And now Robert is 200 and a day

“I love best the poets who hurt me. When in reading a poem I come across some line that thrusts itself into my heart — then is my soul knit unto the soul of that poet forevermore. Browning hurts me worse than any poet I have ever read — so I love him most.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery

"Or from Browning some 'Pomegranate,' which, if cut deep down the middle,
shows a heart within blood-tinctured of a veined humanity."

Elizabeth Barrett (1844)

There were a number of lovely tributes to Robert Browning for his birthday yesterday, but this one from Kimberly Eve at Musings of a Writer is especially notable for placing brief, introductory excerpts from his writings among relevant selections of art. I'd recommend it for those wanting a light first sample.

An interesting post from the blog of the University of Texas' English department led me to Max Beerbohm's caricature of Browning introducing a "lady of rank" to Rossetti. (Does that look like Lizzy Siddal dressed as a maid?)
Here's Robert and Elizabeth's correspondence on the 7th of May, 1846 and here are Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry making fun of the courtship that often seems more famous than the poets' literary accomplishments. (It's a little ways into the video, past a song and Hugh Laurie talking gibberish fluently.)

I've had a bad day, so I'm off to take comfort in "Rabbi Ben Ezra". I'm not sure that right now I truly believe "the best is yet to be", but the poem is long enough to provide comfort simply through its meter. (Today I've gone around repeating, "The count your master's known munificence is ample warrant that no just pretense of mine for dowry will be disallowed," just because the flow is yummy.)

So, readers, do you agree with Browning's optimism? What's your favorite Browning poem?