Poems
The Laboratory-Ancien Régime
I.
Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy—
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?
II.
He is with her, and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear
Empty church, to pray God in, for them!—-I am here.
III
Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,
Pound at thy powder,—-I am not in haste!
Better sit thus, and observe thy strange things,
Than go where men wait me and dance at the King’s.
IV
That in the mortar—-you call it a gum?
Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!
And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,
Sure to taste sweetly,—-is that poison too?
V
Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,
What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures!
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!
VI
Soon, at the King’s, a mere lozenge to give,
And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!
But to light a pastile, and Elise, with her head
And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!
VII
Quick—-is it finished? The colour’s too grim!
Why not soft like the phial’s, enticing and dim?
Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir,
And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!
VIII
What a drop! She’s not little, no minion like me!
That’s why she ensnared him: this never will free
The soul from those masculine eyes,—-Say, “no!”
To that pulse’s magnificent come-and-go.
IX
For only last night, as they whispered, I brought
My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought
Could I keep them one half minute fixed, she would fall
Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does it all!
X
Not that I bid you spare her the pain;
Let death be felt and the proof remain:
Brand, burn up, bite into its grace—-
He is sure to remember her dying face!
XI
Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose;
It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close;
The delicate droplet, my whole fortune’s fee!
If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?
XII
Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill,
You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will!
But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings
Ere I know it—-next moment I dance at the King’s!
Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy—
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?
II.
He is with her, and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear
Empty church, to pray God in, for them!—-I am here.
III
Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,
Pound at thy powder,—-I am not in haste!
Better sit thus, and observe thy strange things,
Than go where men wait me and dance at the King’s.
IV
That in the mortar—-you call it a gum?
Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!
And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,
Sure to taste sweetly,—-is that poison too?
V
Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,
What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures!
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!
VI
Soon, at the King’s, a mere lozenge to give,
And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!
But to light a pastile, and Elise, with her head
And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!
VII
Quick—-is it finished? The colour’s too grim!
Why not soft like the phial’s, enticing and dim?
Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir,
And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!
VIII
What a drop! She’s not little, no minion like me!
That’s why she ensnared him: this never will free
The soul from those masculine eyes,—-Say, “no!”
To that pulse’s magnificent come-and-go.
IX
For only last night, as they whispered, I brought
My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought
Could I keep them one half minute fixed, she would fall
Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does it all!
X
Not that I bid you spare her the pain;
Let death be felt and the proof remain:
Brand, burn up, bite into its grace—-
He is sure to remember her dying face!
XI
Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose;
It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close;
The delicate droplet, my whole fortune’s fee!
If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?
XII
Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill,
You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will!
But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings
Ere I know it—-next moment I dance at the King’s!
Analysis (ai): The poem employs a dramatic monologue, a hallmark of the author’s work, presenting a single speaker whose unreliability reveals psychological depth. Unlike many of his contemporaries, the poet frequently uses morally ambiguous voices, and this piece extends that practice with a narrator consumed by jealousy and vengeance.
- Subject and Motivation: The speaker plans to poison a romantic rival with the help of an apothecary, revealing obsession not only with eliminating the woman but also with ensuring her suffering is witnessed by the shared lover. The desire for spectacle in punishment surpasses mere revenge, indicating a need for emotional dominance.
- Historical Context: Set in pre-Revolutionary France, it reflects 19th-century fascination with historical sensationalism, yet diverges from typical Romantic idealism by focusing on illicit desire and moral corruption. While many poems of the era emphasize nature or spiritual introspection, this one dwells on dark human impulses within a courtly setting.
- Diction and Tone: Archaic terms like “prithee” and “thou pliest” establish a historical veneer and heighten the theatricality. The elevated language contrasts with the base nature of the act, creating an unsettling dissonance that amplifies the speaker’s madness rather than dignifying it.
- Gender and Power: The poem critiques female rivalry as socially constructed under patriarchal structures. Unlike the author’s other female speakers, who often exercise agency quietly, this one embraces violence openly—suggesting a rare extreme of feminine rage permitted only in imagined transgression.
- Psychological Focus: The speaker’s fixation on physical details—the color of poison, the victim’s body in death—suggests not just jealousy but a displaced self-loathing. The attention to her rival’s sensuality reveals the speaker’s own sense of physical inadequacy, rarely discussed in treatments of the poem.
- Form and Rhythm: Rhymed quatrains with a steady iambic meter give the monologue a controlled, almost singsong quality that contrasts with the chaotic emotions. This tension between form and content is consistent with the author’s style, where rhyme often contains rather than expresses passion.
- Modern Resonance: Though written in the 19th century, its exploration of surveillance, performative emotion, and weaponized intimacy prefigures modern concerns about psychological manipulation and gendered violence, making it relevant beyond its period setting.
- Unconventional Pleasure: A less-discussed aspect is the speaker’s eroticization of the poisoning process—the description of poisons as “exquisite” and “sweet” blurs lines between creation and destruction, aligning the apothecary’s lab with a forbidden workshop of desire.
- Place in Oeuvre: Among the author’s dramatic monologues, this stands out for its female speaker’s unrepentant malevolence. Most of his narrators, even when cruel, offer introspection or justification; here, ecstasy in cruelty remains unexamined, making it an outlier in tone and moral landscape.
Robert Browning
(7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax.
His early long poems Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835) were acclaimed, but his reputation dwindled for a time – his 1840 poem Sordello was seen as wilfully obscure – and took over a decade to recover, by which time he had moved from Shelleyan forms to a more personal style. In 1846, he married fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett and moved to Italy. By her death in 1861, he had published the collection Men and Women (1855). His Dramatis Personae (1864) and book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868–1869) made him a leading poet. By his death in 1889, he was seen as a sage and philosopher-poet who had fed into Victorian social and political discourse. Societies for studying his work survived in Britain and the US into the 20th century.
