Explore "The Twins" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Give" and "It-shall-be-given-unto-you"
Grand rough old Martin Luther / Bloomed fables -- flowers on furze, / The better the uncouther: / Do roses stick like burrs?
A beggar asked an alms / One day at an abbey-door, / Said Luther; but, seized with qualms, / The Abbot replied, "We 're poor!
"Poor, who had plenty once, / When gifts fell thick as rain: / But they give us naught, for the nonce, / And how should we give again?"
Then the beggar, "See your sins! / Of old, unless I err, / Ye had brothers for inmates, twins, / Date and Dabitur.
"While Date was in good case / Dabitur flourished too: / For Dabitur's lenten face / No wonder if Date rue.
"Would ye retrieve the one? / Try and make plump the other! / When Date's penance is done, / Dabitur helps his brother.
"Only, beware relapse! " / The Abbot hung his head. / This beggar might be perhaps / An angel, Luther said.