Blessedest of all blisses ( — wherefore try
Your patience with embracings and the rest
Due from Calypso’s ail-unwilling guest
To his Penelope?) — there somehow came
The coolness which as duly follows flame.
So, one day, “What if we inspect the gifts
My Art has gained us?”
Now the wife uplifts
A casket-lid, now tries a medal’s chain
Round her own lithe neck, fits a ring in vain
— Too loose on the fine finger, — vows and swears
The jewel with two pendent pearls like pears
Betters a lady’s bosom — witness else!
And so forth, while Ulysses smiles.
“Such spells
Subdue such natures — sex must worship toys
— Trinkets and trash: yet, ah, quite other joys
Must stir from sleep the passionate abyss
Of — such an one as her I know — not this
My gentle consort with the milk for blood!
Why, did it chance that in a careless mood
(In those old days, gone — never to return —
When we talked — she to teach and I to learn)
I dropped a word, a hint which might imply
Consorts exist — how quick flashed fire from eye,
Brow blackened, lip was pinched by furious lip!
I needed no reminder of my slip:
One warning taught me wisdom. Whereas here . . .
Aha, a sportive fancy! Eh, what fear
Of harm to follow? Just a whim indulged!
“My Beatricé, there’s an undivulged
Surprise in store for you: the moment’s fit
For letting loose a secret: out with it!
Tributes to worth, you rightly estimate
These gifts of Prince and Bishop, Church and State:
Yet, may I tell you? Tastes so disagree!
There’s one gift, preciousest of all to me,
I doubt if you would value as well worth
The obvious sparkling gauds that men unearth
For toy-cult mainly of you womankind;
Such make you marvel, I concede: while blind
The sex proves to the greater marvel here
I veil to balk its envy. Be sincere!
Say, should you search creation far and wide,
Was ever face like this?”
He drew aside
The veil, displayed the flower-framed portrait kept
For private delectation.
No adept
In florist’s lore more accurately named
And praised or, as appropriately, blamed
Specimen after specimen of skill,
Than Bicé. “Rightly placed the daffodil —
Scarcely so right the blue germander. Gray
Good mouse-ear! Hardly your auricula
Is powdered white enough. It seems to me
Scarlet not crimson, that anemone:
But there’s amends in the pink saxifrage.
O darling dear ones, let me disengage
You innocents from what your harmlessness
Clasps lovingly! Out thou from their caresss,
Serpent!”
Whereat forth-flashing from her coils
On coils of hair, the spilla in its toils
Of yellow wealth, the dagger-plaything kept
To pin its plaits together, life-like leapt
And — woe to all inside the coronal!
Stab followed stab, — cut, slash, she ruined all
The masterpiece. Alack for eyes and mouth
And dimples and endearment — North and South.
East. West, the tatters in a fury flew:
There yawned the circlet. What remained to do?
She flung the weapon, and, with folded arms
And mien defiant of such low alarms
As death and doom beyond death, Bicé stood
Passively statuesque, in quietude
Awaiting judgment.
And out judgment burst
With frank unloading of love’s laughter, first
Freed from its unsuspected source. Some throe
Must needs unlock love’s prison-bars, let flow
The joyance.
“Then you ever were, still are,
And henceforth shall be — no occulted star
But my resplendent Bicé, sun-revealed,
Full-rondure! Woman-glory unconcealed,
So front me, find and claim and take your own —
My soul and body yours and yours alone,
As you are mine, mine wholly! Heart’s love take —
Use your possession — stab or stay at will
Here — hating, saving — woman with the skill
‘To make man beast or god!”
And so it proved:
For, as beseemed new godship, thus he loved,
Past power to change, until his dying day, —
Good fellow! And I fain would hope — some say
Indeed for certain — that our painter’s toils
At fresco-splashing, finer stroke in oils,
Were not so mediocre after all;
Perhaps the work appears unduly small
From having loomed too large in old esteem,
Patronized by late Papacy. I seem
Myself to have cast eyes on certain work
In sundry galleries, no judge needs shirk
From moderately praising. He designed
Correctly, nor in color lagged behind
His age: but both in Florence and in Rome
The elder race so make themselves at home
That scarce we give a glance to ceilingfuls
Of such like as Francesco. Still, one culls
From out the heaped laudations of the time
The pretty incident I put in rhyme.
Flute-Music, with an Accompaniment
He. AH, the bird-like fluting
Through the ash-tops yonder —
Bullfinch-bubblings, soft sounds suiting
What sweet thoughts, I wonder?
Fine-pearled notes that surely
Gather, dewdrop-fashion,
Deep-down in some heart which purely
Secretes globuled passion —
Passion insuppressive —
Such is piped, for certain;
Love, no doubt, nay, love excessive
’Tis your ash-tops curtain.
