAs much, indeed, beyond the common health\\nAs he were made and put aside to show.\\nThink, could we penetrate by any drug\\nAnd bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh,\\nAnd bring it clear and fair, by three days\\nsleep!\\nWhence has the man the balm that brightens\\nall?\\nThis grown man eyes the world now like a\\nchild.\\nSome elders of his tribe, I should premise,\\nLed in their friend, obedient as a sheep.\\nTo bear my inquisition. While they spoke,\\nNow sharply, now with sorrow, told the\\ncase,\\nHe listened not except I spoke to him,\\nBut folded his two hands and let them talk,\\nWatching the flies that buzzed and yet no fool.\\nAnd that s a sample how his years must go.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0308.jp2"}, "307": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 291\\nLook if a he^gav, in fixed middle-life,\\nShould find a treasure, can he use the same\\nWith straitened habitude and tastes starved\\nsmall.\\nAnd take at once to his impoverished brain\\nThe sudden element that changes things,\\nThat sets the undreamed-of rapture at his\\nhand,\\nAnd puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust?\\nIs he not such an one as moves to mirth\\nWarily parsimonious, when no need.\\nWasteful as drunkenness at undue times?\\nAll prudent counsel as to what befits\\nThe golden mean, is lost on such an one\\nThe man s fantastic will is the man s law\\nSo here we call the treasure knowledge, say,\\nIncreased beyond the fleshly faculty\\nHeaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,\\nEarth forced on a soul s use while seeing\\nheaven\\nThe man is witless of the size, the sum,\\nThe value in proportion of all things.\\nOr whether it be little or be much\\nDiscourse to him of prodigious armaments\\nAssembled to besiege his city now.\\nAnd of the passing of a mule with gourds\\n*Tis one! Then take it on the other side,\\nSpeak of some trifling fact, he will gaze rapt\\nWith stupor at its very littleness,\\n(Far as I see) as if in that indeed\\nHe caught prodigious imports, whole results;\\nAnd so will turn to us the bystanders\\nIn ever the same stupor (note this point)\\nThat we too see not with his opened eyes.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0309.jp2"}, "308": {"fulltext": "292 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWonder and doubt come wrongly into play,\\nPreposterously, at cross purposes.\\nShould his child sicken unto death, why, look\\nFor scarce abatement of his cheerfulness,\\nOr pretermission of the daily craft!\\nWhile a word, gesture, glance from that same\\nchild\\nAt play or in the school or laid asleep.\\nWill startle him to an agony of fear.\\nExasperation, just as like. Demand\\nThe reason why tis but a word, object\\nA gesture he regards thee as our lord\\nWho lived there in the pyramid alone.\\nLooked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being\\nyoung,\\nWe both would unadvisedly recite\\nSome charm s beginning, from that book of\\nhis,\\nAble to bid the sun throb wide and burst\\nAll into stars, as suns grown old are wont.\\nThou and the child have each a veil alike\\nThrown o er your heads, from under which ve\\nboth\\nStretch your blind hands and trifle with a\\nmatch\\nOver a mine of Greek fire, did ye know\\nHe holds on firmly to some thread of life\\n(It is the life to lead perforcedly)\\nWhich runs across some vast distracting orb\\nOf glory on either side that meagre thread,\\nWhich, conscious of, he must not enter yet\\nThe spiritual life around the earthly life\\nThe law of that is known to him as this,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0310.jp2"}, "309": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 293\\nHis heart and brain move there, his feet stay\\nhere.\\nSo is the man perplext with impulses\\nSudden to start off crosswise, not straight on,\\nProclaiming what is right and wrong across,\\nAnd not along, this black thread through the\\nblaze\\n*It should be baulked by here it cannot be.\\nAnd oft the man s soul springs into his face\\nAs if he saw again and heard again\\nHis sage that bade him Rise and he did rise.\\nSomething, a word, a tick o the blood within\\nAdmonishes: then back he sinks at once\\nTo ashes, who was very fire before.\\nIn sedulous recurrence to his trade\\nWhereby he earneth him the daily bread;\\nAnd studiously the humbler for that pride.\\nProfessedly the faultier that he knows\\nGod s secret, while he holds the thread of life.\\nIndeed the especial marking of the man\\nIs prone submission to the heavenly will\\nSeeing it, what it is, and why it is.\\nSayeth, he will wait patient to the last\\nFor that same death which must restore his\\nbeing\\nTo equilibrium, body loosening soul\\nDivorced even now by premature full growth\\nHe will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live\\nSo long as God please, and just how God\\nplease.\\nHe even seeketh not to please God more\\n(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God\\nplease.\\nHence, I perceive not he affects to preach", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0311.jp2"}, "310": {"fulltext": "294 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThe doctrine of his sect whate er it be,\\nMake proselytes as madmen thirst to do:\\nHow can he give his neighbor the real ground,\\nHis own conviction? Ardent as he is\\nCall his great truth a lie, why, still the old\\nBe it as God please reassureth him.\\nI probed the sore as thy disciple should:\\nHow, beast, said I, this stolid carelessness\\nSufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march\\nTo stamp out like a little spark thy town,\\nThy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?\\nHe merely looked with his large eyes on me.\\nThe man is apathetic, you deduce?\\nContrariwise, he loves both old and young.\\nAble and weak, affects the very brutes\\nAnd birds how say I? flowers of the field\\nAs a wise workman recognizes tools\\nIn a master s workshop, loving what they\\nmake.\\nThus is the man as harmless as a lamb:\\nOnly impatient, let him do his best,\\nAt ignorance and carelessness and sin\\nAn indignation which is promptly curbed\\nAs when in certain travel I have feigned\\nTo be an ignoramus in our art\\nAccording to some preconceived design,\\nAnd happened to hear the land s practitioners\\nSteeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance,\\nPrattle fantastically on disease.\\nIts cause and cure\u00e2\u0080\u0094 and I must hold my peace\\nThou wilt object Why have I not ere this\\nSought out the sage himself, the Nazarene\\nWho wrought this cure, inquiring at the source,\\nConferring with the frankness that befits?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0312.jp2"}, "311": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 295\\nAlas it grieveth me, the learned leech\\nPerished in a tumult many years ago,\\nAccused, our learning s fate, of wizardry.\\nRebellion, to the setting up a rule\\nAnd creed prodigious as described to me,\\nHis death, which happened when the earth-\\nquake fell\\n(Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss\\nTo occult learning in our lord the sage\\nWho lived there in the pyramid alone)\\nWas wrought by the mad people that s their\\nwont!\\nOn vain recourse, as I conjecture it.\\nTo his tried virtue, for miraculous help\\nHow could he stop the earthquake? That s\\ntheir way\\nThe other imputations must be lies\\nBut take one, though I loath to give it thee,\\nIn mere respect for any good man s fame.\\n(And after all, our patient Lazarus\\nIs stark mad; should we count on what he\\nsays?\\nPerhaps not; though in writing to a leach\\nTis well to keep nothing back of a case.)\\nThis man so cured regards the curer, then,\\nAs God forgive me who but God himself,\\nCreator and sustainer of the world,\\nThat came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile,\\nSayeth that such an one was born and lived.\\nTaught, healed the sick, broke bread at his\\nown house,\\nThen died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know,\\nAnd yet was what I said nor choose re-\\npeat,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0313.jp2"}, "312": {"fulltext": "296 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd must have so avouched himself, in fact,\\nIn hearing of this very Lazarus\\nWho saith but why all this of what he saith?\\nWhy write of trivial matters, things of price\\nCalling at every moment for remark?\\nI noticed on the margin of a pool\\nBlue-flowrering borage, the Aleppo sort,\\nAboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!\\nThy pardon for this long and tedious case,\\nWhich, now that I review it, needs must seem\\nUnduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth\\nNor I myself discern in what is writ\\nGood cause for the peculiar interest\\nAnd awe indeed this man has touched me with.