Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Mind, in surview of things,

  Now soared, anon alit

  To treasure its gatherings

  From the ranged expanse — to wit,

  Nature, — earth’s, heaven’s wide show

  Which taught all hope, all fear:

  Acquainted with joy and woe,

  I could say, “Thus much is clear,

  Doubt annulled thus much: I know.

  “All is effect of cause:

  As it would, has willed and done

  Power: and my mind’s applause

  Goes, passing laws each one,

  To Omnipotence, lord of laws.”

  Head praises, but heart refrains

  From loving’s acknowledgment.

  Whole losses outweigh half-gains:

  Earth’s good is with evil blent:

  Good struggles but evil reigns.

  Yet since Earth’s good proved good —

  Incontrovertibly

  Worth loving — I understood

  How evil — did mind descry

  Power’s object to end pursued —

  Were haply as cloud across

  Good’s orb, no orb itself:

  Mere mind — were it found at loss

  Did it play the tricksy elf

  And from life’s gold purge the dross?

  Power is known infinite:

  Good struggles to be — at best

  Seems — scanned by the human sight,

  Tried by the senses’ test —

  Good palpably: but with right

  Therefore to mind’s award

  Of loving, as power claims praise?

  Power — which finds naught too hard,

  Fulfilling itself all ways

  Unchecked, unchanged: while barred,

  Baffled, what good began

  Ends evil on every side.

  To Power submissive man

  Breathes, “E’en as Thou art, abide!”

  While to good “Late-found, long-sought,

  “Would Power to a plenitude

  But liberate, but enlarge

  Good’s strait confine, — renewed

  Were ever the heart’s discharge

  Of loving!” Else doubts intrude.

  For you dominate, stars all!

  For a sense informs you — brute,

  Bird, worm, fly, great and small,

  Each with your attribute

  Or low or majestical!

  Thou earth that embosomest

  Offspring of land and sea —

  How thy hills first sank to rest,

  How thy vales bred herb and tree

  Which dizen thy mother-breast —

  Do I ask? “Be ignorant

  Ever!” the answer clangs:

  Whereas if I plead world’s want,

  Soul’s sorrows and body’s pangs,

  Play the human applicant, —

  Is a remedy far to seek?

  I question and find response:

  I — all men, strong or weak,

  Conceive and declare at once

  For each want its cure. “Power, speak!

  “Stop change, avert decay

  Fix life fast, banish death

  Eclipse from the star bid stay,

  Abridge of no moment’s breath

  One creature! Hence, Night, hail Day!”

  What need to confess again

  No problem this to solve

  By impotence? Power, once plain

  Proved Power — let on Power devolve

  Good’s right to co-equal reign!

  Past mind’s conception Power!

  Do I seek how star, earth, beast,

  Bird, worm, fly, gain their dower

  For life’s use, most and least?

  Back from the search I cower.

  Do I seek what heals all harm,

  Nay, hinders the harm at first,

  Saves earth? Speak, Power, the charm!

  Keep the life there unamerced

  By chance, change, death’s alarm!

  As promptly as mind conceives,

  Let Power in its turn declare

  Some law which wrong retrieves,

  Abolishes everywhere

  What thwarts, what irks, what grieves!

  Never to be! and yet

  How easy it seems — to sense

  Like man’s — if somehow met

  Power with its match — immense

  Love, limitless, unbeset

  By hindrance on every side!

  Conjectured, nowise known,

  Such may be: could man confide

  Such would match — were Love but shows

  Stript of the veils that hide —

  Power’s self now manifest!

  So reads my record: thine,

  O world, how runs it? Guessed

  Were the purport of that prime line,

  Prophetic of all the rest!

  “In a beginning God

  Made heaven and earth.” Forth flashed

  Knowledge: from star to clod

  Man knew things: doubt abashed

  Closed its long period.

  Knowledge obtained Power praise.

  Had Good been manifest,

  Broke out in cloudless blaze,

  Unchequered as unrepressed,

  In all things Good at best —

  Then praise — all praise, no blame —

  Had hailed the perfection. No!

