Robert Browning
Life in a Love
Escape me?
Never -
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you
So long as the world contains us both
Me the loving and you the loth
While the one eludes, must the other pursue
My life is a fault at last, I fear -
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed -
But what if I fail of my purpose here?

It is but to keep the nerves at strain
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall
And baffled, get up to begin again, -
So the chase takes up one's life, that's all
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark
I shape me -
Ever
Removed!