\\nPerhaps the journey s end, the weariness\\nHad wrought upon me first. I met him thus:\\nI crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills\\nLike an old lion s cheek teeth. Out there came\\nA moon made like a face with certain spots\\nMultiform, manifold and menacing:\\nThen a wind rose behind me. So we met\\nIn this old sleepy town at unawares,\\nThe man and I. I send thee what is writ.\\nRegard it as a chance, a, matter risked\\nTo this ambiguous Syrian he may lose.\\nOr steal, or give it thee with equal good.\\nJerusalem s repose shall make amends\\nFor time this letter wastes, thy time and mine\\nTill when, once more thy pardon and farewell!\\nThe very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?\\nSo, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too\\nSo, through the thunder comes a human voice", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0314.jp2"}, "313": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 297\\nSaying, 0 heart I made, a heart beats here!\\nFace, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!\\nThou hast no power nor may st conceive of\\nmine:\\n*But love I gave thee, with myself to love,\\nAnd thou must love me who have died for\\nthee!\\nThe madman saith He said so it is strange.\\nCALIBAN UPON SETEBOS;\\nOR,\\nNATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND.\\nThou though test that I was altogether such a one as\\nthyself.\\nWill sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,\\nFlat on his belly in the pit s much mire.\\nWith elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his\\nchin.\\nAnd, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush.\\nAnd feels about his spine small eft-things\\ncourse.\\nRun in and out each arm, and make him laugh\\nAnd while above his head a pompion -plant.\\nCoating the cave-top as a brow its eye.\\nCreeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard.\\nAnd now a flower drops with a bee inside,\\nAnd now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,\\nHe looks oiit o er yon sea which sunbeams cross\\nAnd recross till they weave a spider-web,\\n(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times)\\nAnd talks to his own self, howe er he please,\\n20 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0315.jp2"}, "314": {"fulltext": "298 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nTouching that other, whom his dam called\\nGod.\\nBecause to talk about Him, vexes ha,\\nCould He but know and time to vex is now,\\nWhen talk is safer than in winter-time.\\nMoreover Prosper and Miranda sleep\\nIn confidence he drudges at their task.\\nAnd it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe.\\nLetting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]\\nSetebos, Setebos, and Setebos!\\nThinketh He dwelleth i the cold o the moon.\\nThinketh He made it, with the sun to match,\\nBut not the stars; the stars came otherwise;\\nOnly made clouds, winds, meteors, such as\\nthat:\\nAlso this isle, what lives and grows thereon,\\nAnd snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.\\nThinketh, it came of being ill at ease\\nHe hated that He cannot change His cold,\\nNor cure its ache. Hath spied an icy fish\\nThat longed to scape the rock- stream where\\nshe lived.\\nAnd thaw herself v/ithin the lukewarm brine\\nO the lazy sea, her stream thrusts far amid,\\nA crystal spike twixt two warm walls of wave\\nOnly, she ever sickened, found repulse\\nAt the other kind of water, not her life,\\n(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o* the\\nsun)\\nFlounced back from bliss she was not born to\\nbreathe,\\nAnd in her old bounds buried her despair,\\nHating and loving warmth alike so He.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0316.jp2"}, "315": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 299\\nThinketh, He made thereat the sun, this\\nisle,\\nTrees and the fowls here, beast and creeping\\nthing.\\nYon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech\\nYon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam.\\nThat floats and feeds; a certain badger brown,\\nHe hath watched hunt with that slant white-\\nwedge eye\\nBy moonlight; and the pie with the long\\ntongue\\nThat pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm,\\nAnd says a plain word when she finds her\\nprize,\\nBut will not eat the ants; the ants themselves\\nThat build a wall of seeds and settled stalks\\nAbout their hole He made all these and more,\\nMade all we see, and us, in spite; how else?\\nHe himself could not make a second self\\nTo be His mate: as well have made Himself:\\nHe would not make what He mislikes or slights.\\nAn eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains\\nBut did, in envy, listlessness or sport,\\nMake what Himself would fain, in a manner,\\n\u00e2\u0080\u00a2be\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nWeaker in most points, stronger in a few,\\nWorthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,\\nThings He admires and mocks too, that is it!\\nBecause, so brave, so better though they be,\\nIt nothing skills if He begin to plague.\\nLook now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,\\nAdd honeycomb and pods, I have perceived.\\nWhich bite like finches when they bill and\\nkiss,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0317.jp2"}, "316": {"fulltext": "300 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThen, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all\\nQuick, quick, till maggots scamper through\\nmy brain\\nLast, throw me on my back i the seeded thyme,\\nAnd wanton, wishing I were born a bird.\\nPut case, unable to be what I wish,\\nI yet could make a live bird out of clay;\\nWould not I take clay, pinch my Caliban\\nAble to fly? for, there, see, he hath wings.\\nAnd great comb like the hoopoe s to admire,\\nAnd there, a sting to do his foes offence,\\nThere, and I will that he begin to live.\\nFly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns\\nOf grigs high up that make the merry din,\\nSaucy through their veined wings, and mind\\nme not.\\nIn which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay.\\nAnd he lay stupid-like why, I should laugh\\nAnd if he, spying me, should fall to weep,\\nBeseech me to be good, repair his wrong,\\nBid his poor leg smart less or grow again,\\nWell, as the chance were, this might take or\\nelse\\nNot take my fancy: I might hear his cry,\\nAnd give the manikin three legs for one.\\nOr pluck the other off, leave him like an egg,\\nAnd lessoned he was mine and merely clay.\\nWere this no pleasure, lying in the thyme.\\nDrinking the mash, with brain become alive.\\nMaking and marring clay at will? So He.\\nThinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong\\nin Him,\\nNor kind, nor cruel He is strong and Lord.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0318.jp2"}, "317": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 301\\nAm strong myself compared to yonder crabs\\nThat march now from the mountain to the\\nsea;\\nLet twenty pass, and stone the twenty- first,\\nLoving not, hating not, just choosing so.\\nSay, the first straggler that boasts purple spots\\nShall join the file, one pincer twisted off;\\nSay, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,\\nAnd two worms he whose nippers end in red:\\nAs it likes me each time, thus I do: So He.\\nWell, then, supposeth He is good i the main,\\nPlacable if His mind and ways were guessed,\\nBut rougher than His handiwork, be sure\\nOh, He hath made things worthier than Him-\\nself,\\nAnd envieth that so helped, such things do\\nmore\\nThan He who made them What consoles but\\nthis?\\nThat they, unless through Him, do nought at\\nall,\\nAnd must submit what other use in things?\\nHath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint\\nThat, blown through, gives exact the scream\\no the jay\\nWhen from her wing you twitch the feathers\\nblue:\\nSound this, and little birds that hate the jay\\nFlock within stone s throw, glad their foe is\\nhurt:\\nPut case such pipe could prattle and boast for-\\nsooth\\nI catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,\\n**I make the cry my maker cannot make", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0319.jp2"}, "318": {"fulltext": "3C2 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWith his great round mouth; he must blow\\nthrough mine\\nWould not I smash it with my foot? So He.\\nBut wherefore rough, why cold and ill at\\nease?\\nAha, that is a question Ask, for that,\\nWhat knows, the something over Setebos\\nThat made Him, or He, may be, found and\\nfought,\\nWorsted, drove off and did to nothing, per-\\nchance\\nThere may be something quiet o er His head,\\nOut of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,\\nSince both derive from weakness in some way,\\nI joy because the quails come; would not joy\\nCould I bring quails here when I have a mind:\\nThis Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.