Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Pride alone, puts forth such claims

  O’er the day’s distinguished names.

  IV.

  Meantime, how much I loved him,

  I find out now I’ve lost him.

  I who cared not if I moved him,

  Who could so carelessly accost him,

  Henceforth never shall get free

  Of his ghostly company,

  His eyes that just a little wink

  As deep I go into the merit

  Of this and that distinguished spirit —

  His cheeks’ raised colour, soon to sink,

  As long I dwell on some stupendous

  And tremendous (Heaven defend us!)

  Monstr’-inform’-ingens-horrend-ous

  Demoniaco-seraphic

  Penman’s latest piece of graphic.

  Nay, my very wrist grows warm

  With his dragging weight of arm.

  E’en so, swimmingly appears,

  Through one’s after-supper musings,

  Some lost lady of old years

  With her beauteous vain endeavour

  And goodness unrepaid as ever;

  The face, accustomed to refusings,

  We, puppies that we were . . . Oh never

  Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled

  Being aught like false, forsooth, to?

  Telling aught but honest truth to?

  What a sin, had we centupled

  Its possessor’s grace and sweetness

  No! she heard in its completeness

  Truth, for truth’s a weighty matter,

  And truth, at issue, we can’t flatter!

  Well, ‘tis done with; she’s exempt

  From damning us thro’ such a sally;

  And so she glides, as down a valley,

  Taking up with her contempt,

  Past our reach; and in, the flowers

  Shut her unregarded hours.

  V.

  Oh, could I have him back once more,

  This Waring, but one half-day more!

  Back, with the quiet face of yore,

  So hungry for acknowledgment

  Like mine! I’d fool him to his bent.

  Feed, should not he, to heart’s content?

  I’d say, “to only have conceived,

  “Planned your great works, apart from progress,

  “Surpasses little works achieved!”

  I’d lie so, I should be believed.

  I’d make such havoc of the claims

  Of the day’s distinguished names

  To feast him with, as feasts an ogress

  Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child!

  Or as one feasts a creature rarely

  Captured here, unreconciled

  To capture; and completely gives

  Its pettish humours license, barely

  Requiring that it lives.

  VI.

  Ichabod, Ichabod,

  The glory is departed!

  Travels Waring East away?

  Who, of knowledge, by hearsay,

  Reports a man upstarted

  Somewhere as a god,

  Hordes grown European-hearted,

  Millions of the wild made tame

  On a sudden at his fame?

  In Vishnu-land what Avatar?

  Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar,

  With the demurest of footfalls

  Over the Kremlin’s pavement bright

  With serpentine and syenite,

  Steps, with five other Generals

  That simultaneously take snuff,

  For each to have pretext enough

  And kerchiefwise unfold his sash

  Which, softness’ self, is yet the stuff

  To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,

  And leave the grand white neck no gash?

  Waring in Moscow, to those rough

  Cold northern natures born perhaps,

  Like the lambwhite maiden dear

  From the circle of mute kings

  Unable to repress the tear,

  Each as his sceptre down he flings,

  To Dian’s fane at Taurica,

  Where now a captive priestess, she alway

  Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech

  With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach

  As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands

  Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands

  Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry

  Amid their barbarous twitter!

  In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!

  Ay, most likely ‘tis in Spain

  That we and Waring meet again

  Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane

  Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid

  All fire and shine — abrupt as when there’s slid

  Its stiff gold blazing pall

  From some black coffin-lid.

  Or, best of all,

  I love to think

  The leaving us was just a feint;

  Back here to London did he slink,

  And now works on without a wink

  Of sleep, and we are on the brink

  Of something great in fresco-pain:

  Some garret’s ceiling, walls and floor,

  Up and down and o’er and o’er

  He splashes, as none splashed before

  Since great Caldera Polidore.

  Or Music means this land of ours

  Some favour yet, to pity won

  By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers, —

  “Give me my so-long promised son,

  “Let Waring end what I begun!”

  Then down he creeps and out he steals

  Only when the night conceals

  His face — in Kent ‘tis cherry-time,

  Or hops are picking: or at prime

  Of March he wanders as, too happy,

  Years ago when he was young,

  Some mild eve when woods grew sappy

  And the early moths had sprung

  To life from many a trembling sheath

  Woven the warm boughs beneath;

  While small birds said to themselves

  What should soon be actual song,

  And young gnats, by tens and twelves,

  Made as if they were the throng

  That crowd around and carry aloft

  The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,

  Out of a myriad noises soft,

  Into a tone that can endure

  Amid the noise of a July noon

  When all God’s creatures crave their boon,

  All at once and all in tune,

  And get it, happy as Waring then,

  Having first within his ken

  What a man might do with men:

  And far too glad, in the even-glow,

  To mix with the world he meant to take

  Into his hand, he told you, so —

  And out of it his world to make,

  To contract and to expand

  As he shut or oped his hand.

