Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert BrowningBrowning, Robert
General
Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning
Browning, Robert
Drama; English poetry; Poetry -- Collections
313-335. In this stanza David represents all existences, good and evil
spirits, all animals, all forms of nature, as stirred by the great news
of the future manifestation of the love of God as shown in Christ.
MY STAR
A love lyric generally supposed to refer to Mrs. Browning.
4. _The angled spar._ A prism. In looking at a prism the colors one sees
are determined by the point of view. The idea of the poem is amplified
in "One Word More," stanzas xvi-xviii.
TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA
The Campagna, a plain around the city of Rome, was in ancient times the
seat of many cities; it is now dotted with ruins. "There is a solemnity
and beauty about the Campagna entirely its own. To the reflective mind,
this ghost of old Rome is full of suggestion; its vast, almost limitless
extent as it seems to the traveler; its abundant herbage and floral
wealth in early spring; its desolation, its crumbling monuments, and its
evidences of a vanished civilization, fill the mind with a sweet
sadness, which readily awakens the longing for the infinite spoken of in
the poem." (Berdoe, _Browning Cyclopaedia_, p. 553.)
6. _I touched a thought._ The elusive thought which he fancifully
pursues from point to point in the surrounding landscape finds statement
in lines 34-60. Of these lines Sharp (_Life of Browning_, p. 159) says,
"There is a gulf which not the profoundest search can fathom, which not
the strongest-winged love can overreach: the gulf of individuality. It
is those who have loved most deeply who recognize most acutely this
always pathetic and often terrifying isolation of the soul. None save
the weak can believe in the absolute union of two spirits ... No man, no
poet assuredly, could love as Browning loved, and fail to be aware,
often with vague anger and bitterness, no doubt, of this insuperable
isolation even when spirit seemed to leap to spirit, in the touch of a
kiss, in the evanishing sigh of some one or other exquisite moment."
IN THREE DAYS
"Another poem of waiting love is 'In Three Days.' And this has the
spirit of a true love lyric in it. It reads like a personal thing; it
breathes exaltation; it is quick, hurried, and thrilled. The delicate
fears of chance and changes in the three days, or in the years to come,
belong of right and nature to the waiting, and are subtly varied and
condensed. It is, however, the thoughtful love of a man who can be
metaphysical in love." (Stopford Brooke, _The Poetry of Robert
Browning_, p. 253.)
THE GUARDIAN ANGEL
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account