\\nEsteemeth stars the outposts of its couch.\\nBut never spends much thought nor care that\\nway.\\nIt may look up, work up, the worse for those\\nIt works on! Care th but for Setebos\\nThe many-handed as a cuttle-fish,\\nWho, making Himself feared through what He\\ndoes.\\nLooks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar\\nTo what is quiet and hath happy life\\nNext looks down here, and out of very spite\\nMakes this a bauble- world to ape yon real.\\nThese good things to match those, as hips do\\ngrape,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nTis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.\\nHimself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0320.jp2"}, "319": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 303\\nCareless and lofty, lord now of the isle\\nVexed, stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-\\nshaped,\\nWrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious\\nwords\\nHas peeled a wand and called it by a name\\nWeareth at whiles for an enchanter s robe\\nThe eyed skin of a supple ocelot;\\nAnd hath an ounce cleeker than youngling\\nmole,\\nA four-legged serpent he makes cower and\\ncouch,\\nNow snarl, now hold its breath and mind his\\neye.\\nAnd saith she is Miranda and my wife.\\nKeeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane\\nHe bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge\\nAlso a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared.\\nBlinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat\\ntame,\\nAnd split its toe-webs, and now pens the\\ndrudge\\nIn a hole o the rock, and calls him Caliban;\\nA bitter heart that bides its time and bites.\\nPlays thus at being Prosper in a way,\\nTaketh his mirth with make-believes; so He.\\nHis dam held that the Quiet made all things\\nWhich Setebos vexed only; holds not so.\\nWho made them weak, meant weakness He\\nmight vex.\\nHad he meant other, while His hand was in,\\nWhy not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,,\\nOr plate my scalp with bone against the snow,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0321.jp2"}, "320": {"fulltext": "304 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nOr overscale my flesh neath joint and joint,\\nLike an ore s armor? Ay, so spoil His sport?\\nHe is the One now; only He doth all.\\nSaith, He may like, perchance, what profits\\nHim.\\nAy, himself loves what does him good; but\\nwhy?\\nGets good no otherwise. This blinded beast\\nLoves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose.\\nBut, had he eyes, would want no help, would\\nhate\\nOr love, just as it liked him He hath eyes.\\nAlso it pleaseth Setebos to work.\\nUse all His hands and exercise much craft.\\nBy no means for the love of what is worked,\\nTasteth, himself no finer good i the world\\nWhen all goes right, in this safe summer-time.\\nAnd he wants little, hungers, aches not much,\\nThan trying what to do with wit and strength.\\nFalls to make something: piled yon pile of\\nturfs.\\nAnd squared and stuck there squares of soft\\nwhite chalk,\\nAnd, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on\\neach.\\nAnd set up endwise certain spikes of tree,\\nAnd crowned the whole with a sloth s skull\\na-top,\\nFound dead i the woods, too hard for one to\\nkill.\\nNo use at all i the work, for work s sole sake;\\nShall some day knock it down again: so He.\\n\u00e2\u0080\u00a2Saith He is terrible watch His feats in proof!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0322.jp2"}, "321": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 305\\nOne hurricane will spoil six good months hope.\\nHe hath a spite against me, that I know.\\nJust as He favors Prosper, who knows why?\\nSo it is, all the same, as well I find.\\nWove wattles half the winter, fenced them\\nfirm\\nWith stone and stake to stop she-tortoises\\nCrawling to lay their eggs here: well, one\\nwave.\\nFeeling the foot of Him upon its neck,\\nGaped as a snake does, lolled out its large\\ntongue,\\nAnd licked the whole labor flat so much for\\nspite\\nSaw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)\\nWhere, half an hour before, I slept i the shade:\\nOften they scatter sparkles there is force\\nDug up a newt He may have envied once\\nAnd turned to stone, shut up inside a stone.\\nPlease Him and hinder this?\u00e2\u0080\u0094 -What Prosper\\ndoes?\\nAha, if he would tell me how. Not He\\nThere is the sport: discover how or die!\\nAll need not die, for of the things o the isle\\nSome flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;\\nThose at His mercy,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 why, they please Hkn\\nmost\\nWhen when well, never try the\\nsame way twice!\\nRepeat what act has pleased, He may grow\\nwroth.\\nYou must not know His ways, and play Him\\noff.\\nSure oft the issue. Doth the like himself:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0323.jp2"}, "322": {"fulltext": "306 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nSpareth a squirrel that it nothing fears\\nBut steals the nut from underneath my thumb,\\nAnd when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:\\n*Spareth an urchin that contrariwise,\\nCurls up into a ball, pretending death\\nFor fright at my approach: the two ways\\nplease.\\nBut what would move my choler more than\\nthis\\nThat either creature counted on its life\\nTo-morrow, next day and all days to come.\\nSaying forsooth in the inmost of its heart,\\nBecause he did so yesterday with me,\\nAnd otherwise with such another brute,\\n**So must he do henceforth and always. Ay?\\nWould teach the reasoning couple what must\\nmeans!\\nDoth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.\\nConceiveth all things will continue thus,\\nAnd we shall have to live in fear of Him\\nSo long as He lives, keeps His strength no\\nchange,\\nIf He have done His best, make no new world\\nTo please Him more, so leave off watching\\nthis,\\nIf He surprise not even the Quiet s self\\nSome strange day, or, suppose, grow into it\\nAs gnibs grow butterflies: else, here are we,\\nAnd there is He, and nowhere help at all.\\nBelieveth with the life the pain shall stop.\\nHis dam held different, held that after death\\nHe both plagued enemies and feasted friends:\\n1", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0324.jp2"}, "323": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 307\\nIdly He doth His worst in this our life,\\nGiving just respite lest we die through pain,\\nSaving last pain for worst with which, an end,\\nMeanwhile, the best way to escape His ire\\nIs, not to seem too happy. Sees, himself,\\nYonder two flies, with purple films and pink,\\nBask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.\\nSees two black painful beetles roll their ball\\nOn head and tail as if to save their lives:\\nMoves them the stick away they strive to clear.\\nEven so, would have Him misconceive, sup-\\npose\\nThis Caliban strives hard and ails no less,\\nAnd always, above all else, envies Him\\nWherefore he mainly dances on dark nights.\\nMoans in the sun, get under holes to laugh,\\nAnd never speaks his mind save housed as\\nnow:\\nOutside, groans, curses. If He caught me\\nhere,\\nO erheard this speech, and asked What chuck-\\nlest at?\\nWould to appease Him, cut a finger off,\\nOr of my three kid yearlings burn the best,\\nOr let the toothsome apple rot on tree.\\nOr push my tame beast for the ore to taste:\\nWhile myself lit a fire, and made a song\\nAnd sung it, What I hate, be consecrate\\nTo celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate\\nFor Thee; what see for envy in poor me?\\nHoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,\\nWarts rub away and sores are cured with\\nslime.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0325.jp2"}, "324": {"fulltext": "308 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nThat some strange day, will either the Quiet\\ncatch\\nAnd conquer Setebos, or likelier He\\nDecrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.\\n[What, what? A curtain o er the world at once\\nCrickets stop hissing; not a bird or, yes.\\nThere scuds His raven that hath told Him all\\nIt was fool s play, this prattling! Ha! The\\nwind\\nShoulders the pillared dust, death s house o\\nthe move.\\nAnd fast invading fires begin White blaze\\nA tree s head snaps and there, there, there,\\nthere, there\\nHis thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!\\nLo! Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!\\n*Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip.\\nWill let those quails fly, will not eat this month\\nOne little mess of whelks, so he may scape!]\\nSAUL.