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Romance Poem Collection - 61
A Light Woman by Robert Browning
I.
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,
When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose
And over him drew her net.
III.
When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim!
IV.
And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagle's the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!
V.
So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
My hand sought hers as in earnest need,
And round she turned for my noble sake,
And gave me herself indeed.
VI.
The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,
The wren is he, with his maiden face.
---You look away and your lip is curled?
Patience, a moment's space!
VII.
For see, my friend goes shaling and white;
He eyes me as the basilisk:
I have turned, it appears, his day to night,
Eclipsing his sun's disk.
VIII.
And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:
``Though I love her---that, he comprehends---
``One should master one's passions, (love, in chief)
``And be loyal to one's friends!'
IX.
And she,---she lies in my hand as tame
As a pear late basking over a wall;
Just a touch to try and off it came;
'Tis mine,---can I let it fall?
X.
With no mind to eat it, that's the worst!
Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?
'Twas quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst
When I gave its stalk a twist.
XI.
And I,---what I seem to my friend, you see:
What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:
What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?
No hero, I confess.
XII.
'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,
And matter enough to save one's own:
Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals
He played with for bits of stone!
XIII.
One likes to show the truth for the truth;
That the woman was light is very true:
But suppose she says,---Never mind that youth!
What wrong have I done to you?
XIV.
Well, any how, here the story stays,
So far at least as I understand;
And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays,
Here's a subject made to your hand!
= = = = = = = = = =
Life in a Love by Robert Browning
Escape me?
Never--
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at least, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again,--
So the chace takes up one's life, that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground
Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me--
Ever
Removed!
= = = = = = = = = =
When the Frost is on the Punkin by James Whitcomb Riley
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best,
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.
They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here --
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees;
But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock --
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.
The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries -- kindo' lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below -- the clover over-head! --
O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock!
Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin' 's over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! ...
I don't know how to tell it -- but ef sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me --
I'd want to 'commodate 'em -- all the whole-indurin' flock --
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock!
= = = = = = = = = =
The Rape Of Lucrece Part 1 by William Shakespeare
The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet,
without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your
honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it
assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is
yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my
duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship,
to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness.
Your lordship's in all duty,
The Argument
Lucius Tarquinius, for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus, after he had
caused his own father-in-law Servius Tullius to be cruelly murdered, and,
contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the
people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied
with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which
siege the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of
Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after supper every
one commended the virtues of his own wife: among whom Collatinus extolled
the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humour
they posted to Rome; and intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to
make trial of that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus
finds his wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her
maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several
disports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus the victory, and his
wife the fame. At that time Sextus Tarquinius being inflamed with Lucrece'
beauty, yet smothering his passions for the present, departed with the rest
back to the camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself,
and was, according to his estate, royally entertained and lodged by Lucrece
at Collatium. The same night he treacherously stealeth into her chamber,
violently ravished her, and early in the morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in
this lamentable plight, hastily dispatcheth messengers, one to Rome for her
father, another to the camp for Collatine. They came, the one accompanied
with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius Valerius; and finding Lucrece
attired in mourning habit, demanded the cause of her sorrow. She, first
taking an oath of them for her revenge, revealed the actor, and whole
manner of his dealing, and withal suddenly stabbed herself. Which done,
with one consent they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the
Tarquins; and bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted the people
with the doer and manner of the vile deed, with a bitter invective against
the tyranny of the king: wherewith the people were so moved, that with one
consent and a general acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled, and the
state government changed from kings to consuls.
FROM the besieged Ardea all in post,
Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,
Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
And to Collatium bears the lightless fire
Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire
And girdle with embracing flames the waist
Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.
Haply that name of 'chaste' unhappily set
This bateless edge on his keen appetite;
When Collatine unwisely did not let
To praise the clear unmatched red and white
Which triumph'd in that sky of his delight,
Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven's beauties,
With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.
For he the night before, in Tarquin's tent,
Unlock'd the treasure of his happy state;
What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent
In the possession of his beauteous mate;
Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate,
That kings might be espoused to more fame,
But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.
O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!
And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done
As is the morning's silver-melting dew
Against the golden splendor of the sun!
An expired date, cancell'd ere well begun:
Honour and beauty, in the owner's arms,
Are weakly fortress'd from a world of harms.
Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator;
What needeth then apologies be made,
To set forth that which is so singular?
Or why is Collatine the publisher
Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown
From thievish ears, because it is his own?
= = = = = = = = = =
Divina Commedia by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I.
Written March 29, 1864.
1.1 Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
1.2 A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
1.3 Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
1.4 Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
1.5 Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
1.6 Far off the noises of the world retreat;
1.7 The loud vociferations of the street
1.8 Become an undistinguishable roar.
1.9 So, as I enter here from day to day,
1.10 And leave my burden at this minster gate,
1.11 Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
1.12 The tumult of the time disconsolate
1.13 To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
1.14 While the eternal ages watch and wait.
II.
2.1 How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
2.2 This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
2.3 Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
2.4 Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
2.5 And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
2.6 But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves
2.7 Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
2.8 And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!
2.9 Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
2.10 What exultations trampling on despair,
2.11 What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
2.12 What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
2.13 Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
2.14 This mediæval miracle of song!
III.
Written December 22, 1865.
3.1 I enter, and I see thee in the gloom
3.2 Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!
3.3 And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
3.4 The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
3.5 The congregation of the dead make room
3.6 For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
3.7 Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine
3.8 The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.
3.9 From the confessionals I hear arise
3.10 Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
3.11 And lamentations from the crypts below;
3.12 And then a voice celestial that begins
3.13 With the pathetic words, 'Although your sins
3.14 As scarlet be,' and ends with 'as the snow.'
IV.
Written May 5, 1867.
4.1 With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
4.2 She stands before thee, who so long ago
4.3 Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
4.4 From which thy song and all its splendors came;
4.5 And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
4.6 The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
4.7 On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
4.8 Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
4.9 Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
4.10 As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
4.11 Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
4.12 Lethe and Eunoë -- the remembered dream
4.13 And the forgotten sorrow -- bring at last
4.14 That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.
V.
Written January 16, 1866.
5.1 I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
5.2 With forms of Saints and holy men who died,
5.3 Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
5.4 And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
5.5 Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,
5.6 With splendor upon splendor multiplied;
5.7 And Beatrice again at Dante's side
5.8 No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.
5.9 And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs
5.10 Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love
5.11 And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;
5.12 And the melodious bells among the spires
5.13 O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above
5.14 Proclaim the elevation of the Host!
VI.
Written March 7, 1866.
6.1 O star of morning and of liberty!
6.2 O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
6.3 Above the darkness of the Apennines,
6.4 Forerunner of the day that is to be!
6.5 The voices of the city and the sea,
6.6 The voices of the mountains and the pines,
6.7 Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
6.8 Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
6.9 Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
6.10 Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
6.11 As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
6.12 Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
6.13 In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
6.14 And many are amazed and many doubt.
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