| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Life in a Love | | By Robert Browning (1812–1889) |
| | | ESCAPE me? | |
| Never— | |
| Beloved! | |
| While I am I, and you are you, | |
| So long as the world contains us both, | 5 |
| Me the loving and you the loth, | |
| While the one eludes, must the other pursue. | |
| My life is a fault at last, I fear: | |
| It seems too much like a fate, indeed! | |
| Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed. | 10 |
| But what if I fail of my purpose here? | |
| It is but to keep the nerves at strain, | |
| To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall, | |
| And baffled, get up and begin again,— | |
| So the chace takes up one’s life, that ’s all. | 15 |
| While, look but once from your farthest bound | |
| At me so deep in the dust and dark, | |
| No sooner the old hope drops to ground | |
| Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark, | |
| I shape me— | 20 |
| Ever | |
| Removed! | | | | |
|
|
