Excerpts from The Last Ride Together by Robert Browning
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
I and my mistress, side by side
Shall be together, breathe and ride,
Then we began to ride. My soul
Smooth'd itself out, a long-cramp'd scroll
Freshening and fluttering in the wind.
Past hopes already lay behind.
What need to strive with a life awry?
Had I said that, had I done this,
So might I gain, so might I miss.
Might she have loved me? just as well
She might have hated, who can tell!
Where had I been now if the worst befell?
And here we are riding, she and I.
We rode; it seem'd my spirit flew,
Saw other regions, cities new,
As the world rush'd by on either side.
I thought,--All labour, yet no less
Bear up beneath their unsuccess.
Look at the end of work, contrast
The petty done, the undone vast,
This present of theirs with the hopeful past!
I hoped she would love me; here we ride.
At life's best, with our eyes upturn'd
Whither life's flower is first discern'd,
We, fix'd so, ever should so abide?
What if we still ride on, we two
With life for ever old yet new,
Changed not in kind but in degree,
The instant made eternity,--
And heaven just prove that I and she
Ride, ride together, for ever ride?
2 comments:
Happy Anniversary! Can you believe it's been 10 years? It'll be 10 for us in October. It's been a good 10 years... with everything that's happened, it's been a good 10 years. I was looking at the bottom of your dress.. the embroidery... it's amazing how much our dresses are similar. Mine had short sleeves, but similar.
WOW. Feels like yesterday I was at your wedding.
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