Dubliners: The Dead: which Browning poem does Gabriel almost quote?

Question

Gabriel gives a speech and is contemplating whether to quote Robert Browning (he decides not to). Which poem is it?

Answer 1

Karihaye, you need a mind reader, not an ordinary mortal like me to answer that.

Answer 2

Rose is right. Browning wrote a huge number of poems, many of them quite long (e.g., The Ring and the Book!) and many of them quite significant. There's just no way of knowing. And the text does say "lines" of Browning, so it's obviously not a complete poem.

I guess to be absolutely positive that Joyce didn't have a specific one in mind (he probably did, but he probably never made a note of it or told anyone which it was), you'd want to check Richard Ellmann's biography of Joyce.

http://www.amazon.com/James-Joyce-Oxford...