Robert Browning (1812–1889)

ESCAPE me?

Never—

Beloved!

While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both,

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.

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.

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—

Ever

Removed!