Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Memorabilia
1 Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
2 And did he stop and speak to you?
3And did you speak to him again?
4 How strange it seems, and new!
5 But you were living before that,
6 And you are living after,
7And the memory I started at--
8 My starting moves your laughter!
9 I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
10 And a certain use in the world no doubt,
11Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
12 'Mid the blank miles round about:
13 For there I picked up on the heather
14 And there I put inside my breast
15A moulted feather, an eagle-feather--
16 Well, I forget the rest.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Robert Browning, Men and Women, 2 vols. (1855.) Rev. 1863.
First publication date:
1855
RPO poem editor: J. D. Robins
RP edition: 2RP 2.439.
Recent editing: 2:2001/12/13
Rhyme: abab
Other poems by Robert Browning
