Robert Browning Poems

Don't forget to view our Robert Browning home page with links to biographical information, articles, and more poems that may not be listed here.

• Best Robert Browning Poems
• Robert Browning Quotes

---

 SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF
LEARNING IN EUROPE.

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 I.

Oh, what a dawn of day!
How the March sun feels like May!
All is blue again
After last night's rain,
And the South dries the hawthorn-spray.
Only, my Love's away!
I'd as lief that the blue were grey,

II.

Runnels, which rillets swell,
Must be dancing down the dell,
With a foaming head
On the beryl bed
Paven smooth as a hermit's cell;
Each with a tale to tell,
Could my Love...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim,
Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,--
Should rush into sight at...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 Christ God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, 'twas with all his strength.

II.

And doubtlessly ere he could draw
All points to one, he must have schemed!
That miserable morning saw
Few half so happy as I seemed,
While being...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, 
The not-incurious in God's handiwork 
(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made, 
Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, 
To coop up and keep down on earth a space 
That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul) 
--To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, 
Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 NO more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk. 
A final glass for me, though: cool, i' faith! 
We ought to have our Abbey back, you see. 
It's different, preaching in basilicas, 
And doing duty in some masterpiece 
Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart! 
I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes, 
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 I.

How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark autumn-evenings come:
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In life's November too!

II.

I shall be found by the fire, suppose,
O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age,
While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows
And I turn the page, and I turn...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 "As certain also of your own poets have said"-- 
(Acts 17.28) 
Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles, 
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea 
And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")-- 
To Protus in his Tyranny: much health! 

They give thy letter to me, even now: 
I read and seem as if I heard thee...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 I.

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 bean-flowers' boon, 
And the...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! 
You need not clap your torches to my face. 
Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk! 
What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds, 
And here you catch me at an alley's end 
Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? 
The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up,...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 I

TRUTH is within ourselves; it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate’er you may believe. 
There is an inmost centre in us all, 
Where truth abides in fullness; and around, 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
This perfect, clear perception—which is truth. 
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 
Binds it, and makes all error: and, to...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 I. THE FLOWER'S NAME

Here's the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss
Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!
She must have reached this shrub ere she turned,
As back with that murmur the wicket swung;
For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned,
To feed and forget it the...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

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...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 I.

The morn when first it thunders in March,
The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch
Of the villa-gate this warm March day,
No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled
In the valley beneath where, white and wide
And washed by the morning water-gold,
Florence lay out on the mountain-side.

II.

River and bridge and street and...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 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!'

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed 'Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?'
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned 'Nor...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 I.

Said Abner, ``At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak,
``Kiss my cheek, wish me well!'' Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek. 
And he, ``Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent,
``Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent
``Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet,
``Shall our...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 I.

You're my friend:
I was the man the Duke spoke to;
I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;
So here's the tale from beginning to end,
My friend!

II.

Ours is a great wild country:
If you climb to our castle's top,
I don't see where your eye can stop;
For when you've passed the cornfield country,
Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed,
And sheep-range leads...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 (PETER RONSARD _loquitur_.)

``Heigho!'' yawned one day King Francis,
``Distance all value enhances!
``When a man's busy, why, leisure
``Strikes him as wonderful pleasure:
`` 'Faith, and at leisure once is he?
``Straightway he wants to be busy.
``Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm
``Caught thinking war the true pastime.
``Is there a reason in metre?
``Give us your speech, master Peter!''
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne'er...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 I.

I said---Then, dearest, since 'tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be---
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave,---I claim
---Only a memory of the same,
---And this beside, if you will...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---

 A Child's Story

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.

Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert

---