Works

FIRST SPEAKER, as David

I.
On the first of the Feast of Feasts,
The Dedication Day,
When the Levites joined the Priests
At the Altar in robed array,
Gave signal to sound and say,
...

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!
Let them once more absorb me! One look now
Will lap me round for ever, not to pass
Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond:...

I.

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;...

Here's my case. Of old I used to love him,
This same unseen friend, before I knew:
Dream there was none like him, none above him,
Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.
...

A Reminiscence of A.D. 1676


'No, boy, we must not', so began
My Uncle (he's with God long since),
A-petting me, the good old man!
'We must not', and he seemed to wince,...

He. Ah, the bird-like fluting
Through the ash-tops yonder,
Bullfinch-bubblings, soft sounds suiting
What sweet thoughts, I wonder?
Fine-pearled notes that surely
Gather, dewdrop-fashion,...

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
You need not clap your torches to my face.
Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk!
What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds,...

I.

Plague take all your pedants, say I!
He who wrote what I hold in my hand,
Centuries back was so good as to die,
Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land;
This, that was a book in its time,...

I.

Here's the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss
Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!...

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,
So things disguise themselves, I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face...

I.
Oh, the beautiful girl, too white,
Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea,
Just where the sea and the Loire unite!
And a boasted name in Brittany
She bore, which I will not write.

II....

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli ah, your ancestor it was,
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve...

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
Be ruled by me and have a care o'the crowd:
This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
I'll tell you like a book and save your shins....

Heap Cassia, sandal-buds and stripes
Of labdanum, and aloe-balls,
Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes
From out her hair: such balsam falls
Down sea-side mountain pedestals,...

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

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

I.

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf...

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;...

Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?
Do I live in a house you would like to see?
Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?
'Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?'
...

I only knew one poet in my life:
And this, or something like it, was his way.

You saw go up and down Valladolid,
A man of mark, to know next time you saw.
His very serviceable suit of black...