Pippa Passes: Part I: Morning Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A AB CCC DECFGHAIJKLM AFNOPQRSTUVWXYZ DA2A2B2C2 ALD2E2YF2G2 DH2 A I2F J2A2YJ2K2 DK2 AK2D2D2L2D2 DM2N2 ASH2M2 DN2 AA2O2G2P2 DQ2YM AB2 DDR2S2FA2A2E2FG2T2A AQ2U2H2A2H2 FFFLUJ2 AYA2 FB2YA AFV2W2G2X2Y2B2FA2G2Y Z2B2 FY AA3B3SA2 FC2C3G2A2D3F AL FE3A2A2F3I2A2FG3OA2H 3 AQ2K2 FLI3W ASG2A2F FA2J3K3H2 AK3A2L3C2M3UI2M3R2 FF ACG2M3N3NSC2A2M3A2H2 G2FG2 FO3 AFP3W2D3FQ3T2A2M3F FC2B2R3A2FA2M3S3K2T3 C2B2FU3A2LB2 AB2A2A2F FI2A2 AM3I2J3A2 FM3FV3 AYA2A2 FW AW FAW3O3X3YF AF FY3J3XTM3C2Z3J3 AA2 FA2QFB2 AF FH2 AFA4G2F FH2A2SA2D3 AA2O3 FB2A2A2M3 AM3W2M3 FM3A2D3 A B2A2B4 L LM3M3B4LM3M3B4 A2 B4Z3Z3 FG2FB4B4B2X3C2 B4FA2 FB4 B4B2 FG2 B4M3M3A2A2C2M3TB4C4 FF B4G2M3 FB4G2SB4A2 B4B4A2D4 FM3 B4CB4YC2A2B4U2B4M3G2 A2A2M3 FFFM3E4B2FM3F B4G2A2A2B4F FG2 M3 B4 B4 B4 A2 B4 B4 B4 M3 B4 A2 F4 F B4 A2 F4 G2 B4 C2 F4 R3 B4 R3 F A2 B4 G2 B4 M3 B4 F B4 A2 B4 M3 B4 Y B4 G2 F4 G4 B4 G2 B4 A2 F4 F B4 B4

Scene Up the Hill side inside the Shrub house Luca's wife Ottima and her paramour the German SebaldA
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SebaldA
singsB
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Let the watching lids winkC
Day's a blaze with eyes thinkC
Deep into the night drinkC
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OttimaD
Night Such may be your Rhine land nights perhapsE
But this blood red beam through the shutter's chinkC
We call such light the morning let us seeF
Mind how you grope your way though How these tallG
Naked geraniums straggle Push the latticeH
Behind that frame Nay do I bid you SebaldA
It shakes the dust down on me Why of courseI
The slide bolt catches Well are you contentJ
Or must I find you something else to spoilK
Kiss and be friends my Sebald Is 't full morningL
Oh don't speak thenM
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SebaldA
Ay thus it used to beF
Ever your house was I remember shutN
Till mid day I observed that as I strolledO
On mornings through the vale here country girlsP
Were noisy washing garments in the brookQ
Hinds drove the slow white oxen up the hillsR
But no your house was mute would ope no eyeS
And wisely you were plotting one thing thereT
Nature another outside I looked upU
Rough white wood shutters rusty iron barsV
Silent as death blind in a flood of lightW
Oh I remember and the peasants laughedX
And said The old man sleeps with the young wifeY
This house was his this chair this window hisZ
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OttimaD
Ah the clear morning I can see St Mark'sA2
That black streak is the belfry Stop VicenzaA2
Should lie there's Padua plain enough that blueB2
Look o'er my shoulder follow my fingerC2
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SebaldA
MorningL
It seems to me a night with a sun addedD2
Where's dew where's freshness That bruised plant I bruisedE2
In getting through the lattice yestereveY
Droops as it did See here's my elbow's markF2
I' the dust o' the sillG2
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OttimaD
Oh shut the lattice prayH2
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SebaldA
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Let me lean out I cannot scent blood hereI2
Foul as the morn may beF
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There shut the world outJ2
How do you feel now Ottima There curseA2
The world and all outside Let us throw offY
This mask how do you bear yourself Let's outJ2
With all of itK2
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OttimaD
Best never speak of itK2
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SebaldA
Best speak again and yet again of itK2
Till words cease to be more than words His bloodD2
For instance let those two words mean His bloodD2
And nothing more Notice I'll say them nowL2
His bloodD2
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OttimaD
Assuredly if I repentedM2
The deedN2
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SebaldA
Repent Who should repent or whyS
What puts that in your head Did I once sayH2
That I repentedM2
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OttimaD
No I said the deedN2
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SebaldA
The deed and the event just now it wasA2
Our passion's fruit the devil take such cantO2
Say once and always Luca was a wittolG2
I am his cut throat you areP2
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OttimaD
Here's the wineQ2
I brought it when we left the house aboveY
And glasses too wine of both sorts Black White thenM
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SebaldA
But am not I his cut throat What are youB2
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OttimaD
There trudges on his business from the DuomoD
Benet the Capuchin with his brown hoodR2
And bare feet always in one place at churchS2
Close under the stone wall by the south entryF
I used to take him for a brown cold pieceA2
Of the wall's self as out of it he roseA2
To let me pass at first I say I usedE2
Now so has that dumb figure fastened on meF
I rather should account the plastered wallG2
A piece of him so chilly does it strikeT2
This SebaldA
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SebaldA
No the white wine the white wineQ2
Well Ottima I promised no new yearU2
Should rise on us the ancient shameful wayH2
Nor does it rise Pour on To your black eyesA2
Do you remember last damned New Year's dayH2
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OttimaF
You brought those foreign prints We looked at themF
Over the wine and fruit I had to schemeF
To get him from the fire Nothing but sayingL
His own set wants the proof mark roused him upU
To hunt them outJ2
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SebaldA
'Faith he is not aliveY
To fondle you before my faceA2
