Numpholeptos by Robert Browning
A speaker begs a woman for love rather than pardon, protesting that the quests she commands leave him marked by experiences she then rejects. He refuses further quests and lashes out at her judgment, then rebukes his own complaint and obeys her again, hoping the next quest will turn her cold smile into love.
By Robert Browning · Genre: Dramatic Monologue, Allegorical Poetry, Love Poetry · 1,837 words
First lines
Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile! / Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile, / Softening, sweetening, till sweet and soft / Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft / I could believe your moonbeam-smile has past / The pallid limit, lies, transformed at last / To sunlight and salvation -- warms the soul / It sweetens, softens! Would you pass that goal, / Gain love's birth at the limit's happier verge, / And, where an iridescence lurks, but urge / The hesitating pallor on to prime / Of dawn! -- true blood-streaked, sun-warmth, action-time, / By heart-pulse ripened to a ruddy glow / Of gold above my clay -- I scarce should know / From gold's self, thus suffused! For gold means love. / What means the sad slow silver smile above / My clay but pity, pardon? -- at the best, / But acquiescence that I take my rest, / Contented to be clay, while in your heaven / The sun reserves love for the Spirit-Seven / Companioning God's throne they lamp before, / -- Leaves earth a mute waste only wandered o'er / By that pale soft sweet disempassioned moon / Which smiles me slow forgiveness! Such, the boon / I beg? Nay, dear, submit to this -- just this / Supreme endeavor! As my lips now kiss / Your feet, my arms convulse your shrouding robe, / My eyes, acquainted with the dust, dare probe / Your eyes above for -- what, if born, would blind / Mine with redundant bliss, as flash may find / The inert nerve, sting awake the palsied limb, / Bid with life's ecstasy sense overbrim / And suck back death in the resurging joy -- / Love, the love whole and sole without alloy!
Genres
- Dramatic Monologue — One speaker addresses a woman whose responses he describes, moving from pleading through accusation to renewed obedience.
- Allegorical Poetry — Colored rays represent paths of experience that mark the returning seeker and estrange him from the woman's unstained whiteness.
- Love Poetry — The speaker repeatedly asks for reciprocal love instead of pity or pardon and ends by renewing that hope.
Tags
unrequited love · ideal purity · experience · submission · dramatic monologue
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Numpholeptos 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: Dramatic Monologue, Allegorical Poetry, Love Poetry
- Length: 1,837 words
- Structure: 1 section, 5 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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- Work identity for Numpholeptos by Robert Browning
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