Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Your thirst! ‘Tis said, the Arab sage,

  In practising with gems, can loose

  Their subtle spirit in his cruce

  And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage,

  Leave them my ashes when thy use

  Sucks out my soul, thy heritage!

  He sings.

  I.

  Past we glide, and past, and past!

  What’s that poor Agnese doing

  Where they make the shutters fast?

  Grey Zanobi’s just a-wooing

  To his couch the purchased bride:

  Past we glide!

  II.

  Past we glide, and past, and past!

  Why’s the Pucci Palace flaring

  Like a beacon to the blast?

  Guests by hundreds, not one caring

  If the dear host’s neck were wried:

  Past we glide!

  She sings.

  I.

  The moth’s kiss, first!

  Kiss me as if you made believe

  You were not sure, this eve,

  How my face, your flower, had pursed

  Its petals up; so, here and there

  You brush it, till I grow aware

  Who wants me, and wide open burst.

  II.

  The bee’s kiss, now!

  Kiss me as if you entered gay

  My heart at some noonday,

  A bud that dares not disallow

  The claim, so all is rendered up,

  And passively its shattered cup

  Over your head to sleep I bow.

  He sings.

  I.

  What are we two?

  I am a Jew,

  And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue,

  To a feast of our tribe;

  Where they need thee to bribe

  The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe

  Thy . . . Shatter the vision for ever! And now,

  As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

  II.

  Say again, what we are?

  The sprite of a star,

  I lure thee above where the destinies bar

  My plumes their full play

  Till a ruddier ray

  Than my pale one announce there is withering away

  Some . . . Shatter the vision for ever! And now,

  As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

  He muses.

  Oh, which were best, to roam or rest?

  The land’s lap or the water’s breast?

  To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,

  Or swim in lucid shallows just

  Eluding water-lily leaves,

  An inch from Death’s black fingers, thrust

  To lock you, whom release he must;

  Which life were best on Summer eves?

  He speaks, musing.

  Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?

  From this shoulder let there spring

  A wing; from this, another wing;

  Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you!

  Snow-white must they spring, to blend

  With your flesh, but I intend

  They shall deepen to the end,

  Broader, into burning gold,

  Till both wings crescent-wise enfold

  Your perfect self, from ‘neath your feet

  To o’er your head, where, lo, they meet

  As if a million sword-blades hurled

  Defiance from you to the world!

  Rescue me thou, the only real!

  And scare away this mad ideal

  That came, nor motions to depart!

  Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!

  Still he muses.

  I.

  What if the Three should catch at last

  Thy serenader? While there’s cast

  Paul’s cloak about my head, and fast

  Gian pinions me, himself has past

  His stylet thro’ my back; I reel;

  And . . . is it Thou I feel?

  II.

  They trail me, these three godless knaves,

  Past every church that saints and saves,

  Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves

  By Lido’s wet accursed graves,

  They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,

  And . . . on Thy breast I sink

  She replies, musing.

  Dip your arm o’er the boat-side, elbow-deep,

  As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep,

  Caught this way? Death’s to fear from flame or steel,

  Or poison doubtless; but from water — feel!

  Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There!

  Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass

  To plait in where the foolish jewel was,

  I flung away: since you have praised my hair,

  ‘Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.

  He speaks.

  Row home? must we row home? Too surely

  Know I where its front’s demurely

  Over the Giudecca piled;

  Window just with window mating,

  Door on door exactly waiting,

  All’s the set face of a child:

  But behind it, where’s a trace

  Of the staidness and reserve,

  And formal lines without a curve,

  In the same child’s playing-face?

  No two windows look one way

  O’er the small sea-water thread

  Below them. Ah, the autumn day

  I, passing, saw you overhead!

  First, out a cloud of curtain blew,

  Then a sweet cry, and last came you —

  To catch your loory that must needs

  Escape just then, of all times then,

  To peck a tall plant’s fleecy seeds,

  And make me happiest of men.

  I scarce could breathe to see you reach

  (So far back o’er the balcony

  To catch him ere he climbed too high

  Above you in the Smyrna peach)

  That quick the round smooth cord of gold,

  This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,

  Fell down you like a gorgeous snake

  The Roman girls were wont, of old,

  When Rome there was, for coolness’ sake

  To let lie curling o’er their bosoms.

