Robert Browning

“ My brief life's pleasantness, 'twere not
So very disproportionate!
Or there might be another fate— ⁠250
I certainly could understand
(If fancies were the thing in hand)
How God might save, at that day's price,
The impure in their impurities,
Give licence formal and complete
To choose the fair and pick the sweet.
But there be certain words, broad, plain,
Uttered again and yet again,
Hard to mistake or overgloss—
Announcing this world's gain for loss, ⁠260
And bidding us reject the same:
The whole world lieth (they proclaim)
In wickedness,—come out of it! ”

“ Is it for this mood,
"That Thou, whose earth delights so well,
"Has made its complement a Hell?"
XVII
A final belch of fire like blood,
Overbroke all heaven in one flood
Of doom. Then fire was sky, and sky ⁠590
Fire, and both, one brief ecstasy,
Then ashes. But I heard no noise
(Whatever was) because a Voice
Beside me spoke thus, "Life is done,
"Time ends, Eternity's begun,
"And thou art judged for evermore."
XVIII
I looked up ”

“ Advance
"No claim to their inheritance
"Who chose the spirit's fugitive
"Brief gleams, and yearned, 'This were to live
" 'Indeed, if rays, completely pure
" 'From flesh that dulls them, could endure,—
" 'Not shoot in meteor-light athwart
" 'Our earth, to show how cold and swart
" 'It lies beneath their fire, but stand ⁠690
" 'As stars do, destined to expand,
" 'Prove veritable worlds, our home!'
"Thou saidst,—'Let spirit star the dome
" 'Of sky, that flesh may miss no peak,
" 'No nook of earth,—I shall not seek
" 'Its service further!' Thou art shut
"Out of the heaven of spirit ”