At the feet of the man who sat betwixt : And Mercy!" cried each-" if I tell the truth Of a passage in my youth!" Said This: "Do you mind the morning I met your love with scorning? As the worst of the venom left my lips. I thought, If, despite this lie, he strips The mask from my soul with a kiss-I crawl His slave, soul, body, and all!'” Said that: "We stood to be married; The priest, or some one, tarried; 1 Having been criticised for speaking thus of his own work (as well he might, if he chose), Browning wrote the following lines in an album, for an American girl, at Venice: Thus I wrote in London, musing on my betters. Binding Dante bind up-me! as if true pride Rich-pavilioned, rather, -still the world without, Inside-gold-roofed silk-walled silence round about! Queen it thou on purple,-I, at watch and ward, Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard! So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me! Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we! Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face! God is soul, souls I and thou: with souls should souls have place. Love-making,-how simple a matter! No depths to explore, No heights in a life to ascend! No disbeartening Before, No affrighting Hereafter,-love now will be love evermore. So I felt "To keep silence were folly:" -all language above, I made love. Ask not one least word of praise! Words declare your eyes are bright? What then meant that summer day's Silence spent in one long gaze? Was my silence wrong or right? Words of praise were all to seek! "Why from the world," Ferishtah smiled, "should thanks Go to this work of mine? If worthy praise, Praised let it be and welcome: as verse ranks, So rate my verse: if good therein outweighs Aught faulty judged, judge justly! Justice says: Be just to fact, or blaming or approving: But-generous? No, nor loving! "Loving! what claim to love has work of mine? Concede my life were emptied of its gains To furnish forth and fill work's strict confine, Who works so for the world's sake |