Explore "The Names" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Shakespeare! -- to such name's sounding, what succeeds / Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell, -- / Act follows word, the speaker knows full well, / Nor tampers with its magic more than needs. / Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads / With his soul only: if from lips it fell, / Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell, / Would own "Thou didst create us! " Naught impedes / We voice the other name, man's most of might, / Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love / Mutely await their working, leave to sight / All of the issue as -- below -- above -- / Shakespeare's creation rises: one remove, / Though dread -- this finite from that infinite.
_March 12, 1884._