Select poems of Robert Browning

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ...but I fainted not, 320 For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest. Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth--Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth; In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills; In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe: 330 E'en the serpent that slid away silent,--he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers: And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, With their obstinate, all but hushed voices--"E'en so, it is so!" "DE GUSTIBUS--" (1855) Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, (If our loves remain) In an English lane, By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies. Hark, those two in the hazel coppice--A boy and a girl, if the good fates please, Making love, say,--The happier they! Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, And let them pass, as they will too soon, With the beanflowers' boon, And the blackbird's tune, And May, and June I What I love best in all the world Is a castle, precipice-encurled, In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. Or look for me, old fellow of mine, (If I get my head from out the mouth O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, And come again to the land of lands)--In a sea-side house to the farther South, Where the baked cicala dies of drouth, ...