blue book

Amazing what you find lurking in your bookcases - this one verse from pre-Chaucer to Dylan Thomas, but I stopped by at Browning

"That's my last duchess....
Looking as if she were alive,
I call that piece a wonder now: Fra Pandolf's hands
worked busily a day, and there she stands,
Will't please you sit and look at her....
Never read strangers like you that pictured countenance,
the depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned...
And seemed as if they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there."

If Fra Pandolf had been a blipper, then maybe the fine portrait would have been achieved more speedily. But then again he might not have had time to summon up the spot of joy in the duchess's cheek nor the faint half-blush that dies along her throat.

DDWSept challange - Blue
Heartfreek Sept challenge - Books