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User Rating: |
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6.9
/10
(18
votes)
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Take the cloak from his face, and at first
Let the corpse do its worst!
How he lies in his rights of a man!
Death has done all death can.
And, absorbed in the new life he leads,
He recks not, he heeds
Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike
On his senses alike,
And are lost in the solemn and strange
Surprise of the change.
Ha, what avails death to erase
His offence, my disgrace?
I would we were boys as of old
In the field, by the fold:
His outrage, God's patience, man's scorn
Were so easily borne!
I stand here now, he lies in his place:
Cover the face!
Robert Browning
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Read poems about / on: death, change, lost, god, life
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Comments about this poem (After
by
Robert Browning
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comments about this poem (After by
Robert Browning
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Elijah Amores
(7/10/2009 11:53:00 PM) |
nice...please check out my poems guys..thanks!
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Michael Pruchnicki
(7/10/2009 4:43:00 PM) |
Sometimes I take a great notion to jump in the river and drown after reading the off-the-wall comments posted on this site! Robert Browning's 'After' is one of his signature poems written in a form he made famous. As usual, the speaker addresses the reader directly in a dramatic monologue. The speaker is viewing the corpse recently slain (as I read it) of someone he once knew as a boy in the fields and among the animals they tended, and what strikes him is the indifference of the dead man to any more abuse in this life. The dead man has already embarked on another voyage, albeit suddenly - 'the sudden surprise of the change' from life to death. A violent and sudden death at the speaker's hands? Perhaps. But the transition is not 'exquisite' by any means! The final couplet is a direct address to someone in the room to 'cover the face'!
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JOE POEWHIT
(7/10/2009 5:24:00 AM) |
How a face reflects the burdens of life. A last testimonial of man's mask of remembrance, against the forces of good and evil.
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Dimitris(Jimmy) Psachos
(7/10/2007 10:56:00 AM) |
Exquisite transport of a plain human life to the otherworld. Could've been a little spicier though...!
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Katie Berry
(7/10/2006 4:15:00 PM) |
I found this poem a bit creepy, but a morbid fascination drew me to it.
Best wishes,
Katie
~*~
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Ruby Root
(7/10/2006 10:21:00 AM) |
Excellent really moving and created with so much imagery, and emotion.
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Robert Browning
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