Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

The reward of it all.

  I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more,

  The best and the last!

  I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore,

  And bade me creep past.

  No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

  The heroes of old,

  Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears

  Of pain, darkness and cold.

  For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,

  The black minute ‘s at end,

  And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave,

  Shall dwindle, shall blend,

  Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,

  Then a light, then thy breast,

  O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,

  And with God be the rest!

  Youth and Art

  I.

  IT ONCE might have been, once only:

  We lodged in a street together,

  You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,

  I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

  II.

  Your trade was with sticks and clay,

  You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,

  Then laughed “They will see some day

  Smith made, and Gibson demolished.”

  III.

  My business was song, song, song;

  I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered,

  “Kate Brown’s on the boards ere long,

  And Grisi’s existence embittered!”

  IV.

  I earned no more by a warble

  Than you by a sketch in plaster;

  You wanted a piece of marble,

  I needed a music-master.

  V.

  We studied hard in our styles,

  Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,

  For air looked out on the tiles,

  For fun watched each other’s windows.

  VI.

  You lounged, like a boy of the South,

  Cap and blouse — nay, a bit of beard too;

  Or you got it, rubbing your mouth

  With fingers the clay adhered to.

  VII.

  And I — soon managed to find

  Weak points in the flower-fence facing,

  Was forced to put up a blind

  And be safe in my corset-lacing.

  VIII.

  No harm! It was not my fault

  If you never turned your eye’s tail up

  As I shook upon E in alt,

  Or ran the chromatic scale up:

  IX.

  For spring bade the sparrows pair,

  And the boys and girls gave guesses,

  And stalls in our street looked rare

  With bulrush and watercresses.

  X.

  Why did not you pinch a flower

  In a pellet of clay and fling it?

  Why did not I put a power

  Of thanks in a look, or sing it?

  XI.

  I did look, sharp as a lynx,

  (And yet the memory rankles,)

  When models arrived, some minx

  Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles.

  XII.

  But I think I gave you as good!

  ”That foreign fellow, — who can know

  How she pays, in a playful mood,

  For his tuning her that piano?”

  XIII.

  Could you say so, and never say

  ”Suppose we join hands and fortunes,

  And I fetch her from over the way,

  Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?”

  XIV.

  No, no: you would not be rash,

  Nor I rasher and something over:

  You ‘ve to settle yet Gibson’s hash,

  And Grisi yet lives in clover.

  XV.

  But you meet the Prince at the Board,

  I’m queen myself at bals-paré,

  I’ve married a rich old lord,

  And you’re dubbed knight and an R.A.

  XVI.

  Each life unfulfilled, you see;

  It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:

  We have not sighed deep, laughed free,

  Starved, feasted, despaired, — been happy.

  XVII.

  And nobody calls you a dunce,

  And people suppose me clever:

  This could but have happened once,

  And we missed it, lost it for ever.

  A Face

  IF one could have that little head of hers

  Painted upon a background of pale gold,

  Such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers!

  No shade encroaching on the matchless mould

  Of those two lips, which should be opening soft

  In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,

  For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft

  Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff’s

  Burthen of honey-coloured buds to kiss

  And capture ‘twist the lips apart for this.

  Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround,

  How it should waver on the, pale gold ground

  Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!

  I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts

  Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb

  Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb:

  But these are only massed there, I should think,

  Waiting to see some wonder momently

  Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky

  (That ‘s the pale ground you’d see this sweet face by),

  All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye

  Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

  A Likeness

  SOME people hang portraits up

  In a room where they dine or sup:

  And the wife clinks tea-things under,

  And her cousin, he stirs his cup,

  Asks “Who was the lady, I wonder?”

  “‘T is a daub John bought at a sale,”

  Quoth the wife, — looks black as thunder:

  “What a shade beneath her nose!

  “Snuff-taking, I suppose, — ”

  Adds the cousin, while John’s corns ail.

  Or else, there ‘s no wife in the case,

  But the portrait ‘s queen of the place,

  Alone mid the other spoils

  Of youth, — masks, gloves and foils,

  And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine,

  And the long whip, the tandem-lasher,

  And the cast from a fist (“not, alas! mine,

  ”But my master’s, the Tipton Slasher”),

  And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,

  And a satin shoe used for cigar-case,

  And the chamois-horns (“shot in the Chablais”)

  And prints — Rarey drumming on Cruiser,

  And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser,

  And the little edition of Rabelais:

  Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets,

  May saunter up close to examine it,

  And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it,

  “But the eyes are half out of their sockets;

  “That hair ‘s not so bad, where the gloss is,

  “But they’ve made the girl’s nose a proboscis:

  “Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy!

  “What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?”

  All that I own is a print,

  An etching, a mezzotint;

  ‘T is a study, a fancy, a fiction,

  Yet a fact (take my conviction)

  Because it has more than a hint

  Of a certain face, I never

  Saw elsewhere touch or trace of

  In women I ‘ve seen the face of:

  Just an etching, and, so far, clever.

  I keep my prints, an imbroglio,

  Fifty in one portfolio.

/>   When somebody tries my claret,

  We turn round chairs to the fire,

  Chirp over days in a garret,

  Chuckle o’er increase of salary,

  Taste the good fruits of our leisure,

  Talk about pencil and lyre,

  And the National Portrait Gallery:

  Then I exhibit my treasure.

  After we ‘ve turned over twenty,

  And the debt of wonder my crony owes

  Is paid to my Marc Antonios,

  He stops me — ”Festina lentè!

  “What’s that sweet thing there, the etching?”

  How my waistcoat-strings want stretching,

  How my cheeks grow red as tomatos,

  How my heart leaps ! But hearts, after leaps, ache.

  “By the by, you must take, for a keepsake,

  ”That other, you praised, of Volpato’s.”

  The fool! would he try a flight further and say —

  He never saw, never before to-day,

  What was able to take his breath away,

  A face to lose youth for, to occupy age

  With the dream of, meet death with, — why, I’ll not engage

  But that, half in a rapture and half in a rage,

  I should toss him the thing’s self — ”‘T is only a duplicate,

  “A thing of no value! Take it, I supplicate!”

  Eurydice to Orpheus

  A Picture by Leighton

  BUT give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!

  Let them once more absorb me! One look now

  Will lap me round for ever, not to pass

  Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond:

  Hold me but safe again within the bond

  Of one immortal look! All woe that was,

  Forgotten, and all terror that may be,

  Defied, — no past is mine, no future: look at me!

  Three Songs from Paracelsus

  I

  I HEAR a voice, perchance I heard

  Long ago, but all too low,

  So that scarce a care it stirred

  If the voice was real or no:

  I heard it in my youth when first

  The waters of my life outburst:

  But now their stream ebbs faint, I hear

  That voice, still low but fatal-clear —

  As if all Poets, God ever meant

  Should save the world, and therefore lent

  Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused

  To do His work, or lightly used

  Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavour,

  So, mourn cast off by Him for ever, —

  As if these leaned in airy ring

  To take me; this the song they sing.

  ‘Lost, lost! yet come,

  With our wan troop make thy home.

  Come, come! for we

  Will not breathe, so much as breathe

  Reproach to thee!

  Knowing what thou sink’st beneath.

  So sank we in those old years,

  We who bid thee, come! thou last

  Who, living yet, hast life o’erpast,

  And altogether we, thy peers,

  Will pardon ask for thee, the last

  Whose trial is done, whose lot is cast

  With those who watch but work no more,

  Who gaze on life but live no more.

  Yet we trusted thou shouldst speak

  The message which our lips, too weak,

  Refused to utter, — shouldst redeem

  Our fault: such trust, and all a dream!

  Yet we chose thee a birthplace

  Where the richness ran to flowers;

  Couldst not sing one song for grace?

  Not make one blossom man’s and ours?

  Must one more recreant to his race

  Die with unexerted powers,

  And join us, leaving as he found

  The world, he was to loosen, bound?

  Anguish! ever and for ever;

  Still beginning, ending never!

  Yet, lost and last one, come!

  How couldst understand, alas,

  What our pale ghosts strove to say,

  As their shades did glance and pass

  Before thee, night and day?

  Thou wast blind as we were dumb:

  Once more, therefore, come, O come!

  How shall we clothe, how arm the spirit

  Who next shall thy post of life inherit —

  How guard him from thy speedy ruin?

  Tell us of thy sad undoing

  Here, where we sit, ever pursuing

  Our weary task, ever renewing

  Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave

  Our powers, and man they could not save!’

  II

  Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes

  Of labdanum, and aloe-balls,

  Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes

  From out her hair: such balsam falls

  Down seaside mountain pedestals,

  From tree-tops where tired winds are fain,

  Spent with the vast and howling main,

  To treasure half their island-gain.

