For his life's set prize, be it what it will!
The counter our lovers staked was lost
As surely as if it were lawful coin:
And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost
Is—the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,
Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.
You of the virtue (we issue join)
How strive you? De te, fabula!
PORPHYRIA'S LOVER
First printed in Mr. Fox's Monthly Repository in 1836, under the signature Z. When issued in Bells and Pomegranates it was grouped with Johannes Agricola in Meditation as No. II. of Madhouse Cells. The poem has an interest as the earliest, apparently, of Browning's monologues.