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OttimaF
Do youB2
Fondle me then Who means to take your lifeY
For that my SebaldA
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SebaldA
Hark you OttimaF
One thing to guard against We'll not make muchV2
One of the other that is not make moreW2
Parade of warmth childish officious coilG2
Than yesterday as if sweet I supposedX2
Proof upon proof were needed now now firstY2
To show I love you yes still love you love youB2
In spite of Luca and what's come to himF
Sure sign we had him ever in our thoughtsA2
White sneering old reproachful face and allG2
We'll even quarrel love at times as ifY
We still could lose each other were not tiedZ2
By this conceive youB2
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OttimaF
LoveY
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SebaldA
Not tied so sureA3
Because though I was wrought upon have struckB3
His insolence back into him am IS
So surely yours therefore forever yoursA2
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OttimaF
Love to be wise one counsel pays anotherC2
Should we have months ago when first we lovedC3
For instance that May morning we two stoleG2
Under the green ascent of sycamoresA2
If we had come upon a thing like thatD3
SuddenlyF
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SebaldA
A thing there again a thingL
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OttimaF
Then Venus' body had we come uponE3
My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered corpseA2
Within there at his couch foot covered closeA2
Would you have pored upon it Why persistF3
In poring now upon it For't is hereI2
As much as there in the deserted houseA2
You cannot rid your eyes of it For meF
Now he is dead I hate him worse I hateG3
Dare you stay here I would go back and holdO
His two dead hands and say I hate you worseA2
Luca thanH3
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SebaldA
Off off take your hands off mineQ2
'T is the hot evening off oh morning is itK2
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OttimaF
There's one thing must be done you know what thingL
Come in and help to carry We may sleepI3
Anywhere in the whole wide house to nightW
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SebaldA
What would come think you if we let him lieS
Just as he is Let him lie there untilG2
The angels take him He is turned by thisA2
Off from his face beside as you will seeF
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OttimaF
This dusty pane might serve for looking glassA2
Three four four grey hairs Is it so you saidJ3
A plait of hair should wave across my neckK3
No this wayH2
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SebaldA
Ottima I would give your neckK3
Each splendid shoulder both those breasts of yoursA2
That this were undone Killing Kill the worldL3
So Luca lives again ay lives to sputterC2
His fulsome dotage on you yes and feignM3
Surprise that I return at eve to supU
When all the morning I was loitering hereI2
Bid me despatch my business and begoneM3
I wouldR2
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OttimaF
SeeF
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SebaldA
No I'll finish Do you thinkC
I fear to speak the bare truth once for allG2
All we have talked of is at bottom fineM3
To suffer there's a recompense in guiltN3
One must be venturous and fortunateN
What is one young for else In age we'll sighS
O'er the wild reckless wicked days flown overC2
Still we have lived the vice was in its placeA2
But to have eaten Luca's bread have wornM3
His clothes have felt his money swell my purseA2
Do lovers in romances sin that wayH2
Why I was starving when I used to callG2
And teach you music starving while you plucked meF
These flowers to smellG2
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OttimaF
My poor lost friendO3
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SebaldA
He gave meF
Life nothing less what if he did reproachP3
My perfidy and threaten and do moreW2
Had he no right What was to wonder atD3
He sat by us at table quietlyF
Why must you lean across till our cheeks touchedQ3
Could he do less than make pretence to strikeT2
'T is not the crime's sake I'd commit ten crimesA2
Greater to have this crime wiped out undoneM3
And you O how feel you Feel you for meF
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OttimaF
Well then I love you better now than everC2
And best look at me while I speak to youB2
Best for the crime nor do I grieve in truthR3
This mask this simulated ignoranceA2
This affectation of simplicityF
Falls off our crime this naked crime of oursA2
May not now be looked over look it downM3
Great let it be great but the joys it broughtS3
Pay they or no its price Come they or itK2
Speak not The past would you give up the pastT3
Such as it is pleasure and crime togetherC2
Give up that noon I owned my love for youB2
The garden's silence even the single beeF
Persisting in his toil suddenly stoppedU3
And where he hid you only could surmiseA2
By some campanula chalice set a swingL
Who stammered Yes I love youB2
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SebaldA
And I drewB2
Back put far back your face with both my handsA2
Lest you should grow too full of me your faceA2
So seemed athirst for my whole soul and bodyF
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OttimaF
And when I ventured to receive you hereI2
Made you steal hither in the morningsA2
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SebaldA
WhenM3
I used to look up 'neath the shrub house hereI2
Till the red fire on its glazed windows spreadJ3
To a yellow hazeA2
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OttimaF
Ah my sign was the sunM3
Inflamed the sere side of yon chestnut treeF
