How it Strikes a Contemporary by Robert Browning

I only knew one poet in my life: / And this, or something like it, was his way. / You saw go up and down Valladolid, / A man of mark, to know next time you saw. / His very serviceable suit of black / Was courtly once and conscientious still, / And many might have worn it, though none did: / The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads, / Had purpose, and the ruff, significance. / He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, / Scenting the world, looking it full in face, / An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels. / They turned up, now, the alley by the church, / That leads nowhither; now, they breathed themselves / On the main promenade just at the wrong time: / You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat, / Making a peaked shade blacker than itself / Against the single window spared some house / Intact yet with its mouldered Moorish work, -- / Or else surprise the ferrel of his stick / Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinks / Of some new shop a-building, French and fine. / He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, / The man who slices lemons into drink, / The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys / That volunteer to help him turn its winch. / He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye, / And fly-leaf ballads on the vender's string, / And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall. / He took such cognizance of men and things, / If any beat a horse, you felt he saw; / If any cursed a woman, he took note; / Yet stared at nobody, -- you stared at him, / And found, less to your pleasure than surprise, / He seemed to know you and expect as much. / So, next time that a neighbor's tongue was loosed, / It marked the shameful and notorious fact, / We had among us, not so much a spy, / As a recording chief-inquisitor, / The town's true master if the town but knew! / We merely kept a governor for form, / While this man walked about and took account / Of all thought, said and acted, then went home, / And wrote it fully to our Lord the King / Who has an itch to know things, he knows why, / And reads them in his bedroom of a night. / Oh, you might smile! there wanted not a touch, / A tang of... well, it was not wholly ease / As back into your mind the man's look came. / Stricken in years a little, -- such a brow / His eyes had to live under! -- clear as flint / On either side the formidable nose / Curved, cut and colored like an eagle's claw. / Had he to do with A's surprising fate? / When altogether old B disappeared / And young C got his mistress, -- was't our friend, / His letter to the King, that did it all? / What paid the bloodless man for so much pains? / Our Lord the King has favorites manifold, / And shifts his ministry some once a month; / Our city gets new governors at whiles, -- / But never word or sign, that I could hear, / Notified to this man about the streets / The King's approval of those letters conned / The last thing duly at the dead of night. / Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord, / Exhorting when none heard -- "Beseech me not! / Too far above my people, -- beneath me! / I set the watch, -- how should the people know? / Forget them, keep me all the more in mind! " / Was some such understanding 'twixt the two?

I found no truth in one report at least -- / That if you tracked him to his home, down lanes / Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace, / You found he ate his supper in a room / Blazing with lights, four Titians on the wall, / And twenty naked girls to change his plate! / Poor man, he lived another kind of life / In that new stuccoed third house by the bridge, / Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise! / The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat, / Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back, / Playing a decent cribbage with his maid / (Jacynth, you're sure her name was) o'er the cheese / And fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears, / Or treat of radishes in April. Nine, / Ten, struck the church clock, straight to bed went he.