  Dear loory, may his beak retain

  Ever its delicate rose stain

  As if the wounded lotus-blossoms

  Had marked their thief to know again!

  Stay longer yet, for others’ sake

  Than mine! What should your chamber do?

  — With all its rarities that ache

  In silence while day lasts, but wake

  At night-time and their life renew,

  Suspended just to pleasure you

  — That brought against their will together

  These objects, and, while day lasts, weave

  Around them such a magic tether

  That dumb they look: your harp, believe,

  With all the sensitive tight strings

  Which dare not speak, now to itself

  Breathes slumberously, as if some elf

  Went in and out the chords, his wings

  Make murmur wheresoe’er they graze,

  As an angel may, between the maze

  Of midnight palace-pillars, on

  And on, to sow God’s plagues, have gone

  Through guilty glorious Babylon.

  And while such murmurs flow, the nymph

  Bends o’er the harp-top from her shell

  As the dry limpet for the lymph

  Come with a tune he knows so well.

  And how your statues’ hearts must swell!

  And how your pictures must descend

  To see each other, friend with friend!

  Oh, could you take them by surprise,

  You’d find Schidone’s eager Duke

  Doing the quaintest courtesies

  To that prim saint by Haste-th
ee-Luke!

  And, deeper into her rock den,

  Bold Castelfranco’s Magdalen

  You’d find retreated from the ken

  Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser —

  As if the Tizian thinks of her,

  And is not, rather, gravely bent

  On seeing for himself what toys

  Are these, his progeny invent,

  What litter now the board employs

  Whereon he signed a document

  That got him murdered! Each enjoys

  Its night so well, you cannot break

  The sport up, so, indeed must make

  More stay with me, for others’ sake.

  She speaks.

  I.

  To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,

  Is used to tie the jasmine back

  That overfloods my room with sweets,

  Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets

  My Zanze! If the ribbon’s black,

  The Three are watching: keep away!

  II.

  Your gondola — let Zorzi wreathe

  A mesh of water-weeds about

  Its prow, as if he unaware

  Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair!

  That I may throw a paper out

  As you and he go underneath.

  There’s Zanze’s vigilant taper; safe are we!

  Only one minute more to-night with me?

  Resume your past self of a month ago!

  Be you the bashful gallant, I will be

  The lady with the colder breast than snow.

  Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand

  More than I touch yours when I step to land,

  And say, All thanks, Siora! —

  Heart to heart

  And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,

  Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art!

  He is surprised, and stabbed

  .

  It was ordained to be so, sweet! — and best

  Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast.

  Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care

  Only to put aside thy beauteous hair

  My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn

  To death, because they never lived: but I

  Have lived indeed, and so — (yet one more kiss) — can die!

  Artemis Prologuizes

  I AM a Goddess of the ambrosial courts,

  And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed

  By none whose temples whiten this the world.

  Thro’ Heaven I roll my lucid moon along;

  I shed in Hell o’er my pale people peace;

  On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard

  Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek.

  And every feathered mother’s callow brood,

  And all that love green haunts and loneliness.

  Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns

  Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem,

  Upon my image at Athenai here;

  And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above,

  Was dearest to me. He my buskined step

  To follow thro’ the wild-wood leafy ways,

  And chase the panting stag, or swift with darts

  Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low,

  Neglected homage to another God:

  Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke

  Of tapers lulled, in jealousy dispatched

  A noisome lust that, as the gadbee stings,

  Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself

  The son of Theseus her great absent spouse.

  Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage

  Against the miserable Queen, she judged

  Life insupportable, and, pricked at heart

  An Amazonian stranger’s race should dare

  To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord:

  Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll

  The fame of him her swerving made not swerve,

  Which Theseus read, returning, and believed,

  So, exiled in the blindness of his wrath,

  The man without a crime, who, last as first,

  Loyal, divulged not to his sire the truth.

  Now Theseus from Poseidon had obtained

  That of his wishes should be granted Three,

  And this he imprecated straight — alive

  May ne’er Hippolutos reach other lands!

  Poseidon heard, ai ai! And scarce the prince

  Had stepped into the fixed boots of the car,

  That gave the feet a stay against the strength

  Of the Henetian horses, and around

  His body flung the reins, and urged their speed

  Along the rocks and shingles of the shore,

  When from the gaping wave a monster flung

  His obscene body in the coursers’ path!