  Oh Waring, what’s to really be?

  A clear stage and a crowd to see!

  Some Garrick, say, out shall not he

  The heart of Hamlet’s mystery pluck?

  Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,

  Some Junius — am I right? — shall tuck

  His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife!

  Some Chatterton shall have the luck

  Of calling Rowley into life!

  Some one shall somehow run a muck

  With this old world for want of strife

  Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive

  To rouse us, Waring! Who’s alive?

  Our men scarce seem in earnest now.

  Distinguished names! — but ‘tis, somehow,

  As if they played at being names

  Still more distinguished, like the games

  Of children. Turn our sport to earnest

  With a visage of the sternest!
r />   Bring the real times back, confessed

  Still better than our very best!

  Warning II.

  I.

  “When I last saw Waring . . .”

  (How all turned to him who spoke!

  You saw Waring? Truth or joke?

  In land-travel or sea-faring?)

  II.

  “We were sailing by Triest

  “Where a day or two we harboured:

  “A sunset was in the West,

  “When, looking over the vessel’s side,

  “One of our company espied

  “A sudden speck to larboard.

  “And as a sea-duck flies and swims

  “At once, so came the light craft up,

  “With its sole lateen sail that trims

  “And turns (the water round its rims

  “Dancing, as round a sinking cup)

  “And by us like a fish it curled,

  “And drew itself up close beside,

  “Its great sail on the instant furled,

  “And o’er its thwarts a shrill voice cried,

  “(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar’s)

  “‘Buy wine of us, you English Brig?

  “‘Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?

  “‘A pilot for you to Triest?

  “‘Without one, look you ne’er so big,

  “‘They’ll never let you up the bay!

  “‘We natives should know best.’

  “I turned, and ‘just those fellows’ way,’

  “Our captain said, ‘The ‘long-shore thieves

  “‘Are laughing at us in their sleeves.’

  III.

  “In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;

  “And one, half-hidden by his side

  “Under the furled sail, soon I spied,

  “With great grass hat and kerchief black,

  “Who looked up with his kingly throat,

  “Said somewhat, while the other shook

  “His hair back from his eyes to look

  “Their longest at us; then the boat,

  “I know not how, turned sharply round,

  “Laying her whole side on the sea

  “As a leaping fish does; from the lee

  “Into the weather, cut somehow

  “Her sparkling path beneath our bow

  “And so went off, as with a bound,

  “Into the rosy and golden half

  “Of the sky, to overtake the sun

  “And reach the shore, like the sea-calf

  “Its singing cave; yet I caught one

  “Glance ere away the boat quite passed,

  “And neither time nor toil could mar

  “Those features: so I saw the last

  “Of Waring!” — You? Oh, never star

  Was lost here but it rose afar!

  Look East, where whole new thousands are!

  In Vishnu-land what Avatar?

  Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli

  I.

  I KNOW a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives

  First, when he visits, last, too, when he leaves

  The world; and, vainly favoured, it repays

  The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze

  By no change of its large calm front of snow.

  And underneath the Mount, a Flower I know,

  He cannot have perceived, that changes ever

  At his approach; and, in the lost endeavour

  To live his life, has parted, one by one,

  With all a flower’s true graces, for the grace

  Of being but a foolish mimic sun,

  With ray-like florets round a disk-like face.

  Men nobly call by many a name the Mount

  As over many a land of theirs its large

  Calm front of snow like a triumphal targe

  Is reared, and still with old names, fresh names vie,

  Each to its proper praise and own account:

  Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, sportively.

  II.

  Oh, Angel of the East, one, one gold look

  Across the waters to this twilight nook,

  — The far sad waters, Angel, to this nook!

  III.

  Dear Pilgrim, are thou for the East indeed?

  Go! Saying ever as thou dost proceed,

  That I, French Rudel, choose for my device

  A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice

  Before its idol. See! These inexpert

  And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt

  The woven picture: ‘tis a woman’s skill

  Indeed; but nothing baffled me, so ill

  Or well, the work is finished. Say, men feed

  On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees

  On my flower’s breast as on a platform broad:

  But, as the flower’s concern is not for these

  But solely for the sun, so men applaud

  In vain this Rudel, he not looking here

  But to the East — that East! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear!