\\nSaid Abner, *At last thou art come! Ere I\\ntill, ere thou speak,\\nKiss my cheek, wish me well! Then I\\nwished it, and did kiss his cheek.\\nAnd he, Since the King, O my friend, for thy\\ncountenance sent,\\nNeither drunken nor eaten have we; nor\\nuntil from his tent", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0326.jp2"}, "325": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. ^09\\nThou return with the joyful assurance the\\nKing liveth yet.\\nShall our lip with the honey be bright, with\\nthe water be wet.\\nFor out of the black mid-tent s silence, a\\nspace of three days,\\nNot a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of\\nprayer nor of praise,\\nTo betoken that Saul and the Spirit have\\nended their strife,\\nAnd that, faint in his triumph the monarch\\nsinks back upon life.\\nYet, now my heart leaps, O beloved! God s\\nchild with his dew\\nOn thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies\\nstill living and blue\\nJust broken to twine round thy harp-strings,\\nas if no wild heat\\nWere now raging to torture the desert!\\nIll\\nThen I, as was meet,\\nKnelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose\\non my feet,\\nAnd ran o er the sand burnt to powder. The\\ntent was unlooped\\nI pulled up the spear that obstructed, and\\nunder I stooped;\\nHands and knees on the slippery grass patch,\\nall withered and gone,\\nThat extends to the second inclosure, I groped\\nmy way on", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0327.jp2"}, "326": {"fulltext": "310 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nTill I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then\\nonce more I prayed,\\nAnd opened the foldskirts and entered, and\\nwas not afraid\\nBut spoke, Here is David, thy servant!\\nAnd no voice replied.\\nAt the first I saw nought but the blackness:\\nbut soon I descried\\nA something more black than the blackness\\nthe vast, the upright\\nMain prop which sustains the pavilion: and\\nslow into sight\\nGrew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest\\nof all.\\nThen a sunbeam, that burst thro the tent-\\nroof, showed Saul.\\nIV\\nHe stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms\\nstretched out wide\\nOn the great cross-support in the center, that\\ngoes to each side\\nHe relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as,\\ncaught in his pangs\\nAnd waiting his change, the king serpent all\\nheavily hangs.\\nFar away from his kind, in the pine, till deliv-\\nerance come\\nWith the spring-time, so agonized Saul, drear\\nand stark, blind and dumb.\\nThen I tuned my harp, took off the lilies we\\ntwine round its chords", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0328.jp2"}, "327": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 311\\nLest they snap neath the stress of the noon-\\ntide those sunbeams like swords!\\nAnd I first played the tune all our sheep know,\\nas, one after one,\\nSo docile they come to the pen-door till folding\\nbe done.\\nThey are white and untorn by the bushes, for\\nlo, they have fed\\nWhere the long- grasses stifle the water within\\nthe stream s bed;\\nAnd now one after one seeks its lodging, as\\nstar follows star\\nInto eve and the blue far above us, so blue\\nand so far!\\nVI\\nThen the tune, for which quails on the corn-\\nland will each leave his mate\\nTo fly after the player; then, what makes the\\ncrickets elate\\nTill for boldness they fight one another; and\\nthen, what has weight\\nTo set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his\\nsand house\\nThere are none such as he for a wonder, half\\nbird and half mouse\\nGod made all the creatures and gave them our\\nlove and our fear,\\nTo give sign, we and they are his children, one\\nfamily here.\\nVII\\nThen I played the help-tune of our reaper^\\ntheir wine-song, when hand", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0329.jp2"}, "328": {"fulltext": "312 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nGrasps at hand, eye lights in good friendship,\\nand great hearts expand\\nAnd grow one in the sense of this world s life,\\nAnd then, the last song\\nWhen the dead man is praised on his journey\\nBear, bear him along\\nWith his few faults shut up like dead flower-\\nets Are balm-seeds not here\\nTo console us? The land has none left such\\nas he on the bier.\\nOh, would we might keep thee, my brother!\\nAnd then, the glad chaunt\\nOf the marriage, first go the young maidens,\\nnext, she whom we vaunt\\nAs the beauty, the pride of our dwelling. And\\nthen, the great march\\nWherein man runs to man to assist him and\\nbuttress an arch\\nNought can break who shall harm them, our\\nfriends? Then, the chorus intoned\\nAs the Levites go up to the altar in glory en-\\nthroned.\\nBut I stopped here for here in the darkness\\nSaul groaned.\\nvm\\nAnd I paused, held my breath in such silence,\\nand listened apart;\\nAnd the tent shook, for mighty Saul shud-\\ndered: and sparkles gan dart\\nFrom the jewels that woke in his turban, at\\nonce with a start\\nAll its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies cour-\\nageous at heart.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0330.jp2"}, "329": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 313\\nSo the head: but the body still moved not, still\\nhung there erect.\\nAnd I bent once again to my playing, pursued\\nit unchecked,\\nAs I sang,\\nIX\\nOh, our manhood s prime vigor!\\nNo spirit feels waste,\\nNot a muscle is stopped in its playing nor\\nsinew unbraced.\\nOh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from\\nrock up to rock,\\nThe strong rending of boughs from the fir-\\ntree, the cool silver shock\\nOf the plunge in a pool s living water, the\\nhunt of the bear,\\nAnd the sultriness showing the lion is couched\\nin his lair.\\nAnd the meal, the rich dates yellowed over\\nwith gold dust divine\\nAnd the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher,\\nthe full draught of wine,\\nAnd the sleep in the dried river- channel\\nwhere bulrushes tell\\nThat the water was wont to go warbling so\\nsoftly and well.\\nHow good is man s life, the mere living how\\nfit to employ\\nAll the heart and the soul and the senses for-\\never in joy!\\nHast thou loved the white locks of thy father,\\nwhose sword thou didst guard", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0331.jp2"}, "330": {"fulltext": "1\\n314 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWhen he trusted thee forth with the armies,\\nfor glorious reward?\\nDidst thou kiss the thin hands of thy mother,\\nheld up as men sung\\nThe low song of the nearly departed, and\\nhear her faint tongue\\nJoining in while it could to the witness, Let\\none more attest,\\nI have lived, seen God s hand thro a life-\\ntime, and all was for best!\\nThen they sung thro their tears in strong\\ntriumph, not much, but the rest.\\nAnd thy brothers, the help and the contest,\\nthe working whence grew\\nSuch result as, from seething grape-bundles,\\nthe spirit strained true\\nAnd the friends of thy boyhood that boyhood\\nof wonder and hope,\\nPresent promise and wealth of the future\\nbeyond the eye s scope,\\n**Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a peo-\\nple is thine\\nAnd all gifts, which the world offers singly,\\non one head combine\\nOn one head, all the beauty and strength,\\nlove and rage (like the throe\\nThat, a- work in the rock, helps its labor and\\nlets the gold go)\\nHigh ambition and deeds which surpass it,\\nfame crowning them, all\\nBrought to blaze on the head of one creature\\n\u00e2\u0080\u0094King Saul!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0332.jp2"}, "331": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 315\\nAnd lo, with that leap of my spirit, heart,\\nhand, harp and voice,\\nEach lifting Saul s name out of sorrow, each\\nbidding rejoice\\nSaul s fame in the light it was made for as\\nwhen, dare I say,\\nThe Lord s army, in rapture of service, strains\\nthrough its array.\\nAnd upsoareth the cherubim-chariot Saul!\\ncried I, and stopped.\\nAnd waited the thing that should follow. Then\\nSaul, who hung propped\\nBy the tent s cross-support in the center, was\\nstruck by his name.\\nHave ye seen when Spring s arrowy summons\\ngoes right to the aim,\\nAnd some mountain, the last to withstand her,\\nthat held (he alone,\\nWhile the vale laughed in freedom and flowers)\\non a broad bust of stone\\nA year s snow bound about for a breast-plate,\\nleaves grasp of the sheet?\\nFold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously\\ndown to his feet.\\nAnd there fronts you, stark, black, but alive\\nyet, your mountain of old.\\nWith his rents, the successive bequeathings of\\nages untold\\nYea, each harm got in fighting your battles,\\neach furrow and scar\\nOf his head thrust twixt you and the tempest\\nall hail, there they are!