Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  For him, — he knows his own part.

  NORBERT

  Have you done?

  I take the jest at last. Should I speak now?

  Was yours the wager, Constance, foolish child,

  Or did you but accept it? Well — at least,

  You lose by it.

  CONSTANCE

  Now madam, ‘tis your turn.

  Restrain him still from speech a little more

  And make him happier and more confident

  Pity him, madam, he is timid yet.

  Mark, Norbert! do not shrink now! Here I yield

  My whole right in you to the Queen, observe!

  With her go put in practice the great schemes

  You teem with, follow the career else closed —

  Be all you cannot be except by her!

  Behold her. — Madam, say for pity’s sake

  Anything — frankly say you love him. Else

  He’ll not believe it: there’s more earnest in

  His fear than you conceive — I know the man.

  NORBERT

  I know the woman somewhat, and confess

  I thought she had jested better — she begins

  To overcharge her part. I gravely wait

  Your pleasure, madam: where is my reward?

  QUEEN

  Norbert, this wild girl (whom I recognise

  Scarce more than you do, in her fancy-fit,

  Eccentric speech and variable mirth,

  Not very wise perhaps and somewhat bold

  Yet suitable, the whole night’s work being strange)

  — May still be right: I may do well to speak

  And make authentic what appears a dream

  To even myself. For, what she says, is true —

  Yes, Norbert — what you spoke but now of love,

  Devotion, stirred no novel sense in me,

  But justified a warmth felt long before.

  Yes, from the first — I loved you, I shall say, —

  Strange! but I do grow stronger, now ‘tis said,

  Your courage helps mine: you did well to speak

  To-night, the night that crowns your twelvemonths’ toil —

  But still I had not waited to discern

  Your heart so long, believe me! From the first

  The source of so much zeal was almost plain,

  In absence even of your own words just now

  Which opened out the truth. ‘Tis very strange,

  But takes a happy ending — in your love

  Which mine meets: be it so — as you choose me,

  So I choose you.

  NORBERT

  And worthily you choose!

  I will not be unworthy your esteem,

  No, madam. I do love you; I will meet

  Your nature, now I know it; this was well,

  I see, — you dare and you are justified:

  But none had ventured such experiment,

  Less versed than you in nobleness of heart,

  Less confident of finding it in me.

  I like that thus you test me ere you grant

  The dearest, richest, beauteousest and best

  Of women to my arms! ‘Tis like yourself!

  So — back again into my part’s set words —

  Devotion to the uttermost is yours,

  But no, you cannot, madam, even you,

  Create in me the love our Constance does.

  Or — something truer to the tragic phrase —

  Not yon magnolia-bell superb with scent

  Invites a certain insect — that’s myself —

  But the small eye-flower nearer to the ground

  I take this lady!

  CONSTANCE

  Stay — not hers, the trap —

  Stay, Norbert — that mistake were worst of all.

  (He is too cunning, madam!) it was I,

  I, Norbert, who . . .

  NORBERT

  You, was it, Constance? Then,

  But for the grace of this divinest hour

  Which gives me you, I should not pardon here.

  I am the Queen’s: she only knows my brain —

  She may experiment therefore on my heart

  And I instruct her too by the result;

  But you, sweet, you who know me, who so long

  Have told my heart-beats over, held my life

  In those white hands of yours, — it is not well!

  CONSTANCE

  Tush! I have said it, did I not say it all?

  The life, for her — the heart-beats, for her sake!

  NORBERT

  Enough! my cheek grows red, I think. Your test

  There’s not the meanest woman in the world,

  Not she I least could love in all the world,

  Whom, did she love me, did love prove itself,

  I dared insult as you insult me now.

  Constance, I could say, if it must be said,

  “Take back the soul you offer — I keep mine”

  But — ”Take the soul still quivering on your hand,

  The soul so offered, which I cannot use,

  And, please you, give it to some friend of mine,

  For — what’s the trifle he requites me with?”

  I, tempt a woman, to amuse a man,

  That two may mock her heart if it succumb?

  No! fearing God and standing ‘neath his heaven,

  I would not dare insult a woman so,

  Were she the meanest woman in the world,

  And he, I cared to please, ten emperors!

  CONSTANCE

  Norbert!

  NORBERT

  I love once as I live but once.

  What case is this to think or talk about?

  I love you. Would it mend the case at all

  Should such a step as this kill love in me?

  Your part were done: account to God for it.

  But mine — could murdered love get up again,

  And kneel to whom you pleased to designate

  And make you mirth? It is too horrible.

  You did not know this, Constance? now you know

  That body and soul have each one life, but one

  And here’s my love, here, living, at your feet.

  CONSTANCE

  See the Queen! Norbert — this one more last word —

  If thus you have taken jest for earnest — thus

  Loved me in earnest . . .

  NORBERT

  Ah, no jest holds here!

  Where is the laughter in which jests break up?

  And what this horror that grows palpable?

  Madam — why grasp you thus the balcony?

  Have I done ill? Have I not spoken the truth?

  How could I other? Was it not your test,

  To try me, and what my love for Constance meant?

  Madam, your royal soul itself approves,

  The first, that I should choose thus! so one takes

  A beggar — asks him what would buy his child,

  And then approves the expected laugh of scorn

  Returned as something noble from the rags.

  Speak, Constance, I’m the beggar! Ha, what’s this?

  You two glare each at each like panthers now.

  Constance — the world fades; only you stand there!

  You did not in to-night’s wild whirl of things

  Sell me — your soul of souls for any price?

