Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  As body which, alive, broke down beneath

  Knowledge, lay helpless in the path to good,

  Failed to accomplish aught legitimate,

  Achieve aught worthy, — which grew old in youth,

  And at its longest fell a cut-down flower, —

  Dying, this too revived by miracle

  To bear no end of burthen now that back

  Supported torture to no use at all,

  And live imperishably potent — since

  Life’s potency was impotent to ward 400

  One plague off which made earth a hell before.

  This doctrine, which one healthy view of things,

  One sane sight of the general ordinance —

  Nature, — and its particular object, — man, —

  Which one mere eye-cast at the character

  Of Who made these and gave man sense to boot,

  Had dissipated once and evermore, —

  This doctrine I have dosed our flock withal.

  Why? Because none believed it. They desire

  Such Heaven and dread such Hell, whom everyday

  The alehouse tempts from one, a dog-fight bids

  Defy the other? All the harm is done

  Ourselves — done my poor husband who in youth

  Perhaps read Dickens, done myself who still

  Could play both Bach and Brahms. Such life I lead —

  Thanks to you, knave! You learn its quality —

  Thanks to me, fool!”

  He eyes her earnestly,

  But she continues.

  ” — Life which, thanks once more

  To you, arch-knave as exquisitest fool,

  I acquiescingly — I gratefully

  Take back again to heart! and hence this speech

  Which yesterday had spared you. Four years long

  Life — I began to find intolerable,

  Only this moment. Ere your entry just,

  The leap of heart which answered, spite of me,

  A friend’s first summons, first provocative

  Authoritative, nay, compulsive call

  To quit — though for a single day — my house

  Of bondage — made return seem horrible.

  I heard again a human lucid laugh

  All trust, no fear; again saw earth pursue

  Its narrow busy way amid small cares,

  Smaller contentments, much weeds, some few flowers, —

  Never suspicious of a thunderbolt

  Avenging presently each daisy’s death.

  I recognized the beech-tree, knew the thrush

  Repeated his old music-phrase, — all right,

  How wrong was I, then! But your entry broke

  Illusion, bade me back to bounds at once.

  I honestly submit my soul: which sprang

  At love, and losing love lies signed and sealed

  ‘Failure.’ No love more? then, no beauty more

  Which tends to breed love! Purify my powers,

  Effortless till some other world procure

  Some other chance of prize! or, if none be, —

  Nor second world nor chance, — undesecrate

  Die then this aftergrowth of heart, surmised

  Where May’s precipitation left June blank!

  Better have failed in the high aim, as I,

  Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed

  As, God be thanked, I do not! Ugliness

  Had I called beauty, falsehood — truth, and you

  My lover! No — this earth’s unchanged for me,

  By his enchantment whom God made the Prince

  O’ the Power o’ the Air, into a Heaven: there is

  Heaven, since there is Heaven’s simulation — earth;

  I sit possessed in patience; prison-roof

  Shall break one day and Heaven beam overhead!”

  His smile is done with; he speaks bitterly.

  “Take my congratulations, and permit

  I wish myself had proved as teachable!

  — Or, no! until you taught me, could I learn

  A lesson from experience ne’er till now

  Conceded? Please you listen while I show

  How thoroughly you estimate my worth

  And yours — the immeasurably superior! I

  Believed at least in one thing, first to last, —

  Your love to me: I was the vile and you

  The precious; I abused you, I betrayed,

  But doubted — never! Why else go my way

  Judas-like plodding to this Potter’s Field

  Where fate now finds me? What has dinned my ear

  And dogged my step? The spectre with the shriek

  ‘Such she was, such were you, whose punishment

  Is just!’ And such she was not, all the while!

  She never owned a love to outrage, faith

  To pay with falsehood! For, myself know this —

  Love once and you love always. Why, it’s down

  Here in the Album: every lover knows

  Love may use hate but — turn to hate, itself —

  Turn even to indifference — no, indeed!

  Well, I have been spell-bound, deluded like

  The witless negro by the Obeah-man

  Who bids him wither: so, his eye grows dim,

  His arm slack, arrow misses aim and spear

  Goes wandering wide, — and all the woe because

  He proved untrue to Fetish, who, he finds,

  Was just a feather-phantom! I wronged love,

  Am ruined, — and there was no love to wrong!”

  “No love? Ah, dead love! I invoke thy ghost

  To show the murderer where thy heart poured life

  At summons of the stroke he doubts was dealt

  On pasteboard and pretence! Not love, my love!

  I changed for you the very laws of life:

  Made you the standard of all right, all fair.

  No genius but you could have been, no sage,

  No sufferer — which is grandest — for the truth!

  My hero — where the heroic only hid

  To burst from hiding, brighten earth one day!

  Age and decline were man’s maturity; 500

  Face, form were nature’s type: more grace, more strength,

  What had they been but just superfluous gauds,

  Lawless divergence? I have danced through day

  On tiptoe at the music of a word,

  Have wondered where was darkness gone as night

  Burst out in stars at brilliance of a smile!