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0333.jp2"}, "332": {"fulltext": "316 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nNow again to be softened with verdure,\\nagain hold the nest\\nOf the dove, tempt the goat and its young to\\nthe green on his crest\\nFor their food in the ardors of summer. One\\nlong shudder thrilled\\nAll the tent till the very air tingled, then sank\\nand was stilled\\nAt the King s self left standing before me, re-\\nleased and aware.\\nWhat was gone, what remained? All to trav-\\nerse twixt hope and despair.\\nDeath was past, life not come so he waited.\\nAwhile his right hand\\nHeld the brow, helped the eyes, left too vacant,\\nforthwith to remand\\nTo their place what new objects should enter:\\ntwas Saul as before.\\nI looked up, dared gaze at those eyes, nor was\\nhurt any more\\nThan by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye\\nwatch from the shore\\nAt their sad level gaze o er the ocean a sun s\\nslow decline\\nOver hills which, resolved in stern silence,\\no erlap and entwine\\nBase with base to knit strength more intensely:\\nso, arm folded arm\\nO er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.\\nXI\\nWhat spell or what charm,\\n(For, awhile there was trouble within me)\\nwhat next should I urge", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0334.jp2"}, "333": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 317\\nTo sustain him where song had restored him?\\nSong filled to the verge\\nHis cup with the wine of this life, pressing all\\nthat it yields\\nOf mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty\\nbeyond, on what fields,\\nGlean a vintage more potent and perfect to\\nbrighten the eye.\\nBring blood to the lip, and commend them the\\ncup they put by?\\nHe saith, It is good; still he drinks not: he\\nlets me praise life,\\nGives assent, yet would die for his own part.\\nXII\\nThen fancies grew rife\\nWhich had come long ago on the pasture,\\nwhen round me the sheep\\nFed in silence above, the one eagle wheeled\\nslow as in sleep:\\nAnd I lay in my hollow and mused on the\\nworld that might he\\n\u00e2\u0080\u00a2Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip\\ntwixt the hill and the sky.\\nAnd I laughed Since my days are ordained\\nto be passed with my flocks,\\nLet me people at least, with my fancies, the\\nplains and the rocks,\\nDream the life I am never to mix with, and\\nimage the show\\nOf mankind as they live in those fashions I\\nhardly shall know\\nSchemes of life, its best rules and right uses,\\nthe courage that gains,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0335.jp2"}, "334": {"fulltext": "318 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd the prudence that keeps what men strive\\nfor! And now these old trains\\nOf vague thought came again; I grew surer;\\nso, once more the string\\nOf mj harp made response to my spirit, as\\nthus\\nXIII\\nYea, my King,\\nI began thou dost well in rejecting mere\\ncomforts that spring\\nFrom the mere mortal life held in common\\nby man and by brute\\nIn our flesh grows the branch of this life in\\nour soul it bears fruit.\\nThou hast marked the slow rise of the tree,\\nhow its stem trembled first\\nTill it passed the kid s lip, the stag s antler;\\nthen safely outburst\\nThe fan-branches all round; and thou mind-\\nest when these, too, in turn\\nBroke a- bloom and the palm-tree seemed per-\\nfect: yet more was to learn,\\nE en the good that comes in with the palm-\\nfruit. Our dates shall we slight,\\nWhen their juice brings a cure for all sorrow?\\nor care for the plight\\n**0f the palm s self whose slow growth pro-\\nduced them? Not so! stem and branch\\nShall decay, nor be known in their place,\\nwhile the palm-wine shall staunch\\nEvery wound of man s spirit in winter. I\\npour thee such wine.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0336.jp2"}, "335": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 319\\nLeave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the\\nspirit be thine!\\nBy the spirit, when age shall o ercome thee,\\nthon still shalt enjoy\\nMore, indeed, than at first when, unconscious,\\nthe life of a boy.\\nCrush that life, and behold its wine running!\\nEach deed thou hast done\\nDies, revives, goes to work in the world;\\nuntil e en as the sun\\nLooking down on the earth, though clouds\\nspoil him, though tempests efface,\\nCan find nothing his own deed produced not,\\nmust everywhere trace\\nThe results of his past summer-prime, so,\\neach ray of thy will,\\nEvery flash of thy passion and prowers, long\\nover, shall thrill\\nThy whole people, the countless, with ardor,\\ntill they, too, give forth\\nA like cheer to their sons: who in turn, fill\\nthe South and the North\\nWith the radiance thy deed was the germ of.\\nCarouse in the past!\\nBut the license of age has its limit; thou diest\\nat last.\\nAs the lion when age dims his eyeball, the\\nrose at her height,\\nSo with man so his power and his beauty\\nforever take flight.\\nNo! Again a long draught of my soul- wine J\\nLook forth o er the years!\\nThou hast done now with eyes for the actual;\\nbegin with the seer s!", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0337.jp2"}, "336": {"fulltext": "320 BROWNING S POEMS.\\n**Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make\\nhis tomb bid arise\\nA grey mountain of marble heaped four-\\nsquare, till, built to the skies,\\nLet it mark where the great First King slum-\\nbers: whose fame would ye know?\\nUp above see the rock s naked face, where\\nthe record shall go\\nIn great characters cut by the scribe, Such\\nwas Saul, so he did\\nWith the sages directing the work, by the\\npopulace chid,\\nFor not half, they ll affirm, is comprised\\nthere Which fault to amend,\\nIn the grove with his kind grows the cedar,\\nwhereon they shall spend\\n(See, in tablets tis level before them) their\\npraise, and record\\nWith the gold of the graver, Saul s story,\\nthe statesman s great word\\nSide by side with the poet s sweet comment.\\nThe river s a- wave\\nWith smooth paper-reeds grazing each other\\nwhen prophet- winds rave:\\nSo the pen gives unborn generations their\\ndue and their part\\nIn thy being! Then, first of the mighty,\\nthank God that thou art!\\nXIV\\nAnd behold while I sang but O Thou who\\ndidst grant me, that day,\\nAnd, before it, not seldom has granted thy\\nhelp to essay,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0338.jp2"}, "337": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 321\\nCarry on and complete an adventure, my\\nshield and my sword\\nIn that act where my soul was thy servant, thy\\nword was my word,\\nStill help me, who then at the summit of hu-\\nman endeavor\\nAnd scaling the highest, man s thought could,\\ngazed hopeless as ever\\nOn the new stretch of heaven above me till,\\nmighty to save.\\nJust one lift of thy hand cleared that distance\\nGod s throne from man s grave!\\nLet me tell out my tale to its ending my\\nvoice to my heart\\nWhich scarce dares believe in what marvels\\nlast night I took part.\\nAs this morning I gather the fragments, alone\\nwith my sheep\\nAnd fear lest the terrible glory evanish like\\nsleep.\\nFor I wake in the grey dewy covert, while\\nHebron upheaves\\nDawn struggling with night on his shoulder,\\nand Kidron retrieves\\nSlow the damage of yesterday s sunshine.\\nXV\\nI say, then, my song\\nWhile I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and,\\never more strong.\\nMade a proffer of good to console him he\\nslowly resumed.\\nHis old motions and habitudes kingly. The\\nright hand replumed\\n21 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0339.jp2"}, "338": {"fulltext": "322 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nHis black locks to their wonted composure, ad-\\njusted the swathes\\nOf his turban, and see the huge sweat that\\nhis countenance bathes.\\nHe wipes off with the robe and he girds now\\nhis loins as of 5^ore,\\nAnd feels slow for the armlets of price, with\\nthe clasp set before.\\nHe is Saul, ye remember in glory, ere error\\nhad bent\\nThe broad brow from the daily communion;\\nand still, though much spent\\nBe the life and the bearing that front you, the\\nsame, God did choose,\\nTo receive what a man may waste, desecrate,\\nnever quite lose.\\nSo sank he along by the tent-prop, still, stayed\\nby the pile\\nOf his armor and war-cloak and garments, he\\nleaned there awhile,\\nAnd sat out my singing, one arm round the\\ntent-prop, to raise\\nHis bent head, and the other hung slack till I\\ntouched on the praise\\nI foresaw from all men in all time, to the man\\npatient there\\nAnd thus ended, the harp falling forward.