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God Smiles As He Has Always Smiled; Ere Suns And Moons Could Wax And Wane, Ere Stars Were Thundergirt, Or Piled The Heavens, God Thought On Me His Child; Ordained A Life For Me, Arrayed Its Circumstances, Every One To The Minutest; Ay, God Said This Head This Hand Should Rest Upon Thus, Ere He Fashioned Star Or Sun.

-Robert Browning

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God Smiles As He

Robert Browning

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God Smiles As He Has Always Smiled; Ere Suns And Moons Could Wax And Wane, Ere Stars Were Thundergirt, Or Piled The Heavens, God Thought On Me His Child; Ordained A Life For Me, Arrayed Its Circumstances, Every One To The Minutest; Ay, God Said This Head This Hand Should Rest Upon Thus, Ere He Fashioned Star Or Sun.

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Of Power Does Man Possess No Particle: Of Knowledge-just So Much As Show That Still It Ends In Ignorance On Every Side.

All Service Is The Same With God.

Over My Head His Arm He Flung, Against The World.

Ever Judge Of Men By Their Professions. For Though The Bright Moment Of Promising Is But A Moment, And Cannot Be Prolonged, Yet If Sincere In Its Moment's Extravagant Goodness, Why, Trust It, And Know The Man By It, I Say,- Not By His Performance; Which Is Half The World's Work, Interfere As The World Needs Must With Its Accidents And Circumstances: The Profession Was Purely The Man's Own. I Judge People By What They Might Be,- Not Are, Nor Will Be.

Be Sure That God Ne'er Dooms To Waste The Strength He Deigns Impart.

Open My Heart, And You Will See Graved Inside Of It ‘italy.'

Death Was Past, Life Not Come: So He Waited.

Be Sure They Sleep Not Whom God Needs.

How Sad And Bad And Mad It Was - But Then, How It Was Sweet

The Only Fault's With Time; All Men Become Good Creatures: But So Slow!

The Common Problem, Yours, Mine, Everyone's Is ? Not To Fancy What Were Fair In Life Provided It Could Be ? But, Finding First What May Be, Then Find How To Make It Fair Up To Our Means.

The Best Things In Life Can Never Be Kept; They Must Be Given Away. A Smile, A Kiss, And Love If You Are Asking If I'd Hurt You, The Answer Is Never. If You Are Asking If I Love U,the Answer Is Forever. If You Are Asking If I Want U,the Answer Is I Do. If You Are Asking What I Value Most, The Answer Is You Grow Old Along With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be.

God Is In His Heaven, All's Right With The World.

Fair Or Foul The Lot Apportioned Life On Earth, We Bear Alike.

Who Knows Most, Doubts Most; Entertaining Hope Means Recognizing Fear.

I Show You Doubt, To Prove That Faith Exists.

I, Painting From Myself And To Myself, Know What I Do, Am Unmoved By Men's Blame Or Their Praise Either.

Once More On My Adventure Brave And New.

A People Is But The Attempt Of Many To Rise To The Completer Life Of One; And Those Who Live As Models For The Mass Are Singly Of More Value Than They All.

A Pretty Woman's Worth Some Pains To See.

Each Life Unfulfilled, You See; It Hangs Still, Patchy And Scrappy: We Have Not Sighed Deep, Laughed Free, Starved, Feasted, Despaired,—been Happy.

The Body Sprang At Once To The Height, And Stayed; But The Soul,-no!

Motherhood: All Love Begins And Ends There.

I Do What Many Dream Of, All Their Lives

It's Like Those Eerie Stories Nurses Tell, Of How Some Actor On A Stage Played Death, With Pasteboard Crown, Sham Orb And Tinselled Dart, And Called Himself The Monarch Of The World; Then, Going In The Tire-room Afterward, Because The Play Was Done, To Shift Himself, Got Touched Upon The Sleeve Familiarly, The Moment He Had Shut The Closet Door, By Death Himself. Thus God Might Touch A Pope At Unawares, Ask What His Baubles Mean, And Whose Part He Presumed To Play Just Now. Best Be Yourself, Imperial, Plain And True!

