The Pied Piper of Hamelin / Robert Browning

I.

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.

The Flight of the Duchess / Robert Browning

I

You're my friend:

I was the man the Duke spoke to;

I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;

So here's the tale from beginning to end,

My friend!

Songs From Pippa Passes / Robert Browning

Day!

Faster and more fast,

O'er night's brim, day boils at last:

Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.

Where spurting and suppressed it lay,

For not a froth-flake touched the rim

Of yonder gap in the solid gray

Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;

Rabbi Ben Ezra / Robert Browning

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith, 'A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be

afraid!'

Porphyria's Lover / Robert Browning

The rain set early in to-night,

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

And did its worst to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

My Last Duchess / Robert Browning

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Love Among the Ruins / Robert Browning

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles

Miles and miles

On the solitary pastures where our sheep

Half-asleep

Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop

As they crop--

Was the site once of a city great and gay,

(So they say)

In A Gondola / Robert Browning

He sings.

I send my heart up to thee, all my heart

In this my singing.

For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;

The very night is clinging

Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space

Above me, whence thy face

May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.

How They Brought the Good News From Ghent to Aix / Robert Browning

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;

"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Christmas Eve / Robert Browning

I

Out of the little chapel I burst

Into the fresh night-air again.

Five minutes full, I waited first

In the doorway, to escape the rain

That drove in gusts down the common's centre

At the edge of which the chapel stands,

Before I plucked up heart to enter.

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came / Robert Browning

I

My first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

Askance to watch the working of his lie

On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford

Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored

Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

A Grammarian's Funeral / Robert Browning

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,

Singing together.

Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes

Each in its tether

Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,

Cared-for till cock-crow:

Look out if yonder be not day again

Rimming the rock-row!

A Death in the Desert / Robert Browning

[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene:

It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth,

Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek,

And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu:

Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest,

Stained and conserved with juice of terebinth,

Covered with cloth of hair, and lettered Xi,

From Xanthus, my wife’s uncle, now at peace:

Mu and Epsilon stand for my own name.

I may not write it, but I make a cross

To show I wait His coming, with the rest,

And leave off here: beginneth Pamphylax.]