Oak

Earth
Architecture
Oak
Oak Doors
Café
Browning
Paella
Pâté
Spread
Recife
Pizza
Robles
 Prov.14:10
"The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy." 
Psalm 44:5 
 "Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us."

Chess: "Oak" "Oak Doors" "Café" "Browning""Paella" "Pâté" "Spread" "Recife" "Pizza" "Robles" "Earth" "Architecture"

CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY.

by Robert Browning 

OUT of the little chapel I burst 
Into the fresh night air again. 
I had waited a good five minutes first 
In the doorway, to escape the rain 
That drove in gusts down the common's centre, 
At the edge of which the chapel stands, 
Before I plucked up heart to enter : 
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands 
Reached past me, groping for the latch 
Of the inner door that hung on catch, 
 

More obstinate the more they fumbled, 
Till, giving way at last with a scold 
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled 
One sheep more to the rest in fold, 
And left me irresolute, standing sentry 
In the sheepfold's lath-and-plaster entry, 
Pour feet long by two feet wide, 
Partitioned off from the vast inside 
I blocked up half of it at least. 
No remedy ; the rain kept driving : 
They eyed me much as some wild beast, 
That congregation, still arriving, 
Some of them by the main road, white 
A long way past me into the night, 
Skirting the common, then diverging ; 
Not a few suddenly emerging 
From the common's self thro' the paling-gaps, 
They house in the gravel-pits perhaps, 

 Where the road stops short with its safeguard border 
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder ; 
But the most turned in yet more abruptly 
From a certain squalid knot of alleys, 
Where the town's bad blood once slept corruptly, 
Which now the little chapel rallies 
And leads into day again, its priestliness 
Lending itself to hide their beastliness 
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason), 
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on 
Those neophytes too much in lack of it, 
That, where you cross the common as I did, 
And meet the party thus presided, 
" Mount Zion," with Love-lane at the back of it, 
They front you as little disconcerted, 
As, bound for the lulls, her fate averted 
And her wicked people made to mind him, 
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him. 
 

 Well, from the road, the lanes or the common, 
In came the flock : the fat weary woman, 
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping 
Her umbrella with a mighty report, 
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping, 
A wreck of whalebones ; then, with a snort, 
Like a startled horse, at the interloper 
Who humbly knew himself improper, 
But could not shrink up small enough, 
Bound to the door, and in, the gruff 
Hinge's invariable scold 
Making your very blood run cold. 
Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered 
On broken clogs, the many-tattered 
Little old-faced, peaking sister-turned-mother 
Of the sickly babe she tried to smother 

Somehow up, with its spotted face, 
From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place ; 
She too must stop, wring the poor suds dry 
Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby 
Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping 
Already from my own clothes' dropping, 
Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on ; 
Then stooping down to take off her pattens, 
She bore them defiantly, in each hand one, 
Planted together before her breast 
And its babe, as good as a lance in rest. 
Close on her heels, the dingy satins 
Of a female something, past me flitted, 
With lips as much too white, as a streak 
Lay far too red on each hollow cheek ; 
And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied 
All that was left of a woman once, 
Holding at least its tongue for the nonce. 
 

 .............................................................