Song

By Robert Browning 1812–1889 Robert Browning

Nay but you, who do not love her,

Is she not pure gold, my mistress?

Holds earth aught—speak truth—above her?

Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,

And this last fairest tress of all,

So fair, see, ere I let it fall?

Because, you spend your lives in praising;

To praise, you search the wide world over:

Then why not witness, calmly gazing,

If earth holds aught—speak truth—above her?

Above this tress, and this, I touch

But cannot praise, I love so much!

Biography

Although the early part of Robert Browning’s creative life was spent in comparative obscurity, he has come to be regarded as one of the most important poets of the Victorian period. His dramatic monologues and the psycho-historical epic The Ring and the Book (1868-1869), a novel in verse, have established him as a major figure in the history of English poetry. His claim to attention as a children’s writer is more modest, resting . . .

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