  These, mad with terror as the sea-bull sprawled

  Wallowing about their feet, lost care of him

  That reared them; and the master-chariot-pole

  Snapping beneath their plunges like a reed,

  Hippolutos, whose feet were trammeled fast,

  Was yet dragged forward by the circling rein

  Which either hand directed; nor was quenched

  The frenzy of that flight before each trace,

  Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woeful car,

  Each boulder-stone, sharp stub, and spiny shell,

  Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed amid the sands

  On that detested beach, was bright with blood

  And morsels of his flesh: then fell the steeds

  Head-foremost, crashing in their mooned fronts,

  Shivering with sweat, each white eye horror-fixed.

  His people, who had witnessed all afar,

  Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos.

  But when his sire, too swoln with pride, rejoiced,

  (Indomitable as a man foredoomed)

  That vast Poseidon had fulfilled his prayer,

  I, in a flood of glory visible,

  Stood o’er my dying votary, and deed

  By deed revealed, as all took place, the truth.

  Then Theseus lay the woefullest of men,

  And worthily; but ere the death-veils hid

  His face, the murdered prince full pardon breathed

  To his rash sire. Whereat Athenai wails.

  So, I who ne’er forsake my votaries,

  Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake

  Should tender, nor pour out the dog’s hot life;

  Lest at my fain the priests disconsolate

  Should dress my image with some faded poor

  Few crowns, made favours of, nor dare object

  Such slackness to my worshippers who turn

  The trusting heart and loaded hand elsewhere

  As they had climbed Oulumpos to report

  Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne —

  I interposed: and, this eventful night,

  While round the funeral pyre the populace

  Stood with fierce light on their black robes that blind

  Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clipped

  O’er the dead body of their withered prince,

  And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated

  On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab

  ‘Twas bruised on, groaned away the heavy grief —

  As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed,

  Sending a crowd of sparkles thro’ the night,

  And the gay fire, elate with mastery,

  Towered like a serpent o’er the clotted jars

  Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense,

  And splendid gums, like gold, — my potency

  Conveyed the perished man to my retreat

  In the thrice venerable forest here.

  And this white-bearded Sage who squeezes now

  The berried plant, is Phoibos’ son of fame,

&
nbsp; Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught

  The doctrine of each herb and flower and root,

  To know their secret’st virtue and express

  The saving soul of all — who so has soothed

  With lavers the torn brow and murdered cheeks,

  Composed the hair and brought its gloss again,

  And called the red bloom to the pale skin back,

  And laid the strips and jagged ends of flesh

  Even once more, and slacked the sinew’s knot

  Of every tortured limb — that now he lies

  As if mere sleep possessed him underneath

  These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh, cheer,

  Divine presenter of the healing rod

  Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye,

  Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer!

  Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies!

  And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs,

  Ply, as the Sage directs, these buds and leaves

  That strew the turf around the Twain! While I

  Await, in fitting silence, the event.

  Waring

  I.

  WHAT’S become of Waring

  Since he gave us all the slip,

  Chose land-travel or seafaring,

  Boots and chest or staff and scrip,

  Rather than pace up and down

  Any longer London town?

  II.

  Who’d have guessed it from his lip

  Or his brow’s accustomed bearing,

  On the night he thus took ship

  Or started landward? — little caring

  For us, it seems, who supped together

  (Friends of his too, I remember)

  And walked home thro’ the merry weather,

  The snowiest in all December.

  I left his arm that night myself

  For what’s-his-name’s, the new prose-poet

  Who wrote the book there, on the shelf —

  How, forsooth, was I to know it

  If Waring meant to glide away

  Like a ghost at break of day?

  Never looked he half so gay!

  III.

  He was prouder than the devil:

  How he must have cursed our revel!

  Ay and many other meetings,

  Indoor visits, outdoor greetings,

  As up and down he paced this London,

  With no work done, but great works undone,

  Where scarce twenty knew his name.

  Why not, then, have earlier spoken,

  Written, bustled? Who’s to blame

  If your silence kept unbroken?

  “True, but there were sundry jottings,

  “Stray-leaves, fragments, blurrs and blottings,

  “Certain first steps were achieved

  “Already which” — (is that your meaning?)

  “Had well borne out whoe’er believed

  “In more to come!” But who goes gleaning

  Hedgeside chance-glades, while full-sheaved

  Stand cornfields by him? Pride, o’erweening