Robert Browning

Was never evening yet But seemed far beautifuller than its day.

In the great right of an excessive wrong.

Go practise if you please With men and women: leave a child alone For Christ's particular love's sake!

O lyric Love, half angel and half bird And all a wonder and a wild desire

A ring without a posy, and that ring mine?

A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard, And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since. Give it me back! The thing's restorative I'the touch and sight.

Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore: Prime nature with an added artistry — No carat lost, and you have gained a ring. What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say; A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

So, take, and use thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel? But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men.

Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup.

Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped;

Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past!

Let us cry, "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"

Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in his hand Who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

The ultimate, angels' law, Indulging every instinct of the soul There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!

For I say this is death and the sole death,— When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, And lack of love from love made manifest.

What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up, And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets: May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.

The body sprang At once to the height, and stayed; but the soul,—no!

For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear (believe the aged friend), Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,— How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.

Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.