A Lover’s Quarrel
Evelyn Hope
Up at a Villa–Down in the City
A Woman’s Last Word
Fra Lippo Lippi
A Toccata of Galuppi’s
By the Fire-Side
Any Wife to Any Husband
An Epistle
Mesmerism
A Serenade at the Villa
My Star
Instans Tyrannus
A Pretty Woman
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
Respectability
A Light Woman
The Statue and the Bust
Love in a Life
Life in a Love
How It Strikes a Contemporary
The Last Ride Together
The Patriot
Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha
Bishop Blougram’s Apology
Memorabilia
Andrea del Sarto
Before
After
In Three Days
In a Year
Old Pictures in Florence
In a Balcony
Saul
De Gustibus —
Women And Roses
Protus
Holy-Cross Day
The Guardian-Angel
Cleon
The Twins
Popularity
The Heretic’s Tragedy
Two in the Campagna
A Grammarian’s Funeral
One Way of Love
Another Way of Love
Transcendentalism:
Misconceptions
One Word More
The first edition of two volumes
The original title page of the first volume
Love among the Ruins
I.
WHERE the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro’ the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop —
II.
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country’s very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
III.
Now — the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)
IV.
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires
O’er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all
Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest
Twelve abreast.
V.
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o’er-spreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone —
VI.
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
VII.
Now — the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek’s head of blossom winks
Through the chinks —
VIII.
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
IX.
And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away —
X.
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come.
XI.
But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades’
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, — and then
All the men!
XII.
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
XIII.
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force —
Gold, of course.
XIV.
O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth’s returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
A Lover’s Quarrel
I.
OH, what a dawn of day!
How the March sun feels like May!
All is blue again
After last night’s rain,
And the South dries the hawthorn-spray.
Only, my Love’s away!
I’d as lief that the blue were grey,
II.
Runnels, which rillets swell,
Must be dancing down the dell,
With a foaming head
On the beryl bed
Paven smooth as a hermit’s cell;
Each with a tale to tell,
Could my Love but attend as well.
III.
Dearest, three months ago!
When we lived blocked-up with snow, —
When the wind would edge
In and in his wedge,
In, as far as the point could go —
Not to our ingle, though,
Where we loved each the other so!
IV.
Laughs with so little cause!
We devised games out of straws.
We would try and trace
One another’s face
In the ash, as an artist draws;
Free on each other’s flaws,
How we chattered like two church daws!
V.
What’s in the ‘Times’? — a scold
At the Emperor deep and cold;
He has taken a bride
To his gruesome side,
That’s as fair as himself is bold:
There they sit ermine-stoled,
And she powders her hair with gold.
VI.
Fancy the Pampas’ sheen!
Miles and miles of gold and green
Where the sunflowers blow
In a solid glow,
And — to break now and then the screen —
Black neck and eyeballs keen,
Up a wild horse leaps between!
VII.
Try, will our table turn?
Lay your hands there light, and yearn
Till the yearning slips
Thro’ the finger-tips
In a fire which a few discern,
; And a very few feel burn,
And the rest, they may live and learn!
VIII.
Then we would up and pace,
For a change, about the place,
Each with arm o’er neck:
’Tis our quarter-deck,
We are seamen in woeful case.
Help in the ocean-space!
Or, if no help, we’ll embrace.
IX.
See, how she looks now, dressed
In a sledging-cap and vest!
’Tis a huge fur cloak —
Like a reindeer’s yoke
Falls the lappet along the breast:
Sleeves for her arms to rest,
Or to hang, as my Love likes best.
X.
Teach me to flirt a fan
As the Spanish ladies can,
Or I tint your lip
With a burnt stick’s tip
And you turn into such a man!
Just the two spots that span
Half the bill of the young male swan.
XI.
Dearest, three months ago
When the mesmerizer Snow
With his hand’s first sweep
Put the earth to sleep:
‘Twas a time when the heart could show
All — how was earth to know,
’Neath the mute hand’s to-and-fro?
XII.
Dearest, three months ago
When we loved each other so,
Lived and loved the same
Till an evening came
When a shaft from the devil’s bow
Pierced to our ingle-glow,
And the friends were friend and foe!
XIII.
Not from the heart beneath —
‘Twas a bubble born of breath,
Neither sneer nor vaunt,
Nor reproach nor taunt.
See a word, how it severeth!
Oh, power of life and death
In the tongue, as the Preacher saith!
XIV.
Woman, and will you cast
For a word, quite off at last
Me, your own, your You, —
Since, as truth is true,
I was You all the happy past —
Me do you leave aghast
With the memories We amassed?
XV.
Love, if you knew the light
That your soul casts in my sight,
How I look to you
For the pure and true
And the beauteous and the right, —
Bear with a moment’s spite
When a mere mote threats the white!
XVI.
What of a hasty word?
Is the fleshly heart not stirred
By a worm’s pin-prick
Where its roots are quick?
See the eye, by a fly’s foot blurred —
Ear, when a straw is heard
Scratch the brain’s coat of curd!
XVII.
Foul be the world or fair
More or less, how can I care?
’Tis the world the same
For my praise or blame,
And endurance is easy there.
Wrong in the one thing rare —
Oh, it is hard to bear!
XVIII.
Here’s the spring back or close,
When the almond-blossom blows:
We shall have the word
In a minor third
There is none but the cuckoo knows:
Heaps of the guelder-rose!
I must bear with it, I suppose.
XIX.
Could but November come,
Were the noisy birds struck dumb
At the warning slash
Of his driver’s-lash —
I would laugh like the valiant Thumb
Facing the castle glum
And the giant’s fee-faw-fum!
XX.
Then, were the world well stripped
Of the gear wherein equipped
We can stand apart,
Heart dispense with heart
In the sun, with the flowers unnipped, —
Oh, the world’s hangings ripped,
We were both in a bare-walled crypt!
XXI.
Each in the crypt would cry
“But one freezes here! and why?
”When a heart, as chill,
”At my own would thrill
“Back to life, and its fires out-fly?
”Heart, shall we live or die?
“The rest, . . . settle by-and-by!”
XXII.
So, she’d efface the score,
And forgive me as before.
It is twelve o’clock:
I shall hear her knock
In the worst of a storm’s uproar —
I shall pull her through the door —
I shall have her for evermore!
Evelyn Hope
I.
BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;
Little has yet been changed, I think —
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays through the hinge’s chink.
II.
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name —
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God’s hand beckoned unawares, —
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
III.
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew —
And, just because I was thrice as old
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, naught beside?
IV.
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love’s sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:
Much is to learn, much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
V.
But the time will come — at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium’s red —
And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old life’s stead.
VI.
I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul’s full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me —
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? Let us see!
VII.
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!
My heart seemed full as it could hold —
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair’s young gold.
So, hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep —
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand,
There, that is our secret! go to sleep;
You will wake, and r
emember, and understand.
Up at a Villa–Down in the City
(As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality)
I.
HAD I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!
II.
Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one’s life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.
III.
Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature’s skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!
— I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair’s turned wool.
IV.
But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses! Why?
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there’s something to take the eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry;
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.
V.
What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights,
‘Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights:
You’ve the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze,
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive-trees.
VI.
Is it better in May, I ask you? You’ve summer all at once;
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns.
‘Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.
VII.
Is it ever hot in the square? There’s a fountain to spout and splash!
In the shade it sings and springs: in the shine such foambows flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash
Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not abash,
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash.
VIII.
All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,
Except yon cypress that points like death’s lean lifted forefinger.
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix in the corn and mingle,
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill.
Enough of the seasons, — I spare you the months of the fever and chill.
IX.
Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin:
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in:
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 41
