Only, there was a way ... you crept
Close by the side, to dodge
Eyes in the house, two eyes except:
They styled their house "The Lodge."
What right had a lounger up their lane?
But, by creeping very close,
With the good wall's help,--their eyes might strain
And stretch themselves to Oes,
Yet never catch her and me together,
As she left the attic, there,
By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"
And stole from stair to stair,
And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
We loved, sir--used to meet:
How sad and bad and mad it was--
But then, how it was sweet!
We may close our considerations of the dramatic lyrics with three
love-poems. Whenever in his later years Browning was asked to write
a selection with his autograph, he used to say playfully that the
only one of his poems that he could remember was _My Star_; hence
more copies of this exist in manuscript than any other of his
productions. It was of course a tribute to his wife; she shone upon
his life like a star of various colors; but the moment the world
attempted to pry into the secret of her genius, she shut off the
light altogether.
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