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Robert Browning - Love Among The RuinsRobert Browning - Love Among The Ruins
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I. Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,    Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep    Half-asleep Tinkle homeward thro` the twilight, stray or stop    As they crop—- Was the site once of a city great and gay,    (So they say) Of our country`s very capital, its prince    Ages since Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far    Peace or war. II. Now,—-the country does not even boast a tree,    As you see, To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills    From the hills Intersect and give a name to, (else they run    Into one) Where the domed and daring palace shot its  spires    Up like fires O`er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall    Bounding all, Made of marble, men might march on nor be  pressed,    Twelve abreast. III. And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass    Never was! Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o`erspreads    And embeds Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,    Stock or stone—- Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe    Long ago; Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame    Struck them tame; And that glory and that shame alike, the gold    Bought and sold. IV. Now,—-the single little turret that remains    On the plains, By the caper overrooted, by the gourd    Overscored, While the patching houseleek`s head of blossom winks    Through the chinks—- Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time    Sprang sublime, And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced    As they raced, And the monarch and his minions and his  dames    Viewed the games. V. And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve    Smiles to leave To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece    In such peace, And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey    Melt away—- That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair    Waits me there In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul    For the goal, When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb    Till I come. VI. But he looked upon the city, every side,    Far and wide, All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades`    Colonnades, All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,—-and then,    All the men! When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,    Either hand On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace    Of my face, Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and  speech    Each on each. VII. In one year they sent a million fighters forth    South and North, And they built their gods a brazen pillar high    As the sky, Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force—-    Gold, of course. Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!    Earth`s returns For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!    Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!    Love is best.
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