debated what to do. 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 40
Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain.
1. One of a pair of monologues originally published as 'Madhouse Cells.' a title that emphasized the speakers abnormal state of mind.
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SOLILOQU Y O F TH E SPANIS H CLOISTE R / 125 3 As a shut bud that holds a bee, I warily oped her lids: again 45 Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. And I untightened next the tress About her neck; her cheek once more Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss: I propped her head up as before, 50 Only, this time my shoulder bore Her head, which droops upon it still: The smiling rosy little head, So glad it has its utmost will, That all it scorned at once is fled, 55 And I, its love, am gained instead! Porphyria's love: she guessed not how Her darling one wish would be heard. And thus we sit together now, And all night long we have not stirred, 60 And yet God has not said a word! 183 4 1836,184 2
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
i Gr-r-r?there go, my heart's abhorrence! Water your damned flowerpots, do! If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God's blood,1 would not mine kill you! 5 What? your myrtle bush wants trimming? Oh, that rose has prior claims? Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? Hell dry you up with its flames!
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At the meal we sit together: io Salve tibi!2 I must hear Wise talk of the kind of weather, Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork crop: scarcely Dare we hope oak-galls,3 I doubt: 15 What 's the Latin name for 'parsley'?
What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout?4
3
Whew! We'll have our platter burnished, Laid with care on our own shelf! With a fire-new spoon we're furnished, 20
And a goblet for ourself,
1. An oath (archaic). 3. Abnormal outgrowths on oak trees, used for 2. Hail to thee! (Latin); i.e., 'your health!' This tanning. and other speeches in italics in this stanza are the 4. Dandelion (19th-century use), words of Brother Lawrence.
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125 4 / ROBERT BROWNING
Rinsed like something sacrificial Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps0 jaws Marked with L. for our initial! (He-he! There his lily snaps!) 4 25 Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores Squats outside the Convent bank With Sanchicha, telling stories, Steeping tresses in the tank, Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, 30 ?Can't I see his dead eye glow, Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?5 (That is, if he'd let it show!) 5 When he finishes refection,0 dinner Knife and fork he never lays 35 Cross-wise, to my recollection, As do I, in Jesu's praise. I the Trinity illustrate, Drinking watered orange pulp? In three sips the Arian6 frustrate; 40 While he drains his at one gulp. 6 Oh, those melons? If he's able We're to have a feast! so nice! One goes to the Abbot's table, All of us get each a slice. 45 How go on your flowers? None double? Not one fruit-sort can you spy? Strange!?And I, too, at such trouble, Keep them close-nipped on the sly! 7 There's a great text in Galatians,7 so Once you trip on it, entails Twenty-nine distinct damnations, One sure, if another fails: If I trip him just a-dying, Sure of heaven as sure can be, 55 Spin him round and send him flying Off to hell, a Manichee?8 8 Or, my scrofulous French novel On gray paper with blunt type!
5. Pirate of the Barbary Coast of northern Africa, renowned for fierceness and lechery. 6. Heretical follower of Arius (256?336), who denied the doctrine of the Trinity. 7. The speaker hopes to obtain Lawrence's damnation by luring him into a heresy when he may prove unable to interpret 'Galatians' in an unswervingly orthodox way. In Galatians 5.15?23 St. Paul specifies an assortment of 'works of the flesh' that lead to damnation, which could make up a total of 'twenty-nine' (line 51).
8. A heretic, a follower of Mani (3rd century), Persian religious leader.
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M Y LAS T DUCHES S / 125 5 60Simply glance at it, you grovel Hand and foot in Belial's0 gripe: If I double down its pages At the woeful sixteenth print, When he gathers his greengages, Ope a sieve and slip it in't? the devil's 659 Or, there's Satan!?one might venture Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave Such a flaw in the indenture 70As he'd miss till, past retrieve, Blasted lay that rose-acacia9 We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine' 'St, there's Vespers!2 Plena gratia. Ave, Virgo!3 Gr-r-r?you swine! ca. 1839 1842 My Last Duchess' Ferrara 5iois20That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's2 hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said 'Fra Pandolf' by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say 'Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much,' or 'Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat': such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
9. The speaker would pledge his own soul to Satan in return for blasting Lawrence and his 'roseacacia,' but the pledge would be so cleverly worded that the speaker would not have to pay his debt to Satan. There would be an escape clause ('flaw in the indenture') for himself. 1. Perhaps the opening of a mysterious curse against Lawrence. 2. Evening prayers. 3. Full of grace, Hail, Virgin! (Latin). The speaker's twisted state of mind may he reflected in his mixed-up version of the prayer to Mary: 'Ave, Maria, gratia plena.'
1. The poem is based on incidents in the life of Alfonso II. Duke of Ferrara in Italy, whose first wife, Lucrezia, a young woman, died in 1561 after three years of marriage. Following her death, the duke negotiated through an agent to marry a niece of the Count of Tyrol. Browning represents the duke as addressing this agent. 2. Friar Pandolf, an imaginary painter.
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