Menace our heart ere we master his own;

Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardon'd in heaven, the first by the throne!

MEETING AT NIGHT

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 its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

PARTING AT MORNING

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

Robert Browning

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

Where the quiet-color'd end of evening smiles
Miles and miles

On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep

Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop-

Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)

Of our country's very capital, its prince
Ages since

Held his court in, gather'd councils, wielding far

Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)

Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires

O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall

Bounding all,

Made of marble, men might march on nor be press'd, Twelve abreast.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!

Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds

Every vestige of the city, guess'd alone,
Stock or stone

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe

Long ago;

Lust of glory prick'd their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;

And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.

Now, the single little turret that remains
On the plains,

By the caper overrooted, by the gourd

Overscored,

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Thro' the chinks

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,

And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,

And the monarch and his minions and his dames
View'd the games.

And I know, while thus the quiet-color'd eve
Smiles to leave

To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,

And the slopes and rills in undistinguish'd gray
Melt away-

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there

In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,

When the king look'd, where she looks now, breathless, dumb Till I come.

But he look'd upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,

All the mountains topp'd with temples, all the glades'

Colonnades,

All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, and then,

All the men!

When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand

On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace

Of my face,

Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.

In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,

And they built their gods a brazen pillar high

As the sky,

Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force

Gold, of course.

Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns

For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!

Shut them in,

With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!

Love is best.

Robert Browning

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD

Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge
That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning