What is he buzzing in my ears? <br />"Now that I come to die, <br />Do I view the world as a vale of tears?" <br />Ah, reverend sir, not I! <br /> <br />What I viewed there once, what I view again <br />Where the physic bottles stand <br />On the table's edge, -is a suburb lane, <br />With a wall to my bedside hand. <br /> <br />That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, <br />From a house you could descry <br />O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue <br />Or green to a healthy eye? <br /> <br />To mine, it serves for the old June weather <br />Blue above lane and wall; <br />And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether" <br />Is the house o'ertopping all. <br /> <br />At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper, <br />There watched for me, one June, <br />A girl; I know, sir, it's improper, <br />My poor mind's out of tune. <br /> <br />Only, there was a way... you crept <br />Close by the side, to dodge <br />Eyes in the house, two eyes except: <br />They styled their house "The Lodge". <br /> <br />What right had a lounger up their lane? <br />But, by creeping very close, <br />With the good wall's help, -their eyes might strain <br />And stretch themselves to Oes, <br /> <br />Yet never catch her and me together, <br />As she left the attic, there, <br />By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether", <br />And stole from stair to stair, <br /> <br />And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, <br />We loved, sir -used to meet: <br />How sad and bad and mad it was - <br />But then, how it was sweet!<br /><br />Robert Browning<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/confessions-2/