\\nThen first I was ware\\nThat he sat, as I say, with my head just above\\nhis vast knees\\nWhich were thrust out on each side around me,\\nlike oak roots which please\\nTo encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked\\nup to know", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0340.jp2"}, "339": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 323\\nIf the best I could do had brought solace: he\\nspoke not, but slow\\nLifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid\\nit with care\\nSoft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my\\nbrow: thro my hair\\nThe large fingers were pushed, and he bent\\nback my head, with kind power\\nAll my face back, intent to peruse it, as men\\ndo a flower\\nThus held he me there with his great eyes that\\nscrutinized mine\\nAnd oh, all my heart how it loved him but\\nwhere was the sign?\\n1 yearned Could I help thee, my father, in-\\nventing a bliss,\\nI would add, to that life of the past, both the\\nfuture and this;\\nI would give thee new life altogether, as\\ngood, ages hence,\\n**As this moment, had love but the warrent,\\nlove s hear to dispense!\\nXVI\\nThen the truth came upon me. No harp more\\nno song more! outbroke\\nXVII\\nI have gone the whole round of creation I\\nsaw and I spoke\\nI, a work of God s hand for that purpose,\\nreceived in my brain\\nAnd pronounced on the rest of his handwork\\nreturned him again", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0341.jp2"}, "340": {"fulltext": "324 BROWNING S POEMS.\\n**His creation s approval or censure: I spoke\\nas I saw,\\nReported, as man may of God s work all s\\nlove, yet all s law.\\nNow I lay down the judgeship he lent me.\\nEach faculty tasked\\nTo perceive him has gained an abyss, where\\na dewdrop was asked.\\nHave I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at\\nWisdom laid bare.\\n**Have I forethought? how purblind, how\\nblank, to the Infinite Care!\\nDo I task any faculty highest, to image suc-\\ncess?\\nI but open my eyes, and perfection, no more\\nand no less,\\nIn the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and\\nGod is seen God\\nIn the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the\\nsoul and the clod.\\nAnd thus looking within and around me, I\\never renew\\n**(With that stoop of the soul which in bending\\nupraises it, too),\\nThe submission of man s nothing-perfect to\\nGod s all-complete,\\nAs by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to\\nhis feet.\\nYet with all this abounding experience, this\\ndeity known,\\n**I shall dare to discover some province, some\\ngift of my own.\\n**There s a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard\\nto hoodwink.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0342.jp2"}, "341": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 325\\nI am fain to keep still in abeyance (I laugh\\nas I think),\\nLest, insisting- to claim and parade in it, wot\\nye, I worst\\nE en the Giver in one gift. Behold, I could\\nlove if I durst\\nBut I sink the pretension as fearing a man\\nmay o ertake\\nGod s own speed in the one way of love: I\\nabstain for love s sake.\\nWhat, my soul? see thus far and no farther?\\nwhen doors great and small,\\nNine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should\\nthe hundredth appal?\\nIn the least things have faith, yet distrust in\\nthe greatest of all?\\nDo I find love so full in my nature, God s\\nultimate gift,\\nThat I doubt his own love can compete with\\nit? Here the parts shift?\\nHere, the creature surpass the creator, the\\nend, what began?\\nWould I fain in my impotent yearning do all\\nfor this man,\\nAnd dare doubt he alone shall not help him,\\nwho yet alone can?\\nWould it ever have entered my mind, the\\nbare will, much less power,\\nTo bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the\\nmarvelous dower\\nOf the life he was gifted and filled with? to\\nmake such a soul,\\nSuch a body, and then such an earth for in-\\nsphering the whole?\\n22 Browning", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0343.jp2"}, "342": {"fulltext": "326 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nAnd doth it not enter my mind (as my warm\\ntears attest),\\nThese good things being given, to go on, and\\ngive one more, the best?\\nAy, to save and redeem and restore him,\\nmaintain at the height\\nThis perfection, succeed, with life s day-\\nspring, death s minute of night:\\nInterpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul,\\nthe mistake,\\nSaul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,\\nand bid him awake\\n**From the dream, the probation, the prelude,\\nto find himself set\\nClear and safe in new light and new life, a\\nnew harmony yet\\n**To be run and continued, and ended who\\nknows? or endure!\\n**The man taught enough by life s dream, of\\nthe rest to make sure\\n**By the pain- throb, triumphantly winning in-\\ntensified bliss,\\nAnd the next world s reward and repose, by\\nthe struggles in this.\\nXVIII\\n**I believe it! Tis thou, God, that givest, tis I\\nwho receive\\n**In the first is the last, in thy will is my\\npower to believe.\\nAll s one gift: thou canst grant it moreover,\\nas prompt to my prayer,\\n**As I breathe out as this breath, as I open\\nthese arms to the air.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0344.jp2"}, "343": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 327\\nFrom thy will, stream the worlds, life and\\nnature, thy dread Sabaoth:\\nI will? the mere atoms despise me! Why\\nam I not loth\\nTo look that, even that in the face, too? Why\\nis it I dare\\nThink but lightly of such impuissance? What\\nstops my despair?\\nThis; tis not what man Does which exalts\\nhim, but what man Would do!\\nSee the Kinor I would help him, but cannot,\\nthe wishes fall through.\\nCould I wrestle to raise him from sorrow,\\ngrow poor to enrich,\\nTo fill up his life, starve my own out, I would\\nknowing which,\\nI know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak\\nthrough me now!\\nWould I suffer for him that I love? So\\nwouldst thou so wilt thou\\nSo shall crown thee the topmost, ineff ablest,\\nuttermost crown\\nAnd thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave\\nup nor down\\nOne spot for the creature to stand in! It is\\nby no breath,\\nTurn^ of eye, wave of hand, that salvation\\njoins issue with death!\\nAs thy love is discovered almighty, almighty\\nbe proved\\nThy power, that exists with and for it, of\\nbeing beloved!\\nHe who did most, shall bear m.ost: the\\nstrongest shall stand the m^ost weak.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0345.jp2"}, "344": {"fulltext": "328 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nTis the weakness in strength, that I cry for!\\nmy flesh, that I seek\\nIn the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O\\nSaul, it shall be\\nA Face like my face that receives thee; a\\nMan like to me,\\nThou shalt love and be loved by, forever; a\\nHand like this hand\\nShall throw open the gates of new life to\\nthee! See the Christ stand!\\nXIX\\nI know not too well how I found my way home\\nin the night.\\nThere were witnesses, cohorts about me, to\\nleft and to right,\\nAngels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the\\nalive, the aware\\nI repressed, I got through them as hardly, as\\nstrugglingly there,\\nAs a runner beset by the populace famished\\nfor news\\nLife or death. The whole earth was awak-\\nened, hell loosed with her crews;\\nAnd the stars of night beat with emotion, and\\ntingled and shot\\nOut in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge:\\nbut I fainted not.\\nFor the Hand still impelled me at once and\\nsupported, suppressed\\nAll the tumult, and quenched it with quiet,\\nand holy behest.\\nTill the rapture was shut in itself, and the\\nearth sank to rest.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0346.jp2"}, "345": {"fulltext": "BROWNINCz S POEMS. 329\\nAnon at the dawn, all that trouble had with-\\nered from earth\\nNot so much, but I saw it die out in the day s\\ntender birth;\\nIn the gathered intensity brought to the grey\\nof the hills;\\nIn the shuddering forests held breath in the\\nsudden wind-thrills;\\nIn the startled wild beasts that bore oft, each\\nwith eye sidling still,\\nThough averted with wonder and dread; in\\nthe birds stiff and chill\\nThat rose heavily as I approached them, made\\nstupid with awe:\\nE en the serpent that slid away silent he felt\\nthe new law.\\nThe same stared in the white humid faces\\nupturned by the flowers;\\nThe same worked in the heart of the cedar and\\nmoved the vine-bowers:\\nAnd the little brooks witnessing murmured,\\npersistent and low.\\nWith their obstinate, all but hushed voices\\nE en so, it is so!\\nRABBI BEN EZRA.\\nI\\nGrow old along with me!\\nThe best is yet to be,\\nThe last of life, for which the first was made\\nOur times are in His hand\\nWho saith A whole I -olanned,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0347.jp2"}, "346": {"fulltext": "330 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nYouth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor\\nbe afraid!