Robert Browning on Love

by Stephen Brennan

To know even hate is but a mask of love’s.

  To see a good in evil, and a hope

  In ill-success; to sympathize, be proud

  Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim

  Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies,

  Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts;

  All with a touch of nobleness, despite

  Their error, upward tending all though weak

  —Paracelsus

  And still, as love’s brief morning wore,

  With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh,

  They found love not as it seemed before.

  —The Statue and the Bust

  But you don’t know music! Wherefore

  Keep on casting pearls

  To a—poet? All I care for

  Is—to tell him that a girl’s

  “Love” comes aptly in when gruff

  Grows his singing. (There, enough!)

  —A Tale

  But do not let us quarrel any more

  —Andrea del Sarto

  Is the knowledge of her, naught? the memory, naught?

  —Lady, should such an one have looked on you,

  Ne’er wrong yourself so far as quote the world

  And say, love can go unrequited here!

  You will have blessed him to his whole life’s end—

  Low passions hindered, baser cares kept back,

  All goodness cherished where you dwelt—and dwell.

  —Colombe’s Birthday

  I think then, I should wish to stand

  This evening in that dear, lost land,

  Over the sea the thousand miles,

  And know if yet that woman smiles

  With the calm smile; some little farm

  She lives in there, no doubt: what harm

  If I sat on the door-side bench,

  And, while her spindle made a trench

  Fantastically in the dust,

  Inquired of all her fortunes—just

  Her children’s ages and their names,

  And what may be the husband’s aims

  For each of them. I’d talk this out,

  And sit there, for an hour about,

  Then kiss her hand once more, and lay

  Mine on her head, and go my way.

  —The Italian In England

  Over?

  Oh, what is over? what must I live through

  And say, “’tis over”? Is our meeting over?

  Have I received in presence of them all

  The partner of my guilty love—with brow

  Trying to seem a maiden’s brow—with lips

  Which make believe that when they strive to form

  Replies to you and tremble as they strive

  —A Blot In the ‘Scutcheon

  But you spared me this, like the heart you are,

  And filled my empty heart at a word.

  If two lives join, there is oft a scar,

  They are one and one, with a shadowy third;

  One near one is too far.

  —By the Fire-Side

  Good, to forgive;

  Best, to forget!

  Living, we fret;

  Dying, we live.

  Fretless and free,

  Soul, clap thy pinion!

  Earth have dominion,

  Body, o’er thee!

  Wander at will,

  Day after day—

  Wander away,

  Wandering still—

  Soul that canst soar!

  Body may slumber:

  Body shall cumber

  Soul-flight no more.

  Waft of soul’s wing!

  What lies above?

  Sunshine and Love,

  Skyblue and Spring!

  Body hides—where?

  Ferns of all feather,

  Mosses and heather.

  Yours be the care!

  —Good to Forgive

  Let’s contend no more, Love,

  Strive nor weep:

  All be as before, Love,

  —Only sleep!

  —A Woman’s Last Word

  All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter

  As one at first believes?

  Hark, ‘tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter

  About your cottage eaves!

  And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,

  I noticed that, to-day;

  One day more bursts them open fully

  —You know the red turns grey.

  To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?

  May I take your hand in mine?

  Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest

  Keep much that I resign:

  For each glance of the eye so bright and black,

  Though I keep with heart’s endeavour,—

  Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,

  Though it stay in my soul for ever!—

  Yet I will but say what mere friends say,

  Or only a thought stronger;

  I will hold your hand but as long as all may,

  Or so very little longer!

  —The Lost Mistress

  How could it end in any other way?

  —Andrea del Sarto

  I loved you, Evelyn, all the while.

  My heart seemed full as it could hold?

  —Evelyn Hope

  That way you’d take, friend Austin? What a shame

  I was your cousin, tamely from the first

  Your bride, and all this fervour’s run to waste!

  —A Blot In the ‘Scutcheon

  Young-hearted women, old-minded men

  —The Flight of the Duchess

  I seem to see! We meet and part; ‘tis brief

  —Any Wife to Any Husband

  Would he loved me yet,

  On and on,

  While I found some way undreamed

  —Paid my debt!

