Now by Robert Browning

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 1, 2017   Now   Robert Browning

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 me— Me—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, Sweet— The 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!            This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   "Now" was published in Browning's book Asolando: Fancies and Facts (Smith, Elder, & Co., 1889).   Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, England. He is the author of Dramatis Personae (Chapman and Hall, 1864) and The Ring and the Book (Smith, Elder & Co., 1868–1869). Browning died in 1889.   Poetry by Browning   Selected Poems (Penguin Classics, 2001) "To Night" by Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Face of All the World (Sonnet 7)" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning "Winter: My Secret" by Christina Rossetti Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038