My Last Duchess by Robert Browning — Read

Ferrara

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, / Looking as if she were alive. I call / That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands / Worked busily a day, and there she stands. / Will't please you sit and look at her? I said / "Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read / Strangers like you that pictured countenance, / The depth and passion of its earnest glance, / But to myself they turned (since none puts by / The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) / And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, / How such a glance came there; so, not the first / Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not / Her husband's presence only, called that spot / Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps / Frà Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps / Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint / Must never hope to reproduce the faint / Half-flush that dies along her throat: " such stuff / Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough / For calling up that spot of joy. She had / A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad, / Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er / She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. / Sir, 't was all one! My favor at her breast, / The dropping of the daylight in the West, / The bough of cherries some officious fool / Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule / She rode with round the terrace -- all and each / Would draw from her alike the approving speech, / Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -- good! but thanked / Somehow -- I know not how -- as if she ranked / My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name / With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame / This sort of trifling? Even had you skill / In speech -- (which I have not) -- to make your will / Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this / Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, / Or there exceed the mark" -- and if she let / Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set / Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, / -- E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose / Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, / Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without / Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands / As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet / The company below, then. I repeat, / The Count your master's known munificence / Is ample warrant that no just pretence / Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; / Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed / At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go / Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, / Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, / Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!