Robert Browning: How to Know Him by William Lyon Phelps
page 24 of 384 (06%)
page 24 of 384 (06%)
|
Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence:
Pray you, look on these my men and women, Take and keep my fifty poems finished; Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also! Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things. XV Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self! Here in London, yonder late in Florence, Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. Curving on a sky imbrued with colour, Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth. Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, Perfect till the nightingales applauded. Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished, Hard to greet, she traverses the houseroofs, Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish. XVI What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos) |
|