Poem by Robert Browning

After

Take the cloak from his face, and at first
Let the corpse do its worst!

How he lies in his rights of a man!
Death has done all death can.
And, absorbed in the new life he leads,
He recks not, he heeds
Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike
On his senses alike,
And are lost in the solemn and strange
Surprise of the change.
Ha, what avails death to erase
His offence, my disgrace?
I would we were boys as of old
In the field, by the fold:
His outrage, God's patience, man's scorn
Were so easily borne!

I stand here now, he lies in his place:
Cover the face! 

1. Up at a Villa-Down in the City
2. Earth's Immortalities
3. Protus
4. Cleon
5. Home-Thoughts, from the Sea

Lizette Reese After ("OH, the littles that remain!")

Print

1616 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version