Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)

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Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) Page 23

by Robert Browning

In just such a fit of passion: no, it was …

  To get this house of hers, and many a note

  Like these … I’ll pocket them, however … five,

  [1510] Ten, fifteen … ay, you gave her throat the twist,

  Or else you poisoned her! Confound the cuss!

  Where was my head? I ought to have prophesied

  He’ll the in a year and join her: that’s the way.

  I don’t know where my head is: what had I done?

  How did it all go? I said he poisoned her,

  And hoped he’d have grace given him to repent,

  Whereon he picked this quarrel, bullied me

  And called me cheat: I thrashed him, – who could help?

  He howled for mercy, prayed me on his knees

  [1520] To cut and run and save him from disgrace:

  I do so, and once off, he slanders me.

  An end of him! Begin elsewhere anew!

  Boston’s a hole, the herring-pond is wide,

  V-notes are something, liberty still more.

  Beside, is he the only fool in the world?

  Apparent Failure

  ‘We shall soon lose a celebrated building.’ Paris Newspaper

  I

  No, for I’ll save it! Seven years since,

  I passed through Paris, stopped a day

  To see the baptism of your Prince;

  Saw, made my bow, and went my way:

  Walking the heat and headache off,

  I took the Seine-side, you surmise,

  Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,

  Cavour’s appeal and Buol’s replies,

  So sauntered till – what met my eyes?

  II

  [10] Only the Doric little Morgue!

  The dead-house where you show your drowned:

  Petrarch’s Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,

  Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.

  One pays one’s debt in such a case;

  I plucked up heart and entered, – stalked,

  Keeping a tolerable face

  Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:

  Let them! No Briton’s to be balked!

  III

  First came the silent gazers; next,

  [20] A screen of glass, we’re thankful for;

  Last, the sight’s self, the sermon’s text;

  The three men who did most abhor

  Their life in Paris yesterday,

  So killed themselves: and now, enthroned

  Each on his copper couch, they lay

  Fronting me, waiting to be owned.

  I thought, and think, their sin’s atoned.

  IV

  Poor men, God made, and all for that!

  The reverence struck me; o’er each head

  [30] Religiously was hung its hat,

  Each coat dripped by the owner’s bed,

  Sacred from touch: each had his berth,

  His bounds, his proper place of rest,

  Who last night tenanted on earth

  Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast, –

  Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.

  V

  How did it happen, my poor boy?

  You wanted to be Buonaparte

  And have the Tuileries for toy,

  [40] And could not, so it broke your heart?

  You, old one by his side, I judge,

  Were, red as blood, a socialist,

  A leveller! Does the Empire grudge

  You’ve gained what no Republic missed?

  Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

  VI

  And this – why, he was red in vain,

  Or black, – poor fellow that is blue!

  What fancy was it turned your brain?

  Oh, women were the prize for you!

  [50] Money gets women, cards and dice

  Get money, and ill-luck gets just

  The copper couch and one clear nice

  Cool squirt of water o’er your bust,

  The right thing to extinguish lust!

  VII

  It’s wiser being good than bad;

  It’s safer being meek than fierce:

  It’s fitter being sane than mad.

  My own hope is, a sun will pierce

  The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;

  [60] That, after Last, returns the First,

  Though a wide compass round be fetched;

  That what began best, can’t end worst,

  Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

  Epilogue [to Dramatis Personae]

  First Speaker, as David

  I

  On the first of the Feast of Feasts,

  The Dedication Day,

  When the Levites joined the Priests

  At the Altar in robed array,

  Gave signal to sound and say, –

  II

  When the thousands, rear and van,

  Swarming with one accord

  Became as a single man

  (Look, gesture, thought and word)

  [10] In praising and thanking the Lord, –

  III

  When the singers lift up their voice,

  And the trumpets made endeavour,

  Sounding, ‘In God rejoice!’

  Saying, ‘In Him rejoice

  Whose mercy endureth for ever!’ –

  IV

  Then the Temple filled with a cloud,

  Even the House of the Lord;

  Porch bent and pillar bowed:

  For the presence of the Lord,

  [20] In the glory of His cloud,

  Had filled the House of the Lord.

  Second Speaker, as Renan

  Gone now! All gone across the dark so far,

  Sharpening fast, shuddering ever, shutting still,

  Dwindling into the distance, dies that star

  Which came, stood, opened once! We gazed our fill

  With upturned faces on as real a Face

  That, stooping from grave music and mild fire,

  Took in our homage, made a visible place

  Through many a depth of glory, gyre on gyre,

  [30] For the dim human tribute. Was this true?

  Could man indeed avail, mere praise of his,

  To help by rapture God’s own rapture too,

  Thrill with a heart’s red tinge that pure pale bliss?

