Analysis of De Gustibus---
Robert Browning 1812 (Camberwell) – 1889 (Venice)
Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,
(If our loves remain)
In an English lane,
By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.
Hark, those two in the hazel coppice---
A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,
Making love, say,---
The happier they!
Draw yourself up from the light of the moon,
And let them pass, as they will too soon,
With the bean-flowers' boon,
And the blackbird's tune,
And May, and June!
What I love best in all the world
Is a castle, precipice-encurled,
In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine
Or look for me, old fellow of mine,
(If I get my head from out the mouth
O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,
And come again to the land of lands)---
In a sea-side house to the farther South,
Where the baked cicala dies of drouth,
And one sharp tree---'tis a cypress---stands,
By the many hundred years red-rusted,
Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,
My sentinel to guard the sands
To the water's edge. For, what expands
Before the house, but the great opaque
Blue breadth of sea without a break?
While, in the house, for ever crumbles
Some fragment of the frescoed walls,
From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.
A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles
Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,
And says there's news to-day---the king
Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing,
Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:
---She hopes they have not caught the felons.
Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary's saying serves for me---
(When fortune's malice
Lost her---Calais)---
Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it, ``Italy.''
Such lovers old are I and she:
So it always was, so shall ever be!
Scheme | ABBAAACCDDDDD EEXXFGGFFGXEGGHHIJJIKLLLKMMXCMMMM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111011 110101 01101 1011010110 11100101 0100110111 1011 01001 1011101101 011111111 101101 0011 0101 11110101 10101001 001101110 111111011 111111101 101011101 010110111 0011110101 101010111 011110101 1010101110 1101111 11001101 101011101 010110101 11110101 100111010 11010101 110101001 011101010 110101110 01111101 111100101 111101001 111111010 1001100 11010111 11010 1001 10110111 101111 11011101 111111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,623 |
Words | 292 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 13, 33 |
Lines Amount | 46 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 610 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 143 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 19, 2023
- 1:29 min read
- 187 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"De Gustibus---" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/30341/de-gustibus--->.
Discuss this Robert Browning poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In