  No — no — ’tis easy to believe in you.

  Was it your love’s mad trial to o’ertop

  Mine by this vain self-sacrifice? well, still —

  Though I should curse, I love you. I am love

  And cannot change! love’s self is at your feet.

  [QUEEN goes out.

  CONSTANCE

  Feel my heart; let it die against your own.

  NORBERT

  Against my own! explain not; let this be.

  This is life’s height.

  CONSTANCE

  Yours! Yours! You
rs!

  NORBERT

  You and I —

  Why care by what meanders we are here

  In the centre of the labyrinth? men have died

  Trying to find this place out, which we have found.

  CONSTANCE

  Found, found!

  NORBERT

  Sweet, never fear what she can do —

  We are past harm now.

  CONSTANCE

  On the breast of God.

  I thought of men — as if you were a man.

  Tempting him with a crown! 452

  NORBERT

  This must end here —

  It is too perfect!

  CONSTANCE

  There’s the music stopped.

  What measured heavy tread? it is one blaze

  About me and within me.

  NORBERT

  Oh, some death

  Will run its sudden finger round this spark,

  And sever us from the rest —

  CONSTANCE

  And so do well.

  Now the doors open —

  NORBERT

  ’Tis the guard comes.

  CONSTANCE

  Kiss!

  Saul

  I

  SAID Abner, “At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak,

  Kiss my cheek, wish me well!” Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek.

  And he: “Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent,

  Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent

  Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet,

  Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet.

  For out of the black mid-tent’s silence, a space of three days,

  Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of praise,

  To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife,

  And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life.

  II

  “Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God’s child with His dew

  On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue

  Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat

  Were now raging to torture the desert!”

  III

  Then I, as was meet,

  Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet,

  And ran o’er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped;

  I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped;

  Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone,

  That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my way on

  Till I felt where the fold-skirts fly open. Then once more I prayed,

  And opened the fold-skirts and entered, and was not afraid

  But spoke, “Here is David, thy servant!” And no voice replied.

  At the first I saw naught but the blackness: but soon I descried

  A something more black than the blackness — the vast, the upright

  Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight

  Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all.

  Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof, showed Saul.

  IV

  He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide

  On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side;

  He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his pangs

  And waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily hangs,

  Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come

  With the spring-time, — so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind and dumb.

  V

  Then I tuned my harp, — took off the lilies we twine round its chords

  Lest they snap ‘neath the stress of the noontide — those sunbeams like swords!

  And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one,

  So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done.

  They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed

  Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream’s bed;

  And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star

  Into eve and the blue far above us, — so blue and so far!

  VI

  — Then the tune for which quails on the corn-land will each leave his mate

  To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate

  Till for boldness they fight one another; and then, what has weight

  To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house —

  There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse!

  God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,

  To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.

  VII

  Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand

  Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand

  And grow one in the sense of this world’s life. — And then, the last song

  When the dead man is praised on his journey — ”Bear, bear him along,

  With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm seeds not here

  To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier.

  Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!” — And then, the glad chaunt

  Of the marriage, — first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt

  As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling. — And then, the great march

  Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch

  Nought can break; who shall harm them. our friends? Then, the chorus intoned

  As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned.

  But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul groaned.

  VIII

  And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart;

  And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered: and sparkles ‘gan dart

  From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once, with a start,

  All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart.

  So the head: but the body still moved not, still hung there erect.

  And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked,

  As I sang, —

  IX

  “Oh, our manhood’s prime vigour! No spirit feels waste,

  Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced.

  Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,

  The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock

  Of the plunge in a pool’s living water, the hunt of the bear,

  And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.

  And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine,

  And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,

  And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell

  That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.

  How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ

  All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!

  Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou didst guard

  When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward?

  Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung

  The low song of the nearly-departed, and hear her faint tongue

  Joining in while it could to the witness, “Let one more attest,

  I have lived, seen God’s hand, thro’ a life-time, and all was for best?”

  Then they sung through their tears in strong triumph, not much, but the rest.

  And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence grew

  Such result as, from seethi
ng grape-bundles, the spirit strained true:

  And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood of wonder and hope,

  Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye’s scope, —

  Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is thine;

  And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head combine!

  On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like the throe

  That, a-work in the rock, helps its labour and lets the gold go)

  High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them, — all

  Brought to blaze on the head of one creature — King Saul!”

  X

  And lo, with that leap of my spirit, — heart, hand, harp and voice,

  Each lifting Saul’s name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice

  Saul’s fame in the light it was made for — as when, dare I say,

  The Lord’s army, in rapture of service, strains through its array,

  And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot — ”Saul!” cried I, and stopped,

  And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung propped

  By the tent’s cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name.

  Have ye seen when Spring’s arrowy summons goes right to the aim,

  And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone,

  While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone

  A year’s snow bound about for a breast-plate, — leaves grasp of the sheet?

  Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet,

  And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your mountain of old,

  With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold —

  Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar

  Of his head thrust ‘twixt you and the tempest — all hail, there they are!

  Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest

  Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on his crest

  For their food in the ardours of summer. One long shudder thrilled

  All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled

  At the King’s self left standing before me, released and aware.

  What was gone, what remained? All to traverse ‘twixt hope and despair;

  Death was past, life not come: so he waited. Awhile his right hand

  Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant forthwith to remand

  To their place what new objects should enter: ‘Twas Saul as before.

  I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more

  Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore,

  At their sad level gaze o’er the ocean — a sun’s slow decline

  Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o’erlap and entwine