Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ASOLANDO: DUBIETY, by ROBERT BROWNING


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ASOLANDO: DUBIETY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I will be happy if but for once
Last Line: Truth ever, truth only the excellent!
Subject(s): Truth


I WILL be happy if but for once:
Only help me, Autumn weather,
Me and my cares to screen, ensconce
In luxury's sofa-lap of leather!

Sleep? Nay, comfort -- with just a cloud
Suffusing day too clear and bright:
Eve's essence, the single drop allowed
To sully, like milk, Noon's water-white.
Let gauziness shade, not shroud, -- adjust,
Dim and not deaden, -- somehow sheathe
Aught sharp in the rough world's busy thrust,
If it reach me through dreaming's vapor-wreath.

Be life so, all things ever the same!
For, what has disarmed the world? Outside,
Quiet and peace: inside, nor blame
Nor want, nor wish whate'er betide.

What is it like that has happened before?
A dream? No dream, more real by much.
A vision? But fanciful days of yore
Brought many: mere musing seems not such.

Perhaps but a memory, after all!
-- Of what came once when a woman leant
To feel for my brow where her kiss might fall.
Truth ever, truth only the excellent!





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