Explore "The Inn Album" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
So, they ring bell, give orders, pay, depart / Amid profuse acknowledgment from host / Who well knows what may bring the younger back. / They light cigar, descend in twenty steps / The "_calm acclivity_," inhale -- beyond / Tobacco's balm -- the better smoke of turf / And wood fire, -- cottages at cookery / I' the morning, -- reach the main road straightening on / 'Twixt wood and wood, two black walls full of night / Slow to disperse, though mists thin fast before / The advancing foot, and leave the flint-dust fine / Each speck with its fire-sparkle. Presently / The road's end with the sky's beginning mix / In one magnificence of glare, due East, / So high the sun rides, -- May 's the merry month.
They slacken pace: the younger stops abrupt, / Discards cigar, looks his friend full in face.