Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?

  XII.

  Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill,

  You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will!

  But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings

  Ere I know it — next moment I dance at the King’s!

  The Confessional

  [SPAIN.]

  I.

  IT IS a lie — their Priests, their Pope,

  Their Saints, their . . . all they fear or hope

  Are lies, and lies — there! through my door

  And ceiling, there! and walls and floor,

  There, lies, they lie, shall still be hurled

  Till spite of them I reach the world!

  II.

  You think Priests just and holy men!

  Before they put me in this den

  I was a human creature too,

  With flesh and blood like one of you,

  A girl that laughed in beauty’s pride

  Like lilies in your world outside.

  III.

  I had a lover — shame avaunt!

  This poor wrenched body, grim and gaunt,

  Was kissed all over till it burned,

  By lips the truest, love e’er turned

  His heart’s own tint: one night they kissed

  My soul out in a burning mist.

  IV.

  So, next day when the accustomed train

  Of things grew round my sense again,

  “That is a sin,” I said: and slow

  With downcast eyes to church I go,

  And pass to the confession-chair,

  And tell the old mild father there.

  V.

  But when I falter Beltran’s name,

  “Ha?” quoth the father; “much I blame

  “The sin; yet wherefore idly grieve?

  “Despair not — strenuously retrieve!

  “Nay, I will turn this love of thine

  “To lawful love, almost divine;

  VI.

  “For he is young, and led astray,

  “This Beltran, and he schemes, men say,

  “To change the laws of church and state;

  “So, thine shall be an angel’s fate,

  “Who, ere the thunder breaks, should roll

  “Its cloud away and save his soul.

  VII.

  “For, when he lies upon thy breast,

  “Thou mayst demand and be possessed

  “Of all his plans, and next day steal

  “To me, and all those plans reveal,

  “That I and every priest, to purge

  “His soul, may fast and use the scourge.”

  VIII.

  That father’s beard was long and white,

  With love and truth his brow seemed bright;

  I went back, all on fire with joy,

  And, that same evening, bade the boy

  Tell me, as lovers should, heart-free,

  Something to prove his love of me.

  IX.

  He told me what he would not tell

  For hope of heaven or fear of hell;

  And I lay listening in such pride!

  And, soon as he had left my side,

  Tripped to the church by morning-light

  To save his soul in his despite.

  X.

  I told the father all his schemes,

  Who were his comrades, what their dreams;

  “And now make haste,” I said, “to pray

  “The one spot from his soul away;

  “To-night he comes, but not the same

  “Will look!” At night he never came.

  XI.

  Nor next night: on the after-morn,

  I went forth with a strength new-born.

  The church was empty; something drew

  My steps into the street; I knew

  It led me to the market-place —

  Where, lo, — on high — the father’s face!

  XII.

  That horrible black scaffold drest —

  That stapled block . . . God sink the rest!

  That head strapped back, that blinding vest,

  Those knotted hands and naked breast —

  Till near one busy hangman pressed —

  And — on the neck these arms caressed . . .

  XIII.

  No part in aught they hope or fear!

  No heaven with them, no hell! — and here,

  No earth, not so much space as pens

  My body in their worst of dens

  But shall bear God and man my cry —

  Lies — lies, again — and still, they lie!

  The Flight of the Duchess

  I.

  YOU’RE my friend:

  I was the man the Duke spoke to;

  I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;

  So here’s the tale from beginning to end,

  My friend!

  II.

  Ours is a great wild country:

  If you climb to our castle’s top,

  I don’t see where your eye can stop;

  For when you’ve passed the cornfield country,

  Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed,

  And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract,

  And cattle-tract to open-chase,

  And open-chase to the very base

  Of the mountain where, at a funeral pace,

  Round about, solemn and slow,

  One by one, row after row,

  Up and up the pine-trees go,

  So, like black priests up, and so

  Down the other side again

  To another greater, wilder country,

  That’s one vast red drear burnt-up plain,

  Branched through and through with many a vein

  Whence iron’s dug, and copper’s dealt;

  Look right, look left, look straight before, —

  Beneath they mine, above they smelt,

  Copper-ore and iron-ore,

  And forge and furnace mould and melt,

  And so on, more and ever more,

  Till at the last, for a bounding belt,

  Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore,

  — And the whole is our Duke’s country!

