Bishop Blougram's Apology

By Robert Browning

"Bishop Blougram's Apology" is a long poem by the English poet Robert Browning. It takes the form of a sermon spoken by Bishop Blougram to his son, Gerald, on the importance of religion in their daily lives. It also powerfully illustrates a sense of duty and morality that is seen as being more valuable than reason.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Apr 11, 2021
• ISBN: 4064066455477

Robert Browning

Robert Browning (1812-1889) was an English poet and playwright. Browning was born in London to an abolitionist family with extensive literary and musical interests. He developed a skill for poetry as a teenager, while also learning French, Greek, Latin, and Italian. Browning found early success with the publication of Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835), but his career and notoriety lapsed over the next two decades, resurfacing with his collection Men and Women (1855) and reaching its height with the 1869 publication of his epic poem The Ring and the Book. Browning married the Romantic poet Elizabeth Barrett in 1846 and lived with her in Italy until her death in 1861. In his remaining years, with his reputation established and the best of his work behind him, Browning compiled and published his wife’s final poems, wrote a series of moderately acclaimed long poems, and traveled across Europe. Browning is remembered as a master of the dramatic monologue and a defining figure in Victorian English poetry.

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Robert Browning

Bishop Blougram's Apology

Published by Good Press, 2021

[e-mail]

EAN 4064066455477

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Titlepage

Text

  No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk.

A final glass for me, though: cool, i' faith!

We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.

It's different, preaching in basilicas,

And doing duty in some masterpiece

Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart!

I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes,

Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere;

It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh?

These hot long ceremonies of our church ⁠10

Cost us a little—oh, they pay the price,

You take me—amply pay it! Now, we'll talk.

  So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs.

No deprecation—nay, I beg you, sir!

Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know,

I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out,

We'd see truth dawn together?—truth that peeps

Over the glasses' edge when dinner's done,

And body gets its sop and holds its noise

And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time: ⁠20

Truth's break of day! You do despise me then.

And if I say, despise me—never fear!

1 know you do not in a certain sense—

Not in my arm-chair, for example: here,

I well imagine you respect my place

(Status, entourage, worldly circumstance)

Quite to its value—very much indeed:

—Are up to the protesting eyes of you

In pride at being seated here for once—

You'll turn it to such capital account! ⁠30

When somebody, through years and years to come,

Hints of the bishop—names me—that's enough:

Blougram? I knew him—(into it you slide)

"Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day,

All alone, we two; he's a clever man:

And after dinner—why, the wine you know—

Oh, there was wine, and good!—what with the wine . . .

'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk!

He's no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen

Something of mine he relished, some review: ⁠40

He's quite above their humbug in his heart,

Half-said as much, indeed—the thing's his trade.

I warrant, Blougram's sceptical at times:

How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!"

Che che, my dear sir, as we say at Rome,

Don't you protest now! It's fair give