Christmas-eve and Easter-day; A poem
Robert Browning
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, May 11, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 Excerpt: ...gleams made bright the earth an age; "Now, the whole sun's his heritage 1 "Take up thy world, it is allowed, "Thou who hast entered in the cloud!" XXIX. Then I--'Behold, my spirit bleeds, 'Catches no more at broken reeds,--'But lilies flower those reeds above--'I let the world go, and take love! 'Love survives in me, albeit those 'I loved are henceforth masks and shows, 'Not loving men and women: still 'I mind how love repaired all ill, 'Cured wrong, soothed grief, made earth amends 'With parents, brothers, children, friends! 'Some semblance of a woman yet 'With eyes to help me to forget, 'Shall live with me; and I will match 'Departed love with love, attach 'Its fragments to my whole, nor scorn 'The poorest of the grains of corn 'I save from shipwreck on this isle, 'Trusting its barrenness may smile 'With happy foodful green one day, 'More precious for the pains. I pray, 'For love, then, only!' At the word, The Form, I looked to have been stirred With pity and approval, rose O'er me, as when the headsman throws Axe over shoulder to make end--I fell prone, letting Him expend His wrath, while, thus, the inflicting Voice Smote me. "Is this thy final choice? "Love is the best? "lis somewhat late! "And all thou dost enumerate "Of power and beauty in the world, "The mightiness of love was curled "Inextricably round about. "Love lay within it and without, "To clasp thee,--but in vain! Thy soul "Still shrunk from Him who made the whole, "Still set deliberate aside "His love!--Now take love! Well betide "Thy tardy conscience! Haste to take "The show of love for the name's sake, "Remembering every moment Who "Beside creating thee unto "These ends, and these for t...