\\nNot that, amassing- flowers,\\nYouth sighed Which rose makes ours,\\nWhich lily leave and then as best recall!\\nNot that, admiring stars,\\nIt yearned Nor Jove, nor Mars;\\nMine be some figured flame which blends,\\ntranscends them all!\\nIll\\nNot for such hopes and fears\\nAnnulling youth s brief years,\\nDo I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!\\nRather I prize the doubt\\nLow kinds exist without.\\nFinished and finite clods, untroubled by a\\nspark.\\nIV\\nPoor vault of life indeed,\\nWere man but formed to feed\\nOn joy, to solely seek and find and feast\\nSuch feasting ended, then\\nAs sure an end to men\\nIrks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the\\nmaw-crammed beast?\\nRejoice we are allied\\nTo That which doth provide\\nAnd not partake, effect and not receive", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0348.jp2"}, "347": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 331\\nA spark disturbs our clod\\nNearer we hold of God\\nWho gives, than of His tribes that take, I must\\nbelieve.\\nVI\\nThen, welcome each rebuff\\nThat turns earth s smoothness rough,\\nEach sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go\\nBe our joys three-parts pain\\nStrive, and hold cheap the strain\\nLearn, nor account the pang; dare, never\\ngrudge the throe\\nVII\\nFor thence a paradox\\nWhich comforts while it mocks,\\nShall life succeed in that it seems to fail:\\nWhat I aspired to be,\\nAnd was not, comforts me\\nA brute, I might have been, but would not sink\\ni the scale.\\nVIII\\nWhat is he but a brute\\nWhose flesh hath soul to suit,\\nWhose spirit works lest arms and legs want\\nplay?\\nTo man, propose this test\\nThy body at its best.\\nHow far can that project thy soul on its lone\\nway?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0349.jp2"}, "348": {"fulltext": "332 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nIX\\nYet gifts should prove their use\\nI own the Past profuse\\nOf power each side, perfection every turn\\nEyes, ears took in their dole,\\nBrain treasured up the whole\\nShould not the heart beat once How good to\\nlive and learn?\\nX\\nNot once beat Praise be Thine!\\nI see the whole design,\\nI, who saw power, see now love perfect too:\\nPerfect I call Thy plan:\\nThanks that I was a man!\\nMaker, remake, complete, I trust what Thou\\nshalt do!\\nXI\\nFor pleasant is this flesh;\\nOur soul, in its rose-mesh\\nPulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:\\nWould we some prize might hold\\nTo match those manifold\\nPossessions of the brute, gain most, as we did\\nbest!\\nXII\\nLet us not always say\\nSpite of this flesh to-day\\nI strove, made head, gained ground upon the\\nwhole\\nAs the bird wings and sings.\\nLet us cry All good things", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0350.jp2"}, "349": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 333\\nAre ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than\\nflesh helps soul!\\nXIII\\nTherefore I summon age\\nTo grant youth s heritage,\\nLife s struggle having so far reached its term:\\nThence shall I pass, approved\\nA man, for aye removed\\nFrom the developed brute; a God though in\\nthe germ.\\nXIV\\nAnd I shall thereupon\\nTake rest, ere I be gone\\nOnce more on my adventure brave and new:\\nFearless and unperplexed,\\nWhen I wage battle next,\\nWhat weapons to select, what armor to indue.\\nXV\\nYouth ended, I shall try\\nMy gain or loss thereby\\nLeave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:\\nAnd I shall weigh the same.\\nGive life its praise or blame:\\nYoung, all lay in dispute I shall know, being\\nold.\\nXVI\\nFor, note when evening shuts,\\nA certain moment cuts\\nThe deed off, calls the glory from the grey:\\nA whisper from the west", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0351.jp2"}, "350": {"fulltext": "334 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nShoots Add this to the rest,\\nTake it and try its worth: here dies another\\nday.\\nXVII\\nSo, still within this life,\\nThough lifted o er its strife,\\nLet me discern, compare, pronounce at last,\\nThis rage was right i the main,\\nThat acquiescence vain:\\nThe Future I may face now I have proved\\nthe Past\\nXVIII\\nFor more is not reserved\\nTo man, with soul just nerved\\nTo act to-morrow what he learns to-day\\nHere, work enough to watch\\nThe Master work, and catch\\nHints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool s\\ntrue play.\\nXIX\\nAs it was better, youth\\nShould strive, through acts uncouth,\\nToward making, than repose on aught found\\nmade:\\nSo, better, age, exempt\\nFrom strife, should know, than tempt\\nFurther. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor\\nbe afraid!\\nXX\\nEnough now, if the Right\\nAnd Good and Infinite", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0352.jp2"}, "351": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 335\\nBe named here, as thou call st thy hand thine\\nown,\\nWith knowledge absolute,\\nSubject to no dispute\\nFrom fools that crowded youth, nor let thee\\nfeel alone.\\nXXI\\nBe there, for once and all,\\nSevered great minds from small.\\nAnnounced to each his station in the Past\\nWas I, the world arraigned,\\nWere they, my soul disdained,\\nRight? Let age speak the truth and give us\\npeace at last!\\nXXII\\nNow, who shall arbitrate?\\nTen men love what I hate,\\nShun what I follow, slight what I receive;\\nTen, who in ears and eyes\\nMatch me we all surmise.\\nThey, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my\\nsoul believe?\\nXXIII\\nNot on the vulgar mass\\nCalled work, must sentence pass.\\nThings done, that took the eye and had the\\nprice\\nO er which, from level stand,\\nThe low world laid its hand,\\nFound straightway to its mind, could value in\\na trice:", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0353.jp2"}, "352": {"fulltext": "336 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nXXIV\\nBut all, the world s coarse thumb\\nAnd finger failed to plumb,\\nSo passed in making up the main account:\\nAll instincts immature,\\nAll purposes unsure,\\nThat weighed not as his work, yet swelled the\\nman s amount:\\nXXV\\nThoughts hardly to be packed\\nInto a narrow act,\\nFancies that broke through language and\\nescaped:\\nAll I could never be,\\nAll, men ignored in me,\\nThis, I was worth to God, whose wheel the\\npitcher shaped.\\nXXVI\\nAy, note that Potter s wheel,\\nThat metaphor and feel\\nWhy time spins fast, why passive lies our\\nclay,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nThou, to whom fools propound,\\nWhen the wine makes its round,\\nSince life fleets, all is change; the Past gone,\\nseize to-day!\\nXXVII\\nFool All that is, at all,\\nLasts ever, past recall\\nEarth changes, but thy soul and God stand\\nsure:\\nI", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0354.jp2"}, "353": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 337\\nWhat entered into thee,\\nThat was, is, and shall be:\\nTime s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and\\nclay endure.\\nXXVIII\\nHe fixed thee mid this dance\\nOf plastic circumstance,\\n*This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain\\narrest\\nMachinery just meant\\nTo give thy soul its bent.\\nTry thee, and turn thee forth, sufficiently im-\\npressed.\\nXXIX\\nWhat though the earlier grooves\\nWhich ran the laughing loves\\nAround thy base, no longer pause and press?\\nWhat though, about thy rim.\\nSkull-things in order grim\\nGrow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner\\nstress?\\nXXX\\nLook not thou down but up\\nTo uses of a cup.\\nThe festal board, lamp s flash and trumpet s\\npeal.\\nThe new wine s foaming flow.\\nThe master s lips a-glow!\\nThou, heaven s consummate cup, what needst\\nthou with earth s wheel?", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0355.jp2"}, "354": {"fulltext": "338 BROWNLNG S POEMS.\\nXXXI\\nBut I need, now as then,\\nThee, God, who mouldest men.\\nAnd since, not even while the world was\\nworst.\\nDid I, to the wheel of life\\nWith shapes and colors rife,\\nBound dizzily, mistake my end, to slake Thy\\nthirst:\\nXXXII\\nSo, take and use Thy work.\\nAmend what flaws may lurk.\\nWhat strain o the stuff, what warpings past\\nthe aim!\\nMy tim.es be in Thy hand!\\nPerfect the cup as planned!\\nLet age approve of youth, and death complete\\nthe same!\\nEPILOGUE.\\nFirst speaker, as David.\\nOn the first of the Feast of Feasts,\\nThe Dedication Day,\\nWhen the Levites joined the Priests\\nAt the Altar in robed array,\\nGave signal to sound and say,\\nII\\nWhen the thousands, rear and van,\\nSwarming with one accord,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0356.jp2"}, "355": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 339\\nBecame as a single man,\\n(Look, gesture, thought and word,\\nIn praising and thanking the Lord,\\nIII\\nWhen the singers lift up their voice,\\nAnd the trumpets made endeavor,\\nSounding, In God Rejoice!