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Poetry Library

— Stephen Crane

I looked here;

I looked there;

Nowhere could I see my love.

And--this time--

…

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noun

(usually a mass noun) Lodging in a dwelling or similar living quarters afforded to travellers in hotels or on cruise ships, or prisoners, etc.

“Writers often choose accommodation when discussing complex ideas.”

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Time's Revenges

66 lines
Robert Browning·1812–1889
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've a Friend, over the sea;I like him, but he loves me.It all grew out of the books I write;They find such favour in his sightThat he slaughters you with savage looksBecause you don't admire my books.He does himself though,--and if some veinWere to snap tonight in this heavy brain,To-morrow month, if I lived to try,Round should I just turn quietly,Or out of the bedclothes stretch my handTill I found him, come from his foreign landTo be my nurse in this poor place,And make my broth and wash my faceAnd light my fire and, all the while,Bear with his old good-humoured smileThat I told him "Better have kept awayThan come and kill me, night and day,With, worse than fever throbs and shoots,The creaking of his clumsy boots."I am as sure that this he would do,As that Saint Paul's is striking two.And I think I rather... woe is me!--Yes, rather would see him than not see,If lifting a hand could seat him thereBefore me in the empty chairTo-night, when my head aches indeed,And I can neither think nor readNor make these purple fingers holdThe pen; this garret's freezing cold! And I've a Lady--there he wakes,The laughing fiend and prince of snakesWithin me, at her name, to prayFate send some creature in the wayOf my love for her, to be down-torn,Upthrust and outward-borne,So I might prove myself that seaOf passion which I needs must be!Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaintAnd my style infirm and its figures faint,All the critics say, and more blame yet,And not one angry word you get.But, please you, wonder I would putMy cheek beneath that lady's footRather than trample under mineThat laurels of the Florentine,And you shall see how the devil spendsA fire God gave for other ends!I tell you, I stride up and downThis garret, crowned with love's best crown,And feasted with love's perfect feast,To think I kill for her, at least,Body and soul and peace and fame,Alike youth's end and manhood's aim,--So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,Filled full, eaten out and inWith the face of her, the eyes of her,The lips, the little chin, the stirOf shadow round her mouth; and she--I'll tell you,--calmly would decreeThat I should roast at a slow fire, If that would compass her desireAnd make her one whom they inviteTo the famous ball to-morrow night. There may be heaven; there must be hell;Meantime, there is our earth here--well!
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