Men and Women

“No sketches first, no studies, that's long past:I do what many dream of, all their lives,--Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,And fail in doing. I could count twenty suchOn twice your fingers, and not leave this town,Who strive--you don't know how the others striveTo paint a little thing like that you smearedCarelessly passing with your robes afloat,--Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,(I know his name, no matter)--so much less!Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.There burns a truer light of God in them,In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to promptThis low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,Enter and take their place there sure enough,Though they come back and cannot tell the world.””

— Robert Browning

“This: no artist lives and loves, that longs notOnce, and only once, and for one only,(Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language””

— Robert Browning