  III.

  I was born the day this present Duke was —

  (And O, says the song, ere I was old!)

  In the castle where the other Duke was —

  (When I was happy and young, not old!)

  I in the Kennel, he in the Bower:

  We are of like age to an hour.

  My father was huntsman in that day;

  Who has not heard my father say

  That, when a boar was brought to bay,

  Three times, four times out of five,

  With his huntspear he’d contrive

  To get the killing-place transfixed,

  And pin him true, both eyes betwixt?

  And that’s why the old Duke would rather

  He lost a salt-pit than my father,

  And loved to have him ever in call;

  That’s why my father stood in the hall

  When the old Duke brought his infant out

  To show the people, and while they passed

  The wondrous bantling round about,

  Was first to start at the outside blast

  As the Kaiser’s courier blew his horn

  Just a month after the babe was born.

  “And,” quoth the Kaiser’s courier, “since

  “The Duke has got an heir, our Prince

  “Needs the Duke’s self at his side: “

  The Duke looked down and seemed to wince,

  But he thought of wars o’er the world wide,

  Castles a-fire, men on their march,

  The toppling tower, the crashing arch;

  And up he looked, and awhile he eyed

  The row of crests and shields and banners

  Of all achievements after all manners,

&nb
sp; And “ay,” said the Duke with a surly pride.

  The more was his comfort when he died

  At next year’s end, in a velvet suit,

  With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot

  In a silken shoe for a leather boot,

  Petticoated like a herald,

  In a chamher next to an ante-room,

  Where he breathed the breath of page and groom,

  What he called stink, and they, perfume:

  — They should have set him on red Berold

  Mad with pride, like fire to manage!

  They should have got his cheek fresh tannage

  Such a day as to-day in the merry sunshine!

  Had they stuck on his fist a rough-foot merlin!

  (Hark, the wind’s on the heath at its game!

  Oh for a noble falcon-lanner

  To flap each broad wing like a banner,

  And turn in the wind, and dance like flame!)

  Had they broached a white-beer cask from Berlin

  — Or if you incline to prescribe mere wine

  Put to his lips, when they saw him pine,

  A cup of our own Moldavia fine,

  Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrel

  And ropy with sweet, — we shall not quarrel.

  IV.

  So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess

  Was left with the infant in her clutches,

  She being the daughter of God knows who:

  And now was the time to revisit her tribe.

  Abroad and afar they went, the two,

  And let our people rail and gibe

  At the empty Hall and extinguished fire,

  As loud as we liked, but ever in vain,

  Till after long years we had our desire,

  And back came the Duke and his mother again.

  V.

  And he came back the pertest little ape

  That ever affronted human shape;

  Full of his travel, struck at himself.

  You’d say, he despised our bluff old ways?

  — Not he! For in Paris they told the elf

  Our rough North land was the Land of Lays,

  The one good thing left in evil days;

  Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time,

  And only in wild nooks like ours

  Could you taste of it yet as in its prime,

  And see true castles, with proper towers,

  Young-hearted women, old-minded men,

  And manners now as manners were then.

  So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it,

  This Duke would fain know he was, without being it;

  ‘Twas not for the joy’s self, but the joy of his showing it,

  Nor for the pride’s self, but the pride of our seeing it,

  He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out,

  The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn-out:

  And chief in the chase his neck he perilled

  On a lathy horse, all legs and length,

  With blood for bone, all speed, no strength;

  — They should have set him on red Berold

  With the red eye slow consuming in fire,

  And the thin stiff ear like an abbey-spire!

  VI.

  Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard:

  And out of a convent, at the word,

  Came the lady, in time of spring.

  — Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling!

  That day, I know, with a dozen oaths

  I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes

  Fit for the chase of urox or buffle

  In winter-time when you need to muffle.

  But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure,

  And so we saw the lady arrive:

  My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger!

  She was the smallest lady alive,

  Made in a piece of nature’s madness,

  Too small, almost, for the life and gladness

  That over-filled her, as some hive

  Out of the bears’ reach on the high trees

  Is crowded with its safe merry bees:

  In truth, she was not hard to please!

  Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead,

  Straight at the castle, that’s best indeed

  To look at from outside the walls:

  As for us, styled the “serfs and thralls,”

  She as much thanked me as if she had said it,

  (With her eyes, do you understand?)

  Because I patted her horse while I led it;

  And Max, who rode on her other hand,

  Said, no bird flew past but she inquired

  What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired —

  If that was an eagle she saw hover, —

  And the green and grey bird on the field was the plover.

  When suddenly appeared the Duke:

  And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed

  On to my hand, — as with a rebuke,

  And as if his backbone were not jointed,

  The Duke stepped rather aside than forward,

  And welcomed her with his grandest smile;

  And, mind you, his mother all the while

  Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor’ward;

  And up, like a weary yawn, with its pullies

  Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis;

  And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies,

  The lady’s face stopped its play,

  As if her first hair had grown grey —

  For such things must begin some one day!

  VII.

  In a day or two she was well again;

  As who should say, “You labour in vain!

  “This is all a jest against God, who meant

  “I should ever be, as I am, content

  “And glad in his sight; therefore, glad I will be.”

  So, smiling as at first went she.

  VIII.

  She was active, stirring, all fire —

  Could not rest, could not tire —

  To a stone she might have given life!

  (I myself loved once, in my day)

  — For a shepherd’s, miner’s, huntsman’s wife,

  (I had a wife, I know what I say)

  Never in all the world such an one!

  And here was plenty to be done,

  And she that could do it, great or small,

  She was to do nothing at all.

  There was already this man in his post,

  This in his station, and that in his office,

  And the Duke’s plan admitted a wife, at most,

  To meet his eye, with the other trophies,

  Now outside the hall, now in it,

  To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen,

  At the proper place in the proper minute,

  And die away the life between.

  And it was amusing enough, each infraction

  Of rule (but for after-sadness that came)

  To hear the consummate self-satisfaction

  With which the young Duke and the old dame

  Would let her advise, and criticise,

  And, being a fool, instruct the wise,

  And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame:

  They bore it all in complacent guise,

  As though an artificer, after contriving

  A wheel-work image as if it were living,

  Should find with delight it could motion to strike him!

  So found the Duke, and his mother like him —

  The Lady hardly got a rebuff —

  That had not been contemptuous enough,

  With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause,

  And kept off the old mother-cat’s claws.

  IX.

  So, the little lady grew silent and thin,

  Paling and ever paling,

  As the way is with a hid chagrin;

  And the Duke perceived that she was ailing,

>   And said in his heart, “‘Tis done to spite me,

  “But I shall find in my power to right me!”

  Don’t swear, friend — the old one, many a year,

  Is in hell, and the Duke’s self . . . you shall hear.

  X.

  Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning,

  When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning,

  A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice

  That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice,

  Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold,

  And another and another, and faster and faster,

  Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled:

  Then it so chanced that the Duke our master

  Asked himself what were the pleasures in season,

  And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty,

  He should do the Middle Age no treason

  In resolving on a hunting-party.

  Always provided, old books showed the way of it!

  What meant old poets by their strictures?

  And when old poets had said their say of it,

  How taught old painters in their pictures?

  We must revert to the proper channels,

  Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels,

  And gather up woodcraft’s authentic traditions:

  Here was food for our various ambitions,

  As on each case, exactly stated —

  — To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup,

  Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting your stirrup —

  We of the house hold took thought and debated.

  Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkin

  His sire was wont to do forest-work in;

  Blesseder he who nobly sunk “ohs”

  And “ahs” while he tugged on his grand-sire’s trunk-hose;

  What signified hats if they had no rims on,

  Each slouching before and behind like the scallop,

  And able to serve at sea for a shallop,

  Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson?

  So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on’t,

  What with our Venerers, Prickers and Yerderers,

  Might hope for real hunters at length and not murderers,

  And oh the Duke’s tailor — he had a hot time on’t!

  XI.

  Now you must know that when the first dizziness

  Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided,

  The Duke put this question, “The Duke’s part provided,

  “Had not the Duchess some share in the business?”

  For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses

  Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses:

  And, after much laying of heads together,

  Somebody’s cap got a notable feather

  By the announcement with proper unction

  That he had discovered the lady’s function;

  Since ancient authors gave this tenet,

  “When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege,