Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) by Robert Browning Read Free Book Online Page A

in:
    [40]You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.
    By-and-by there’s the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth;
    Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
    At the post-office such a scene-picture – the new play, piping hot!
    And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.
    Above it, behold the Archbishop’s most fatherly of rebukes,
    And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke’s!
    Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so
    Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome and Cicero,
    ‘And moreover,’ (the sonnet goes rhyming,) ‘the skirts of Saint Paul has reached,
    [50] Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached.’
    Noon strikes, – here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart
    With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart!
    Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife;
    No keeping one’s haunches still: it’s the greatest pleasure in life.
    X
    But bless you, it’s dear – it’s dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate.
    They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate
    It’s a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!
    Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still – ah, the pity, the pity!
    Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals,
    [60] And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles;
    One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,
    And the Duke’s guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals:
    Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife.
    Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!

Fra Lippo Lippi
    I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
    You need not clap your torches to my face.
    Zooks, what’s to blame? you think you see a monk!
    What, ’tis past midnight, and you go the rounds,
    And here you catch me at an alley’s end
    Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?
    The Carmine’s my cloister: hunt it up,
    Do, – harry out, if you must show your zeal,
    Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole,
    [10] And nip each softling of a wee white mouse,
    Weke, weke , that’s crept to keep him company!
    Aha, you know your betters! Then, you’ll take
    Your hand away that’s fiddling on my throat,
    And please to know me likewise. Who am I?
    Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend
    Three streets off – he’s a certain … how d’ye call?
    Master – a … Cosimo of the Medici,
    I’ the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best!
    Remember and tell me, the day you’re hanged,
    [20] How you affected such a gullet’s-gripe!
    But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves
    Pick up a manner nor discredit you:
    Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets
    And count fair prize what comes into their net?
    He’s Judas to a tittle, that man is!
    Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends.
    Lord, I’m not angry! Bid your hangdogs go
    Drink out this quarter-florin to the health
    Of the munificent House that harbours me
    [30] (And many more beside, lads! more beside!)
    And all’s come square again. I’d like his face –
    His, elbowing on his comrade in the door
    With the pike and lantern, – for the slave that holds
    John Baptist’s head a-dangle by the hair
    With one hand (‘Look you, now,’ as who should say)
    And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped!
    It’s not your chance to have a bit of chalk,
    A wood-coal or the like? or you should see!
    Yes, I’m the painter, since you style me so.
    [40] What, brother Lippo’s doings, up and down,
    You know them and they take you? like enough!
    I saw the proper twinkle in your eye –
    ’Tell you, I liked your looks at very first.
    Let’s sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch.
    Here’s spring come, and the nights one makes up bands
    To roam the