Robert Browning Quotes - Page 10

Since there my past life lies, why alter it?

The past is gained, secure, and on record.

Every one soon or late comes round by Rome.

Truth is truth howe'er it strike.

Silence 'tis awe decrees.

Death: the grand perhaps.

Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph?

'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls.

Who knows but the world may end tonight

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!

In heaven I yearn for knowledge, account all else inanity; On earth I confess an itch for the praise of fools - that's vanity

Unless you can love, as the angels may, With the breadth of heaven betwixt you; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behoving and unbeloving; Unless you can die when the dream is past- Oh, never call it loving!

That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good: I found A thing to do, and all her hair In one long yellow string I wound Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain. As a shut bud that holds a bee, I warily oped her lids: again Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. And I untightened the next tress About her neck; her cheek once more Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss . . .

How well I know what I mean to do When the long dark Autumn evenings come, And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue? With the music of all thy voices, dumb In life’s November too! I shall be found by the fire, suppose, O’er a great wise book as beseemeth age, While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows, And I turn the page, and I turn the page, Not verse now, only prose!

Over my head his arm he flung, Against the world.

O never star Was lost; here We all aspire to heaven and there is heaven Above us. If I stoop Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time; I press God's lamp Close to my breast; its splendor soon or late Will pierce the gloom. I shall emerge some day.

One and all We lend an ear-nay, Science takes thereto- Encourages the meanest who has racked Nature until he gains from her some fact, To state what truth is from his point of view, Mere pin-point though it be: since many such Conduce to make a whole, she bids our friend Come forward unabashed and haply lend His little life-experience to our much Of modern knowledge.

The rain set early in tonight, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its best to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up and all the cottage warm.

God smiles as He has always smiled; Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled The Heavens, God thought on me His child; Ordained a life for me, arrayed Its circumstances, every one To the minutest; ay, God said This head this hand should rest upon Thus, ere He fashioned star or sun.

Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven.

I write from a thorough conviction that it is the duty of me, and with the belief that, after every drawback and shortcoming, I do my best, all things considered--that is for me, and, so being, the not being listened to by one human creature would, I hope, in nowise affect me.

Go in thy native innocence, rely On what thou hast of virtue, summon all, For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine.

I dare not so honor my mere wishes and prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but this know, I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two.

I hear you reproach, "But delay was best, For their end was a crime." Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test As a virtue golden through and through, Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view! . . . . . . Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will! The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin; And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is-the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.

'Tis only when they spring to Heaven that angels reveal themselves to you.