Nipped by the first frostV3
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SebaldA
You would always laughY
At my wet boots I had to stride thro' grassA2
Over my anklesA2
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OttimaF
Then our crowning nightW
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SebaldA
The July nightW
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OttimaF
The day of it too SebaldA
When heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heatW3
Its black blue canopy suffered descendO3
Close on us both to weigh down each to eachX3
And smother up all life except our lifeY
So lay we till the storm cameF
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SebaldA
How it cameF
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OttimaF
Buried in woods we lay you recollectY3
Swift ran the searching tempest overheadJ3
And ever and anon some bright white shaftX
Burned thro' the pine tree roof here burned and thereT
As if God's messenger thro' the close wood screenM3
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a ventureC2
Feeling for guilty thee and me then brokeZ3
The thunder like a whole sea overheadJ3
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SebaldA
YesA2
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OttimaF
While I stretched myself upon you handsA2
To hands my mouth to your hot mouth and shookQ
All my locks loose and covered you with themF
You Sebald the same youB2
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SebaldA
Slower OttimaF
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OttimaF
And as we layH2
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SebaldA
Less vehemently Love meF
Forgive me Take not words mere words to heartA4
Your breath is worse than wine Breathe slow speak slowG2
Do not lean on meF
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OttimaF
Sebald as we layH2
Rising and falling only with our pantsA2
Who said Let death come now 'T is right to dieS
Right to be punished Nought completes such blissA2
But woe Who said thatD3
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SebaldA
How did we ever riseA2
Was't that we slept Why did it endO3
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OttimaF
I felt youB2
Taper into a point the ruffled endsA2
Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lipsA2
My hair is fallen now knot it againM3
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SebaldA
I kiss you now dear Ottima now and nowM3
This way Will you forgive me be once moreW2
My great queenM3
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OttimaF
Bind it thrice about my browM3
Crown me your queen your spirit's arbitressA2
Magnificent in sin Say thatD3
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SebaldA
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I crown youB2
My great white queen my spirit's arbitressA2
MagnificentB4
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From without is heard the voice of Pippa singingL
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The year's at the springL
And day's at the mornM3
Morning's at sevenM3
The hill side's dew pearledB4
The lark's on the wingL
The snail's on the thornM3
God's in his heavenM3
All's right with the worldB4
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Pippa passesA2
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SebaldB4
God's in his heaven Do you hear that Who spokeZ3
You you spokeZ3
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OttimaF
Oh that little ragged girlG2
She must have rested on the step we give themF
But this one holiday the whole year roundB4
Did you ever see our silk mills their insideB4
There are ten silk mills now belong to youB2
She stoops to pick my double heartsease ShX3
She does not hear call you out louderC2
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SebaldB4
Leave meF
Go get your clothes on dress those shouldersA2
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OttimaF
SebaldB4
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SebaldB4
Wipe off that paint I hate youB2
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OttimaF
MiserableG2
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SebaldB4
My God and she is emptied of it nowM3
Outright now how miraculously goneM3
All of the grace had she not strange grace onceA2
Why the blank cheek hangs listless as it likesA2
No purpose holds the features up togetherC2
Only the cloven brow and puckered chinM3
Stay in their places and the very hairT
That seemed to have a sort of life in itB4
Drops a dead webC4
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OttimaF
Speak to me not of meF
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SebaldB4
That round great full orbed face where not an angleG2
Broke the delicious indolence all brokenM3
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OttimaF
To me not of me Ungrateful perjured cheatB4
A coward too but ingrate's worse than allG2
Beggar my slave a fawning cringing lieS
Leave me Betray me I can see your driftB4
A lie that walks and eats and drinksA2
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SebaldB4
My GodB4
Those morbid olive faultless shoulder bladesA2
I should have known there was no blood beneathD4
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OttimaF
You hate me then You hate me thenM3
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SebaldB4
To thinkC
She would succeed in her absurd attemptB4
And fascinate by sinning show herselfY
Superior guilt from its excess superiorC2
To innocence That little peasant's voiceA2
Has righted all again Though I be lostB4
I know which is the better never fearU2
Of vice or virtue purity or lustB4
Nature or trick I see what I have doneM3
Entirely now Oh I am proud to feelG2
