The Laboratory
by Robert Browning

English poet and dramatist, whose most ambitious work was The Ring and the Book (1868-69): a verse narrative in ten parts based on a real murder trial conducted in Florence. He also wrote and published Pauline (1833), Paracelsus (1835), Sordello (1840) and Strafford (1837), a play that ran for only five nights. Two other plays A Blot in the Scutcheon (1843) and Colombe's Birthday (1843), were also performed briefly in 1843 and 1853, after which Browning wrote mainly dramatic poetry. He published a series of eight volumes of verse, under the title Bells and Pomegranates, between 1841 and 1846. After his marriage to the poetess Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1846, Browning's most important works, along with The Ring and the Book, were Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day (1850), an exploration of worship; a volume of fifty poems entitled Men and Women (1850) and Dramatis Personae (1854). The influence of his handling of diction and the monologue form is perhaps to be noted in such twentieth century poets as Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.

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The Laboratory
by Robert Browning

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy -
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

He is with her; and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear
Empty church, to pray God in, for them! -I am here.

III

Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,
Pound at thy powder, -I am not in haste!
Better sit thus, and observe thy strange things,
Than go where men wait me and dance at the King's.

That in the mortar -you call it a gum?
Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!
And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,
Sure to taste sweetly, -is that poison too?

Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,
What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures!
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree-basket!

Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give,
And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!
But to light a pastille, and Elise, with her head,
And her breast, and her arms, and her hands, should drop dead!

VII

Quick -is it finished? The colour's too grim!
Why not soft like the phial's, enticing and dim?
Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir,
And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!

VIII

What a drop! She's not little, no minion like me -
That's why she ensnared him: this never will free
The soul from those strong, great eyes, -say, "No!"
To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go.

For only last night, as they whispered, I brought
My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought
Could I keep them one-half minute fixed, she would fall,
Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does it all!

Not that I bid you spare her the pain!
Let death be felt and the proof remain;
Brand, burn up, bite into its grace -
He is sure to remember her dying face!

Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose,
It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close:
The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee -
If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?

XII

Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill,
You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will!
But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings
Ere I know it -next moment I dance at the King's!

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The Laboratory by Robert Browning