greykit.poetry — Robert Browning
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1864
[robert-browning]
Prospice
Written after his wife's death: no wish for the bandage or the creeping past — he would fare like his peers, take the last worst of it fighting, and have the black minute end in her breast, and peace out of pain.
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1845
[robert-browning]
Home-Thoughts, from Abroad
An exile's longing for an English April — the elm-tree bole in tiny leaf, the chaffinch on the orchard bough, the wise thrush singing each song twice over, the first fine careless rapture.
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1845
[robert-browning]
Meeting at Night
Grey sea, long black land, a boat pushed into slushy sand, three fields crossed to a farm — and the whole approach discharged in a tap at the pane, a scratched match, and two hearts beating each to each.
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1842
[robert-browning]
My Last Duchess
A Duke of Ferrara shows an envoy a portrait of his late wife, revealing through oblique self-justification that he had her killed for being too easily pleased by anyone — then turns the conversation to the terms of his next marriage.
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1842
[robert-browning]
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A child's story — the Pied Piper clears Hamelin of its rats for a thousand guilders, the Mayor refuses to pay, and the Piper leads all the town's children away through a mountain door that closes behind them forever.
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1836
[robert-browning]
Porphyria's Lover
A lover tells how Porphyria came in from the storm, laid her hair on his cheek and whispered she loved him — and he strangled her with it, to hold that perfect moment forever; all night they sat, and yet God has not said a word.