  Cristina

  I.

  SHE should never have looked at me

  If she meant I should not love her!

  There are plenty . . . men, you call such,

  I suppose . . . she may discover

  All her soul to, if she pleases,

  And yet leave much as she found them:

  But I’m not so, and she knew it

  When she fixed me, glancing round them,

  II.

  What? To fix me thus meant nothing?

  But I can’t tell . . . there’s my weakness . . .

  What her look said! — no vile cant, sure,

  About “need to strew the bleakness

  “Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed.

  ”That the sea feels” — no “strange yearning

  “That such souls have, most to lavish

  ”Where there’s chance of least returning.”

  III.

  Oh, we’re sunk enough here, God knows!

  But not quite so sunk that moments,

  Sure tho’ seldom, are denied us,

  When the spirit’s true endowments

  Stand out plainly from its false ones,

  And apprise it if pursuing

  Or the right way or the wrong way,

  To its triumph or undoing.

  IV.

  There are flashes struck from midnights,

  There are fire-flames noondays kindle,

  Whereby piled-up honours perish,

  Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle,

  While just this or that poor impulse,

  Which for once had play unstifled,

  Seems the sole work of a life-time

  That away the rest have trifled.

  V.

  Doubt you if, in some such moment,

  As she fixed me, she felt clearly,

  Ages past the soul existed,

  Here an age ‘tis resting merely,

  And hence fleets again for ages,

  While the true end, sole and single,

  It stops here for is, this love-way,

  With some other soul to mingle?

  VI.

  Else it loses what it lived for,

  And eternally must lose it;

  Better ends may be in prospect,

  Deeper blisses (if you choose it),

  But this life’s end and this love-bliss

  Have been lost here. Doubt you whether

  This she felt as, looking at me,

  Mine and her souls rushed together?

  VII.

  Oh, observe! Of course, next moment,

  The world’s honours, in derision,

  Trampled out the light for ever:

  Never fear but there’s provision

  Of the devil’s to quench knowledge

  Lest we walk the earth in rapture!

  — Making those who catch God’s secret

  Just so much more prize their capture!

  VIII.

&n
bsp; Such am I: the secret’s mine now!

  She has lost me, I have gained her;

  Her soul’s mine: and thus, grown perfect,

  I shall pass my life’s remainder.

  Life will just hold out the proving

  Both our powers, alone and blended:

  And then, come next life quickly!

  This world’s use will have been ended.

  Johannes Agricola in Meditation I. — Madhouse Cell

  THERE’S Heaven above, and night by night,

  I look right through its gorgeous roof

  No sun and moons though e’er so bright

  Avail to stop me; splendour-proof

  I keep the broods of stars aloof:

  For I intend to get to God,

  For ‘tis to God I speed so fast,

  For in God’s breast, my own abode,

  Those shoals of dazzling glory past,

  I lay my spirit down at last.

  I lie where I have always lain,

  God smiles as he has always smiled;

  Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,

  Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled

  The Heavens, God thought on me his child;

  Ordained a life for me, arrayed

  Its circumstances, every one

  To the minutest; ay, God said

  This head this hand should rest upon

  Thus, ere he fashioned star or sun.

  And having thus created me,

  Thus rooted me, he bade me grow,

  Guiltless for ever, like a tree

  That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know

  The law by which it prospers so:

  But sure that thought and word and deed

  All go to swell his love for me,

  Me, made because that love had need

  Of something irrevocably

  Pledged solely its content to be.

  Yes, yes, a tree which must ascend, —

  No poison-gourd foredoomed to stoop!

  I have God’s warrant, could I blend

  All hideous sins, as in a cup,

  To drink the mingled venoms up,

  Secure my nature will convert

  The draught to blossoming gladness fast,

  While sweet dews turn to the gourd’s hurt,

  And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast,

  As from the first its lot was cast.

  For as I lie, smiled on, full fed

  By unexhausted power to bless,

  I gaze below on Hell’s fierce bed,

  And those its waves of flame oppress,

  Swarming in ghastly wretchedness;

  Whose life on earth aspired to be

  One altar-smoke, so pure! — to win

  If not love like God’s love to me,

  At least to keep his anger in,

  And all their striving turned to sin!

  Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white

  With prayer, the broken-hearted nun,

  The martyr, the wan acolyte,

  The incense-swinging child, — undone

  Before God fashioned star or sun!