Poetry in 19th Century Newspapers (6)

Robert Browning. Evelyn Hope

Published in The Bristol Mercury Saturday, January 12, 1856; Issue 3434.

Verse 1

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead-

Sit and watch by her side an hour.

That is her book-shelf, this her bed;

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,

Beginning to die too, in the glass.

Little has been changes, I think-

The shutters are shut, no light many pass

Save two long rays through the hinge’s chink.

Verse 7

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;

My heart seemed full as it could hold;

There was a place and to spare for the frank young smile

And the red young mouth and the hair’s young gold.

So, hush I will give you this leaf to keep;

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.

There that is our secret! go to sleep;

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

[ends]