Rhyme for a Child Viewing a Naked Venus in a Painting of “The Judgement of Paris” He gazed and gazed and gazed and gazed, Amazed, amazed, amazed, am… - Robert Browning

How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark Autumn evenings come,
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In life’s November too!

I shall be found by the fire, suppose,
O’er a great wise book as beseemeth age,
While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows,
And I turn the page, and I turn the page,
Not verse now, only prose!

I was ever a fighter, so — -one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore, and bade me creep past.

What a name! Was it love or praise?
Speech half-asleep or song half-awake?
I must learn Spanish, one of these days,
Only for that slow sweet name's sake.