Shop by Robert Browning
A display of Japanese curios leads a speaker to imagine its owner enjoying a rich private life, but he finds the shopkeeper lodged behind the merchandise and absorbed in sales and profits. Contrasting him with an imagined merchant who closes shop and leaves, the speaker asks why earning a living should exclude painting, poetry, music, and other loves.
By Robert Browning · Genre: Poetry, Philosophical Poetry · 1,158 words
First lines
So, friend, your shop was all your house! / Its front, astonishing the street, / Invited view from man and mouse / To what diversity of treat / Behind its glass -- the single sheet!
What gimcracks, genuine Japanese: / Gape-jaw and goggle-eye, the frog; / Dragons, owls, monkeys, beetles, geese; / Some crush-nosed human-hearted dog: / Queer names, too, such a catalogue!
Genres
- Poetry — Twenty-two rhymed five-line stanzas contrast a shopkeeper's cramped lodging with the speaker's imagined life beyond commerce.
- Philosophical Poetry — The speaker questions whether the need to earn a living should deprive the spirit of interests and loves beyond trade.
Tags
commerce · shopkeepers · profit · work and leisure · artistic pursuits
What this Textopian page supports
Shop is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Browning, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Browning
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Poetry, Philosophical Poetry
- Length: 1,158 words
- Structure: 1 section, 22 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Shop by Robert Browning
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