Sweet music move us not as once, or worst,
To see decaying wits ere the frail body
Decays. Nought makes me trust in love so really,
As the delight of the contented lowness
With which I gaze on souls I’d keep for ever
In beauty — I’d be sad to equal them;
I’d feed their fame e’en from my heart’s best blood,
Withering unseen, that they might flourish still.
. . . . .
Pauline, my sweet friend, thou dost not forget
How this mood swayed me, when thou first wert mine,
When I had set myself to live this life,
Defying all opinion. Ere thou camest
I was most happy, sweet, for old delights
Had come like birds again; music, my life,
I nourished more than ever, and old lore
Loved for itself, and all it shows — the king
Treading the purple calmly to his death,
— While round him, like the clouds of eve, all dusk,
The giant shades of fate, silently flitting,
Pile the dim outline of the coming doom,
— And him sitting alone in blood, while friends
Are hunting far in the sunshine; and the boy,
With his white breast and brow and clustering curls
Streaked with his mother’s blood, and striving hard
To tell his story ere his reason goes,
And when I loved thee, as I’ve loved so oft,
Thou lovedst me, and I wondered, and looked in
My heart to find some feeling like such love,
Believing I was still what I had been;
And soon I found all faith had gone from me,
And the late glow of life — changing like clouds,
‘Twas not the morn-blush widening into day,
But evening, coloured by the dying sun
While darkness is quick hastening: — I will tell
Sly state as though ‘twere none of mine — despair
Cannot come near me — thus it is with me.
Souls alter not, and mine must progress still;
And this I knew not when I flung away
My youth’s chief aims. I ne’er supposed the
Of what few I retained; for no resource
Awaits me — now behold the change of all.
I cannot chain my soul, it will not rest
In its clay prison; this most narrow sphere —
It has strange powers, and feelings, and desires,
Which I cannot account for, nor explain,
But which I stifle not, being bound to trust
All feelings equally — to hear all sides:
Yet I cannot indulge them, and they live,
Referring to some state or life unknown. . . .
My selfishness is satiated not,
It wears me like a flame; my hunger for
All pleasure, howsoe’er minute, is pain;
I envy — how I envy him whose mind
Turns with its energies to some one end!
To elevate a sect, or a pursuit,
However mean — so my still baffled hopes
Seek out abstractions; I would have but one
Delight on earth, so it were wholly mine;
One rapture all my soul could fill — and this
Wild feeling places me in dream afar,
In some wide country, where the eye can see
No end to the far hills and dales bestrewn
With shining towers and dwellings. I grow mad
Well-nigh, to know not one abode but holds
Some pleasure — for my soul could grasp them all,
But must remain with this vile form. I look
With hope to age at last, which quenching much,
May let me concentrate the sparks it spares.
This restlessness of passion meets in me
A craving after knowledge: the sole proof
Of a commanding will is in that power
Repressed; for I beheld it in its dawn,
That sleepless harpy, with its budding wings,
And I considered whether I should yield
All hopes and fears, to live alone with it,
Finding a recompense in its wild eyes;
And when I found that I should perish so,
I bade its wild eyes close from me for ever; —
And I am left alone with my delights, —
So it lies in me a chained thing — still ready
To serve me, if I loose its slightest bond —
I cannot but be proud of my bright slave.
And thus I know this earth is not my sphere,
For I cannot so narrow me, but that
I still exceed it; in their elements
My love would pass my reason — but since here
Love must receive its object from this earth,
While reason will be chainless, the few truths
Caught from its wanderings have sufficed to quell
All love below; — then what must be that love
Which, with the object it demands, would quell
Reason, tho’ it soared with the seraphim?
No — what I feel may pass all human love,
Yet fall far short of what my love should be;
And yet I seem more warped in this than aught
For here myself stands out more hideously.
I can forget myself in friendship, fame,
Or liberty, or love of mighty souls.
. . . . .
But I begin to know what thing hate is —
To sicken, and to quiver, and grow white,
And I myself have furnished its first prey.
All my sad weaknesses, this wavering will,
This selfishness, this still decaying frame . . .
But I must never grieve while I can pass
Far from such thoughts — as now — Andromeda!
And she is with me — years roll, I shall change,
But change can touch her not — so beautiful
With her dark eyes, earnest and still, and hair
Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze;
And one red-beam, all the storm leaves in heaven,
Resting upon her eyes and face and hair,
As she awaits the snake on the wet beach,
By the dark rock, and the white wave just breaking
At her feet; quite naked and alone, — a thing
You doubt not, nor fear for, secure that God
Will come in thunder from the stars to save her.
