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Life of Robert Browning by William Sharp
page 23 of 275 (08%)
Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze;
And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven,
Resting upon her eyes and face and hair,
As she awaits the snake on the wet beach,
By the dark rock, and the white wave just breaking
At her feet; quite naked and alone, -- a thing
You doubt not, nor fear for, secure that God
Will come in thunder from the stars to save her."

One of his own early recollections was that of sitting on his father's knees
in the library, and listening with enthralled attention to the Tale of Troy,
with marvellous illustrations among the glowing coals in the fireplace;
with, below all, the vaguely heard accompaniment --
from the neighbouring room where Mrs. Browning sat "in her chief happiness,
her hour of darkness and solitude and music" -- of a wild Gaelic lament,
with its insistent falling cadences. A story concerning
his poetic precocity has been circulated, but is not worth repeating.
Most children love jingling rhymes, and one need not be a born genius
to improvise a rhyming couplet on an occasion.

It is quite certain that in nothing in these early poemicules,
in such at least as have been preserved without the poet's knowledge
and against his will, is there anything of genuine promise.
Hundreds of youngsters have written as good, or better,
Odes to the Moon, Stanzas on a Favourite Canary, Lines on a Butterfly.
What is much more to the point is, that at the age of eight he was able
not only to read, but to take delight in Pope's translation of Homer.
He used to go about declaiming certain couplets with an air
of intense earnestness highly diverting to those who overheard him.

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