\\nSaying, In Him rejoice\\nWhose mercy endureth for ever!\\nIV\\nThen the Temple filled with a cloud,\\nEven the House of the Lord\\nPorch bent and pillar bowed\\nFor the presence of the Lord,\\nIn the glory of His cloud.\\nHad filled the House of the Lord.\\nSecond Speaker, as Renan.\\nGone now! All gone across the dark so far,\\nSharpening fast, shuddering ever, shutting\\nstill,\\nDwindling into the distance, dies that star\\nWhich came, stood, opened once! We gazed\\nour fill\\nWith upturned faces on as real a Face\\nThat, stooping from grave music and mild\\nfire.\\nTook in our homage, made a visible place\\nThrough many a depth of glory, gyre on\\ngyre.\\nFor the dim human tribute. Was this true?\\nCould man indeed avail, mere praise of his,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0357.jp2"}, "356": {"fulltext": "340 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nTo help by rapture God s own rapture too,\\nThrill with a heart s red tinge that pure pale\\nbliss?\\nWhy did it end? Who failed to beat the breast,\\nAnd shriek, and throw the arms protesting\\nwide,\\nWhen a first shadow showed the star addressed\\nItself to motion, and on either side\\nThe rims contracted as the rays retired\\nThe music, like a fountain s sickening pulse,\\nSubsided on itself; awhile transpired\\nSome vestige of a Face no pangs convulse.\\nNo prayers retard; then even this was gone,\\nLost in the night at last We, lone and left\\nSilent through centuries, ever and anon\\nVenture to probe again the vault bereft\\nOf all now save the lesser lights, a mist\\nOf multitudinous points, yet suns, men say\\nAnd this leaps ruby, this lurks amethyst.\\nBut vvhere may hide what came and loved\\nour clay?\\nHow shall the sage detect in yon expanse\\nThe star which chose to stoop and stay for\\nus?\\nUnroll the records! Hailed ye such advance\\nIndeed, and did your hope evanish thus?\\nWatchers of twilight, is the worst averred?\\nWe shall not look up, know ourselves are\\nseen,\\nSpeak, and be sure that we again are heard,\\nActing or suffering, have the disk s serene\\nReflect our life, absorb an earthly flame.\\nNor doubt that, were mankind inert and\\nnumb.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0358.jp2"}, "357": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 341\\nIts core had never crimsoned all the same,\\nNor, missing ours, its music fallen dumb?\\nOh, dread succession to a dizzy post.\\nSad sway of sceptre whose mere touch\\nappals,\\nGhastly dethronement, cursed by those the\\nmost\\nOn whose repugnant brow the crown next\\nfalls!\\nThird Speaker.\\nWitless alike of will and way divine,\\nHow heaven s high with earth s low should\\nintertwine\\nFriends, I have seen through your eyes: now\\nuse mine!\\nTake the least man of all mankind, as I\\nLook at his head and heart, find how and why\\nHe differs from his fellows utterly:\\nIII\\nThen, like me, watch when nature by degrees\\nGrows alive round him, as in Arctic seas\\n(They said of old) the instinctive water flees\\nIV\\nToward some el ected point of central rock.\\nAs though, for its sake only, roamed the flock\\nOf waves about the waste awhile they mock", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0359.jp2"}, "358": {"fulltext": "342 BROWNING S POEMS.\\nWith radiance caught for the occasion, hues\\nOf blackest hell now, now such reds and blues\\nAs only heaven could fitly interfuse,\\nVI\\nThe mimic monarch of the whirlpool, king\\nO the current for a minute: then they wring\\nUp by the roots and oversweep the thing,\\nVII\\nAnd hasten off, to play again elsewhere\\nThe same part, choose another peak as bare,\\nThey find and flatter, feast and finish there.\\nVIII\\nWhen you see what I tell you, nature dance\\nAbout each man of us, retire, advance,\\nAs though the pageant s end were to enhance\\nIX\\nHis worth, and once the life, his product,\\ngained\\nRoll away elsewhere, keep the strife sustained,\\nAnd show thus real, a thing the North but\\nfeigned,\\nWhen you acknowledge that one world could do\\nAll the diverse work, old yet ever new,\\nDivide us, each from other, me from you,", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0360.jp2"}, "359": {"fulltext": "BROWNING S POEMS. 343\\nXI\\nWhy, Where s the need of Temple, when the\\nwalls\\nO the world are that? What use of swells and\\nfalls\\nFrom Levites choir, Priests* cries, and trum-\\npet-calls?\\nXII\\nThat one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,\\nOr decomposes but to recompose,\\nBecome my universe that feels and knows!\\nTHE END.", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0361.jp2"}, "360": {"fulltext": "W. B. CONKEY COMPANY S PUBLICATIONS\\nAbb6 Constantin Hal6vy\\nAdventures of a Brownie. ..Mulock\\nAll Aboard Optic\\nAlice s Adventures in Wonderland\\nCarroll\\nAn Attic Philosopher in Paris\\nSouvestre\\nAutobiography of Benjamin\\nFranklin\\nAutocrat of the Breakfast Table\\nHolmes\\nBacon s Essays Bacon\\nBarrack Room Ballads. .Kipling\\nBeside the Bonnie Brier Bush\\nMaclaren\\nBlack Beauty Sewall\\nBlithedale Romance. .Hawthorne\\nBoat Club Optic\\nBracebridge Hall Irving\\nBrooks Addresses\\nBrowning s Poems Browning\\nChilde Harold s Pilgrimage\\nByron\\nChild s History of England\\nDickens\\nCranford Gaskell\\nCrown of Wild Olives Ruskin\\nDaily Food for Christians\\nDepartmental Ditties Kipling\\nDolly Dialogues Hope\\nDream Life Mitchell\\nDrummond s Addresses\\nDrummond\\nEmerson s Essays, Vol. 1\\nEmerson\\nEmerson s Essays, Vol. 2\\nEmerson\\nEthics of the Dust Ruskin\\nEvangeline Longfellow\\nFlower Fables A.lcott\\nGold Dust Yonge\\nHeroes and Hero Worship. Carlyle\\nHiawatha Longfellow\\nHouse of Seven Gables\\nHawthorne\\nHouse of the Wolf Weyman\\nIdle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow\\nJerome\\nIdylls of the King Tennyson\\nImitation of Christ\\nThos. a Kempis\\nIn Memoriam Tennyson\\nJohn Halifax Mulock\\nKept for the Master s Use\\nHavergal\\nKidnapped Stevenson\\nKing of the Golden River.. Ruskin\\nLaddie\\nLady of the Lake Scott\\nLalla Rookh Moore\\nLet Us Follow Him.. .Sienkiewicz\\nLight of Asia Arnold\\n99.\\n100.\\n101.\\n102.\\n103.\\n104.\\n107.\\n110.\\n111.\\n112.\\n113.\\n114.\\n115.\\n118.\\n117.\\n118.\\n119.\\n120.\\n121.\\n122.\\n123.\\n128.\\n129.\\n130\\n131.\\n132.\\n133.\\n140.\\n141.\\n142.\\n143.\\n144.\\n145.\\n146.\\n150.\\n154.\\n158.\\n159.\\n160.\\n161.\\nLight That Failed. .Kipling\\nLocksley Hall Tennyson\\nLongfellow s Poems\\nLongfellow\\nLorna Doone Blaekmore\\nLowell 8 Poems Lowel 1\\nLucile Meredith\\nMarmion Scott\\nMosses from an Old Manse\\nHawthorne\\nNatural Law in the Spiritual\\nWorld Drummond\\nNow or Never Optic\\nParadise Lost Mil ton\\nPaul and Virginia\\nSaint Pierre\\nPilgrim s Progress Buiivan\\nPlain Tales from the Hills\\nKipling\\nPleasures of Life Lubbock\\nPrince of the House of David\\nIngriibam\\nPrincess Tennyson\\nPrue and I Curtis\\nQueen of the Air Ruskin\\nRab and His Friends. ..Brown\\nRepresentative Men Emerson\\nReveries of a Bachelor\\nMitchell\\nRollo in Geneva Abbott\\nRoUo in Holland Abbott\\nRollo in London Abbott\\nRollo in Naples Abbott\\nRollo in Paris Abbott\\nRollo in Rome Abbott\\nRollo in Scotland Abbott\\nRollo in Switzerland. .Abbott\\nRollo on the Atlantic. ..Abbott\\nRollo on the Rhine Abbott\\nRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam\\nFitzgerald\\nSartor Resartus Carlyle\\nScarlet Letter Hawthorne\\nSesame and Lilies Ruskin\\nSign of the Four Doyle\\nSketch Book Irving\\nStickit Minister Crockett\\nTales from Shakespeare\\nC. and Mary Lamb\\nTanglewood Tales.. Hawthorne\\nTrue and Beautiful Ruskin\\nThree Men in a Boat. .Jerome\\nThrough the Looking Glass\\nCarroll\\nTreasure Island Stevenson\\nTwice Told Tales. .Hawthorne\\nUncle Tom s Cabin Stowe\\nVicar of Wakefield. .Goldsmith\\nWhittier s Poems Whittier\\nWide, Wide World Warner\\nWindow in Thrums Barrie\\nWonder Book Hawthorne", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0362.jp2"}, "361": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0363.jp2"}, "362": {"fulltext": "AUG 13 1900\\nDeacidified using the Bookkeeper process.\\nNeutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide\\nTreatment Date: March 2009\\nPreservationTechnologies\\nA WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION\\n111 Thomson Park Drive\\nCranberry Township, PA 1 6066", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0364.jp2"}, "363": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0365.jp2"}, "364": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2786", "width": "1814", "jp2-path": "selectionsfrompo04brow_0366.jp2"}}