Let it pass — I will call another change.
I will be gifted with a wond’rous soul,
Yet sunk by error to men’s sympathy,
And in the wane of life; yet only so
As to call up their fears, and there shall come
A time requiring youth’s best energies;
And straight I fling age, sorrow, sickness off,
And I rise triumphing over my decay.
. . . . .
And thus it is that I supply the chasm
‘Twixt what I am and all that I would be.
But then to know nothing — to hope for nothing —
To seize on life’s dull joys from a strange tear,
Lest, being them, all’s lost, and nought remains
. . . . .
There’s some vile juggle with my reason here —
I feel I but explain to my own loss
These impulses — they live no less the same.
Liberty! what though I despair — my blood
Rose not at a slave’s name proudlier than now,
And sympathy obscured by sophistries.
Why have not I sought refuge in myself,
But for the woes I saw and could not stay —
And love! — do I not love thee, my Pauline?
. . . . .
I cherish prejudice, lest I be left
Utterly loveless — witness this
belief
In poets, tho’ sad change has come there too;
No more I leave myself to follow them:
Unconsciously I measure me by them.
Let me forget it; and I cherish most
My love of England — how her name — a word
Of her’s in a strange tongue makes my heart beat! . . .
. . . . .
Pauline, I could do any thing — not now —
All’s fever — but when calm shall come again —
I am prepared — I have made life my own —
I would not be content with all the change
One frame should feel — but I have gone in thought
Thro’ all conjuncture — I have lived all life
When it is most alive — where strangest fate
New shapes it past surmise — the tales of men
Bit by some curse — or in the grasp of doom
Half-visible and still increasing round,
Or crowning their wide being’s general aim. . . .
. . . . .
These are wild fancies, but I feel, sweet friend,
As one breathing his weakness to the ear
Of pitying angel — dear as a winter flower.
A slight flower growing alone, and offering
Its frail cup of three leaves to the cold sun,
Yet and confiding, like the triumph
Of a child — and why am I not worthy thee?
. . . . .
I can live all the life of plants, and gaze
Drowsily on the bees that flit and play,
Or bare my breast for sunbeams which will kill,
Or open in the night of sounds, to look
For the dim stars; I can mount with the bird,
Leaping airily his pyramid of leaves
And twisted boughs of some tall mountain tree,
Or rise cheerfully springing to the heavens —
Or like a fish breathe in the morning air
In the misty sun-warm water — or with flowers
And trees can smile in light at the sinking sun,
Just as the storm comes — as a girl would look
On a departing lover — most serene.
Pauline, come with me — see how I could build
A home for us, out of the world; in thought —
I am inspired — come with me, Pauline!
Night, and one single ridge of narrow path
Between the sullen river and the woods
Waving and muttering — for the moonless night
Has shaped them into images of life,
Like the upraising of the giant-ghosts,
Looking on earth to know how their sons fare.
Thou art so close by me, the roughest swell
Of wind in the tree-tops hides not the panting
Of thy soft breasts; no — we will pass to morning —
Morning — the rocks, and vallies, and old woods.
How the sun brightens in the mist, and here, —
Half in the air, like creatures of the place,
Trusting the element — living on high boughs
That swing in the wind — look at the golden spray,
Flung from the foam-sheet of the cataract,
Amid the broken rocks — shall we stay here
With the wild hawks? — no, ere the hot noon come
Dive we down — safe; — see this our new retreat
Walled in with a sloped mound of matted shrubs,
Dark, tangled, old and green — still sloping down
To a small pool whose waters lie asleep
Amid the trailing boughs turned water plants
And tall trees over-arch to keep us in,
Breaking the sunbeams into emerald shafts,
And in the dreamy water one small group
Of two or three strange trees are got together,
Wondering at all around — as strange beasts herd
Together far from their own land — all wildness —
No turf nor moss, for boughs and plants pave all,
And tongues of bank go shelving in the waters,
Where the pale-throated snake reclines his head,
And old grey stones lie making eddies there;
The wild mice cross them dry-shod — deeper in —
Shut thy soft eyes — now look — still deeper in:
This is the very heart of the woods — all round,
Mountain-like, heaped above us; yet even here
One pond of water gleams — far off the river
Sweeps like a sea, barred out from land; but one —
One thin clear sheet has over-leaped and wound
Into this silent depth, which gained, it lies
Still, as but let by sufferance; the trees bend
O’er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl,
And thro’ their roots long creeping plants stretch out
Their twined hair, steeped and sparkling; farther on,
Tall rushes and thick flag-knots have combined
To narrow it; so, at length, a silver thread
It winds, all noiselessly, thro’ the deep wood,
Till thro’ a cleft way, thro’ the moss and stone,
It joins its parent-river with a shout.
