Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  And altogether we, thy peers,

  Will pardon crave 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 should we clothe, how arm the spirit

  Shall next 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!”

  Aprile enters.

  Aprile.

  Ha, ha! our king that wouldst be, here at last?

  Art thou the poet who shall save the world?

  Thy hand to mine! Stay, fix thine eyes on mine!

  Thou wouldst be king? Still fix thine eyes on mine!

  Paracelsus.

  Ha, ha! why crouchest not? Am I not king?

  So torture is not wholly unavailing!

  Have my fierce spasms compelled thee from thy lair?

  Art thou the sage I only seemed to be,

  Myself of after-time, my very self

  With sight a little clearer, strength more firm,

  Who robes him in my robe and grasps my crown

  For just a fault, a weakness, a neglect?

  I scarcely trusted God with the surmise

  That such might come, and thou didst hear the while!

  Aprile.

  Thine eyes are lustreless to mine; my hair

  Is soft, nay silken soft: to talk with thee

  Flushes my cheek, and thou art ashy-pale.

  Truly, thou hast laboured, hast withstood her lips,

  The siren’s! Yes, ‘t is like thou hast attained!

  Tell me, dear master, wherefore now thou comest?

  I thought thy solemn songs would have their meed

  In after-time; that I should hear the earth

  Exult in thee and echo with thy praise,

  While I was laid forgotten in my grave.

  Paracelsus.

  Ah fiend, I know thee, I am not thy dupe!

  Thou art ordained to follow in my track,

  Reaping my sowing, as I scorned to reap

  The harvest sown by sages passed away.

  Thou art the sober searcher, cautious striver,

  As if, except through me, thou hast searched or striven!

  Ay, tell the world! Degrade me after all,

  To an aspirant after fame, not truth —

  To all but envy of thy fate, be sure!

  Aprile.

  Nay, sing them to me; I shall envy not:

  Thou shalt be king! Sing thou, and I will sit

  Beside, and call deep silence for thy songs,

  And worship thee, as I had ne’er been meant

  To fill thy throne: but none shall ever know!

  Sing to me; for already thy wild eyes

  Unlock my heart-strings, as some crystal-shaft

  Reveals by some chance blaze its parent fount

  After long time: so thou reveal’st my soul.

  All will flash forth at last, with thee to hear!

  Paracelsus.

  (His secret! I shall get his secret — fool!)

  I am he that aspired to know: and thou?

  Aprile.

  I would love infinitely, and be loved!

  Paracelsus.

  Poor slave! I am thy king indeed.

  Aprile.

  Thou deem’st

  That — born a spirit, dowered even as thou,

  Born for thy fate — because I could not curb

  My yearnings to possess at once the full

  Enjoyment, but neglected all the means

  Of realizing even the frailest joy,

  Gathering no fragments to appease my want,

  Yet nursing up that want till thus I die —

  Thou deem’st I cannot trace thy safe sure march

  O’er perils that o’erwhelm me, triumphing,

  Neglecting nought below for aught above,

  Despising nothing and ensuring all —

  Nor that I could (my time to come again)

  Lead thus my spirit securely as thine own.

  Listen, and thou shalt see I know thee well.

  I would love infinitely . . . Ah, lost! lost!

  Oh ye who armed me at such cost,

  How shall I look on all of ye

  With your gifts even yet on me?

  Paracelsus.

  (Ah, ‘t is some moonstruck creature after all!

  Such fond fools as are like to haunt this den:

  They spread contagion, doubtless: yet he seemed

  To echo one foreboding of my heart

  So truly, that . . . no matter! How he stands

  With eve’s last sunbeam staying on his hair

  Which turns to it as if they were akin:

  And those clear smiling eyes of saddest blue

  Nearly set free, so far they rise above

  The painful fruitless striving of the brow

  And enforced knowledge of the lips, firm-set

  In slow despondency’s eternal sigh!

  Has he, too, missed life’s end, and learned the cause?)

  I charge thee, by thy fealty, be calm!

  Tell me what thou wouldst be, and what I am.

  Aprile.

  I would love infinitely, and be loved.

  First: I would carve in stone, or cast in brass,

  The forms of earth. No ancient hunter lifted

  Up to the gods by his renown, no nymph

  Supposed the sweet soul of a woodland tree

  Or sapphirine spirit of a twilight star,

  Should be too hard for me; no shepherd-king

  Regal for his white locks; no youth who stands

  Silent and very calm amid the throng,

  His right hand ever hid beneath his robe

  Until the tyrant pass; no lawgiver,

  No swan-soft woman rubbed with lucid oils

  Given by a god for love of her — too hard!

