Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  When he burst in upon me. I looked to hear

  A mere calm statement of his just desire

  In payment of his labour. When, O Heaven,

  How can I tell you? cloud was on my eyes

  And thunder in my ears at that first word

  Which told ‘twas love of me, of me, did all —

  He loved me — from the first step to the last,

  Loved me!

  CONSTANCE

  You did not hear . . . you thought he spoke

  Of love? what if you should mistake?

  QUEEN

  No, no —

  No mistake! Ha, there shall be no mistake!

  He had not dared to hint the love he felt —

  You were my reflex — how I understood!

  He said you were the ribbon I had worn,

  He kissed my hand, he looked into my eyes,

  And love, love was the end of every phrase.

  Love is begun — this much is come to pass,

  The rest is easy. Constance, I am yours —

  I will learn, I will place my life on you,

  But teach me how to keep what I have won.

  Am I so old? this hair was early grey;

  But joy ere now has brought hair brown again,

  And joy will bring the cheek’s red back, I feel.

  I could sing once too; that was in my youth.

  Still, when men paint me, they declare me . . . yes,

  Beautiful — for the last French Painter did!

  I know they flatter somewhat;, you are frank —

  I trust you. How I loved you from the first!

  Some queens would hardly seek a cousin out

  And set her by their side to take the eye

  I must have felt that good would come from you.

  I am not generous — like him — like you!

  But he is not your lover after all —

  It was not you he looked at. Saw you him?

  You have not been mistaking words or looks?

  He said you were the reflex of myself —

  And yet he is not such a paragon

  To you, to younger women who may choose

  Among a thousand Norberts. Speak the truth!

  You know you never named his name to me —

  You know, I cannot give him up — all God,

  Not up now, even to you!

  CONSTANCE

  Then calm yourself.

  QUEEN

  See, I am old — look here, you happy girl,

  I will not play the fool, deceive myself;

  ‘Tis all gone — put your cheek beside my cheek. —

  Ah, what a contrast does the moon behold!

  But then I set my life upon one chance,

  The last chance and the best — am I not left,

  My soul, myself? All women love great men

  If young or old — it is in all the tales —

  Young beauties love old poets who can love —

  Why thould not he the poems in my soul,

  The love, the passionate faith, the sacrifice,

  The constancy? I throw them at his feet.

  Who cares to see the fountain’s very shape

  And whether it be a Triton’s or a Nymph’s

  That pours the foam, makes rainbows all around?

  You could not praise indeed the empty conch;

  But I’ll pour floods of love and hide myself.

  How I will love him! cannot men love love?

  Who was a queen and loved a poet once

  Humpbacked, a dwarf? all, women can do that

  Well, but men too! at least, they tell you so.

  They love so many women in their youth,

  And even in age they all love whom they please;

  And yet the best of them confide to friends

  That ‘tis not beauty makes the lasting love —

  They spend a day with such and tire the next;

  They like soul, — well then, they like phantasy,

  Novelty even. Let us confess the truth

  Horrible though it be — that prejudice,

  Prescription . . . Curses! they will love a queen.

  They will — they do. And will not, does not — he?

  CONSTANCE

  How can he? You are wedded — ’tis a name

  We know, but still a bond. Your rank remains,

  His rank remains. How can he, nobly souled

  As you believe and I incline to think,

  Aspire to be your favourite, shame and all?

  QUEEN

  Hear her! there, there now — could she love like me?

  What did I say of smooth-cheeked youth and grace

  See all it does or could do I so, youth loves!

  Oh, tell him, Constance, you could never do

  What I will — you, it was not born in! I

  Will drive these difficulties far and fast

  As yonder mists curdling before the moon.

  I’ll use my light too, gloriously retrieve

  My youth from its enforced calamity,

  Dissolve that hateful marriage, and be his,

  His own in the eyes alike of God and man.

  CONSTANCE

  You will do — dare do — Pause on what you say!

  QUEEN

  Hear her! I thank you, Sweet, for that surprise.

  You have the fair face: for the soul, see mine!

  I have the strong soul: let me teach you, here.

  I think I have borne enough and long enough,

  And patiently enough, the world remarks,

  To have my own way now, unblamed by all.

  It does so happen, I rejoice for it,

  This most unhoped-for issue cuts the knot.

  There’s not a better way of settling claims

  Than this; God sends the accident express;

  And were it for my subjects’ good, no more,

  ‘Twere best thus ordered. I am thankful now,

  Mute, passive, acquiescent. I receive,

  And bless God simply, or should almost fear

  To walk so smoothly to my ends at last.

  Why, how I baffle obstacles, spurn fate!

  How strong I am! could Norbert see me now!

  CONSTANCE

  Let me consider. It is all too strange.