Would your ash-tops open
We might spy the player —
Seek and find some sense which no pen
Yet from singer, sayer,
Ever has extracted:
Never, to my knowledge,
Yet has pedantry enacted
That, in Cupid’s College,
Just this variation
Of the old, old yearning
Should by plain speech have salvation,
Yield new men new learning.
”Love!” but what love, nicely
New from old disparted,
Would the player teach precisely?
First of all, be started
In my brain Assurance —
Trust — entire Contentment —
Passion proved by much endurance;
Then came — not resentment,
No, but simply Sorrow:
What was seen had vanished:
Yesterday so blue! To-morrow
Blank, all sunshine banished.
Hark! ‘Tis Hope resurges,
Struggling through obstruction —
Forces a poor smile which verges
On joy’s introduction.
Now, perhaps, mere Musing:
”Holds earth such a wonder?
Fairy-mortal, soul-sense-fusing
Past thought’s power to sunder!”
What? calm Acquiescence?
”Daisied turf gives room to
Trefoil, plucked once in her presence —
Growing by her
tomb too!”
She. All’s your fancy-spinning!
Here’s the fact: a neighbor
Never-ending, still beginning,
Recreates his labor:
Deep o’er desk he drudges,
Adds, divides, subtracts and
Multiplies, until he judges
Noonday-hour’s exact sand
Shows the hour-glass emptied:
Then comes lawful leisure,
Minutes rare from toil exempted,
Fit to spend in pleasure.
Out then with — what treatise?
Youth’s Complete Instructor
How to play the Flute. Quid petis?
Follow Youth’s conductor
On and on, through Easy,
Up to Harder, Hardest
Flute-piece, till thou, flautist wheezy,
Possibly discardest
Tootlings hoarse and husky,
Mayst expend with courage
Breath — on tunes once bright, now dusky —
Meant to cool thy porridge.
That’s an air of Tulou’s
He maltreats persistent,
Till as lief I’d hear some Zulu’s
Bone-piped bag, breath-distent,
Madden native dances.
I’m the man’s familiar:
Unexpectedness enhances
What your ear’s auxiliar
— Fancy — finds suggestive.
Listen! That’s legato
Rightly played, his fingers restive
Touch as if staccato.
He. Ah, you trick-betrayer!
Telling tales, unwise one?
So the secret of the player
Was — he could surprise one
Well-nigh into trusting
Here was a musician
Skilled consummately, yet lusting
Through no vile ambition
After making captive
All the world, — rewarded
Amply by one stranger’s rapture.
Common praise discarded.
So, without assistance
Such as music rightly
Needs and claims, — defying distance,
Overleaping lightly
Obstacles which hinder,
He, for my approval,
All the same and all the kinder
Made mine what might move all
Earth to kneel adoring:
Took — while he piped Gounod’s
Bit of passionate imploring —
Me for Juliet: who knows?
No! as you explain things,
All’s mere repetition,
Practise-pother: of all vain things
Why waste pooh or pish on
Toilsome effort — never
Ending, still beginning
After what should pay endeavor
— Right-performance? winning
Weariness from you who,
Ready to admire some
Owl’s fresh hooting — Tu-whit, to-who —
Find stale thrush-songs tiresome.
She. Songs, Spring thought perfection,
Summer criticises:
What in May escaped detection,
August, past surprises,
Notes, and names each blunder.
You, the just-initiate,
Praise to heart’s content (what wonder?)
Tootings I hear vitiate
Romeo’s serenading —
I who, times full twenty,
Turned to ice — no ash-tops aiding —
At his caldamente.
So, ‘twas distance altered
Sharps to flats? The missing
Bar when syncopation faltered
(You thought — paused for kissing!)
Ash-tops too felonious
Intercepted? Rather
Say — they well-nigh made euphonious
Discord, helped to gather
Phrase, by phrase, turn patches
Into simulated
Unity which botching matches, —
Scraps redintegrated.
He. Sweet, are you suggestive
Of an old suspicion
Which has always found me restive
To its admonition
When it ventured whisper
”Fool, the strifes and struggles
Of your trembler — blusher — lisper
Were so many juggles,
Tricks tried — oh, so often! —
Which once more do duty,
Find again a heart to soften,
Soul to snare with beauty.”
Birth-blush of the briar-rose,
Mist-bloom of the hedge-sloe,
Some one gainst the prize: admire rose
Would he, when noon’s wedge — slow —
Sure, has pushed, expanded
Rathe pink to raw redness?
Would he covet sloe when sanded
By road-dust to deadness?