Up for the glowing day — leave the old woods:
See, they part, like a ruined arch, the sky!
Nothing but sky appears, so close the root
And grass of the hill-top level with the air —
Blue sunny air, where a great cloud floats, laden
With light, like a dead whale that white birds pick,
Floating away in the sun in some north sea.
Air, air — fresh life-blood — thin and searching air —
The clear, dear breath of God, that loveth us:
Where small birds reel and winds take their delight.
Water is beautiful, but not like air.
See, where the solid azure waters lie,
Made as of thickened air, and down below,
The fern-ranks, like a forest spread themselves,
As tho’ each pore could feel the element;
Where the quick glancing serpent winds his way —
Float with me there, Pauline, but not like air.
Down the hill — stop — a clump of trees, see, set
On a heap of rocks, which look o’er the far plains,
And envious climbing shrubs would mount to rest,
And peer from their spread boughs. There they wave, looking
At the muleteers, who whistle as they go
To the merry chime of their morning bells and all
The little smoking cots, and fields, and banks,
And copses, bright in the sun; my spirit wanders.
Hedge-rows for me — still, living, hedge-rows, where
The bushes close, and clasp above, and keep
Thought in — I am concentrated — I feel; —
But my soul saddens when it looks beyond;
I cannot be immortal, nor taste all.
O God! where does this tend — these straggling aims!
What would I have? what is this “sleep,” which seems
To bound all? can there be a “waking” point
Of crowning life? The soul would never rule —
It would be first in all things — it would have
Its utmost pleasure filled — but that complete
Commanding for commanding sickens it.
The last point that I can trace is, rest beneath
Some better essence than itself — in weakness;
This is “myself” — not what I think should be,
And what is that I hunger for but God?
My God, my God! let me for once look on thee
As tho’ nought else existed: we alone.
And as creation crumbles, my soul’s spark
Expands till I can say, “Even from myself
“I need thee, and I feel thee, and I love thee;
“For love of thee — or that I feel as one
“Who cannot die — but there is that in me
“Which turns to thee, which loves, or which should love.”
Why have I girt myself with this hell-dress?
Why have I laboured to put out my life?
Is it not in my nature to adore,
And e’en for all my reason do I not
Feel him, and thank him, and pray to him? Now.
Can I forego the trust that he loves me?
Do I not feel a love which only ONE . . .
O thou pale form, so dimly seen, deep-eyed,
I have denied thee calmly — do I not
Pant when I read of thy consummate deeds,
And burn to see thy calm pure truths out-flash
The brightest gleams of earth’s philosophy?
Do I not shake to hear aught question thee? . . .
If I am erring save me, madden me,
Take from me powers, and pleasures — let me die
Ages, so I see thee: I am knit round
As with a charm, by sin and lust and pride,
Yet tho’ my wandering dreams have seen all shapes
Of strange delight, oft have I stood by thee —
Have I been keeping lonely watch with thee,
In the damp night by weeping Olivet,
Or leaning on thy bosom, proudly less —
Or dying with thee on the lonely cross —
Or witnessing thy bursting from the tomb!
A mortal, sin’s familiar friend doth here
Avow that he will give all earth’s reward,
But to believe and humbly teach the faith,
In suffering, and poverty, and shame,
Only believing he is not unloved. . . .
And now, my Pauline, I am thine for ever!
I feel the spirit which has buoyed me up
Deserting me: and old shades gathering on;
Yet while its last light waits, I would say much,
And chiefly, I am glad that I have said
That love which I have ever felt for thee,
But seldom told; our hearts so beat together,
That speech is mockery, but when dark hours come:
And I feel sad; and thou, sweet, deem’st it strange;
A sorrow moves me, thou canst not remove.
Look on this lay I dedicate to thee,
Which thro’ thee I began, and which I end,
Collecting the last gleams to strive to tell
That I am thine, and more than ever now —
That I am sinking fast — yet tho’ I sink
No less I feel that thou hast brought me bliss,
And that I still may hope to win it back.
Thou know’st, dear friend, I could not think all calm,
For wild dreams followed me, and bore me off,
And all was indistinct. Ere one was caught
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 3