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SELECTIONS FROM

ROBERT BROWNING

ALL that I know

Of a certain star

Is, it can throw

MY STAR.

(Like the angled spar)

Now a dart of red,

Now a dart of blue;

Till my friends have said

They would fain see, too,

My star that dartles the red and the blue!

Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled :

They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.

What matter to me if their star is a world ?

Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

A FACE.

IF one could have that little head of hers
Painted upon a background of pale gold,
Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers!
No shade encroaching on the matchless mold
Of those two lips, which should be opening soft
In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,
For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft
Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's
Burthen of honey-colored buds, to kiss
And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this.

Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround.
How it should waver, on the pale gold ground,
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!
I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts

Of heaven, his angel faces orb on orb
Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb :
But these are only massed there, I should think,
Waiting to see some wonder momently

Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky
(That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by),
All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye
Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

MY LAST DUCHESS.

FERRARA.

THAT'S my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design: for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I),
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat;" such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart-how shall I say?-too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace,--all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men,-good! but thanked Somehow I know not how-as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech-(which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark "-and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
-E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. O sir! she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the saine smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

SONG FROM "PIPPA PASSES."

I.

GIVE her but a least excuse to love me!

When-where

How can this arm establish her above me,
If fortune fixed her as my lady there,

There already, to eternally reprove me?

("Hist!" said Kate the queen ;

But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses,

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'Tis only a page that carols unseen,

Crumbling your hounds their messes!")

II.

Is she wronged?—To the rescue of her honor,

My heart!

Is she poor? What costs it to become a donor?

Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.

But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!

("Nay, list!" bade Kate the queen;

And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,

66

'Tis only a page that carols unseen,

Fitting your hawks their jesses!")

CRISTINA.

I.

SHE should never have looked at me if she meant I should not

love her!

There are plenty . . men, you call such, I suppose

may discover

..she

All her soul to, if she pleases, and yet leave much as she found

them :

But I'm not so; and she knew it when she fixed me, glancing round them.

II.

What? To fix me thus meant nothing? But I can't tell (there's my weakness)

What her look said!-no vile cant, sure, about "need to strew the bleakness

Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed, that the sea feels no "strange yearning

That such souls have, most to lavish where there's chance of least returning."

III.

Oh! we're sunk enough here, God knows! but not quite so sunk that moments,

Sure though seldom, are denied us, when the spirit's true endowments

Stand out plainly from its false ones, and apprise it if pursuing Or the right way or the wrong way, to its triumph or undoing.

IV.

There are flashes struck from midnights, there are fire-flames noondays kindle,

Whereby piled-up honors perish, whereby swollen ambitions dwindle;

While just this or that poor impulse, which for once had play unstifled,

Seems the sole work of a lifetime that away the rest have trifled.

V.

Doubt you if, in some such moment, as she fixed me, she felt clearly,

Ages past the soul existed, here an age 'tis resting merely,
And hence fleets again for ages; while the true end, sole and

single,

It stops here for is, this love way, with some other soul to mingle?

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