Hello and welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by somebody who I promised you would be hearing from soon, and that is Robert

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's husband. Robert Browning was born in 1812 and he died in 1889,

and his engagement and elopement and subsequent marriage to Elizabeth Barrett Browning

is something of the stuff of legend among poetry aficionados of, at least, at least of those

that are interested in the literature of that, that generation.

So it might be a little bit of a niche, but nonetheless. Robert Browning is probably deserving

of greater reputation than he, than he has right now. Many scholars believe that he was the precursor

to James Joyce and T.S. Eliot.

But I think he also was the precursor to the likes of Wendell Berry and William Carlos Williams and

Robert Frost. At times, his poetry seems quite simple, but I personally believe there's a depth

and a subtlety to it that is rare. The poem that I'm going to

read today is called Meeting at Night. It was composed in 1844, published 1845. And it was part of a pair of

poems called Night and Morning. The morning poem is quite short, and I'm going to read it as well right before I

start the other one. It's only four lines. So I'll read that and then I'll read the meeting at night

portion of that. So this is how morning goes.

Round the cape of a sudden came to sea, and the sun looked over the mountain's rim, and straight was a path of gold for him, in the need of a world of men for me.

One more time, this is the morning part of night and morning.

Around the cape of a sudden came the sea,

and the sun looked over the mountain's rim,

and straight was a path of gold for him.

And the need of a world of men for me.

...