  Gave more life and more,

  Till, all gone

  —In a Year

  All June I bound the rose in sheaves.

  Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves

  And strew them where Pauline may pass.

  She will not turn aside? Alas!

  Let them lie. Suppose they die?

  The chance was they might take her eye.

  How many a month I strove to suit

  These stubborn fingers to the lute!

  To-day I venture all I know.

  She will not hear my music? So!

  Break the string; fold music’s wing:

  Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!

  My whole life long I learned to love.

  This hour my utmost art I prove

  And speak my passion—heaven or hell?

  She will not give me heaven? ‘Tis well!

  Lose who may—I still can say,

  Those who win heaven, blest are they!

  —One Way of Love

  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.

  —Youth and Art

  Dearest, three months ago

  When the mesmerizer Snow

  With his hand’s first sweep

  Put the earth to sleep:

  ‘Twas a time when the heart could show

  All—how was earth to know,

  ‘Neath the mute hand’s to-and-fro?

  —A Lovers’ Quarrel

  What need to strive with a life awry?

  Had I said that, had I done this,

  So might I gain, so might I miss.

  Might she have loved me? just as well

  She might have hated, who can tell!

  Where had I been now if the worst befell?

  —The Last Ride Together

  The counter our lovers staked was lost

  As surely as if it were lawful coin:

  And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost

  Is—the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,


  Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.

  You of the virtue (we issue join)

  How strive you? De te, fabula.

  —The Statue and the Bust

  She followed down to the sea-shore;

  I left and never saw her more.

  —The Italian In England

  There may be heaven; there must be hell;

  Meantime, there is our earth here—well!

  —Time’s Revenges

  Love, to be wise …

  Should we have—months ago, when first we loved

  —Pippa Passes

  Into her very hair, back swerving

  Over each shoulder, loose and abundant,

  As her head thrown back showed the white throat curving;

  And the very tresses shared in the pleasure,

  Moving to the mystic measure,

  Bounding as the bosom bounded.

  I stopped short, more and more confounded

  —The Flight of the Duchess

  Sitting by my side,

  At my feet,

  So he breathed but air I breathed,

  Satisfied!

  I, too, at love’s brim

  Touched the sweet

  —In a Year

  Loving is done with. Were he sitting now,

  As so few hours since, on that seat, we’d love

  No more—contrive no thousand happy ways

  To hide love from the loveless, any more.

  —A Blot In the ‘Scutcheon

  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.

  Each life unfulfilled, you see;

  It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:

  We have not sighed deep, laughed free,

  Starved, feasted, despaired,—been happy.

  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.

  —Youth and Art

  I should have gone home again,

  Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself!

  —The Flight of the Duchess

  Oh, Mildred, feel you not

  That now, while I remember every glance

  Of yours, each word of yours, with power to test

  And weigh them in the diamond scales of pride

  —A Blot In the ‘Scutcheon

  “Not my hair!” made the girl her moan—

  “All the rest is gone or to go;

  But the last, last grace, my all, my own,

  Let it stay in the grave, that the ghosts may know!

  Leave my poor gold hair alone!”

  The passion thus vented, dead lay she;

  Her parents sobbed their worst on that;

  All friends joined in, nor observed degree:

  For indeed the hair was to wonder at,

  As it spread—not flowing free,

  But curled around her brow, like a crown,

  And coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap,

  And calmed about her neck—ay, down

  To her breast, pressed flat, without a gap

  I’ the gold, it reached her gown.

  All kissed that face, like a silver wedge

  ‘Mid the yellow wealth, nor disturbed its hair:

  E’en the priest allowed death’s privilege,

  As he planted the crucifix with care

  On her breast, ’twixt edge and edge.

  —Gold Hair

  So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam

  The glory dropped from their youth and love,

  And both perceived they had dreamed a dream.

  —The Statue and the Bust

  Alas,

  We loved, sir—used to meet:

  How sad and bad and mad it was—

  But then, how it was sweet!

  —Confessions

  Mildred, break it if you choose,

  A heart the love of you uplifted—still

  Uplifts, thro’ this protracted agony,

  To heaven! but Mildred, answer me

  —A Blot In the ‘Scutcheon

  But love, love, love—there’s better love, I know!

