(Included in Demeter and Other Poems, 1889) "Summer is coming, summer is coming. I know it, I know it, I know it. Light again, leaf again, life again, love again!" Yes, my wild little Poet. Sing the new year in under the blue. Last year you sang it as gladly. "New, new, new, new!" Is it then so new That you should carol so madly? "Love again, song again, nest again, young again," Never a prophet so crazy! 10 Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay, Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay! I've better counsellors; what counsel they? Chorus "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" MY LAST DUCHESS1 FERRARA (From Dramatic Lyrics, 1842) 16 That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now; Frà Pandolf's hand Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 1 The Duke in this poem, like Browning's Bishop who ordered "his tomb at St. Praxed's Church," is a characteristic product of the Italy of the Renaissance. He exemplifies Browning's favorite doctrine that we are not saved by taste, and that a fine appreciation of art and letters is by no means incompatible with a small, ignoble, and worldly nature. 2 An imaginary artist, as is Claus of Innsbruck, |