but although I take your meaning,
‘tis with such a heavy mind!
Here you come with your old music,
and here’s all the good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice
where the merchants were the kings,
where Saint Mark’s is, where the Doges
used to wed the sea with rings?
Ay, because the sea’s the street there;
and ’tis arched by … what you call
… Shylock’s bridge with houses on it,
where they kept the carnival:
I was never out of England
—it’s as if I saw it all.
Did young people take their pleasure
when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight,
burning ever to mid-day,
when they made up fresh adventures
for the morrow, do you say?
Was a lady such a lady,
cheeks so round and lips so red,—
on her neck the small face buoyant,
like a bell-flower on its bed,
o’er the breast’s superb abundance
where a man might base his head?
Well, and it was graceful of them—
they’d break talk off and afford
—She, to bite her mask’s black velvet—
he, to finger on his sword,
while you sat and played Toccatas,
stately at the clavichord?
What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive,
sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,
told them something? Those suspensions,
those solutions—“Must we die?”
those commiserating sevenths—
“Life might last! we can but try!”
“Were you happy?” —“Yes.” —“And are you
still as happy?” —“Yes. And you?”
“Then, more kisses!” —“Did I stop them,
when a million seemed so few?”
Hark, the dominant’s persistence
till it must be answered to!
So, an octave struck the answer.
Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
“Brave Galuppi! that was music!
Good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking
when I hear a master play!”
Then they left you for their pleasure:
till in due time, one by one,
some with lives that came to nothing,
some with deeds as well undone,
death stepped tacitly and took them
where they never see the sun.
But when I sit down to reason,
think to take my stand nor swerve,
while I triumph o’er a secret
wrung from nature’s close reserve,
in you come with your cold music
till I creep thro’ every nerve.
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket,
creaking where a house was burned:
“Dust and ashes, dead and done with,
Venice spent what Venice earned.
The soul, doubtless, is immortal—
where a soul can be discerned.”
“Yours for instance: you know physics,
something of geology,
mathematics are your pastime;
souls shall rise in their degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction, —
you’ll not die, it cannot be!”
As for Venice and her people,
merely born to bloom and drop,
here on earth they bore their fruitage,
mirth and folly were the crop:
What of soul was left, I wonder,
when the kissing had to stop?
“Dust and ashes!” So you creak it,
and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too—
what’s become of all the gold
used to hang and brush their bosoms?
I feel chilly and grown old.
Meeting at Night1
The grey sea and the long black land;
and the yellow half-moon large and low;
and the startled little waves that leap
in fiery ringlets from their sleep,
as I gain the cove with pushing prow,
and quench its speed in the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
three fields to cross till a farm appears;
a tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
and blue spurt of a lighted match,
and a voice less loud, thro’ its joys and fears,
than the two hearts beating each to each!
My Last Duchess2
That’s my last duchess painted on the wall,
looking as if she were alive. I call
that piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
strangers like you that pictured countenance,
that depth and passion of its earnest glance,
but to myself they turned (since none puts by
the curtain drawn for you, but I)
and seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
how such a glance came there; so not the first
are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’t was not
her husband’s presence only, called that spot
of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps
over my lady’s wrist too much” or “Paint
must never hope to reproduce the faint
half-flush that dies along her throat:” such stuff
was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
for calling up that spot of joy. She had
a heart—how shall I say? —too soon made glad,
too easily impressed: she liked whate’er
she looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’t was all one! My favor at her breast,
the dropping of the daylight in the West,
the bough of cherries some officious fool
broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
she rode with round the terrace—all and each
would draw from her alike the approving speech,
or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked
somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
my gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
with anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
this sort of trifling? Even had you skill
in speech— (which I have not) —to make your will
Quite clear to such a one, and say, “Just this
or that in you disgusts me; here you miss
or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse
—e’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
as if alive. Will ’t please you rise? We’ll meet
the company below, then. I repeat,
the Count your master’s known munificence
is ample warrant that no just pretence
of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
at starting is my object. Nay, we’ll go
together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me.
Neve
r the Time and the Place1
Never the time and the place
and the loved one all together!
This path—how soft to pace!
This May—what magic weather!
Where is the loved one’s face?
In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,
but the house is narrow, the place is bleak
where, outside, rain and wind combine
with a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
with a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
with a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
thus firm and fast
yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
thro’ the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
outside are the storms and strangers: we
oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,—
I and she!
Porphyria’s Lover1
The rain set early in tonight,
the sullen wind was soon awake,
it tore the elm-tops down for spite,
and did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
she shut the cold out and the storm,
and kneeled and made the cheerless grate
blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
which done, she rose, and from her form
withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
and laid her soiled gloves by, untied
her hat and let the damp hair fall,
and, last, she sat down by my side
and called me. When no voice replied,
she put my arm about her waist,
and made her smooth white shoulder bare,
and all her yellow hair displaced,
and, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
and spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,
murmuring how she loved me—she
too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor,
to set its struggling passion free
from pride, and vainer ties dissever,
and give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
nor could tonight’s gay feast restrain
a sudden thought of one so pale
for love of her, and all in vain:
so, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
happy and proud; at last l knew
porphyria worshiped me: surprise
made my heart swell, and still it grew
while l debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
perfectly pure and good: I found
a thing to do, and all her hair
in one long yellow string l wound
three times her little throat around,
and strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
about her neck; her cheek once more
blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
only, this time my shoulder bore
her head, which droops upon it still:
the smiling rosy little head,
so glad it has its utmost will,
that all it scorned at once is fled,
and I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how
her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
and all night long we have not stirred,
and yet God has not said a word!
