Soliliquy+of+the+Spanish+Cloister

 Soliliquy of the Spanish Cloister by Robert Browning



 1 Gr-r-r-there go, my heart's abhorrence! Water your damned flower-pots, do! If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God's blood, would not mine kill you! What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming? Oh, that rose has prior claims-- Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? Hell dry you up with its flames!

2 At the meal we sit together: //Salve tibi!// I must hear Wise talk of the kind of weather, Sort of season, time of year: //Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely Dare we hope oak-galls,// I doubt: //What's the Latin name for "parsley"?// What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout?

3  Whew! We'll have our platter burnished, Laid with care on our own shelf! With a fire-new spoon we're furnished, And a goblet for ourself, Rinsed like something sacrificial Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps — Marked with L. for our initial! (He-he! There his lily snaps!)

4 //Saint//, forsooth! While brown Dolores Squats outside the Convent bank With Sanchicha, telling stories, Steeping tresses in the tank, Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, — Can't I see his dead eye glow, Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's? (That is, if he'd let it show!)

5   When he finishes refection, Knife and fork he never lays Cross-wise, to my recollection, As I do, in Jesu's praise. I the Trinity illustrate, Drinking watered orange-pulp — In three sips the Arian frustrate While he drains his at one gulp.

6 Oh, those melons? If he's able We're to have a feast! so nice! One goes to the Abbot's table, All of us eager to get a slice. How go on your flowers? None double? Not one fruit-sort can you spy? Strange! And I, too, at such trouble, Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

7 There's a great text in Galatians, Once you trip on it, entails Twenty-nine distinct damnations, One sure, if another fails. If I trip him just a-dying, Sure of heaven as sure can be, Spin him round and send him flying Off to hell, a Manichee?

8 Or, my scrofulous French novel, On grey paper with blunt type! Simply glance at it, you grovel Hand and foot in Belial's gripe: If I double down its pages At the woeful sixteenth print, When he gathers his greengages, Ope a sieve and slip it in't?

9 Or, there's Satan! — one might venture Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave Such a flaw in the indenture As he'd miss it till, past retrieve, Blasted lay that rose-acacia We're so proud of! //Hy, Zy, Hine//. . . 'St, there's Vespers! Plena gratia //Ave, Virgo!// Gr-r-r — you swine!

Contributors
Sarah Stevenson