KEATS
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth.
One has only to glance at the printed page of _My Last Duchess_, and
see how few of the lines end in punctuation points, to discover the
method employed when a poet wishes to write a very strict measure in
a very free manner.
I have sometimes thought that George Eliot took a hint from this
poem in the composition of _Daniel Deronda_, for the relations
between Grandcourt and Gwendolen are exactly the same as existed
between the Duke and his late wife; a more recent, though not so
great an example, may be found in Mrs. Burnett's novel, _The Shuttle_.
The poem is a study in cold, systematic torture of a warm human soul
by an icy-hearted tyrant.
Browning adopts one of his favorite methods of character-revelation
here.
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