So — restore their value!
Ply a water-sprinkle
Then guess sloe is fingered, shall you?
Find in rose a wrinkle?
Here what played Aquarius?
Distance — ash-tops aiding,
Reconciled scraps else contrarious,
Brightened stuff fast fading.
Distance — call your shyness:
Was the fair one peevish?
Coyness softened out of slyness.
Was she cunning, thievish,
All-but proved impostor?
Bear but one day’s exile,
Ugly traits were wholly lost or
Screened by fancies flexile —
Ash-tops these, you take me?
Fancies’ interference
Changed . . .
But since I sleep, don’t wake me!
What if all’s appearance?
Is not outside seeming
Real as substance inside?
Both are facts, so leave me dreaming:
If who loses wins I’d
Ever lose, — conjecture,
From one phrase trilled deftly,
All the piece. So, end your lecture,
Let who lied be left lie!
Imperante Augusto Natus Est —
WHAT it was struck the terror into me?
This, Publius: closer! while we wait our turn
I’ll tell you. Water’s warm (they ring inside)
At the eighth hour, till when no use to bathe.
Here in the vestibule where now we sit,
One scarce stood yesterday, the throng was such
Of loyal gapers, folk all eye and ear
While Lucius Varius Rufus in their midst
Read out that long-planned late-completed piece,
His Panegyric on the Emperor.
“Nobody like him,” little Flaccus laughed,
“At leading forth an Epos with due pomp!
Only, when godlike Cæsar swells the theme,
How should mere mortals hope to praise aright?
Tell me, thou offshoot of Etruscan kings!”
Whereat Mæcenas smiling sighed assent.
I paid my quadrans, left the Thermæ roar
Of rapture as the poet asked: “What place
Among the godships Jove, for Cæsar’s sake,
Would bid its actual occupant vacate
In favor of the new divinity?”
And got the expected answer, “Yield thine own!” —
Jove thus dethroned, I somehow wanted air,
And found myself a-pacing street and street,
Letting the sunset, rosy over Rome,
Clear my head dizzy with the hubbub — say,
As if thought’s dance therein had kicked up dust
By trampling on all else: the world lay prone,
As — poet-propped, in brave hexameters —
Their subject triumphed up from man to God.
Caius Octavius Cæsar the August —
Where was escape from his prepotency?
I
judge I may have passed — how many piles
Of structure dropt like doles from his free hand
To Rome on every side? Why, right and left,
For temples you’ve the Thundering Jupiter,
Avenging Mars, Apollo Palatine:
How count Piazza, Forum — there’s a third
All but completed. You’ve the Theatre
Named of Marcellus — all his work, such work! —
One thought still ending, dominating all —
With warrant Varius sang, “Be Cæsar God!”
By what a hold arrests he Fortune’s wheel,
Obtaining and retaining heaven and earth
Through Fortune, if you like, but favor — no!
For the great deeds flashed by me, fast and thick
As stars which storm the sky on autumn nights —
Those conquests! but peace crowned them, — so, of peace
Count up his titles only — these, in few —
Ten years Triumvir, Consul thirteen times,
Emperor, nay — the glory topping all —
Hailed Father of his Country, last and best
Of titles, by himself accepted so:
And why not? See but feats achieved in Rome —
Not to say, Italy — he planted there
Some thirty colonies — but Rome itself
All new-built, “marble now, brick once,” he boasts:
This Portico, that Circus. Would you sail?
He has drained Tiber for you: would you walk?
He straightened out the long Flaminian Way.
Poor? Profit by his score of donatives?
Rich — that is, mirthful? Half-a-hundred games
Challenge your choice! There’s Rome — for you and me
Only? The centre of the world besides!
For, look the wide world over, where ends Rome?
To sunrise? There’s Euphrates — all between!
To sunset? Ocean and immensity:
North, stare till Danube stops you: South, see Nile,
The Desert and the earth-upholding Mount.
Well may the poet-people each with each
Vie in his praise, our company of swans,
Virgil and Horace, singers — in their way —
Nearly as good as Varius, though less famed:
Well may they cry, “No mortal, plainly God!”
Thus to myself myself said, while I walked:
Or would have said, could thought attain to speech,
Clean baffled by enormity of bliss
The while I strove to scale its heights and sound
Its depths — this Amsterdam o’er all the world
Of one who was but born — like you, like me,
Like all the world he owns — of flesh and blood.
But he — how grasp, how gauge his own conceit
Of bliss to me near inconceivable?
Or, since such flight too much makes reel the brain,
Let’s sink — and so take refuge, as it were,
From life’s excessive altitude — to lift’s
Breathable wayside shelter at its base!
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 233
