#MIDDLEBURY
Now
Robert Browning
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 –
Merged in a moment which gives me at last
You around me for once, you beneath me, above me –
Me – sure that despite of time future, time past, –
This tick of our life-time’s one moment you love me!
How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet –
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!
About this poem
“Now” was published in Browning’s book “Asolando: Fancies and Facts” (Smith, Elder, & Co., 1889).
About Robert Browning
Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, England. He is the author of “Dramatis Personae” (Chapman and Hall, 1864) and “The Ring and the Book” (Smith, Elder & Co., 1868-1869). Browning died in 1889.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
This poem is in the public domain. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