Sorrow, The Heart Must Bear, Sits In The Home Of Each, Conspicuous There. Many A Circumstance, At Least, Touches The Very Breast. For Those Whom Any Sent Away,--he Knows: And In The Live Man's Stead, Armor And Ashes Reach The House Of Each.

Ignorance Is Not Innocence But Sin.

Purity And Innocence

As If True Pride Were Not Also Humble!

I Judge People By What They Might Be, - Not Are, Nor Will Be.

The Candid Incline To Surmise Of Late That The Christian Faith Proves False.

Out Of Your Whole Life Give But A Moment! All Of Your Life That Has Gone Before, All To Come After It, -so You Ignore, So You Make Perfect The Present, Condense, In A Rapture Of Rage, For Perfection's Endowment, Thought And Feeling And Soul And Sense.

One And All We Lend An Ear-nay, Science Takes Thereto- Encourages The Meanest Who Has Racked Nature Until He Gains From Her Some Fact, To State What Truth Is From His Point Of View, Mere Pin-point Though It Be: Since Many Such Conduce To Make A Whole, She Bids Our Friend Come Forward Unabashed And Haply Lend His Little Life-experience To Our Much Of Modern Knowledge.

When Pain Ends, Gain Ends Too.

And Inasmuch As Feeling, The East's Gift, Is Quick And Transient,- Comes, And Lo! Is Gone, While Northern Thought Is Slow And Durable.

When Is Man Strong Until He Feels Alone?

'tis Only When They Spring To Heaven That Angels Reveal Themselves To You.

Is Your Love For The Lord Sufficient To Give All Your Time And Talents To His Work?

All Poetry Is Difficult To Read - The Sense Of It Anyhow.

Oh, Good Gigantic Smile O' The Brown Old Earth, This Autumn Morning! How He Sets His Bones To Bask I' The Sun, And Thrusts Out Knees And Feet. From The Ripple To Run Over In Its Mirth

O Lyric Love, Half Angel And Half Bird. And All A Wonder And A Wild Desire.

But There Are Times When Patience Proves At Fault.

We Mortals Cross The Ocean Of This World Each In His Average Cabin Of A Life; The Bests Not Big, The Worst Yields Elbowroom.

Are There Not, Dear Michael, Two Points In The Adventure Of The Diver,- One, When A Beggar He Prepares To Plunge; One, When A Prince He Rises With His Pearl? Festus, I Plunge.

God Is Seen God In The Star, In The Stone, In The Flesh, In The Soul And The Clod.

Hatred And Cark And Care, What Place Have They / In Yon Blue Liberality Of Heaven?.

Such Ever Was Love's Way: To Rise, It Stoops.

The Lie Was Dead And Damned, And Truth Stood Up Instead.

All's Love, Yet All's Law.

Silence 'tis Awe Decrees.

I Count Life Just A Stuff To Try The Soul's Strength On.

Genius Has Somewhat Of The Infantine; But Of The Childish Not A Touch Or Taint.

Wander At Will, Day After Day,-- Wander Away, Wandering Still-- Soul That Canst Soar! Body May Slumber: Body Shall Cumber Soul-flight No More.

He Who Did Well In War Just Earns The Right, To Begin Doing Well In Peace.

God Is The Perfect Poet.

What's The Earth With All Its Art, Verse, Music, Worth — Compared With Love, Found, Gained, And Kept?

Wedding Anniversary

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.

Look Not Down But Up!

I Am Grown Peaceful As Old Age Tonight.

One May Do Whatever One Likes. In Art, The Only Thing Is, To Make Sure That One Does Like It.

Any Nose May Ravage With Impunity A Rose.

How Good Is Life, The Mere Living!

A Minute's Success Pays The Failure Of Years.

Ambition Is Not What Man Does... But What Man Would Do.

