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

town and sing out carnival,
    And I’ve been three weeks shut within my mew,
    A-painting for the great man, saints and saints
    And saints again. I could not paint all night –
    [50] Out! I leaned out of window for fresh air.
    There came a hurry of feet and little feet,
    A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song, –
    Flower o’ the broom ,
    Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!
    Flower o’ the quince ,
    I let Lisa go, and what good in life since?
    Flower o’ the thyme – and so on. Round they went.
    Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter
    Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight, – three slim shapes,
    [60] And a face that looked up … zooks, sir, flesh and blood,
    That’s all I’m made of! Into shreds it went,
    Curtain and counterpane and coverlet,
    All the bed-furniture – a dozen knots,
    There was a ladder! Down I let myself,
    Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped,
    And after them. I came up with the fun
    Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met, –
    Flower o’ the rose ,
    If I’ve been merry, what matter who knows?
    [70]And so as I was stealing back again
    To get to bed and have a bit of sleep
    Ere I rise up tomorrow and go work
    On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast
    With his great round stone to subdue the flesh,
    You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see!
    Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head –
    Mine’s shaved – a monk, you say – the sting’s in that!
    If Master Cosimo announced himself,
    Mum’s the word naturally; but a monk!
    [80] Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now!
    I was a baby when my mother died
    And father died and left me in the street.
    I starved there, God knows how, a year or two
    On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks,
    Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day,
    My stomach being empty as your hat,
    The wind doubled me up and down I went.
    Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand,
    (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew)
    [90] And so along the wall, over the bridge,
    By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there,
    While I stood munching my first bread that month:
    ‘So, boy, you’re minded,’ quoth the good fat father
    Wiping his own mouth, ’twas refection-time, –
    ‘To quit this very miserable world?
    Will you renounce’ … ‘the mouthful of bread?’ thought I;
    By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me;
    I did renounce the world, its pride and greed,
    Palace, farm, villa, shop and banking-house,
    [100] Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici
    Have given their hearts to – all at eight years old.
    Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure,
    ’Twas not for nothing – the good bellyful,
    The warm serge and the rope that goes all round,
    And day-long blessed idleness beside!
    ‘Let’s see what the urchin’s fit for’ – that came next.
    Not overmuch their way, I must confess.
    Such a to-do! They tried me with their books:
    Lord, they’d have taught me Latin in pure waste!
    [110] Flower o’ the clove ,
    All the Latin I construe is, ‘amo’ I love!
    But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets
    Eight years together, as my fortune was,
    Watching folk’s faces to know who will fling
    The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires,
    And who will curse or kick him for his pains, –
    Which gentleman processional and fine,
    Holding a candle to the Sacrament,
    Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch
    [120] The droppings of the wax to sell again,
    Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, –
    How say I? – nay, which dog bites, which lets drop
    His bone from the heap of offal in the street, –
    Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike,
    He learns the look of things, and none the less
    For admonition from the hunger-pinch.
    I had a store of such remarks, be sure,
    Which, after I found leisure, turned to use.
    I drew men’s faces on my copy-books,
    [130] Scrawled them within the antiphonary’s marge,
    Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes,
    Found eyes and nose and chin