  As Power’s display, the same

  Be Good’s — praise forth shall flow

  Unisonous in acclaim!

  Even as the world its life,

  So have I lived my own —

  Power seen with Love at strife,

  That sure, this dimly shown,

  — Good rare and evil rife.

  Whereof the effect be — faith

  That, some far day, were found

  Ripeness in things now rathe,

  Wrong righted, each chain unbound,

  Renewal born out of scathe.

  Why faith — but to lift the load,

  To leaven the lump, where lies

  Mind prostrate through knowledge owed

  To the loveless Power it tries

  To withstand, how vain! In flowed

  Ever resistless fact:

  No more than the passive clay

  Disputes the potter’s act,

  Could the whelmed mind disobey

  Knowledge the cataract.

  But, perfect in every part,

  Has the potter’s moulded shape,

  Leap of man’s quickened heart,

  Throe of his thought’s escape,

  Stings of his soul which dart

  Through the barrier of flesh, till keen

  She climbs from the calm and clear,

  Through turbidity all between,

  From the known to the unknown here,

  Heaven’s “Shall be,” from Earth’s “Has been”?

  Then life is — to wake not sleep,

  Rise and not rest, but press

  From earth’s level where blindly creep

  Things perfected, more or less,

  To the heaven’s height, far and steep,

  Where, amid what strifes and storms

  May wait the adventurous quest,

  Power is Love — transports, transforms

  Who aspired from worst to best,

  Sought the soul’s world, spurned the worms’.

  I have faith such end shall be:

  From the first, Power was — I knew.

  Life has made clear to me

  That, strive but for closer view,

  Love were as plain to see.

  When see? When there dawns a day,

  If not on the homely earth,

  Then yonder, worlds away,

  Where the strange and new have birth,

  And Power comes full in play.

  Asolando. Epilogue

  Referring to the third verse of this poem, the Pall Mall Gazette of February 1, 1890, said: “On
e evening, just before his death-illness, the poet was reading this from a proof to his daughter-in-law and sister. He said: ‘It almost looks like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to cancel it; but it’s the simple truth; and as it’s truth, it shall stand.”‘

  AT the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,

  When you set your fancies free,

  Will they pass to where — by death, fools think, imprisoned —

  Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,

  — Pity me?

  Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!

  What had I on earth to do

  With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?

  Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel

  — Being — who?

  One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,

  Never doubted clouds would break,

  Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,

  Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

  Sleep to wake.

  No, at noonday in the bustle of man’s work-time

  Greet the unseen with a cheer!

  Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,

  “Strive and thrive!” cry “Speed, — fight on fare ever

  There as here!”

  The Poems

  50 Wimpole Street, London, where Browning first met Elizabeth Barrett, who was living with her father and suffering from poor health.

  LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  PAULINE

  SORDELLO BOOK THE FIRST.

  SORDELLO BOOK THE SECOND.

  SORDELLO BOOK THE THIRD.

  SORDELLO BOOK THE FOURTH.

  SORDELLO BOOK THE FIFTH.

  SORDELLO BOOK THE SIXTH.

  CAVALIER TUNES I. MARCHING ALONG.

  CAVALIER TUNES II. GIVE A ROUSE.

  CAVALIER TUNES III. BOOT AND SADDLE.

  MY LAST DUCHESS

  COUNT GISMOND

  INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP

  SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER

  IN A GONDOLA

  ARTEMIS PROLOGUIZES

  WARING

  WARNING II.

  RUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI

  CRISTINA

  JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION I. — MADHOUSE CELL

  JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION II. — MADHOUSE CELL

  PORPHYRIA’S LOVER

  THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR

  THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN

  HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX

  PICTOR IGNOTUS

  THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND

  THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY

  THE LOST LEADER

  THE LOST MISTRESS

  HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD

  HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA

  NATIONALITY IN DRINKS

  THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED’S CHURCH ROME

  GARDEN-FANCIES

  I. — THE FLOWER’S NAME

  II. — SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS.

  THE LABORATORY

  THE CONFESSIONAL

  THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS

  EARTH’S IMMORTALITIES

  FAME

  LOVE

  SONG

  THE BOY AND THE ANGEL

  MEETING AT NIGHT

  PARTING AT MORNING

  SAUL

  TIME’S REVENGES

  THE GLOVE

  CHRISTMAS-EVE

  EASTER-DAY

  LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

  A LOVER’S QUARREL

  EVELYN HOPE

  UP AT A VILLA–DOWN IN THE CITY

  A WOMAN’S LAST WORD

  FRA LIPPO LIPPI

  A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI’S

  BY THE FIRE-SIDE

  ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND

  AN EPISTLE

  MESMERISM

  A SERENADE AT THE VILLA

  MY STAR

  INSTANS TYRANNUS

  A PRETTY WOMAN

  CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME

  RESPECTABILITY

  A LIGHT WOMAN

  THE STATUE AND THE BUST

  LOVE IN A LIFE

  LIFE IN A LOVE

  HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY

  THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

  THE PATRIOT

  MASTER HUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA

  BISHOP BLOUGRAM’S APOLOGY

  MEMORABILIA

  ANDREA DEL SARTO

  BEFORE

  AFTER

  IN THREE DAYS

  IN A YEAR

  OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE

  IN A BALCONY

  SAUL

  DE GUSTIBUS —

  WOMEN AND ROSES

  PROTUS

  HOLY-CROSS DAY

  THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL

  CLEON

  THE TWINS

  POPULARITY

  THE HERETIC’S TRAGEDY

  TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA

  A GRAMMARIAN’S FUNERAL

  ONE WAY OF LOVE

  ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE

  TRANSCENDENTALISM:

  MISCONCEPTIONS

  ONE WORD MORE

  JAMES LEE’S WIFE

  I. — JAMES LEE’S WIFE SPEAKS AT THE WINDOW

  II. — BY THE FIRESIDE

  III. — IN THE DOORWAY

  IV. — ALONG THE BEACH

  V. — ON THE CLIFF

  VI. — READING A BOOK, UNDER THE CLIFF

  VII. — AMONG THE ROCKS

  VIII. — BESIDE THE DRAWING BOARD

  IX. — ON DECK

  GOLD HAIR

  THE WORST OF IT

  DÎS ALITER VISUM;

  TOO LATE

  ABT VOGLER

  RABBI BEN EZRA

  A DEATH IN THE DESERT

  CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS

  CONFESSIONS

  MAY AND DEATH

  DEAF AND DUMB

  PROSPICE

  YOUTH AND ART

  A FACE

  A LIKENESS

  EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS

  THREE SONGS FROM PARACELSUS

  MR. SLUDGE, “THE MEDIUM”

  APPARENT FAILURE

  EPILOGUE

  BEN KARSHOOK’S WISDOM

  SONNET

  THE RING AND THE BOOK

  HALF-ROME

  THE OTHER HALF-ROME

  TERTIUM QUID

  COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI

  GIUSEPPE CAPONSACCHI

  POMPILIA

  DOMINUS HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS

  JURIS DOCTOR JOHANNES-BAPTISTA BOTTINIUS

  THE POPE

  GUIDO

  THE BOOK AND THE RING

  PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY

  PROLOGUE: AMPHIBIAN.

  FIFINE AT THE FAIR.

  EPILOGUE. THE HOUSEHOLDER.

  RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY, OR, TURF AND TOWERS

  THE INN ABLUM

  PACCHIAROTTO, AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER

  PACCHIAROTTO. I

  PACCHIAROTTO. II

  PACCHIAROTTO. III

  PACCHIAROTTO. IV

  PACCHIAROTTO. V

  PACCHIAROTTO. VI

  PACCHIAROTTO. VII

  PACCHIAROTTO. VIII

  PACCHIAROTTO. IX

  PACCHIAROTTO. X

  PACCHIAROTTO. XI

  PACCHIAROTTO. XII

  PACCHIAROTTO. XIII

  PACCHIAROTTO. XIV

  PACCHIAROTTO. XV

  PACCHIAROTTO. XVI

  PACCHIAROTTO. XVII

  PACCHIAROTTO. XVIII

  PACCHIAROTTO. XIX

  PACCHIAROTTO. XX

  PACCHIAROTTO. XXI

  PACCHIAROTTO. XXII

  PACCHIAROTTO. XXIII

  PACCHIAROTTO. XXIV

  PACCHIAROTTO. XXV

  PACCHIAROTTO. XXVI

  PACCHIAROTTO. XXVII

  PACCHIAROTTO. XXVIII

  PACCHIAROTTO. XXIX

  LA SAISIAZ

  MARTIN RELPH

  PHEIDIPPID
ES

  HALBERT AND HOB

  IVÀN IVÀNOVITCH

  TRAY

  NED BRATTS

  YOU ARE SICK, THAT’S SURE

  ECHETLOS

  CLIVE

  MULÉYKEH

  PIETRO OF ABANO

  DOCTOR — —

  PAN AND LUNA

  TOUCH HIM NE’ER SO LIGHTLY

  WANTING IS — WHAT?

  DONALD

  SOLOMON AND BALKIS

  CRISTINA AND MONALDESCHI

  MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT AND FUSELI

  ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE

  IXION

  JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH

  NOTE

  NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE

  PAMBO

  FERISHTAH’S FANCIES.

  PROLOGUE.

  THE EAGLE.

  THE MELON-SELLER

  SHAH ABBAS.

  THE FAMILY.

  THE SUN.

  MIHRAB SHAH.

  A CAMEL-DRIVER.

  TWO CAMELS.

  CHERRIES.

  PLOT-CULTURE.

  A PILLAR AT SEBZEVAR.

  A BEAN-STRIPE: ALSO, APPLE-EATING.

  EPILOGUE.

  PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY

  APOLLO AND THE FATES.

  WITH BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE.

  WITH DANIEL BARTOLI.

  WITH CHRISTOPHER SMART.

  WITH GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON.

  WITH FRANCIS FURINI.

  WITH GERARD DE LAIRESSE.

  WITH CHARLES AVISON.

  FUST AND HIS FRIENDS.

  AN EPILOGUE.

  ASOLANDO. PROLOGUE

  ROSNY

  DUBIETY

  NOW

  HUMILITY

  POETICS

  SUMMUM BONUM

  A PEARL, A GIRL

  SPECULATIVE

  WHITE WITCHCRAFT

  BAD DREAMS I

  BAD DREAMS II

  BAD DREAMS III

  BAD DREAMS IV

  INAPPREHENSIVENESS

  WHICH?

  THE CARDINAL AND THE DOG

  THE POPE AND THE NET

  THE BEAN-FEAST

  MUCKLE-MOUTH MEG

  ARCADES AMBO

  THE LADY AND THE PAINTER

  PONTE DELL’ ANGELO, VENICE

  BEATRICE SIGNORINI

  FLUTE-MUSIC, WITH AN ACCOMPANIMENT

  IMPERANTE AUGUSTO NATUS EST —

  DEVELOPMENT

  REPHAN

  REVERIE

  ASOLANDO. EPILOGUE

  LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  A-D E-H I-L M-O P-S T-V W-Z

  A BEAN-STRIPE: ALSO, APPLE-EATING.

  A CAMEL-DRIVER.

  A DEATH IN THE DESERT

  A FACE

  A GRAMMARIAN’S FUNERAL

  A LIGHT WOMAN

  A LIKENESS

  A LOVER’S QUARREL

  A PEARL, A GIRL

  A PILLAR AT SEBZEVAR.

  A PRETTY WOMAN

  A SERENADE AT THE VILLA

  A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI’S

  A WOMAN’S LAST WORD

  ABT VOGLER

  ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE

  AFTER

  AN EPILOGUE.

  AN EPISTLE

  ANDREA DEL SARTO

  ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE

  ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND