Background Image

...

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.

-Robert Browning

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

That Low Man Seeks

Robert Browning

...

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.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Robert Browning

Lofty Designs Must Close In Like Effects.

A Whole I Planned, Youth Shows But Half; Trust God: See All, Nor Be Afraid!

Best Is Yet To Come

Only I Discern Infinite Passion, And The Pain Of Finite Hearts That Yearn.

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.

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

The Ultimate, Angels' Law, Indulging Every Instinct Of The Soul There Where Law, Life, Joy, Impulse Are One Thing!

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.

No Work Begun Shall Ever Pause For Death.

This Could But Have Happened Once,- And We Missed It, Lost It Forever.

My Business Is Not To Remake Myself, But To Make The Absolute Best Of What God Made.

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

All Good Things Are Ours, Nor Soul Helps Flesh More, Now, Than Flesh Helps Soul!

But What If I Fail Of My Purpose Here? It Is But To Keep The Nerves At Strain, To Dry One's Eyes And Laugh At A Fall, And Baffled, Get Up And Begin Again.

Man Seeks His Own Good At The Whole World's Cost.

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

Would You Have Your Songs Endure? Build On The Human Heart.

Imperfection Means Perfection Hid.

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

Any Nose May Ravage With Impunity A Rose.

Good Strong Thick Stupefying Incense-smoke!

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

There Is No Truer Truth Obtainable By Man Than Comes Of Music

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

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

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

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.

Day! Faster And More Fast. O'er Night's Brim, Day Boils At Last.

No, When The Fight Begins Within Himself, / A Man's Worth Something.

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

When The Liquor's Out, Why Clink The Cannikin?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Of What I Call God, And Fools Call Nature.

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

The Past Is Gained, Secure, And On Record.

What I Aspired To Be And Was Not, Comforts Me.

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

Kiss Me As If You Made Believe You Were Not Sure This Eve, How My Face, Your Flower, Had Pursed It's Petals Up.

Why Stay On The Earth Except To Grow.

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!

Good To Forgive, Best To Forget.

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

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.

The Heavens And Earth Stay As They Were; My Heart Beats As It Beat: The Truth Remains The Truth.

There Are Three Ways Of Learning Golf: By Study, Which Is The Most Wearisome; By Imitation, Which Is The Most Fallacious; And By Experience, Which Is The Most Bitter.

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.

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

All Poetry Is Putting The Infinite Within The Finite.

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

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

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

I Do What Many Dream Of, All Their Lives

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!

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

I See My Way As Birds Their Trackless Way. I Shall Arrive,- What Time, What Circuit First, I Ask Not; But Unless God Send His Hail Or Blinding Fire-balls, Sleet Or Stifling Snow, In Some Time, His Good Time, I Shall Arrive: He Guides Me And The Bird. In His Good Time.

The Moment Eternal - Just That And No More - When Ecstasy's Utmost We Clutch At The Core While Cheeks Burn, Arms Open, Eyes Shut, And Lips Meet!

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

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

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.

Smiling The Boy Fell Dead.

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.

Make No More Giants, God!but Elevate The Race At Once!

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

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

The Great Mind Knows The Power Of Gentleness.

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

That We Devote Ourselves To God, Is Seen In Living Just As Though No God There Were.

Tis Looking Downward Makes One Dizzy.

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.

Be Sure They Sleep Not Whom God Needs.

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

My Sun Sets To Rise Again.

In The First Is The Last, In Thy Will Is My Power To Believe.

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

Praise Is Deeper Than The Lips

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

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

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.

If You Get Simple Beauty And Naught Else, You Get About The Best Thing God Invents.

Talent Should Minister To Genius.

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

Death: The Grand Perhaps.

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.

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!

I Am Grown Peaceful As Old Age Tonight.

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

As If True Pride Were Not Also Humble!

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

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.

What Youth Deemed Crystal, Age Finds Out Was Dew.

When Pain Ends, Gain Ends Too.

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.

Stung By The Splendour Of A Sudden Thought.

Oh, To Be In England Now That April's There, And Whoever Wakes In England Sees, Some Morning, Unaware.

I Think, Am Sure, A Brother's Love Exceeds All The World's Loves In Its Unworldliness.

Earth Being So Good, Would Heaven Seem Best?

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.

Needs There Groan A World In Anguish Just To Teach Us Sympathy?

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

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.

Must In Death Your Daylight Finish? My Sun Sets To Rise Again.

Ignorance Is Not Innocence But Sin.

Purity And Innocence

Life Is An Empty Dream.

Who Hears Music Feels His Solitude Peopled At Once.

Inspirational Music

Truth Is Truth Howe'er It Strike.

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

So Munch On, Crunch On, Take Your Nuncheon, Breakfast, Supper, Dinner, Luncheon!