  Every passion sprung from man, conceived by man,

  Would I express and clothe it in its right form,

  Or blend with others struggling in one form,

  Or show repressed by an ungainly form.

  Oh, if you marvelled at some mighty spirit

  With a fit frame to execute its will —

  Even unconsciously to work its will —

  You should be moved no less beside some strong

  Rare spirit, fettered to a stubborn body,

  Endeavouring to subdue it and inform it

  With its own splendour! All this I would do:

  And I would say, this done, “His sprites created,

  “God grants to each a sphere to be its world,

  “Appointed with the various objects needed

  “To satisfy its own peculiar want;

  “So, I create a worl
d for these my shapes

  “Fit to sustain their beauty and their strength!”

  And, at the word, I would contrive and paint

  Woods, valleys, rocks and plains, dells, sands and wastes,

  Lakes which, when morn breaks on their quivering bed,

  Blaze like a wyvern flying round the sun,

  And ocean isles so small, the dog-fish tracking

  A dead whale, who should find them, would swim thrice

  Around them, and fare onward — all to hold

  The offspring of my brain. Nor these alone:

  Bronze labyrinth, palace, pyramid and crypt,

  Baths, galleries, courts, temples and terraces,

  Marts, theatres and wharfs — all filled with men,

  Men everywhere! And this performed in turn,

  When those who looked on, pined to hear the hopes

  And fears and hates and loves which moved the crowd,

  I would throw down the pencil as the chisel,

  And I would speak; no thought which ever stirred

  A human breast should be untold; all passions,

  All soft emotions, from the turbulent stir

  Within a heart fed with desires like mine,

  To the last comfort shutting the tired lids

  Of him who sleeps the sultry noon away

  Beneath the tent-tree by the wayside well:

  And this in language as the need should be,

  Now poured at once forth in a burning flow,

  Now piled up in a grand array of words.

  This done, to perfect and consummate all,

  Even as a luminous haze links star to star,

  I would supply all chasms with music, breathing

  Mysterious motions of the soul, no way

  To be defined save in strange melodies.

  Last, having thus revealed all I could love,

  Having received all love bestowed on it,

  I would die: preserving so throughout my course

  God full on me, as I was full on men:

  He would approve my prayer, “I have gone through

  “The loveliness of life; create for me

  “If not for men, or take me to thyself,

  “Eternal, infinite love!”

  If thou hast ne’er

  Conceived this mighty aim, this full desire,

  Thou hast not passed my trial, and thou art

  No king of mine.

  Paracelsus.

  Ah me!

  Aprile.

  But thou art here!

  Thou didst not gaze like me upon that end

  Till thine own powers for compassing the bliss

  Were blind with glory; nor grow mad to grasp

  At once the prize long patient toil should claim,

  Nor spurn all granted short of that. And I

  Would do as thou, a second time: nay, listen!

  Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great,

  Our time so brief, ‘t is clear if we refuse

  The means so limited, the tools so rude

  To execute our purpose, life will fleet,

  And we shall fade, and leave our task undone.

  We will be wise in time: what though our work

  Be fashioned in despite of their ill-service,

  Be crippled every way? ‘T were little praise

  Did full resources wait on our goodwill

  At every turn. Let all be as it is.

  Some say the earth is even so contrived

  That tree and flower, a vesture gay, conceal

  A bare and skeleton framework. Had we means

  Answering to our mind! But now I seem

  Wrecked on a savage isle: how rear thereon

  My palace? Branching palms the props shall be,

  Fruit glossy mingling; gems are for the East;

  Who heeds them? I can pass them. Serpents’ scales,

  And painted birds’ down, furs and fishes’ skins

  Must help me; and a little here and there

  Is all I can aspire to: still my art

  Shall show its birth was in a gentler clime.

  “Had I green jars of malachite, this way

  “I ‘d range them: where those sea-shells glisten above,

  “Cressets should hang, by right: this way we set

  “The purple carpets, as these mats are laid,

  “Woven of fern and rush and blossoming flag.”

  Or if, by fortune, some completer grace

  Be spared to me, some fragment, some slight sample

  Of the prouder workmanship my own home boasts,

  Some trifle little heeded there, but here

  The place’s one perfection — with what joy

  Would I enshrine the relic, cheerfully

  Foregoing all the marvels out of reach!

  Could I retain one strain of all the psalm

  Of the angels, one word of the fiat of God,

  To let my followers know what such things are!

  I would adventure nobly for their sakes:

  When nights were still, and still the moaning sea

  And far away I could descry the land

  Whence I departed, whither I return,

  I would dispart the waves, and stand once more

  At home, and load my bark, and hasten back,

  And fling my gains to them, worthless or true.

