Memorabilia by Robert Browning
The speaker asks whether a listener once saw and spoke with Shelley, then notes that the listener laughs at the speaker's astonishment. Recalling a crossing of a moor, the speaker remembers chiefly the spot where an eagle feather lay on the heather, having picked it up and tucked it inside the breast.
By Robert Browning · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Reflective Poetry · 162 words
First lines
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, / And did he stop and speak to you, / And did you speak to him again? / How strange it seems and new!
But you were living before that, / And also you are living after; / And the memory I started at -- / My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own / And a certain use in the world no doubt, / Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone / 'Mid the blank miles round about:
For there I picked up on the heather, / And there I put inside my breast / A moulted feather, an eagle-feather! / Well, I forget the rest.
What this Textopian page supports
Memorabilia is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Browning, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Browning
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Reflective Poetry
- Length: 162 words
- Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Memorabilia by Robert Browning
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Four rhymed quatrains convey the speaker's astonishment and a personal recollection of finding an eagle feather.
- Reflective Poetry — The speaker connects wonder at a remembered encounter with the single remembered spot on an otherwise forgotten moor.
Tags
memory · encounters · moor · eagle feather