Identifier: ringbook00brow (find matches)
Title: The ring and the book
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Browning, Robert, 1812-1889 Porter, Charlotte Endymion, 1859-1942, ed Clarke, Helen Archibald, d. 1926, joint ed
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Boston, T.Y. Crowell & company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
anchor go! I hooked my cause on to the Clergys, — plea Which, even if law tipped off my hat and plume, Revealed my priestly tonsure, saved me so. The Pope moreover, this old Innocent, 55 Being so meek and mild and merciful. So fond o the poor and so fatigued of earth. So . . . fifty thousand devils in deepest hell! Why must he cure us of our strange conceit Of the angel in mans likeness, that we loved 60 And looked should help us at a pinch? He help? He pardon? Here s his mind and message— death! Thank the good Pope! Now, is he good in this. Never mind. Christian, — no such stuffs extant,— But will my death do credit to his reign, 65 Show he both lived and let live, so was good? Cannot I live if he but like? The law! Why, just the law gives him the very chance, The precise leave to let my life alone. Which the archangelic soul of him (he says) 70 Yearns after! Here they drop it in his palm, My lawyers, capital o the cursed kind, — Drop life to take and hold and keep: but no!
Text Appearing After Image:
COUNT GUIOO. Gurno. 409 He sighs, shakes head, refuses to shut hand, Motions away tiie gift they bid him grasp, 75 And of the coyness comes — that oft I run ^ And down I go, he best knows whither! mind, He knows, who sets me rolHng all the same! Disinterested Vicar of our Lord, This way he abrogates and disallows, 80 Nullifies and ignores, — reverts in fine To the good and right, in detriment of me! Talk away! Will you have the naked truth? He s sick of his lifes supper, — swallowed lies : So, hobbling bedward, needs must ease his maw 85 Just where I sit o the door-sill. Sir Abate, Can you do nothing? Friends, we used to frisk : What of this sudden slash in a friends face, This cut across our good companionship That showed its front so gay when both were young? 90 Were not we put into a beaten path, Bid pace the world, we nobles born and bred. We body of friends with each his scutcheon full Of old achievement and impunity,— Taking the laugh of morn and Sols salute 95 As forth

Note About Images