  QUEEN

  You, Constance, learn of me; do you, like me.

  You are young, beautiful: my own, best girl,

  You will have many lovers, and love one —

  Light hair, not hair like Norbert’s, to suit yours,

  And taller than he is, for you are tall.

  Love him like me! give all away to him;

  Think never of yourself; throw by your pride,

  Hope, fear, — your own good as you saw it once,

  And love him simply for his very self.

  Remember, I (and what am I to you?)

  Would give up all for one, leave throne, lose life,

  Do all but just unlove him! he loves me.

  CONSTANCE

  He shall.

  QUEEN

  You, step inside my inmost heart.

  Give me your own heart — let us have one heart —

  I’ll come to you for counsel; “This he says,

  This he does, what should this amount to, pray?

  Beseech you, change it into current coin.

  Is that worth kisses? shall I please him there?”

  And then we’ll speak in turn of you — what else?

  Your love (according to your beauty’s worth)

  For you shall have some noble love, all gold —

  Whom choose you? we will get him at your choice.

  — Constance, I leave you. Just a minute since

  I felt as I must die or be alone

  Breathing my soul into an ear like yours.

  Now, I would face the world with my new life,

  With my new crown. I’ll walk around the rooms,

  And then come back and tell you how it f
eels.

  How soon a smile of God can change the world!

  How we are all made for happiness — how work

  Grows play, adversity a winning fight!

  True, I have lost so many years. What then?

  Many remain — God has been very good.

  You, stay here. ‘Tis as different from dreams, —

  From the mind’s cold calm estimate of bliss,

  As these stone statues from the flesh and blood.

  The comfort thou hast caused mankind, God’s moon!

  [She goes out. Dance-music from within.

  PART THIRD

  NORBERT enters

  NORBERT

  Well! we have but one minute and one word —

  CONSTANCE

  I am yours, Norbert!

  NORBERT

  Yes, mine.

  CONSTANCE

  Not till now!

  You were mine. Now I give myself to you.

  NORBERT

  Constance!

  CONSTANCE

  Your own! I know the thriftier way

  Of giving — haply, ‘tis the wiser way.

  Meaning to give a treasure, I might dole

  Coin after coin out (each, as that were all,

  With a new largess still at each despair)

  And force you keep in sight the deed, reserve

  Exhaustless till the end my part and yours,

  My giving and your taking, both our joys

  Dying together. Is it the wiser way?

  I choose the simpler; I give all at once.

  Know what you have to trust to, trade upon.

  Use it, abuse it, — anything but say

  Hereafter, “Had I known she loved me so,

  And what my means, I might have thriven with it.”

  This is your means. I give you all myself.

  NORBERT

  I take you and thank God.

  CONSTANCE

  Look on through years!

  We cannot kiss a second day like this,

  Else were this earth, no earth.

  NORBERT

  With this day’s heat

  We shall go on through years of cold.

  CONSTANCE

  So best.

  I try to see those years — I think I see.

  You walk quick and new warmth comes; you look back

  And lay all to the first glow — not sit down

  For ever brooding on a day like this

  While seeing the embers whiten and love die.

  Yes, love lives best in its effect; and mine,

  Full in its own life, yearns to live in yours.

  NORBERT

  Just so. I take and know you all at once.

  Your soul is disengaged so easily,

  Your face is there, I know you; give me time,

  Let me be proud and think you shall know me.

  My soul is slower: in a life I roll

  The minute out in which you condense yours —

  The whole slow circle round you I must move,

  To be just you. I look to a long life

  To decompose this minute, prove its worth.

  ‘Tis the sparks’ long succession one by one

  Shall show you in the end what fire was crammed

  In that mere stone you struck: you could not know,

  If it lay ever unproved in your sight,

  As now my heart lies? your own warmth would hide

  Its coldness, were it cold.

  CONSTANCE

  But how prove, how?

  NORBERT

  Prove in my life, you ask?

  CONSTANCE

  Quick, Norbert — how?

  NORBERT

  That’s easy told. I count life just a stuff

  To try the soul’s strength on, educe the man.

  Who keeps one end in view makes all things serve.

  As with the body — he who hurls a lance

  Or heaps up stone on stone, shows strength alike,

  So I will seize and use all means to prove

  And show this soul of mine you crown as yours,

  And justify us both.

  CONSTANCE

  Could you write books,

  Paint pictures! one sits down in poverty

  And writes or paints, with pity for the rich.

  NORBERT

  And loves one’s painting and one’s writing too,

  And not one’s mistress! All is best, believe,

  And we best as no other than we are.

  We live, and they experiment on life

  Those poets, painters, all who stand aloof

  To overlook the farther. Let us be

  The thing they look at! I might take that face

  And write of it and paint it — to what end?

