Robert Browning poem

Righteous JammerRighteous Jammer Posts: 509
Robert Browning

Meeting at Night


1

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.

2

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!
It doesnt hurt.... when I bleed
but memories...they eat me
I've seen it all before,...
bring it on cause I'm no victim.
-Ghost
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • ISNISN Posts: 1,700
    Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning eloped as far as I know.....there's quite a few literary and artistic marriages.....George Eliot....and her husband......Frieda Kahlo and fukked if I can remember.....what I'm trying to say is that it's quite common for couples to get together because of art.....can we have an edit button....so that when I remember who 'fukked if I can remember is' is.....I can edit it and put in his name......has anyone tried writing to kat/sea......I might pm them......this is so fuggin mad.......I like Robert Browning.....after all I studied him......
    ....they're asking me to prove why I should be allowed to stay with my baby in Australia, because I'm mentally ill......and they think I should leave......
  • ISNISN Posts: 1,700
    okay, I just sent a pm to Kat/Sea.....write to them and ask them for the edit function back.....otherwise it's all useless....!!!!!
    ....they're asking me to prove why I should be allowed to stay with my baby in Australia, because I'm mentally ill......and they think I should leave......
  • pearlmuttpearlmutt Posts: 392
    ISN, you are my kind of girl. Please do not edit "fukked if I can remember" I love it.

    And Browning! You studied Browning! Fra Lippi Lippo!! It's the fukking best browning ever.
  • ISNISN Posts: 1,700
    okay, I know this sounds crazy, but when I was in Madrid, shortly after I stopped teaching, I got a job as a lifeguard for private apartment pools....they gave me a mobile so they could contact me, and I went out to the first pool they wanted me to attend.....I got totally lost, and the pool was called the equivalent of the duchy of such and such.....so I kept asking everyone where the duchy was.....and they told me to walk up this long dirt road.....there were rabbits jumping in the fields on either side.....a lady gave me a lift, and dropped me off at the duchy.....turns out the whole area was called the duchy, and they dropped me off at the duke's house.....he had this picture of a beautiful woman behind his front door, and a really tiny pool which I couldn't imagine being the lifeguard for......all I could think of was 'My Last Duchess' - my favourite Browning peom....turns out the pool was in a complex called the duchy of so and so.....so I hopped in his 4WD, adn he gave me a lift there......but I had such fantastical thoughts about him having killed his first wife - he was very handsome (I've got another story about a korean boy called 'handsome').....and he was educated in the UK, so he spoke very good English (with no accent)......
    ....they're asking me to prove why I should be allowed to stay with my baby in Australia, because I'm mentally ill......and they think I should leave......
  • ISNISN Posts: 1,700
    fukked if I can remember = diego rivera
    ....they're asking me to prove why I should be allowed to stay with my baby in Australia, because I'm mentally ill......and they think I should leave......
  • pearlmuttpearlmutt Posts: 392
    Browning was so good at those huge characters; immense characters.

    The duke, I wanted to knock him right down the staircase.

    Fra Lippo, I wanted to crawl out the window with him

    here's my favorite part -- it's long:

    45 Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands
    46 To roam the town and sing out carnival,
    47 And I've been three weeks shut within my mew,
    48 A-painting for the great man, saints and saints
    49 And saints again. I could not paint all night--
    50 Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air.
    51 There came a hurry of feet and little feet,
    52 A sweep of lute strings, laughs, and whifts of song, --
    53 Flower o' the broom,
    54 Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!
    55 Flower o' the quince,
    56 I let Lisa go, and what good is life since?
    57 Flower o' the thyme--and so on. Round they went.
    58 Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter
    59 Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,--three slim shapes,
    60 And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood,
    61 That's all I'm made of! Into shreds it went,
    62 Curtain and counterpane and coverlet,
    63 All the bed-furniture--a dozen knots,
    64 There was a ladder! Down I let myself,
    65 Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped,
    66 And after them. I came up with the fun
    67 Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met,--
    68 Flower o' the rose,
    69 If I've been merry, what matter who knows?
    70 And so as I was stealing back again
    71 To get to bed and have a bit of sleep
    72 Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work
    73 On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast
    74 With his great round stone to subdue the flesh,
    75 You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see!
    76 Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head--
    77 Mine's shaved--a monk, you say--the sting 's in that!
    78 If Master Cosimo announced himself,
    79 Mum's the word naturally; but a monk!
    80 Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now!
    81 I was a baby when my mother died
    82 And father died and left me in the street.
    83 I starved there, God knows how, a year or two
    84 On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks,
    85 Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day,
    86 My stomach being empty as your hat,
    87 The wind doubled me up and down I went.
    88 Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand,
    89 (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew)
    90 And so along the wall, over the bridge,
    91 By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there,
    92 While I stood munching my first bread that month:
    93 "So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father
    94 Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time,--
    95 "To quit this very miserable world?
    96 Will you renounce" . . . "the mouthful of bread?" thought I;
    97 By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me;
    98 I did renounce the world, its pride and greed,
    99 Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house,
    100 Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici
    101 Have given their hearts to--all at eight years old.

    http://faculty.stonehill.edu/geverett/rb/lippo.htm
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