  “Friends,” I would say, “I went far, far for them,

  “Past the high rocks the haunt of doves, the mounds

  “Of red earth from whose sides strange trees grow out,

  “Past tracts of milk-white minute blinding sand,

  “Till, by a mighty moon, I tremblingly

  “Gathered these magic herbs, berry and bud,

  “In haste, not pausing to reject the weeds,

  “But happy plucking them at any price.

  “To me, who have seen them bloom in their own soil,

  “They are scarce lovely: plait and wear them, you!

  “And guess, from what they are, the springs that fed them,

  “The stars that sparkled o’er them, night by night,

  “The snakes that travelled far to sip their dew!”

  Thus for my higher loves; and thus even weakness

  Would win me honour. But not these alone

  Should claim my care; for common life, its wants

  And ways, would I set forth in beauteous hues:

  The lowest hind should not possess a hope,

  A fear, but I ‘d be by him, saying better

  Than he his own heart’s language. I would live

  For ever in the thoughts I thus explored,

  As a discoverer’s memory is attached

  To all he finds; they should be mine henceforth,

  Imbued with me, though free to all before:

  For clay, once cast into my soul’s rich mine,

  Should come up crusted o’er with gems. Nor this

  Would need a meaner spirit, than the first;

  Nay, ‘t would be but the selfsame spirit, clothed

  In humbler guise, but still the selfsame spirit:

  As one spring wind unbinds the mountain snow

  And comforts violets in their hermitage.

  But, master, poet, who hast done all this,

  How didst thou ‘scape the ruin whelming me?

  Didst thou, when nerving thee to this attempt,

  Ne’er range thy mind’s extent, as some wide hall,

  Dazzled by shapes that filled its length with light,

  Shapes clustered there to rule thee, not obey,

  That will not wait thy summons, will not rise

  Singly, nor when thy practised eye and hand

  Can well transfer their loveliness, but crowd

  By thee for ever, bright to thy despair?

  Didst thou ne’er gaze on each by turns, and ne’er

  Resolve to single out one, though the rest

  Should vanish, and to give that one, entire

  I
n beauty, to the world; forgetting, so,

  Its peers, whose number baffles mortal power?

  And, this determined, wast thou ne’er seduced

  By memories and regrets and passionate love,

  To glance once more farewell? and did their eyes

  Fasten thee, brighter and more bright, until

  Thou couldst but stagger back unto their feet,

  And laugh that man’s applause or welfare ever

  Could tempt thee to forsake them? Or when years

  Had passed and still their love possessed thee wholly,

  When from without some murmur startled thee

  Of darkling mortals famished for one ray

  Of thy so-hoarded luxury of light,

  Didst thou ne’er strive even yet to break those spells

  And prove thou couldst recover and fulfil

  Thy early mission, long ago renounced,

  And to that end, select some shape once more?

  And did not mist-like influences, thick films,

  Faint memories of the rest that charmed so long

  Thine eyes, float fast, confuse thee, bear thee off,

  As whirling snow-drifts blind a man who treads

  A mountain ridge, with guiding spear, through storm?

  Say, though I fell, I had excuse to fall;

  Say, I was tempted sorely: say but this,

  Dear lord, Aprile’s lord!

  Paracelsus.

  Clasp me not thus,

  Aprile! That the truth should reach me thus!

  We are weak dust. Nay, clasp not or I faint!

  Aprile.

  My king! and envious thoughts could outrage thee?

  Lo, I forget my ruin, and rejoice

  In thy success, as thou! Let our God’s praise

  Go bravely through the world at last! What care

  Through me or thee? I feel thy breath. Why, tears?

  Tears in the darkness, and from thee to me?

  Paracelsus.

  Love me henceforth, Aprile, while I learn

  To love; and, merciful God, forgive us both!

  We wake at length from weary dreams; but both

  Have slept in fairy-land: though dark and drear

  Appears the world before us, we no less

  Wake with our wrists and ankles jewelled still.

  I too have sought to know as thou to love —

  Excluding love as thou refusedst knowledge.

  Still thou hast beauty and I, power. We wake:

  What penance canst devise for both of us?

  Aprile.

  I hear thee faintly. The thick darkness! Even

  Thine eyes are hid. ‘T is as I knew: I speak,

  And now I die. But I have seen thy face!

  O poet, think of me, and sing of me!

  But to have seen thee and to die so soon!

  Paracelsus.

  Die not, Aprile! We must never part.

  Are we not halves of one dissevered world,

  Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part? never!