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Friday 6 January 2012

Duke Alphonse

For my A- level English literature class we had to write a response to Robert Browning's dramatic monologue 'My Last Duchess' from the perspective of the Duchess' portrait (I know it sounds mad but there we are). So here's mine:

Again, there he stands - opening the curtain,
Envoy looks concerned, but can not be certain,
How dare that man still look me in the face,
When in his eyes I have fallen from grace,
He assumes questions are being asked,
While revealing himself from his polite mask.
My eyes show not of what he claims,
In me he sees only his own gains,
These glances went in only one direction,
But he could not see this beneath his obsession,
Adultery, to him, hid with a smile,
So my beauty, to him, became only vile,
Claiming I thanked as his face goes green,
All this concluded from the little seen,
Pleasantries I had learnt from my mother,
For when I spoke to my servant, chef or another,
Nothing unfit for that Duke of mine,
But it all had to end in time,
And I was the centre of his obsession,
The diamond, the prised possession,
And now only I can see him for certain,
He is the one truly behind a curtain,

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