Dubiety
By Robert Browning
I will be happy if but for once:
Only help me, Autumn weather,
Me and my cares to screen, ensconce
In luxurys sofa-lap of leather!
Sleep? Nay, comfort with just a cloud
Suffusing day too clear and bright:
Eves essence, the single drop allowed
To sully, like milk, Noons water-white.
Let gauziness shade, not shroud, adjust,
Dim and not deaden, somehow sheathe
Aught sharp in the rough worlds busy thrust,
If it reach me through dreamings vapor-wreath.
Be life so, all things ever the same!
For, what has disarmed the world? Outside,
Quiet and peace: inside, nor blame
Nor want, nor wish whateer betide.
What is it like that has happened before?
A dream? No dream, more real by much.
A vision? But fanciful days of yore
Brought many: mere musing seems not such.
Perhaps but a memory, after all!
Of what came once when a woman leant
To feel for my brow where her kiss might fall.
Truth ever, truth only the excellent!