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Robert Browning - Fears And Scruples
Work rating: Low

Here`s my case. Of old I used to love him.
  This same unseen friend, before I knew:
Dream there was none like him, none above him,--
  Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.

Loved I not his letters  full of beauty?                                      
  Not his actions famous far and wide?
Absent, he would know I vowed him duty,
  Present, he would find me at his side.

Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters,
  Only knew of actions by hearsay:                                           
He himself was busied with my betters;
  What of that? My turn must come some day.

"Some day" proving--no day! Here`s the puzzle.
  Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain?
He`s so busied! If I could but muzzle
  People`s foolish mouths that give me pain!

"Letters?" (hear them!) "You a judge of writing?
  Ask the experts!--How they shake the head
O`er these characters, your friend`s inditing--
  Call them forgery from A to Z !                                            

"Actions? Where`s your certain proof" (they bother)
  "He, of all you find so great and good,
He, he only, claims this, that, the other
  Action--claimed by men, a multitude?"

I can simply wish I might refute you,
  Wish my friend would,--by a word, a wink,--
Bid me stop that foolish mouth,--you brute you!
  He keeps absent,--why, I cannot think.

Never mind! Tho` foolishness may flout me.
  One thing`s sure enough; `tis neither frost,                               
No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me
  Thanks for truth--tho` falsehood, gained--tho` lost.

All my days, I`ll go the softlier, sadlier,
  For that dream`s sake! How forget the thrill
Thro` and thro` me as I thought, "The gladlier
  Lives my friend because I love him still!"

Ah, but there`s a menace some one utters!
  "What and if your friend at home play tricks?
Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters?
  Mean your eyes should pierce thro` solid bricks?                           

`What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy?
  Lay on you the blame that bricks--conceal?
Say `_At least I saw who did not see me,
  Does see now, and presently shall feel_`?"

"Why, that makes your friend a monster!" say you;
  "Had his house no window? At first nod,
Would you not have hailed him?" Hush, I pray you!
  What if this friend happen to be--God?
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