Such torments let the world take credit thenceA2
I having done my deed pay too its priceA2
I hate hate curse you God's in his heavenM3
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OttimaF
MeF
Me no no Sebald not yourself kill meF
Mine is the whole crime Do but kill me thenM3
Yourself then presently first hear me speakE4
I always meant to kill myself wait youB2
Lean on my breast not as a breast don't love meF
The more because you lean on me my ownM3
Heart's Sebald There there both deaths presentlyF
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SebaldB4
My brain is drowned now quite drowned all I feelG2
Is is at swift recurring intervalsA2
A hurry down within me as of watersA2
Loosened to smother up some ghastly pitB4
There they go whirls from a black fiery seaF
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OttimaF
Not me to him O God be mercifulG2
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Talk by the way while Pippa is passing from the hill side to Orcana Foreign Students of painting and sculpture from Venice assembled opposite the house of Jules a young French statuary at PossagnoM3
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st StudentB4
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Attention My own post is beneath this window but the pomegranate clump yonder will hide three or four of you with a little squeezing and Schramm and his pipe must lie flat in the balcony Four five who's a defaulter We want everybody for Jules must not be suffered to hurt his bride when the jest's found outB4
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nd StudentB4
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All here Only our poet's away never having much meant to be present moonstrike him The airs of that fellow that Giovacchino He was in violent love with himself and had a fair prospect of thriving in his suit so unmolested was it when suddenly a woman falls in love with him too and out of pure jealousy he takes himself off to Trieste immortal poem and all whereto is this prophetical epitaph appended already as Bluphocks assures me Here a mammoth poem lies Fouled to death by butterflies His own fault the simpleton Instead of cramp couplets each like a knife in your entrails he should write says Bluphocks both classically and intelligibly sculapius an Epic Catalogue of the drugs Hebe's plaister One strip Cools your lip Phoebus' emulsion One bottle Clears your throttle Mercury's bolus One box CuresA2
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rd StudentB4
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Subside my fine fellow If the marriage was over by ten o'clock Jules will certainly be here in a minute with his brideB4
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nd StudentB4
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Good only so should the poet's muse have been universally acceptable says Bluphocks et canibus nostris and Delia not better known to our literary dogs than the boy GiovacchinoM3
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st StudentB4
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To the point now Where's Gottlieb the new comer Oh listen Gottlieb to what has called down this piece of friendly vengeance on Jules of which we now assemble to witness the winding up We are all agreed all in a tale observe when Jules shall burst out on us in a fury by and by I am spokesman the verses that are to undeceive Jules bear my name of Lutwyche but each professes himself alike insulted by this strutting stone squarer who came alone from Paris to Munich and thence with a crowd of us to Venice and Possagno here but proceeds in a day or two alone again oh alone indubitably to Rome and Florence He forsooth take up his portion with these dissolute brutalized heartless bunglers so he was heard to call us all now is Schramm brutalized I should like to know Am I heartlessA2
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GottliebF4
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Why somewhat heartless for suppose Jules a coxcomb as much as you choose still for this mere coxcombry you will have brushed off what do folks style it the bloom of his life Is it too late to alter These love letters now you call his I can't laugh at themF
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th StudentB4
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Because you never read the sham letters of our inditing which drew forth theseA2
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GottliebF4
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His discovery of the truth will be frightfulG2
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th StudentB4
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That's the joke But you should have joined us at the beginning there's no doubt he loves the girl loves a model he might hire by the hourC2
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GottliebF4
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See here He has been accustomed he writes to have Canova's women about him in stone and the world's women beside him in flesh these being as much below as those above his soul's aspi ration but now he is to have the reality There you laugh again I say you wipe off the very dew of his youthR3
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st StudentB4
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Schramm Take the pipe out of his mouth somebody Will Jules lose the bloom of his youthR3
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SchrammF
