Selections from the Poetical Works of Robert Browning: First Series

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Macmillan, 1884 - 288 pages

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Page 214 - FEAR death ? — to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe ; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go...
Page 209 - Sixteen years old when she died ! Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name ; It was not her time to love ; beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little...
Page 201 - There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
Page 278 - Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go ! Be our joys three-parts pain ! Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
Page 273 - Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift? Here, the creature surpass the creator, —the end, what began ? Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man, And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can...
Page 200 - And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.
Page 282 - Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me: we all surmise, They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe? Not on the vulgar mass Called "work...
Page 262 - Oh, our manhood's prime vigour ! no spirit feels waste, Not a muscle is stopped in its playing, nor sinew unbraced. Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock — The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, — the cool silver shock Of the plunge in a pool's living water, — the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.
Page 56 - Then off there flung in smiling joy, And held himself erect By just his horse's mane, a boy: You hardly could suspect — (So tight he kept his lips compressed, Scarce any blood came through) You looked twice ere you saw his breast Was all but shot in two. "Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace We've got you Ratisbon!
Page 277 - 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!

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