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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A LIKENESS, by ROBERT BROWNING Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Some people hang portraits up Last Line: "a thing of no value! Take it, I supplicate!" Subject(s): Portraits | |||
SOME people hang portraits up In a room where they dine or sup: And the wife clinks tea-things under, And her cousin, he stirs his cup, Asks, "Who was the lady, I wonder?" "'T is a daub John bought at a sale," Quoth the wife, -- looks black as thunder. "What a shade beneath her nose! Snuff-taking, I suppose," -- Adds the cousin, while John's corns ail. Or else, there's no wife in the case, But the portrait's queen of the place, Alone 'mid the other spoils Of youth, -- masks, gloves and foils, And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine, And the long whip, the tandem-lasher, And the cast from a fist ("not, alas! mine, But my master's, the Tipton Slasher"), And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace, And a satin shoe uses for cigar-case, And the chamois-horns ("shot in the Chablais"), And prints -- Rarey drumming on Cruiser, And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser, And the little edition of Rabelais: Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets, May saunter up close to examine it, And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it, "But the eyes are half out of their sockets; That hair's not so bad, where the gloss is, But they've made the girl's nose a proboscis: Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy! What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?" All that I own is a print, An etching, a mezzotint; 'T is a study, a fancy, a fiction, Yet a fact (take my conviction) Because it has more than a hint Of a certain face, I never Saw elsewhere touch or trace of In women I've seen the face of: Just an etching, and, so far, clever. I keep my prints, an imbroglio, Fifty in one portfolio. When somebody tries my claret, We turn round chairs to the fire, Chirp over days in a garret, Chuckle o'er increase of salary, Taste the good fruits of our leisure, Talk about pencil and lyre, And the National Portrait Gallery: Then I exhibit my treasure. After we've turned over twenty, And the debt of wonder my crony owes Is paid to my Marc Antonios, He stops me -- "Festina lente! What's that sweet thing there, the etching?" How my waistcoat-strings want stretching, How my cheeks grow red as tomatoes, How my heart leaps! But hearts, after leaps, ache. "By the by, you must take, for a keepsake, That other, you praised, of Volpato's." The fool! would he try a flight further and say -- He never saw, never before to-day, What was able to take his breath away, A face to lose youth for, to occupy age With the dream of, meet death with, -- why, I'll not engage But that, half in a rapture and half in a rage, I should toss him the thing's self -- "'T is only a duplicate, A thing of no value! Take it, I supplicate!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AQUATINT FRAMED IN GOLD by AMY LOWELL PORTRAIT OF X (III) by THOMAS LUX PORTRAIT OF THE GREAT WHITE HUNTER FOXHUNTING IN THE ABSENCE OF BIG... by CLARENCE MAJOR PORTRAIT OF A MAN by ALICIA SUSKIN OSTRIKER PORTRAITE DE L'ARTISTE by ALICIA SUSKIN OSTRIKER FAMILY PORTRAIT by KENNETH PATCHEN FEMALE PORTRAIT, 19TH CENTURY by TOMAS TRANSTROMER CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME' by ROBERT BROWNING |
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