| What is he buzzing in my ears? |
| ‘Now that I come to die, |
| Do I view the world as a vale of tears?’ |
Ah, reverend sir, not I!
|
| What I viewed there once, what I view again |
| Where the physic bottles stand |
| On the table’s edge,―is
a suburb lane, |
With a wall to my bedside hand.
|
| That land sloped, much as the bottles do, |
| From a house you could descry |
| O’er the garden-wall : is the curtain blue |
Or green to a healthy eye?
|
| To mine, it serves for the old June weather |
| Blue above lane and wall; |
| And that farthest bottle labeled ‘Ether’ |
Is the house o’ertopping all.
|
| At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper, |
| There watched for me, one June, |
| A girl : I know, sir, it’s improper, |
My poor mind’s out of tune.
|
| Only, there was a way . . . you crept |
| Close by the side, to dodge |
| Eyes in the house, two eyes except : |
They styled their house ‘The Lodge.’
|
| What right had a lounger up their lane? |
| But, by creeping very close, |
| With the good wall’s help,―their
eyes might strain |
And stretch themselves to Oes,
|
| Yet never catch her and me together, |
| As she left the attic, there, |
| By the rim of the bottle labeled ‘Ether’, |
And stole from stair to stair,
|
| And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, |
| We loved, sir―used
to meet : |
| How sad and bad and mad it was― |
But then, how it was sweet!
|
| Robert Browning
| Classic Poems |
| |
|
[ A Toccata of Galuppi's ] [ Epilogue to Asolando ] [ Confessions ] [ Home Thoughts from Abroad ] [ Love among the Ruins ] [ Two in the Campagna ] [ Meeting at Night ] [ Love in a Life ] [ Home Thoughts from the Sea ] [ The Lost Leader ] [ My Last Duchess ] |
