Poems by Robert Browning

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Incident Of The French Camp

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:

A mile or so away,

On a little mound, Napoleon

Stood on our storming-day;

With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,

Legs wide, arms locked behind,

As if to balance the prone brow

by Robert Browning

Song

Nay but you, who do not love her,

Is she not pure gold, my mistress?

Holds earth aught—-speak truth—-above her?

Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,

And this last fairest tress of all,

So fair, see, ere I let it fall?

II.

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 snow

In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go

Floating the women faded for ages,

by Robert Browning

Andrea del Sarto

But do not let us quarrel any more,

No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:

Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.

You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?

I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear,

Treat his own subject after his own way,

Fix his own time, accept too his own price,

And shut the money into this small hand

by Robert Browning

In A Year

Never any more,

While I live,

Need I hope to see his face

As before.

Once his love grown chill,

Mine may strive:

Bitterly we re-embrace,

by Robert Browning

Paracelsus: Part IV: Paracelsus Aspires

Scene.—

Colmar in Alsatia: an Inn

. 1528.

Paracelsus, Festus.

Paracelsus

[to Johannes Oporinus, his Secretary].

Sic itur ad astra! Dear Von Visenburg

Is scandalized, and poor Torinus paralysed,

by Robert Browning

An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Kar

Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs,

The not-incurious in God's handiwork

(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made,

Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,

To coop up and keep down on earth a space

That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul)

—To Abib, all-sagacious in our art,

Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,

by Robert Browning

Saul

Said Abner, ``At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak,

``Kiss my cheek, wish me well!'' Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek.

And he, ``Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent,

``Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent

``Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet,

``Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet.

``For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days,

by Robert Browning

Rhyme for a Child Viewing a Naked Venus in a Painting of 'The Judgement of Paris'

He gazed and gazed and gazed and gazed,

Amazed, amazed, amazed, amazed.

by Robert Browning

A Light Woman

So far as our story approaches the end,

Which do you pity the most of us three?—-

My friend, or the mistress of my friend

With her wanton eyes, or me?

II.

My friend was already too good to lose,

And seemed in the way of improvement yet,

by Robert Browning

Paracelsus: Part III: Paracelsus

Scene.—

Basil; a chamber in the house of Paracelsus

. 1526.

Paracelsus, Festus.

Paracelsus.

Heap logs and let the blaze laugh out!

Festus.

True, true!

by Robert Browning

One Way Of Love

All June I bound the rose in sheaves.

Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves

And strew them where Pauline may pass.

She will not turn aside? Alas!

Let them lie. Suppose they die?

The chance was they might take her eye.

II.

by Robert Browning