Robert Browning's Principal Shorter Poems (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ... hand's to-and-fro Dearest, three months ago When we loved each other so, Lived and loved the same Till an evening came When a shaft from the Devil's bow Pierced to our ingle-glow, And the friends were friend and foe Not from the heart beneath--'Twas a bubble born of breath, Neither sneer nor vaunt, Nor reproach nor taunt. See a word, how it severeth Oh, power of life and death In the tongue, as the Preacher saith Woman, and will you cast For a word, quite off at last, Me, your own, your you, --Since, as Truth is true, I was you all the happy past--Me do you leave aghast With the memories we amassed? Love, if you knew the light That your soul casts in my sight, How I look to you For the pure and true, And the beauteous and the right, --Bear with a moment's spite When a mere mote threats the white What of a hasty word? Is the fleshly heart not stirred By a worm's pin-prick Where its roots are quick? See the eye, by a fly's foot blurred---Ear, when a straw is heard Scratch the brain's coat of curd Foul be the world or fair, More or less, how can I care? 'Tis the world the same For my praise or blame, And endurance is easy there Wrong in the one thing rare--Oh, it is hard to bear Here's the spring back or close, When the almond-blossom blows; We shall have the word In that minor third There is none but the cuckoo knows-Heaps of the guelder-rose I must bear with it, I suppose. Could but November come, Were the noisy birds struck dumb At the warning slash Of his driver's-lash--I would laugh like the valiant Thumb Facing the castle glum-And the giant's fee-faw-fum Then, were the world well stript Of the gear wherein equipped We can stand apart, Heart dispense with heart In the sun, with the flowers unnipped, ---Oh, the world's hangings...