Confessions

by Robert Browning — a poem card from Justes Mots

A dying man confesses to a clergyman that his reflection on life centers not on spiritual matters but on memories of a youthful summer romance, recalling a girl he met secretly near a house called 'The Lodge.' The poem captures the persistence of romantic memory and the bittersweet acknowledgment that love, however brief and improper, defines a life more than conventional piety. It appeals to those treasuring irreplaceable romantic memories and life's sweetest moments.

What is he buzzing in my ears?
'Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?�
Ah, reverend sir, not I!

What I viewed there once, what I view again
Where the physic bottles stand
On the table�s edge, is a suburb lane,…

Themes: love · new-baby · wedding · friendship