Remembering Robert Browning on his birthday...Happy 200th Birthday!

 

 The Laboratory by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1849, An illustration to Browning's poem 'The Laboratory', set in the eighteenth-century, this is Rossetti's first work in watercolour. An alchemist seated in his laboratory accepts jewellery from a woman in payment for poison to destroy her rival. The painting illustrates the lines 'In this devil's smithy Where is the poison to poison her prithee?'. . .

 NOW that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze thro' these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy--
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

  

Pippa Passes by Elizabeth Siddal, 1854,  An illustration to Robert Browning's dramatic poem set in the fourteenth century, showing Pippa's encounter with the 'loose women' of the streets gossiping about their clients. . .

   Third Girl.     [To PIPPA who approaches.]
Oh, you may come closer—we shall not eat you! Why, you seem the very person that the great rich handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in love with! I’ll tell you all about it.

  

A long form poem or children's story by Robert Browning...about RATS...this would have scared me silly as a little girl...quite strange...

 Hamelin town’s in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.

 Back to the romance please...yes, that's better!

Summum Bonum 

By Robert Browning

All the breath and the bloom of the year
In the bag of one bee
All the wonder and wealth of the mine
In the heart of one gem
In the core of one pearl all the shade
And the shine of the sea
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, wonder, wealth,
And how far above them
Truth that's brighter than gem
Trust that's purer than pearl,
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe
All were for me
In the kiss of one girl. 

Now

By Robert Browning

 Out of your whole life give but one moment!

All of your life that has gone before,

All to come after it, – so you ignore,

So you make perfect the present, – condense,

In a rapture of rage, for perfection’s endowment,

Thought and feeling and soul and sense –

Merged in a moment which gives me at last

You around me for once, you beneath me, above me –

Me – sure that despite of time future, time past, –

This tick of our life-time’s one moment you love me!

How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet –

The moment eternal – just that and no more –

When ecstasy’s utmost we clutch at the core

While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet! 

Every woman wants to receive a love letter such as this one 

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