  Why did it end? Who failed to beat the breast,

  And shriek, and throw the arms protesting wide,

  When a first shadow showed the star addressed

  Itself to motion, and on either side

  The rims contracted as the rays retired;

  The music, like a fountain’s sickening pulse,

  [40] Subsided on itself; awhile transpired

  Some vestige of a Face no pangs convulse,

  No prayers retard; then even this was gone,

  Lost in the night at last. We, lone and left

  Silent through centuries, ever and anon

  Venture to probe again the vault bereft

  Of all now save the lesser lights, a mist

  Of multitudinous points, yet suns, men say –

  And this leaps ruby, this lurks amethyst,

  But where may hide what came and loved our clay?

  [50] How shall the sage detect in yon expanse

  The star which chose to stoop and stay for us?

  Unroll the records! Hailed ye such advance

  Indeed, and did your hope evanish thus?

  Watchers of twilight, is the worst averred?

  We shall not look up, know ourselves are seen,

  Speak, and be sure that we again are heard,

  Acting or suffering, have the disk’s serene

  Reflect our life, absorb an earthly flame,

  Nor doubt that, were mankind inert and numb,

  [60] Its core had never crimsoned all the same,

  Nor, missing ours, its music fallen dumb?

  Oh, dread succession to a dizzy post,


  Sad sway of sceptre whose mere touch appals,

  Ghastly dethronement, cursed by those the most

  On whose repugnant brow the crown next falls!

  Third Speaker

  I

  Witless alike of will and way divine,

  How heaven’s high with earth’s low should intertwine!

  Friends, I have seen through your eyes: now use mine!

  II

  Take the least man of all mankind, as I;

  [70] Look at his head and heart, find how and why

  He differs from his fellows utterly:

  III

  Then, like me, watch when nature by degrees

  Grows alive round him, as in Arctic seas

  (They said of old) the instinctive water flees

  IV

  Toward some elected point of central rock,

  As though, for its sake only, roamed the flock

  Of waves about the waste: awhile they mock

  V

  With radiance caught for the occasion, – hues

  Of blackest hell now, now such reds and blues

  [80] As only heaven could fitly interfuse, –

  VI

  The mimic monarch of the whirlpool, king

  O’ the current for a minute: then they wring

  Up by the roots and oversweep the thing,

  VII

  And hasten off, to play again elsewhere

  The same part, choose another peak as bare,

  They find and flatter, feast and finish there.

  VIII

  When you see what I tell you, – nature dance

  About each man of us, retire, advance,

  As though the pageant’s end were to enhance

  IX

  [90] His worth, and – once the life, his product, gained –

  Roll away elsewhere, keep the strife sustained,

  And show thus real, a thing the North but feigned –

  X

  When you acknowledge that one world could do

  All the diverse work, old yet ever new,

  Divide us, each from other, me from you, –

  XI

  Why, where’s the need of Temple, when the walls

  O’ the world are that? What use of swells and falls

  From Levites’ choir, Priests’ cries, and trumpet-calls?

  XII

  That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,

  [100] Or decomposes but to recompose,

  Become my universe that feels and knows.

  House

  I

  Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?

  Do I live in a house you would like to see?

  Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?

  ‘Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?’

  II

  Invite the world, as my betters have done?

  ‘Take notice: this building remains on view,

  Its suites of reception every one,

  Its private apartment and bedroom too;

  III

  ‘For a ticket, apply to the Publisher.’

  [10] No: thanking the public, I must decline.

  A peep through my window, if folk prefer;

  But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine!

  IV

  I have mixed with a crowd and heard free talk

  In a foreign land where an earthquake chanced:

  And a house stood gaping, naught to balk

  Man’s eye wherever he gazed or glanced.

  V

  The whole of the frontage shaven sheer,

  The inside gaped: exposed to day,

  Right and wrong and common and queer,

  [20] Bare, as the palm of your hand, it lay.

  VI

  The owner? Oh, he had been crushed, no doubt!

  ‘Odd tables and chairs for a man of wealth!

  What a parcel of musty old books about!

  He smoked, – no wonder he lost his health!

  VII

  ‘I doubt if he bathed before he dressed.

  A brasier? – the pagan, he burned perfumes!

  You see it is proved, what the neighbours guessed:

  His wife and himself had separate rooms.’

  VIII

  Friends, the goodman of the house at least

  [30] Kept house to himself till an earthquake came:

  ’Tis the fall of its frontage permits you feast

  On the inside arrangement you praise or blame.

  IX

  Outside should suffice for evidence:

  And whoso desires to penetrate

  Deeper, must dive by the spirit-sense –

  No optics like yours, at any rate!

