Browning's Shorter Poems, page 49 by Robert Browning
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eal and Buol's° replies, °8
So sauntered till--what met my eyes?
Only the Doric little Morgue! 10 The dead-house where you show your drowned:
Petrarch's Vaucluse° makes proud the Sorgue,° °12 Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.
One pays one's debt° in such a case; °14 I plucked up heart and entered,--stalked,
Keeping a tolerable face
Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:
Let them! No Briton's to be balked!
First came the silent gazers; next,
A screen of glass, we're thankful for; 20 Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text,
The three men who did most abhor
Their life in Paris yesterday,
So killed themselves: and now, enthroned
Each on his copper couch, they lay
Fronting me, waiting to be owned.
I thought, and think, their sin's atoned.
Poor men, God made, and all for that!
The reverence struck me; o'er each head
Religiously was hung its hat, 30 Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,
Sacred from touch: each had his berth,
His bounds, his proper place of rest,
Who last night tenanted on earth
Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,--
Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.
How did it happen, my poor boy?
You wanted to be Buonaparte
And have the Tuileries° for toy, °39 And could not, so it broke your heart? 40
You, old one by his side, I judge,
Were, red as blood, a socialist,
A leveller! Does the Empire grudge
You've gained what no Republic missed?
Be quiet, and unclench your fist!
And this--why, he was red in vain,
Or black,--poor fellow that is blue°! °47 What fancy was it, turned your brain?
Oh, women were the prize for you!
Money gets women, cards and dice 50 Get money, and ill-luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
Cool squirt of wat