  This foolish love was only day’s first offer;

  I choose my next love to defy the scoffer

  —In Three Days

  So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,

  “I wanted a taste, and now there’s enough of it”

  —Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day

  Meantime, how much I loved him,

  I find out now I’ve lost him.

  I who cared not if I moved him,

  Who could so carelessly accost him,

  Henceforth never shall get free

  Of his ghostly company

  —Waring

  All traces of the rough forbidden path

  My rash love lured her to! Each day must see

  Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed:

  Then there will be surprises, unforeseen

  Delights in store. I’ll not regret the past.

  —A Blot In the ‘Scutcheon

  Memory of Love

  We would try and trace

  One another’s face

  In the ash, as an artist draws;

  Free on each other’s flaws,

  How we chattered like two church daws!

  —A Lovers’ Quarrel

  And oh, all my heart how it loved him!

  —Saul

  So grew my own small life complete,

  As nature obtained her best of me—

  One born to love you, sweet!

  —By the Fire-Side

  And when, shortly after, she carried

  Her shame from the Court, and they married

  —The Glove

  But the soul

  Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole;

  Vainly the flesh fades; soul makes all things new.

  —Any Wife to Any Husband

  No sooner the old hope goes to ground

  Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark

  —Life in a Love

  How the world is made for each of us!

  How all we perceive and know in it

  —By the Fire-Side

  That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

  Looking as if she were alive.

  —My Last Duchess

  Dearest, three months ago!

  When we lived blocked-up with snow,—

  When the wind would edge

  In and in his wedge,

  In, as far as the point could go—

  Not to our ingle, though,

  Where we loved each the other so!

  —A Lovers’ Quarrel

  Love, you did give all I asked

  —Andrea del Sarto

  Come back with me to the first of all,

  Let us lean and love it over again,

  Let us now forget and now recall,

  Break the rosary in a pearly rain,

  And gather what we let fall!

  —By the Fire-Side

  One likes to show the truth for the truth;

  That the woman was light is very true

  —A Light Woman

  One lyric woman, in her crocus vest

  Woven of sea-wools, with her two white hands

  Commends to me the strainer and the cup

  Thy lip hath bettered ere it blesses mine.

  —Cleon

  My perfect wife, my Leonor,

  Oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too,

  Whom else could I dare look backward for,

  With whom beside should I dare pursue

  The path grey heads abhor?

  —By the Fire-Side

  No, indeed! for God above

  Is great to grant, as mighty to make,

  And creates the love to reward the love:
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  I claim you still, for my own love’s sake!

  —Evelyn Hope

  Say again, what we are?

  The sprite of a star,

  I lure thee above where the destinies bar

  My plumes their full play

  Till a ruddier ray

  Than my pale one announce there is withering away

  Some … Scatter the vision for ever! And now,

  As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

  —In a Gondola

  Was it something said,

  Something done,

  Vexed him? was it touch of hand,

  Turn of head?

  Strange! that very way

  Love begun:

  I as little understand

  Love’s decay.

  —In a Year

  What does it all mean, poet? Well,

  Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell

  What we felt only; you expressed

  You hold things beautiful the best,

  And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.

  ‘Tis something, nay ‘tis much: but then,

  Have you yourself what’s best for men?

  —The Last Ride Together

  For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,

  And hope and fear,—believe the aged friend,—

  Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love,

  How love might be, hath been indeed, and is

  —A Death in the Desert

  Thy singleness of soul that made me proud,

  Thy purity of heart I loved aloud,

  Thy man’s-truth I was bold to bid God see!

  —Any Wife to Any Husband

  For there I picked up on the heather

  And there I put inside my breast

  A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!

  Well, I forget the rest.

  —Memorabilia

  Dear, the pang is brief,

  Do thy part,

  Have thy pleasure! How perplexed

  Grows belief!

  Well, this cold clay clod

  Was man’s heart:

  Crumble it, and what comes next?

  Is it God?

  —In a Year

  All, that I know

  Of a certain star

  Is, it can throw

  (Like the angled spar)

  Now a dart of red,

  Now a dart of blue;

  Till my friends have said

  They would fain see, too,

  My star that dartles the red and the blue!

  Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:

  They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.