Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
 And the sun look'd over the mountain's rim:
 And straight was a path of gold for him,
 And the need of a world of men for me.

I don’t know about other people, but every time I think of sending in a guest poem to the Minstrels, I’m beset by this feeling that all my favourite poems have already been done (dammit, you even have Desolation Row!!). So it’s a smugly surprised me who’s sending in these two Browning poems [one of which - “Meeting at Night” - has been set aside for later - t.] which I simply worship but which, for all my ardent searching, I can’t find in the archives.

Anyway, the poems. Both are incredibly visual - to a point where you have only to shut your eyes to see the scene described blaze before you in gorgeous technicolour. And both have an almost magically musical quality that is so typical of Browning (see for instance, “A Toccata of Gallupi’s”, Minstrels poem #526). But most importantly, I think, both have a concise directness that would be the envy of many a modern poet, let alone of the Victorians. Perhaps you can imagine a poem that says less and expresses greater feeling with more vividness than “Parting at Morning”. I can’t.

— Aseem

Minstrels Links

Browning Poems:
Poem #65, Home Thoughts From Abroad
Poem #104, My Last Duchess
Poem #130, The Lost Leader
Poem #133, Song, from Pippa Passes
Poem #242, The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Poem #352, My Star
Poem #364, The Patriot
Poem #425, Memorabilia
Poem #526, A Toccata of Galuppi’s
Poem #635, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
Poem #778, Incident of the French Camp