  For whom? what pale dictatress in the air

  Feeds, smiling sadly, her fine ghost-like form

  With earth’s real blood and breath, the beauteous life

  She makes despised for ever? You are mine,

  Made for me, not for others in the world,

  Nor yet for that which I should call my art,

  That cold calm power to see how fair you look.

  I come to you — I leave you not, to write

  Or paint. You are, I am. Let Rubens there

  Paint us.

  CONSTANCE

  So best!

  NORBERT

  I understand your soul.

  You live, and rightly sympathise with life,

  With action, power, success: this way is straight.

  And days were short beside, to let me change

  The craft my childhood learnt; my craft shall serve.

  Men set me here to subjugate, enclose,

  Manure their barren lives and force the fruit

  First for themselves, and afterward for me

  In the due tithe; the task of some one man,

  By ways of work appointed by themselves.

  I am not bid create, they see no star

  Transfiguring my brow to warrant that —

  But bind in one and carry out their wills.

  So I began: to-night sees how I end.

  What if it see, too, my first outbreak here

  Amid the warmth, surprise and sympathy,

  The instincts of the heart that teach the head?

  What if the people have discerned in me

  The dawn of the next nature, the new man

  Whose will they venture in the place of theirs,

  And whom they trust to find them out new ways

  To the new heights which yet he only sees?

  I felt it when you kissed me. See this Queen,

  This people — in our phrase, this mass of men —

  See how the mass lies passive to my hand

  And how my hand is plastic, and you by

  To make the muscles iron! Oh, an end

  Shall crown this issue as this crowns the first.

  My will be on this people! then, the strain,

  The grappling of the potter with his clay,

  The long uncertain struggle, — the success

  In that uprising of the spirit-work,

  The vase shaped to the curl of the god’s lip,

  While rounded fair for lower men to see

  The Graces in a dance they recognise

  With turbulent applause and laughs of heart!

  So triumph ever shall renew itself;

  Ever to end in efforts higher yet,

  Ever begun — —

  CONSTANCE

  I ever helping?

  NORBERT

  Thus!

  [As he embraces her, enter the QUEEN.

  CONSTANCE

  Hist, madam — so I have performed my part.

  You see your gratitude’s true decency,

  Norbert? a little slow in seeing it!

  Begun to end the sooner. What’s a kiss?

  NORBERT

  Constance!

  CONSTANCE

  Why, must I teach it yo
u again?

  You want a witness to your dullness, sir?

  What was I saying these ten minutes long?

  Then I repeat — when some young handsome man

  Like you has acted out a part like yours,

  Is pleased to fall in love with one beyond,

  So very far beyond him, as he says —

  So hopelessly in love, that but to speak

  Would prove him mad, he thinks judiciously,

  And makes some insignificant good soul

  Like me, his friend, adviser, confidant

  And very stalking-horse to cover him

  In following after what he dares not face —

  When his end’s gained — (sir, do you understand?)

  When she, he dares not face, has loved him first,

  — May I not say so, madam? — tops his hope,

  And overpasses so his wildest dream,

  With glad consent of all, and most of her

  The confidant who brought the same about —

  Why, in the moment when such joy explodes,

  I do say that the merest gentleman

  Will not start rudely from the stalking-horse,

  Dismiss it with a “There, enough of you!”

  Forget it, show his back unmannerly;

  But like a liberal heart will rather turn

  And say, “A tingling time of hope was ours —

  Betwixt the fears and falterings — we two lived

  A chanceful time in waiting for the prize.

  The confidant, the Constance, served not ill;

  And though I shall forget her in due time,

  Her use being answered now, as reason bids,

  Nay as herself bids from her heart of hearts,

  Still, she has rights, the first thanks go to her,

  The first good praise goes to the prosperous tool,

  And the first — which is the last — thankful kiss.”

  NORBERT

  — Constance? it is a dream — ah see you smile!

  CONSTANCE

  So, now his part being properly performed,

  Madam, I turn to you and finish mine

  As duly — I do justice in my turn.

  Yes, madam, he has loved you — long and well —

  He could not hope to tell you so — ’twas I

  Who served to prove your soul accessible.

  I led his thoughts on, drew them to their place,

  When oft they had wandered out into despair,

  And kept love constant toward its natural aim.

  Enough — my part is played; you stoop half-way

  And meet us royally and spare our fears —

  ‘Tis like yourself — he thanks you, so do I.

  Take him — with my full heart! my work is praised

  By what comes of it. Be you happy, both!

  Yourself — the only one on earth who can —

  Do all for him, much more than a mere heart

  Which though warm is not useful in its warmth

  As the silk vesture of a queen! fold that

  Around him gently, tenderly. For him —