  And strew faint sweetness from some old

  Egyptian’s fine worm-eaten shroud

  Which breaks to dust when once unrolled;

  Or shredded perfume, like a cloud

  From closet long to quiet vowed,

  With mothed and dropping arras hung,

  Mouldering her lute and books among,

  As when a queen, long dead, was young.

  III

  Over the sea our galleys went,

  With cleaving prows in order brave,

  To a speeding wind and a bounding wave,

  A gallant armament:

  Each bark built out of a forest-tree,

  Left leafy and rough as first it grew,

  And nailed all over the gaping sides,

  Within and without, with black bull-hides,

  Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,

  To bear the playful billows’ game:

  So, each good ship was rude to see,

  Rude and bare to the outward view,

  But each upbore a stately tent

  Where cedar-pales in scented row

  Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,

  And an awning drooped the mast below,

  In fold on fold of the purple fine,

  That neither noontide nor star-shine

  Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,

  Might pierce the regal tenement.

  When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad

  We set the sail and plied the oar;

  But when the night-wind blew like breath,

  For joy of one day’s voyage more,

  We sang together on the wide sea,

  Like men at peace on a peaceful shore;

  Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,

  Each helm made sure by the twilight star,

  And in a sleep as calm as death,

  We, the voyagers from afar,

  Lay stretched along, each weary crew

  In a circle round its wondrous tent

  Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent,

  And with light and perfume, music too:

  So the stars wheeled round, and the darkness past,

  And at morn we started beside the mast,

  And still each ship was sailing fast!

  Now, one morn, land appeared! — a speck

  Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky:

  ‘Avoid it,’ cried our pilot, ‘check

  The shout, restrain the eager eye!’

  But the heaving sea was black behind

  For many a night and many a day,

  And land, though but a rock, drew nigh;

  So, we broke the cedar pales away,

  Let the purple awning flap in the wind,

  And a statue bright was on every deck!

  We shouted, every man of us,

 
And steered right into the harbour thus,

  With pomp and paean glorious.

  A hundred shapes of lucid stone!

  All day we built its shrine for each,

  A shrine of rock for every one,

  Nor paused we till in the westering sun

  We sat together on the beach

  To sing because our task was done.

  When lo! what shouts and merry songs!

  What laughter all the distance stirs!

  A loaded raft with happy throngs

  Of gentle islanders!

  ‘Our isles are just at hand,’ they cried,

  ’Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping;

  Our temple-gates are opened wide,

  Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping

  For these majestic forms’ — they cried.

  Oh, then we awoke with sudden start

  From our deep dream, and knew, too late,

  How bare the rock, how desolate,

  Which had received our precious freight:

  Yet we called out — ’Depart!

  Our gifts, once given, must here abide.

  Our work is done; we have no heart

  To mar our work,’ — we cried.

  Mr. Sludge, “The Medium”

  NOW, don’t, sir! Don’t expose me!

  Just this once! This was the first and only time, I’ll swear, —

  Look at me, — see, I kneel, — the only time,

  I swear, I ever cheated, — yes, by the soul

  Of Her who hears — (your sainted mother, sir!)

  All, except this last accident, was truth —

  This little kind of slip! — and even this,

  It was your own wine, sir, the good champagne,

  (I took it for Catawba, you ‘re so kind)

  Which put the folly in my head!

  ”Get up?”

  You still inflict on me that terrible face?

  You show no mercy? — Not for Her dear sake,

  The sainted spirit’s, whose soft breath even now

  Blows on my cheek — (don’t you feel something, sir?)

  You ‘ll tell?

  Go tell, then! Who the devil cares

  What such a rowdy chooses to . . .

  Aie — aie — aie!

  Please, sir! your thumbs are through my windpipe, sir!

  Ch — ch!

  Well, sir, I hope you ‘ve done it now!

  Oh Lord! I little thought, sir, yesterday,

  When your departed mother spoke those words

  Of peace through me, and moved you, sir, so much,

  You gave me — (very kind it was of you)

  These shirt-studs — (better take them back again,

  Please, sir) — yes, little did I think so soon

  A trifle of trick, all through a glass too much

  Of his own champagne, would change my best of friends

  Into an angry gentleman!

  Though, ‘t was wrong.

  I don’t contest the point: your anger’s just:

  Whatever put such folly in my head,