Explore "Ferishtah's Fancies" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"And what might that bold man's announcement be" -- / Ferishtah questioned -- "which so moved thine ire / That thou didst curse, nay, cuff and kick -- in short, / Confute the announcer? Wipe those drops away / Which start afresh upon thy face at mere / Mention of such enormity: now, speak!"
"He scrupled not to say -- (thou warrantest, / O patient Sir, that I unblamed repeat / Abominable words which blister tongue? ) / God once assumed on earth a human shape: / (Lo, I have spitten! ) Dared I ask the grace, / Fain would I hear, of thy subtility, / From out what hole in man's corrupted heart / Creeps such a maggot: fancies verminous / Breed in the clots there, but a monster born / Of pride and folly like this pest -- thyself / Only canst trace to egg-shell it hath chipped."