Robert Browning
I dare not so honor my mere wishes and prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but this know, I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two.Collection: Dog
'Tis well averred, A scientific faith's absurd.Collection: Atheism
Tis Man's to explore up and down, inch by inch, with the taper his reason.Collection: Science
Time'swheelsrunsbackor stops: Potterand clayendure.Collection: Time
The candid incline to surmise of late that the Christian faith proves false.Collection: Christian
But little do or can the best of us: That little is achieved through Liberty.Collection: Liberty
When the liquor's out, why clink the cannikin?Collection: Drinking
I hear you reproach, "But delay was best, For their end was a crime." Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test As a virtue golden through and through, Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view! . . . . . . Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will! The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin; And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is-the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.Collection: Life
The rain set early in tonight, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its best to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up and all the cottage warm.Collection: Rain
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.Collection: Lost Ones
Pippa's Song The year's at the spring The day's at the morn Morning's at seven, The Hill side's dew-pearled The lark's on the wing The snail's on the thorn God's in his heaven- All's right with the worldCollection: Song
Smiling the boy fell dead.Collection: Boys
That we devote ourselves to God, is seen In living just as though no God there were.Collection: Life
I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.Collection: Faith
Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart.Collection: Strength
Into the street the piper stepped, Smiling first a little smile As if he knew what magic slept In his quiet pipe the while. And the piper advanced And the children followed.Collection: Children
The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung To their first fault, and withered in their pride.Collection: Pride
Stand still, true poet that you are! I know you; let me try and draw you. Some night you'll fail us: when afar You rise, remember one man saw you, Knew you, and named a star!Collection: Stars
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was of us, Burns, Shelley, were with us. They watch from their graves!Collection: Inspiration
The body sprang At once to the height, and stayed; but the soul,-no!Collection: Soul
How very hard it is to be a Christian!Collection: Christian
The great beacon light God sets in all, the conscience of each bosom.Collection: Light
For thence a paradox Which comforts while it mocks, - Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.Collection: Comfort
When a man's busy, why leisure Strikes him as wonderful pleasure: 'Faith, and at leisure once is he? Straightway he wants to be busy.Collection: Men
Death was past, life not come: so he waited.Collection: Life
I say, the acknowledgment of God in ChristAccepted by thy reason, solves for theeAll questions in the earth and out of it,And has so far advanced thee to be wise.Collection: Wise
Twere too absurd to slight For the hereafter the todays delight!Collection: Delight
It's wiser being good than bad; It's safer being meek than fierce: It's fitter being sane than mad.Collection: Evil
Genius has somewhat of the infantine; but of the childish not a touch or taint.Collection: Genius
The best way to excape his ire Is, not to seem too happy.Collection: Happiness
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end, And the elements' rage, the fiend voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest!Collection: Pain
Lose who may-I still can say, Those who win heaven, blest are they!Collection: Winning
What joy is better than the news of friends?Collection: Friendship
Let friend trust friends, and love demand love's like.Collection: Friendship
Women hate a debt as men a gift.Collection: Hate
A man in armor is his armor's slave.Collection: Men
Fair or foul the lot apportioned life on earth, we bear alike.Collection: Fate
All we have gained then by our unbelief Is a life of doubt diversified by faith, For one of faith diversified by doubt: We called the chess-board white-we call it black.Collection: Life
O woman-country! wooed not wed, Loved all the more by earth's male-lands, Laid to their hearts instead.Collection: Country
What's come to perfection perishes. Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven; Works done least rapidly Art most cherishes.Collection: Art
I do what many dream of, all their livesCollection: Dream
Praise is deeper than the lipsCollection: Lips
Would you have your songs endure? Build on the human heart.Collection: Song
For I say this is death and the sole death,- When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, And lack of love from love made manifest.Collection: Love
Oh never star Was lost here but it rose afar.Collection: Stars
A man in armour is his armour's slave.Collection: Men