Explore "Robert Browning (in Praise of Poets)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
How blind the toil that burrows like the mole, / In winding graveyard pathways under- / ground, / For Browning's lineage! What if men have / found / Poor footmen or rich merchants on the roll / Of his forbears? Did they beget his soul? / Nay, for he came of ancestry renowned / Through all the world, -- the poets laurel- / crowned / With wreaths from which the autumn takes no / toll.
The blazons on his coat-of-arms are these: / The flaming sign of Shelley's heart on fire, / The golden globe of Shakespeare's human / stage, / The staff and scrip of Chaucer's pilgrimage, / The rose of Dante's deep, divine desire, / The tragic mask of wise Euripides.