Lyric Poem · Nature

"De Gustibus—"

by Robert Browning

Reading room

1Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,

2 (If our loves remain)

3 In an English lane,

4By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.

5Hark, those two in the hazel coppice —

6A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,

7 Making love, say, —

8 The happier they!

9Draw yourself up from the light of the moon.

10And let them pass, as they will too soon,

11 With the beanflower's boon,

12 And the blackbird's tune,

13 And May, and June!

14What I love best in all the world

15Is a castle, precipice-encurled,

16In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.

17Or look for me, old fellow of mine,

18(If I get my head from out the mouth

19O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,

20And come again to the land of lands) —

21In a sea-side house to the farther South,

22Where the baked cicala dies of drouth,

23And one sharp tree — 'tis a cypress — stands,

24By the many hundred years red-rusted,

25Bough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,

26My sentinel to guard the sands

27To the water's edge. For, what expands

28Before the house, but the great opaque

29Blue breadth of sea without a break?

30While, in the house, forever crumbles

31Some fragment of the frescoed walls,

32From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.

33A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles

34Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,

35And says there's news to-day — the king

36Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing,

37Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:

38 — She hopes they have not caught the felons.

39Italy, my Italy!

40Queen Mary's saying serves for me —

41 (When fortune's malice

42 Lost her, Calais)

43Open my heart and you will see

44Graved inside of it, "Italy."

45Such lovers old are I and she:

46So it always was, so shall ever be!

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“"De Gustibus—"” by Robert Browning — quilloak.com/poems/de-gustibus

Quick facts

Poem: "De Gustibus—"
Poet: Robert Browning
Length: 46 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Nature, Love, Death & Loss

Craft notes

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Shape: 46 lines · 2 stanzas of 13–33 lines

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Author record: Robert Browning1812–1889
Source record: PoetryDB"De Gustibus—" by robert-browning, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 abf8bbdc19cf7420…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Nature Love Death & Loss

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