  Lonely, I placed the chair to help me seat

  Your fancied presence; in companionship,

  I kept my finger constant to your glove

  Glued to my breast; then — where was all the world?

  I schemed — not dreamed — how I might die some death

  Should save your finger aching! Who creates

  Destroys, he only: I had laughed to scorn

  Whatever angel tried to shake my faith

  And make you seem unworthy: you yourself

  Only could do that! With a touch ‘twas done.

  ‘Give me all, trust me wholly!’ At the word,

  I did give, I did trust — and thereupon

  The touch did follow. Ah, the quiet smile,

  The masterfully folded arm in arm,

  As trick obtained its triumph one time more!

  In turn, my soul too triumphs in defeat:

  Treason like faith moves mountains: love is gone!”

  He paces to and fro, stops, stands quite close

  And calls her by her name. Then —

  ”God forgives:

  Forgive you, delegate of God, brought near

  As never priests could bring him to this soul

  That prays you both — forgive me! I abase —

  Know myself mad and monstrous utterly

  In all I did that moment; but as God

  Gives me this knowledge — heart to feel and tongu
e

  To testify — so be you gracious too!

  Judge no man by the solitary work

  Of — well, they do say and I can believe —

  The devil in him: his, the moment, — mine

  The life — your life!”

  He names her name again.

  “You were just — merciful as just, you were

  In giving me no respite: punishment

  Followed offending. Sane and sound once more,

  The patient thanks decision, promptitude,

  Which flung him prone and fastened him from hurt

  Haply to others, surely to himself.

  I wake and would not you had spared one pang.

  All’s well that ends well!”

  Yet again her name.

  “Had you no fault? Why must you change, forsooth,

  Parts, why reverse positions, spoil the play?

  Why did your nobleness look up to me,

  Not down on the ignoble thing confessed?

  Was it your part to stoop, or lift the low?

  Wherefore did God exalt you? Who would teach

  The brute man’s tameness and intelligence

  Must never drop the dominating eye:

  Wink — and what wonder if the mad fit break,

  Followed by stripes and fasting? Sound and sane,

  My life, chastised now, couches at your foot.

  Accept, redeem me! Do your eyes ask ‘How?’

  I stand here penniless, a beggar; talk

  What idle trash I may, this final blow

  Of fortune fells me. I disburse, indeed,

  This boy his winnings? when each bubble-scheme

  That danced athwart my brain, a minute since,

  The worse the better, — of repairing straight

  My misadventure by fresh enterprise,

  Capture of other boys in foolishness

  His fellows, — when these fancies fade away

  At first sight of the lost so long, the found

  So late, the lady of my life, before

  Whose presence I, the lost, am also found

  Incapable of one least touch of mean

  Expedient, I who teemed with plot and wile —

  That family of snakes your eye bids flee!

  Listen! Our troublesomest dreams die off

  In daylight: I awake and dream is — where?

  I rouse up from the past: one touch dispels

  England and all here. I secured long since

  A certain refuge, solitary home

  To hide in, should the head strike work one day,

  The hand forget its cunning, or perhaps

  Society grow savage, — there to end

  My life’s remainder, which, say what fools will,

  Is or should be the best of life, — its fruit,

  All tends to, root and stem and leaf and flower.

  Come with me, love, loved once, loved only, come,

  Blend loves there! Let this parenthetic doubt

  Of love, in me, have been the trial test

  Appointed to all flesh at some one stage

  Of soul’s achievement, — when the strong man doubts

  His strength, the good man whether goodness be,

  The artist in the dark seeks, fails to find

  Vocation, and the saint forswears his shrine.

  What if the lover may elude, no more

  Than these, probative dark, must search the sky

  Vainly for love, his soul’s star? But the orb

  Breaks from eclipse: I breathe again: I love!

  Tempted, I fell; but fallen — fallen lie

  Here at your feet, see! Leave this poor pretence

  Of union with a nature and its needs

  Repugnant to your needs and nature! Nay,

  False, beyond falsity you reprehend

  In me, is such mock marriage with such mere 600

  Man-mask as — whom you witless wrong, beside,

  By that expenditure of heart and brain

  He recks no more of than would yonder tree

  If watered with your life-blood: rains and dews

  Answer its ends sufficiently, while me

  One drop saves — sends to flower and fruit at last

  The laggard virtue in the soul wh’ch else

  Cumbers the ground! Quicken me! Call me yours —

  Yours and the world’s — yours and the world’s and God’s!

  Yes, for you can, you only! Think! Confirm

  Your instinct! Say, a minute since, I seemed

  The castaway you count me, — all the more

  Apparent shall the angelic potency

  Lift me from out perdition’s deep of deeps

  To light and life and love! — that’s love for you —

  Love that already dares match might with yours.