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Nothing worth keeping is ever lost in this world look at a blossom it drops presently having done its service and lasted its time but fruits succeed and where would be the blossom's place could it continue As well affirm that your eye is no longer in your body because its earliest favourite whatever it may have first loved to look on is dead and done with as that any affection is lost to the soul when its first object whatever happened first to satisfy it is superseded in due course Keep but ever looking whether with the body's eye or the mind's and you will soon find something to look on Has a man done wondering at women there follow men dead and alive to wonder at Has he done wondering at men there's God to wonder at and the faculty of wonder may be at the same time old and tired enough with respect to its first object and yet young and fresh sufficiently so far as concerns its novel one ThusA2
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st StudentB4
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Put Schramm's pipe into his mouth again There you see Well this Jules a wretched fribble oh I watched his disportings at Possagno the other day Canova's gallery you know there he marches first resolvedly past great works by the dozen without vouchsafing an eye all at once he stops full at thePsiche fanciulla cannot pass that old acquaintance without a nod of encouragement In your new place beauty Then behave yourself as well here as at Munich I see you Next he posts himself deliberately before the unfinished Piet for half an hour without moving till up he starts of a sudden and thrusts his very nose into I say into the group by which gesture you are informed that precisely the sole point he had not fully mastered in Canova's practice was a certain method of using the drill in the articulation of the knee joint and that likewise has he mastered at length Good bye therefore to poor Canova whose gallery no longer needs detain his successor Jules the predestinated novel thinker in marbleG2
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th StudentB4
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Tell him about the women go on to the womenM3
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st StudentB4
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Why on that matter he could never be supercilious enough How should we be other he said than the poor devils you see with those debasing habits we cherish He was not to wallow in that mire at least he would wait and love only at the proper time and meanwhile put up with the Psiche fanciulla Now I happened to hear of a young Greek real Greek girl at Malamocco a true Islander do you see with Alciphron's hair like sea moss Schramm knows white and quiet as an apparition and fourteen years old at farthest a daughter of Natalia so she swears that hag Natalia who helps us to models at three lire an hour We selected this girl for the heroine of our jest So first Jules received a scented letter somebody had seen his Tydeus at the Academy and my picture was nothing to it a profound admirer bade him persevere would make herself known to him ere long Paolina my little friend of the Fenice transcribes divinely And in due time the mysterious correspondent gave certain hints of her peculiar charms the pale cheeks the black hair whatever in short had struck us in our Malamocco model we retained her name too Phene which is by interpretation sea eagle Now think of Jules finding himself distinguished from the herd of us by such a creature In his very first answer he proposed marrying his monitress and fancy us over these letters two three times a day to receive and despatch I concocted the main of it relations were in the way secrecy must be observed in fine would he wed her on trust and only speak to her when they were indissolubly united St st Here they comeF
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th StudentB4
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Both of them Heaven's love speak softly speak within yourselvesA2
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th StudentB4
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Look at the bridegroom Half his hair in storm and half in calm patted down over the left temple like a frothy cup one blows on to cool it and the same old blouse that he murders the marble inM3
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nd StudentB4
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Not a rich vest like yours Hannibal Scratchy rich that your face may the better set it offY
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th StudentB4
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And the bride Yes sure enough our Phene Should you have known her in her clothes How magnificently paleG2
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GottliebF4
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She does not also take it for earnest I hopeG4
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st StudentB4
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Oh Natalia's concern that is We settle with NataliaG2
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th StudentB4
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She does not speak has evidently let out no word The only thing is will she equally remember the rest of her lesson and repeat correctly all those verses which are to break the secret to JulesA2
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GottliebF4
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How he gazes on her Pity pityF
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st StudentB4
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They go in now silence You three not nearer the window mind than that pomegranate just where the little girl who a few minutes ago passed us singing is seatedB4

Robert Browning



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