Aspire, Break Bounds. Endeavor To Be Good, And Better Still, Best.

Better Have Failed In The High Aim, As I, Than Vulgarly In The Low Aim Succeed As, God Be Thanked! I Do Not.

For The Preacher's Merit Or Demerit, It Were To Be Wished That The Flaws Were Fewer In The Earthen Vessel, Holding Treasure, But The Main Thing Is, Does It Hold Good Measure Heaven Soon Sets Right All Other Matters!

There Is An Inmost Center In Us All, Where Truth Abides In Fullness;....and, To Know, Rather Consists In Opening Out A Way Where The Imprisoned Splendor May Escape, Then In Effecting Entry For A Light Supposed To Be Without.

Graved Inside Of It, "italy".

I Write From A Thorough Conviction That It Is The Duty Of Me, And With The Belief That, After Every Drawback And Shortcoming, I Do My Best, All Things Considered--that Is For Me, And, So Being, The Not Being Listened To By One Human Creature Would, I Hope, In Nowise Affect Me.

You Should Not Take A Fellow Eight Years Old And Make Him Swear To Never Kiss The Girls.

In The Morning Of The World, When Earth Was Nigher Heaven Than Now.

And Gain Is Gain, However Small.

Art Remains The One Way Possible Of Speaking Truth.

Who Knows But The World May End Tonight

Boot, Saddle, To Horse, And Away!

But Facts Are Facts And Flinch Not.

One Who Never Turned His Back But Marched Breast Forward, Never Doubted Clouds Would Break, Never Dreamed, Though Right Were Worsted, Wrong Would Triumph, Held We Fall To Rise, Are Baffled To Fight Better, Sleep To Wake.

Escape Me? Never, Beloved! While I Am I, And You Are You.

O Never Star Was Lost; Here We All Aspire To Heaven And There Is Heaven Above Us. If I Stoop Into A Dark Tremendous Sea Of Cloud, It Is But For A Time; I Press God's Lamp Close To My Breast; Its Splendor Soon Or Late Will Pierce The Gloom. I Shall Emerge Some Day.

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.

And Let Them Pass, As They Will Too Soon, With The Bean-flowers' Boon, And The Blackbird's Tune, And May, And June!

Truth Is Within Ourselves; It Takes No Rise From Outward Things, Whate'er You May Believe. There Is An Inmost Centre In Us All, Where Truth Abides In Fulness; And Around, Wall Upon Wall, The Gross Flesh Hems It In, This Perfect, Clear Perception-which Is Truth. A Baffling And Perverting Carnal Mesh Binds It, And Makes All Error: And To Know Rather Consists In Opening Out A Way Whence The Imprisoned Splendour May Escape, Than In Effecting Entry For A Light Supposed To Be Without.

Never The Time And The Place And The Loved One All Together.

Hand Grasps At Hand, Eye Lights Eye In Good Friendship, And Great Hearts Expand And Grow One In The Sense Of This World's Life.

Just For A Handful Of Silver He Left Us, Just For A Riband To Stick In His Coat.

Imperfection Means Perfection Hid.

Thou Art My Single Day, God Lends To Leaven What Were All Earth Else, With A Feel Of Heaven.

Ah, Love, - You Are My Unutterable Blessing.....i Am In Full Sunshine Now.

Truth Is Within Ourselves. There Is An Inmost Center In Us All, Where The Truth Abides In Fullness.

At Last Awake From Life, That Insane Dream We Take For Waking Now.

I Know What I Want And What I Might Gain, And Yet, How Profitless To Know.

Of What I Call God, And Fools Call Nature.

God Be Thanked, The Meanest Of His Creatures Boasts Two Soul-sides, One To Face The World With, One To Show A Woman When He Loves Her.

That Low Man Seeks A Little Thing To Do, Sees It And Does It: This High Man, With A Great Thing To Pursue, Dies Ere He Knows It. That Low Man Goes On Adding One To One, His Hundred's Soon Hit: This High Man, Aiming At A Million, Misses An Unit. That, Has The World Here-should He Need The Next, Let The World Mind Him! This, Throws Himself On God, And Unperplext Seeking Shall Find Him.

