ABSTRACT
The earnestness of Browning's love poetry is instanced not only in Men and Women (1855) but throughout his poetical works - from the febrile intensities of the speaker of Pauline (1833), his first published poem, to the carpe diem urgings of the speaker of 'Now' (1889), one of the very few sonnets Browning wrote over the six decades of his career:
Out of your whole life give but a moment! All of your life that has gone before, All to come after it, - so you ignore So you make perfect the present, - condense, In a rapture of rage, for perfection's endowment, Thought and feeling and soul and sense - Merged in a moment which gives me at last You around me for once, you beneath me, above meMe - sure that despite of time future, time past, - This tick of our life-time's one moment you love me! How long such suspension may linger? Ah, SweetThe moment eternal-just that and no more - When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet!