The Confessional1
It is a lie—their Priests, their Pope,
their Saints, their…all their fear or hope
are lies, and lies—there! through my door
and ceiling, there! and walls and floor.
There, lies, they lie—shall still be hurled
till spite of them I reach the world!
You think priests just and holy men!
Before they put me in this den
I was a human creature too,
with flesh and blood like one of you,
a girl that laughed in beauty’s pride
like lilies in your world outside.
I had a lover, shame avaunt!
This poor wrenched body, grim and gaunt,
was kissed all over till it burned,
by lips the truest love e’er turned
his heart’s own tint: one night they kissed
my soul out in a burning mist
so, next day when the accustomed train
of things grew round my sense again,
“That is a sin,” I said: and slow
with downcast eyes to church I go,
and pass to the confession-chair,
and tell the old mild father there.
But when I falter Beltran’s name,
“Ha?” quoth the father; “much I blame
the sin; yet whereof idly grieve?
Despair not, strenuously retrieve!
Nay, I will turn this love of thine
to lawful love, almost divine;
for he is young, and led astray,
this Beltran, and he schemes, men say,
to change the laws of church and state;
so, thine shall be an angel’s fate
who, ere the thunder breaks, should roll
its cloud away and save his soul.”
“For, when he lies upon thy breast,
thou mayst demand and be possessed
of all his plans, and next day steal
to me, and all those plans reveal,
that I and every priest, to purge
his soul may fast and use the scourge.”
That father’s beard was long and white,
with love and truth his brow seemed bright;
I went back; all on fire with joy,
and, that same evening, bade the boy
tell me, as lovers should, heart-free,
something to prove his love of me.
He told me what he would not tell
for hope of heaven or fear of hell;
and I lay listening in such pride!
And, soon as he had left my side,
tripped to the church by morning-light
to save his soul in his despite.
I told the father all his schemes
who were his comrades, what their dreams;
“And now make haste,” I said, “to pray
the one spot from his soul away;
to-night he comes, but not the same
will look.” At night he never came.
Nor next night; on the after-morn,
I went forth with a strength new-born.
The church was empty; something drew
my steps into the street; I knew
it led me to the market-place;
where, lo, on high, the fathers face!
That horrible back scaffold dressed,
that stapled block…God sink the rest!
That head strapped back, that blinding vest,
those knotted hands and naked breast,
till near one busy hangman pressed,
and, on the neck these arms caressed…
no part in aught they hope or fear!
No heaven with them, no hell! - and here,
no earth, not so much space as pens
my body in their worst of dens
but shall bear God and man my cry,
lies—lies, again—and still, they lie!
The Pied Piper of Hamelin1
A Child’s Story
Hamelin Town’s in Brunswick,
by famous Hanover city;
the river Weser, deep and wide,
washes its wall on the southern side;
a pleasanter spot you never spied;
but, when begins my ditty,
almost five hundred years ago,
to see the townsfolk suffer so
from vermin, was a pity.
Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
and bit the babies in the cradles,
and ate the cheeses out of the vats,
and licked the soup from the cook’s own ladles,
split open the kegs of salted sprats,
made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,
and even spoiled the women’s chats,
by drowning their speaking
with shrieking and squeaking
in fifty different sharps and flats.
At last the people in a body
to the Town Hall came flocking:
“Tis clear,” cried they, “our Mayor’s a noddy;
and as for our Corporation—shocking
to think we buy gowns lined with ermine
for dolts that can’t or won’t determine
what’s best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you’re old and obese,
to find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking
to find the remedy we’re lacking,
or, sure as fate, we’ll send you packing!”
At this the Mayor and Corporation
quaked with a mighty consternation.
An hour they sate in council,
at length the Mayor broke silence:
“For a guilder I’d my ermine gown sell;
I wish I were a mile hence!
It’s easy to bid one rack one’s brain—
I’m sure my poor head aches again
I’ve scratched it so, and all in vain.
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!”
Just as he said this, what should hap
at the chamber door but a gentle tap?
“Bless us,” cried the Mayor, “what’s that?”
(with the Corporation as he sat,
looking little though wondrous fat;
nor brighter was his eye, nor moister
than a too-long-opened oyster,
save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous
for a plate of turtle green and glutinous)
“Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?
Anything like the sound of a rat
makes my heart go pit-a-pat!”
“Come in!” —the Mayor cried, looking bigger:
and in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
was half of yellow and half of red;
The Giant Book of Poetry (2006) Page 15
