This
done, he list what she would say to this,
And she, although her Breath's late exercise
Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat,
Yet summons all her sweet powers for a Note
Alas! in vain! for while (sweet soul) she tries
To measure all those wild diversities
Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one
Poor simple voice, rais'd in a Natural Tone,
She fails, and failing grieves, and grieving dies.
She dies, and leaves her life the Victor's prize,
Falling upon his Lute; O fit to have
(That liv'd so sweetly) dead, so sweet a Grave!
--Richard Crashaw
Notice that there is a run of nine lines in Browning's poem in which not a single line pauses at the end:
THAT'S
my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will 't please you to sit and look at her? I said
``Fra Pandolf'' by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to my self they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed
as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, ``Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much,'' or ``Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:'' such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
--Robert Browning
SOMETHING inspires the only cow of late
To make no more of a wall than an open gate,
And think no more of wall-builders than fools.
Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools
A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit,
She scores a pasture withering to the root.
She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten
The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten.
She leaves them bitten when she has to fly.
She bellows on a knoll against the sky.
Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.
--Robert Frost