I Walked A Mile With Pleasure; She Chattered All The Way. But Left Me None The Wiser For All She Had To Say. I Walked A Mile With Sorrow And Ne'er A Word Said She; But Oh, The Things I Learned From Her When Sorrow Walked With Me!

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

A Minute Of Success Pays For Years Of Failure.

What Joy Is Better Than The News Of Friends?

For Life, With All Its Yields Of Joy And Woe Is Just A Chance O' The Prize Of Learning Love.

What's Come To Perfection Perishes. Things Learned On Earth We Shall Practice In Heaven; Works Done Least Rapidly Art Most Cherishes.

To Me At Least Was Never Evening Yet, But Seemed Far Beautifuller Than Its Day.

God's Justice, Tardy Though It Prove Perchance, Rests Never On The Track Until It Reach Delinquency.

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

Other Heights In Other Lives, God Willing.

Grow Old Along With Me! The Best Is Yet To Be, The Last Of Life, For Which The First Was Made. Our Times Are In His Hand Who Saith, 'a Whole I Planned, Youth Shows But Half; Trust God: See All, Nor Be Afraid!

All Service Is The Same With God.

Have You Found Your Life Distasteful? My Life Did, And Does, Smack Sweet. Was Your Youth Of Pleasure Wasteful? Mine I Saved And Hold Complete. Do Your Joys With Age Diminish? When Mine Fail Me, I'll Complain. Must In Death Your Daylight Finish? My Sun Sets To Rise Again.

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!

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

A Man In Armor Is His Armor's Slave.

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

Why Comes Temptation But For Man To Meet And Master And Make Crouch Beneath His Foot, And So Be Pedestaled In Triumph?

Earth Is Crammed With Heavens.

Brightest Truth, Purest Trust In The Universe, All Were For Me, In The Kiss Of One Girl.

All The Breath And The Bloom Of The Year In The Bag Of One Bee; All The Wonder And Wealth Of The Mine In The Heart Of One Gem; In The Core Of One Pearl All The Shade And The Shine Of The Sea; Breath And Bloom, Shade And Shine,- Wonder, Wealth, And-how Far Above Them- Truth, That's Brighter Than Gem, Truth, That's Purer Than Pearl,- Brightest Truth, Purest Trust In The Universe- All Were For Me In The Kiss Of One Girl.

Look Not Down But Up!

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

Love Is Energy Of Life.

Self Improvement

Who Knows Most, Doubts Most.

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.

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

Unless You Can Love, As The Angels May, With The Breadth Of Heaven Betwixt You; Unless You Can Dream That His Faith Is Fast, Through Behoving And Unbeloving; Unless You Can Die When The Dream Is Past- Oh, Never Call It Loving!

God Is The Perfect Poet.

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

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

Still More Labyrinthine Buds The Rose.

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.

Night Conceals A World But Reveals A Universe.

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

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.

Since There My Past Life Lies, Why Alter It?

Truth Is Within Ourselves.

That's The Wise Thrush; He Sings Each Song Twice Over, Lest You Should Think He Never Could Recapture The First Fine Careless Rapture!

Best Be Yourself, Imperial, Plain, And True.

How Very Hard It Is To Be A Christian!

Every One Soon Or Late Comes Round By Rome.

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

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

Where The Heart Lies, Let The Brain Lie Also.

'tis An Awkward Thing To Play With Souls.

Silence 'tis Awe Decrees.

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.

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

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

It's Wiser Being Good Than Bad; It's Safer Being Meek Than Fierce: It's Fitter Being Sane Than Mad.

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

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

But God Has A Few Of Us To Whom He Whispers In The Ear; The Rest May Reason And Welcome; 'tis We Musicians Know.

Make Us Happy And You Make Us Good.

Let's Contend No More, Love, Strive Nor Weep: All Be As Before Love, - Only Sleep.

T'was A Thief Said The Last Kind Word To Christ. Christ Took The Kindness And Forgave The Theft.

What A Thing Friendship Is - World Without End.

The Curious Crime, The Fine Felicity And Flower Of Wickedness.

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

In Heaven I Yearn For Knowledge, Account All Else Inanity; On Earth I Confess An Itch For The Praise Of Fools - That's Vanity

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

O World, As God Has Made It! All Is Beauty.

'tis Well Averred, A Scientific Faith's Absurd.

Positive Atheism

To Do Good Things In The World, First You Must Know Who You Are And What Gives Meaning To Your Life.

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

A Man In Armour Is His Armour's Slave.

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

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

Go In Thy Native Innocence, Rely On What Thou Hast Of Virtue, Summon All, For God Towards Thee Hath Done His Part, Do Thine.

Truth Never Hurts The Teller.

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

Boot, Saddle, To Horse, And Away!

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I Give The Fight Up: Let There Be An End, A Privacy, An Obscure Nook For Me. I Want To Be Forgotten Even By God.

A Pretty Woman's Worth Some Pains To See.

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

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.

Trending Author

Eden Phillpotts

Category