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Robert Browning

Robert Browning

Man I Am and Man Would Be, Love

Man I am and man would be, Love—merest man and nothing more.
Bid me seem no other! Eagles boast of pinions—let them soar!
I may put forth angel’s plumage, once unmanned, but not before.
 
Now on earth to stand suffices,—nay, if kneeling serves, to kneel:
Here you front me, here I find the all of heaven that earth can feel:
Sense looks straight,—not over, under,—perfect sees beyond appeal.
 
Good you are and wise, full circle: what to me were more outside?
Wiser wisdom, better goodness? Ah, such want the angel’s wide
Sense to take and hold and keep them! Mine at least has never tried.

#EnglishWriters #Victorian

Other works by Robert Browning...
Women and Roses

I dream of a red-rose tree. And which of its roses three Is the dearest rose to me? II. Round and round, like a dance of s…
A Grammarian’s Funeral Shortly After the Revival of Learnin

Let us begin and carry up this cor… Singing together. Leave we the common crofts, the vu… Each in its tether Sleeping safe on the bosom of the…
Tray

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst Of soul, ye bards! Quoth Bard the first: ‘Sir Olaf, the good knight, did d… His helm, and eke his habergeon ..…
Epilogue

At the midnight in the silence of… When you set your fancies free, Will they pass to where—by death,… Low he lies who once so loved you,… —Pity me?
Heap Cassia, Sandal

Heap Cassia, sandal-buds and stri… Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian… From out her hair: such balsam fal… Down sea-side mountain pedestals,
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

Gr-r-r—-there go, my heart’s abhor… Water your damned flower-pots, do! If hate killed men, Brother Lawre… God’s blood, would not mine kill y… What? your myrtle-bush wants trimm…
 1
Pippa’s Song

The year’s at the spring, And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d; The lark’s on the wing;
The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity… Draw round my bed: is Anselm keep… Nephews—sons mine . . . ah God, I… She, men would have to be your mot… Old Gandolf envied me, so fair sh…
Asolando: Prologue

“THE Poet’s age is sad: for why? In youth, the natural world could… No common object but his eye At once involved with alien glow— His own soul’s iris-bow.
A Face

If one could have that little head… Painted upon a background of pale… Such as the Tuscan’s early art pr… No shade encroaching on the matchl… Of those two lips, which should be…
Memorabilia

Ah, did you once see Shelley plai… And did he stop and speak to you? And did you speak to him again? How strange it seems, and new! But you were living before that,
 1
Development

My father was a scholar and knew… When I was five years old, I aske… “What do you read about?” “The siege of Troy.” “What is a siege, and what is Tro…
The Quiet Pet, by John William Godward
Cleon

Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled… Lily on lily, that o’erlace the se… And laugh their pride when the lig… To Protus in his Tyranny: much he… They give thy letter to me, even n…
Up at a Villa

Had I but plenty of money, money… The house for me, no doubt, were a… Ah, such a life, such a life, as o… Something to see, by Bacchus, som… There, the whole day long, one’s l…
Bad Dreams: I

LAST night I saw you in my sleep… And how your charm of face was cha… I asked ‘Some love, some faith yo… You answered ‘Faith gone, love es… Whereat I woke—a twofold bliss:



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