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My Last Duchess, Robert Browning This poem is about a Duke talking about his ex-wife and what he wants out of his new wife. The poem opens up with the Duke and another character later recognized as the count showing a painting of his ex-wife on the wall, “That’s my last Duchess on the wall”. He’s boasting the quality of the painting “looking as if she were alive”. Inviting the count to sit and look at her as they talk. He then goes into what he didn’t like about her, how she would blush but not from his looks. He regards her as trifling in lines 34- 35 “Who’d stoop to blame This sort of Trifling”. The last lines of the poem the Count says that if his daughter was to be like that he’d not allow her to have her dowry. They both then go down to wherever the rest of the guests are to and he boasts another piece of art he owns, a bronze statue of Neptune taming a sea horse.