Stung By The Splendour Of A Sudden Thought.

Mid The Sharp, Short Emerald Wheat, Scarce Risen Three Fingers Well, The Wild Tulip At The End Of Its Tube, Blows Out Its Great Red Bell, Like A Thin Clear Bubble Of Blood, For The Children To Pick And Sell.

What A Thing Friendship Is - World Without End.

Desire Joy And Thank God For It. Renounce It, If Need Be, For Other's Sake. That's Joy Beyond Joy.

Generations Pass While Some Tree Stands, And Old Families Last Not Three Oaks.

Go Practice If You Please With Men And Women: Leave A Child Alone For Christ's Particular Love's Sake!

A Pretty Woman's Worth Some Pains To See, Nor Is She Spoiled, I Take It, If A Crown Completes The Forehead Pale And Tresses Pure.

Lost, Lost! One Moment Knelled The Woe Of Years.

That Great Brow And The Spirit-small Hand Propping It.

Rats They Fought The Dogs And Killed The Cats, And Bit The Babies In The Cradles, And Ate The Cheeses Out Of The Vats, And Licked The Soup From The Cook's Own Ladles. Split Open The Kegs Of Salted Sprats, Made Nests Inside Men's Sunday Hats, And Even Spoiled The Women's Chats By Drowning Their Speaking With Shrieking And Squeaking In Fifty Different Sharps And Flats.

Make Us Happy And You Make Us Good.

Best Be Yourself, Imperial, Plain, And True.

In God's Good Time, Which Does Not Always Fall On Saturday When The World Looks For Wages.

Who Hears Music Feels His Solitude Peopled At Once.

Inspirational Music

Earth Is Crammed With Heavens.

All Poetry Is Putting The Infinite Within The Finite.

How Good Is Man's Life, The Mere Living! How Fit To Employ All The Heart And The Soul And The Senses Forever In Joy!

The Great Mind Knows The Power Of Gentleness.

Oh The Wild Joys Of Living! The Leaping From Rock To Rock ... The Cool Silver Shock Of The Plunge In A Pool's Living Waters.

I Trust In Nature For The Stable Laws Of Beauty And Utility. Spring Shall Plant And Autumn Garner To The End Of Time. I Trust In God,-the Right Shall Be The Right And Other Than The Wrong, While He Endures. I Trust In My Own Soul, That Can Perceive The Outward And The Inward,-nature's Good And God's.

How He Lies In His Rights Of A Man! Death Has Done All Death Can. And Absorbed In The New Life He Leads, He Recks Not, He Heeds Nor His Wrong Nor My Vengeance; Both Strike On His Senses Alike, And Are Lost In The Solemn And Strange Surprise Of The Change.

Oh, The Little More, And How Much It Is! And The Little Less, And What Worlds Away.

I Want To Know A Butcher Paints, A Baker Rhymes For His Pursuit, Candlestick-maker Much Acquaints His Soul With Song, Or, Haply Mute, Blows Out His Brains Upon The Flute.

God Is The Perfect Poet, Who In His Person Acts His Own Creations.

Fail I Alone, In Words And Deeds? Why, All Men Strive And Who Succeeds?

There Shall Never Be One Lost Good! What Was, Shall Live As Before; The Evil Is Null, Is Nought, Is Silence Implying Sound; What Was Good Shall Be Good, With For Evil So Much Good More; On The Earth The Broken Arcs; In The Heaven, A Perfect Round.

Our Interest's On The Dangerous Edge Of Things. The Honest Thief, The Tender Murderer, The Superstitious Atheist.

And I Have Written Three Books On The Soul, Proving Absurd All Written Hitherto, And Putting Us To Ignorance Again.

Our Aspirations Are Our Responsibilities.

