Epilogue, by Robert Browning

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
   When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where—by death, fools think, imprisoned—
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
—Pity me?

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
   What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel
—Being—who?

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
   Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man’s work-time
   Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
“Strive and thrive!” cry “Speed,—fight on, fare ever
There as here!”

Love in a Life, by Robert Browning

Room after room, I hunt the house through We inhabit together. Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her, Next time, herself!—not the trouble behind her Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume! As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew,— Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather. Yet the day wears, And door succeeds door; I try the fresh fortune— Range the wide house from the wing to the centre. Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter. Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares? But ‘tis twilight, you see,—with such suits to explore, Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!

Wanting is -- What? by Robert Browning

Wanting is -- what?                 Summer redundant,                 Blueness abundant,                  -- Where is the blot? Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same, -- Framework which waits for a picture to frame: What of the leafage, what of the flower? Roses embowering with naught they embower! Come then, complete incompletion, O comer, Pant thro' the blueness, perfect the summer!                 Breathe but one breath                 Rose-beauty above,                 And all that was death                 Grows life, grows love,                      Grows love!

Meeting at Night, by Robert Browning, 1812 - 1889

Meeting at Night

Robert Browning, 1812 - 1889

The gray sea and the long black land;  
And the yellow half-moon large and low:  
And the startled little waves that leap  
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,  
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.  
  
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;  
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;  
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch  
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through joys and fears,  
Than the two hearts beating each to each!