  X

  ‘Hoity toity! A street to explore,

  Your house the exception! “With this same key

  Shakespeare unlocked his heart,” once more!’

  [40] Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!

  Saint Martin’s Summer

  I

  No protesting, dearest!

  Hardly kisses even!

  Don’t we both know how it ends?

  How the greenest leaf turns serest,

  Bluest outbreak – blankest heaven,

  Lovers – friends?

  II

  You would build a mansion,

  I would weave a bower

  – Want the heart for enterprise.

  [10] Walls admit of no expansion:

  Trellis-work may haply flower

  Twice the size.

  III

  What makes glad Life’s Winter?

  New buds, old blooms after.

  Sad the sighing ‘How suspect

  Beams would ere mid-Autumn splinter,

  Rooftree scarce support a rafter,

  Walls lie wrecked?’

  IV

  You are young, my princess!

  [20] I am hardly older:

  Yet – I steal a glance behind.

  Dare I tell you what convinces

  Timid me that you, if bolder,

  Bold – are blind?

  V

  Where we plan our dwelling

  Glooms a graveyard surely!

  Headstone, footstone moss may drape, –

  Name, date, violets hide from spelling, –

  But, though corpses rot obscurely,

  [30] Ghosts escape.

  VI

  Ghosts! O breathing Beauty,

  Give my frank word pardon!

  What if I – somehow, somewhere –

  Pledged my soul to endless duty

  Many a time and oft? Be hard on

  Love – laid there?

  VII

  Nay, blame grief that’s fickle,

  Time that proves a traitor,

  Chance, change, all that purpose warps, –

  [40] Death who spares to thrust the sickle

  Laid Love low, through flowers which later

  Shroud the corpse!

  VIII

  And you, my winsome lady,

  Whisper with like frankness!

  Lies nothing buried long ago?

  Are yon – which shimmer ‘mid the shady

  Where moss and violet run to rankness –

  Tombs or no?

  IX

  Who taxes you with murder?

  [50] My hands are clean – or nearly!

  Love being mortal needs must pass.

  Repentance? Nothing were absurder.

  Enough: we felt Love’s loss severely;

  Though now – alas!

  X

  Love’s corpse lies quiet therefore,

  Only Love’s ghost plays truant,

  And warns us have in wholesome awe

  Durable mansionry; that’s wherefore

  I weave but trellis-work, pursuant

  [60] – Life, to law.

  XI

  The solid, not the fragile,

  Tempts rain and hail and thunder.

  If bower stand firm at Autumn’s close,<
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  Beyond my hope, – why, boughs were agile;

  If bower fall flat, we scarce need wonder

  Wreathing – rose!

  XII

  So, truce to the protesting,

  So, muffled be the kisses!

  For, would we but avow the truth,

  [70] Sober is genuine joy. No jesting!

  Ask else Penelope, Ulysses –

  Old in youth!

  XIII

  For why should ghosts feel angered?

  Let all their interference

  Be faint march-music in the air!

  ‘Up! Join the rear of us the vanguard!

  Up, lovers, dead to all appearance,

  Laggard pair!’

  XIV

  The while you clasp me closer,

  The while I press you deeper,

  [80] As safe we chuckle, – under breath,

  Yet all the slyer, the jocoser, –

  ‘So, life can boast its day, like leap-year,

  Stolen from death!’

  XV

  Ah me – the sudden terror!

  Hence quick – avaunt, avoid me,

  You cheat, the ghostly flesh-disguised!

  Nay, all the ghosts in one! Strange error!

  So, ’twas Death’s self that clipped and coyed me,

  [90] Loved – and lied!

  XVI

  Ay, dead loves are the potent!

  Like any cloud they used you,

  Mere semblance you, but substance they!

  Build we no mansion, weave we no tent!

  Mere flesh – their spirit interfused you!

  Hence, I say!

  XVII

  All theirs, none yours the glamour!

  Theirs each low word that won me,

  Soft look that found me Love’s, and left

  [100] What else but you – the tears and clamour

  That’s all your very own! Undone me –

  Ghost-bereft!

  Ned Bratts

  ’Twas Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer’s Day:

  A broiling blasting June, – was never its like, men say.

  Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that;

  Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat.

  Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beer

  While the parsons prayed for rain. ’Twas horrible, yes – but queer:

  Queer – for the sun laughed gay, yet nobody moved a hand

  To work one stroke at his trade: as given to understand

  That all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways,

  [10] And the world’s old self about to end in a merry blaze.

  Midsummer’s Day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair,

  With Bedford Town’s tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.

  But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows wide,

  High on the Bench you saw sit Lordships side by side.

 

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