There Are Those Who Believe Something, And Therefore Will Tolerate Nothing; And On The Other Hand, Those Who Tolerate Everything, Because They Believe Nothing.

What So Wild As Words Are?

Rejoice That Man Is Hurled, From Change To Change Unceasingly, His Soul's Wings Never Furled!

Believeth With The Life, The Pain Shall Stop.

Love, Hope, Fear, Faith - These Make Humanity; These Are Its Sign And Note And Character.

Poetry, Like Love, Is Something We Never Truly Say Goodbye To.

Things Are Where Things Are, And, As Fate Has Willed, So Shall They Be Fulfilled.

Shun Death, Is My Advice.

The Devil, That Old Stager, Who Leads Downward, Perhaps, But Fiddles All The Way!

White Shall Not Neutralize The Black, Nor Good Compensate Bad In Man, Absolve Him So; Life's Business Being Just The Terrible Choice.

God! Thou Art Love! I Build My Faith On That.

You Never Know What Life Means Till You Die; Even Throughout Life, Tis Death That Makes Life Live.

Was There Nought Better Than To Enjoy? No Feat Which, Done, Would Make Time Break, And Let Us Pent-up Creatures Through Into Eternity, Our Due? No Forcing Earth Teach Heaven's Employ?

O Woman-country! Wooed Not Wed, Loved All The More By Earth's Male-lands, Laid To Their Hearts Instead.

If Two Lives Join, There Is Oft A Scar. They Are One And One, With A Shadowy Third; One Near One Is Too Far.

If You Can Sit At Set Of Sun And Count The Deeds That You Have Done And Counting Find Oneself-denying Act, One Word That Eased The Heart Of Him That Heard. One Glance Most Kind, Which Fell Like Sunshine Where He Went, Then You May Count That Day Well Spent.

Where The Apple Reddens Never Pry - Lest We Lose Our Edens, Eve And I.

There's A New Tribunal Now Higher Than God's -the Educated Man's!

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.

Since There My Past Life Lies, Why Alter It?

What's A Man's Age? He Must Hurry More, That's All; Cram In A Day, What His Youth Took A Year To Hold.

The Great Beacon Light God Sets In All, The Conscience Of Each Bosom.

Days Decrease, / And Autumn Grows, Autumn In Everything.

Most Progress Is Most Failure.

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.

Truth Is Within Ourselves.

Then Welcome Each Rebuff That Turns Earth's Smoothness Rough, Each Sting That Bids Nor Sit Nor Stand, But Go! Be Our Joys Three-parts Pain! Strive, And Hold Cheap The Strain; Learn, Nor Account The Pang; Dare, Never Grudge The Throe!

Autumn Wins You Best By This Its Mute Appeal To Sympathy For Its Decay.

Ah, But A Man's Reach Should Exceed His Grasp, Or What's A Heaven For?

Twere Too Absurd To Slight For The Hereafter The Todays Delight!

I Hold That A Man Should Strive To The Uttermost For His Life's Set Prize.

Paracelsus At Times I Almost Dream I Too Have Spent A Life The Sages’ Way, And Tread Once More Familiar Paths. Perchance I Perished In An Arrogant Self-reliance Ages Ago; And In That Act A Prayer For One More Chance Went Up So Earnest, So Instinct With Better Light Let In By Death, That Life Was Blotted Out — Not So Completely But Scattered Wrecks Enough Of It Remain, Dim Memories, As Now, When Once More Seems The Goal In Sight Again.

The World And Life's Too Big To Pass For A Dream

Italy, My Italy! Queen Mary's Saying Serves For Me (when Fortune's Malice Lost Her Calais): "open My Heart, And You Will See Graved Inside Of It 'italy.'"

Progress Is The Law Of Life: Man Is Not Man As Yet.

There Is Nothing So Unpardonable As To Consent To A Senseless, Aimless, Purposeless Life.

All Will Be Gay When Noontide Wakes Anew The Buttercups, The Little Children's Dower.

