A Wall Poem by Robert Browning

A Wall

Rating: 2.9


O the old wall here! How I could pass
Life in a long midsummer day,
My feet confined to a plot of grass,
My eyes from a wall not once away!

And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe
Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green:
Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loath,
In lappets of tangle they laugh between.

Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe?
Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims
The body,--the house no eye can probe,--
Divined, as beneath a robe, the limbs?

And there again! But my heart may guess
Who tripped behind; and she sang, perhaps:
So the old wall throbbed, and its life's excess
Died out and away in the leafy wraps.

Wall upon wall are between us: life
And song should away from heart to heart!
I--prison-bird, with a ruddy strife
At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start--

Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing
That's spirit: tho' cloistered fast, soar free;
Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring
Of the rueful neighbours, and--forth to thee!

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Mathew Grimes 12 April 2013

Ok, i need help with this poem. I understood the first stanza and the third but the others confuse me. help please

7 1 Reply
Rogelio Guillermo 11 October 2017

same here.. lol.. no sense pretending you understand what you really can't!

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Captain Herbert Poetry 26 April 2014

Wonderful imagination and fantastic scenery

1 2 Reply
Bernard F. Asuncion 11 October 2017

Such an epic poem by Robert Browning, one of the greatest poets of all time.....

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Kumarmani Mahakul 11 October 2017

Feet confined to a plot of grass and eyes from a wall not once away! Perceptional feeling is brilliantly expressed in this gently flown poem. Heart understands every beat of life. Excellently penned beautiful poem this is.10

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Chinedu Dike 29 March 2022

A beautiful rendition of words....

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Edward Kofi Louis 11 October 2017

Ball, call, all! Confined! Thanks for sharing this poem with us.

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Gajanan Mishra 11 October 2017

wall upon wall between us, good one

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Susan Williams 11 October 2017

Hearing echoes of - - something there is that doesn't love a wall [mending wall by Frost]. But walls can be climbed. kicked down, jumped, tunneled under, blown up,

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James Mclain 11 October 2017

Marriage for some more than sucks.. iip.. James

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Robert Browning

Robert Browning

London / England
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