  You loved one worthy, — in your estimate, —

  When time was; you descried the unworthy taint,

  And where was love then? No such test could e’er

  Try my love: but you hate me and revile;

  Hatred, revilement — had you these to bear,

  Would you, as I do, nor revile, nor hate,

  But simply love on, love the more, perchance?

  Abide by your own proof! ‘Your love was love:

  Its ghost knows no forgetting!’ Heart of mine,

  Would that I dared remember! Too unwise

  Were he who lost a treasure, did himself

  Enlarge upon the sparkling catalogue

  Of gems to her his queen who trusted late

  The keeper of her caskets! Can it be

  That I, custodian of such relic still

  As your contempt permits me to retain,

  All I dare hug to breast is — ’How your glove

  Burst and displayed the long thin lily-streak!’

  What may have followed — that is forfeit now!

  I hope the proud man has grown humble! True —

  One grace of humbleness absents itself —

  Silence! yet love lies deeper than all words,

  And not the spoken but the speechless love

  Waits answer ere I rise and go my way.”

  Whereupon, yet one other time the name.

  To end she looks the large deliberate look,

  Even prolongs it somewhat; then the soul

  Bursts forth in a clear laugh that lengthens on,

  On, till — thinned, softened, silvered, one might say

  The bitter runnel hides itself in sand,

  Moistens the hard grey grimly comic speech.

  “Ay — give the baffled angler even yet

  His supreme triumph as he hales to shore

  A second time the fish once ‘scaped from hook —

  So artfully has new bait hidden old

  Blood-imbrued iron! Ay, no barb’s beneath

  The gilded minnow here! You bid break trust,

  This time, with who trusts me, — not simply bid

  Me trust you, me who ruined but myself,

  In trusting but myself! Since, thanks to you,

  I know the feel of sin and shame, — be sure,

  I shall obey you and impose them both

  On one who happens to be ignorant

  Although my husband — for the lure is love,

  Your love! Try other tackle, fisher-friend!

  Repentance, expiation, hopes and fears,

  What you had been, may yet be, would I but

  Prove helpmate to my hero — one and all

  These silks and worsteds round the hook, seduce

  Hardly the late torn throat and mangled tongue.

  Pack up, I pray, the whole assortment prompt!

  Who wonders at variety of wile

  In the Arch-cheat? You are the Adversary!

  Your fate is of your choosing: have your choice!

  Wander the world, — God has some end to serve,

  Ere he suppress you! He waits: I endure,

  But interpose no finger-tip, f
orsooth,

  To stop your passage to the pit. Enough

  That I am stable, uninvolved by you

  In the rush downwards: free I gaze and fixed;

  Your smiles, your tears, prayers, curses move alike

  My crowned contempt. You kneel? Prostrate yourself!

  To earth, and would the whole world saw you there!”

  Whereupon — ”All right!” carelessly begins

  Somebody from outside, who mounts the stair,

  And sends his voice for herald of approach:

  Half in half out the doorway as the door

  Gives way to push.

  “Old fellow, all’s no good!

  The train’s your portion! Lay the blame on me

  I’m no diplomatist, and Bismarck’s self

  Had hardly braved the awful Aunt at broach

  Of proposition — so has world-repute

  Preceded the illustrious stranger! Ah! — ”

  Quick the voice changes to astonishment,

  Then horror, as the youth stops, sees, and knows.

  The man who knelt starts up from kneeling, stands

  Moving no muscle, and confronts the stare.

  One great red outbreak — throat and brow —

  The lady’s proud pale queenliness of scorn:

  Then her great eyes that turned so quick, become

  Intenser: quail at gaze, not they indeed!

  V

  It is the young man shatters silence first.

  “Well, my lord — for indeed my lord you are,

  I little guessed how rightly — this last proof

  Of lordship-paramount confounds too much

  My simple head-piece! Let’s see how we stand

  Each to the other! how we stood i’ the game

  Of life an hour ago, — the magpies, stile

  And oak-tree witnessed. Truth exchanged for truth —

  My lord confessed his four-years-old affair —

  How he seduced and then forsook the girl

  Who married somebody and left him sad.

  My pitiful experience was — I loved

  A girl whose gown’s hem had I dared to touch

  My finger would have failed me, palsy-fixed;

  She left me, sad enough, to marry — whom?

  A better man, — then possibly not you!

  How does the game stand? Who is who and what

  Is what, o’ the board now, since an hour went by?

  My lord’s ‘seduced, forsaken, sacrificed’ —

  Starts up, my lord’s familiar instrument,

  Associate and accomplice, mistress-slave —

  Shares his adventure, follows on the sly,

  — Ay, and since ‘bag and baggage’ is a phrase —

  Baggage lay hid in carpet-bag belike,

  Was but unpadlocked when occasion came

  For holding council, since my back was turned,

  On how invent ten thousand pounds which, paid,