Youth Means Love, Vows Can't Change Nature, Priests Are Only Men.

Mothers, Wives And Maids, These Be The Tools With Which Priests Manage Men.

The Peerless Cup Afloat Of The Lake-lily Is An Urn Some Nymph Swims Bearing High Above Her Head.

Tis Man's To Explore Up And Down, Inch By Inch, With The Taper His Reason.

Tis Looking Downward Makes One Dizzy.

As Is Your Sort Of Mind, So Is Your Sort Of Search: You Will Find What You Desire.

A Minute Of Success Pays For Years Of Failure.

Outside Are The Storms And Strangers: We — Oh, Close, Safe, Warm Sleep I And She, — I And She!

Strike When Thou Wilt, The Hour Of Rest, But Let My Last Days Be My Best.

Where The Heart Lies, Let The Brain Lie Also.

He Guides Me And The Bird. In His Good Time!

It Is The Glory And Good Of Art, That Art Remains The One Way Possible Of Speaking Truth, To Mouths Like Mine At Least.

Good To Forgive, Best To Forget.

Men Are Not Angels, Neither Are They Brutes.

On The Earth The Broken Arcs; In The Heaven A Perfect Round.

Inscribe All Human Effort With One Word, Artistry's Haunting Curse, The Incomplete!

Women Hate A Debt As Men A Gift.

If All The World Is A Stage And Life Is Just A Play Upon It, Get Me Two Seats In The Stalls.

Might She Have Loved Me? Just As Well She Might Have Hated, Who Can Tell!

The Trouble That Most Of Us Find With The Modern Matched Sets Of Clubs Is That They Don't Really Seem To Know Any More About The Game Than The Old Ones Did.

If Thou Tastest A Crust Of Bread, Thou Tastest All The Stars And All The Heavens.

Oh, To Be In England Now That April's There.

April And Spring

I Have Lived, And Seen God's Hand Thro A Life Time, And All Was For The Best.

Every One Soon Or Late Comes Round By Rome.

My Care Is For Myself; Myself Am Whole And Sole Reality.

A Face To Lose Youth For, To Occupy Age With The Dream Of, Meet Death With.

The Sea Heaves Up, Hangs Loaded O'er The Land, Breaks There, And Buries Its Tumultuous Strength.

Sappho Survives, Because We Sing Her Songs; And Eschylus, Because We Read His Plays!

No! Let Me Taste The Whole Of It, Fare Like My Peers, The Heroes Of Old, Bear The Brunt, In A Minute Pay Glad Life's Arrears Of Pain, Darkness And Cold.

Heart, Fear Nothing, For, Heart, Thou Shalt Find Her- Next Time, Herself!-not The Trouble Behind Her

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.

Let Friend Trust Friends, And Love Demand Love's Like.

Never Brag, Never Bluster, Never Blush.

Shakespeare Was Of Us, Milton Was Of Us, Burns, Shelley, Were With Us. They Watch From Their Graves!

It 's Wiser Being Good Than Bad; It 's Safer Being Meek Than Fierce; It 's Fitter Being Sane Than Mad. My Own Hope Is, A Sun Will Pierce The Thickest Cloud Earth Ever Stretched; That After Last Returns The First, Though A Wide Compass Round Be Fetched.

Therefore I Summon Age / To Grant Youth's Heritage.

I Trust In Nature For The Stable Laws Of Beauty And Utility. Spring Shall Plant And Autumn Garner To The End Of Time.

We Find Great Things Are Made Of Little Things, And Little Things Go Lessening Till At Last Comes God Behind Them.

All Service Ranks The Same With God,- With God, Whose Puppets, Best And Worst, Are We: There Is No Last Nor First.

I Have No Little Insight Into The Feelings Of Furniture, And Treat Books And Prints With A Reasonable Consideration. How Some People Use Their Pictures, For Instance, Is A Mystery To Me; Very Revolting All The Same--portraits Obliged To Face Each Other For Ever--prints Put Together In Portfolios.

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