POEMS : ROBERT BROWNING

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #020202; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;"></span><br /> <div> <a href="http://peperonity.com/go/media/12460480%213" style="color: blue; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; text-decoration: underline;"><img alt="POEMS : ROBERT BROWNING - capgture" hspace="0" src="http://f1.pepst.com/c/649CD7/373672/ssc3/home/048/i.subha/capgture.jpg_480_480_0_64000_0_1_0.jpg" vspace="0" /></a></div> <div> <div class="space2" style="padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-top: 0.5em;"> <div class="hr" style="border-top-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: #aaaaaa;"> <span></span></div> </div> </div> <div> <br /><br />Poems by Robert Browning<br /><br />A PRETTY WOMAN<br /><br />That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,<br />And the blue eye<br />Dear and dewy,<br />And that infantine fresh air of hers!<br /><br />To think men cannot take you, Sweet,<br />And infold you,<br />Ay, and hold you,<br />And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!<br /><br />You like us for a glance, you know--<br />For a word's sake<br />Or a sword's sake:<br />All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.<br /><br />And in turn we make you ours, we say--<br />You and youth too,<br />Eyes and mouth too,<br />All the face composed of flowers, we say.<br /><br />All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet--<br />Sing and say for,<br />Watch and pray for,<br />Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!<br /><br />But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,<br />Tho' we prayed you,<br />Paid you, brayed you<br />In a mortar--for you could not, Sweet!<br /><br />So, we leave the sweet face fondly there,<br />Be its beauty<br />Its sole duty!<br />Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!<br /><br />And while the face lies quiet there,<br />Who shall wonder<br />That I ponder<br />A conclusion? I will try it there.<br /><br />As,--why must one, for the love foregone<br />Scout mere liking?<br />Thunder-striking<br />Earth,--the heaven, we looked above for, gone!<br /><br />Why, with beauty, needs there money be,<br />Love with liking?<br />Crush the fly-king<br />In his gauze, because no honey-bee?<br /><br />May not liking be so simple-sweet,<br />If love grew there<br />'Twould undo there<br />All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?<br /><br />Is the creature too imperfect, say?<br />Would you mend it<br />And so end it?<br />Since not all addition perfects aye!<br /><br />Or is it of its kind, perhaps,<br />Just perfection--<br />Whence, rejection<br />Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps?<br /><br />Shall we burn up, tread that face at once<br />Into tinder,<br />And so hinder<br />Sparks from kindling all the place at once?<br /><br />Or else kiss away one's soul on her?<br />Your love-fancies!<br />--A sick man sees<br />Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her!<br /><br />Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,--<br />Plucks a mould-flower<br />For his gold flower,<br />Uses fine things that efface the rose.<br /><br />Rosy rubies make its cup more rose.<br />Precious metals<br />Ape the petals,--<br />Last, some old king locks it up, morose!<br /><br />Then how grace a rose? I know a way!<br />Leave it, rather.<br />Must you gather?<br />Smell, kiss, wear it--at last, throw away.<br /><br />THE PATRIOT<br /><br />AN OLD STORY<br /><br />It was roses, roses, all the way,<br />With myrtle mixed in my path like mad;<br />The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,<br />The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,<br />A year ago on this very day.<br /><br />The air broke into a mist with bells,<br />The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.<br />Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels--<br />But give me your sun from yonder skies!"<br />They had answered "And afterward, what else?"<br /><br />Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun<br />To give it my loving friends to keep!<br />Naught man could do, have I left undone:<br />And you see my harvest, what I reap<br />This very day, now a year is run.<br /><br />There's nobody on the house-tops now--<br />Just a palsied few at the windows set;<br />For the best of the sight is, all allow,<br />At the Shambles' Gate--or, better yet,<br />By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.<br /><br />I go in the rain, and, more than needs,<br />A rope cuts both my wrists behind;<br />And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,<br />For they fling, whoever has a mind,<br />Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.<br /><br />Thus I entered, and thus I go!<br />In triumphs, people have dropped down dead,<br />"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe<br />Me? "--God might question; now instead,<br />'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.</div> </div>

POEMS : ROBERT BROWNING

Poems by Robert Browning A PRETTY WOMAN That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers, And the blue eye Dear and dewy, And that infantine f...

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