The Flower's Name by Robert Browning
A speaker revisits a garden, recalling a recent walk with a woman who rescued a snail, pointed out a moth, and named a flower in Spanish. Cherishing her voice and touch, the speaker asks the flower's bud to stay closed and preserve her traces, finding the roses less beautiful without her.
By Robert Browning · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry · 573 words
First lines
Here's the garden she walked across, / Arm in my arm, such a short while since: / Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss / Hinders the hinges and makes them wince! / She must have reached this shrub ere she turned, / As back with that murmur the wicket swung; / For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned, / To feed and forget it the leaves among.
Down this side of the gravel-walk / She went while her robe's edge brushed the box: / And here she paused in her gracious talk / To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox. / Roses, ranged in valiant row, / I will never think that she passed you by! / She loves you, noble roses, I know; / But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie!
What this Textopian page supports
The Flower's Name 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, Love Poetry
- Length: 573 words
- Structure: 1 section, 6 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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- Work identity for The Flower's Name by Robert Browning
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Six rhymed stanzas follow a speaker's intimate recollections and direct addresses to roses and a flower bud.
- Love Poetry — The speaker cherishes the woman's pronunciation of a flower's name and seeks to preserve the marks of her touch.
Tags
gardens · flowers · Spanish language · affection · remembrance