Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

Now, as I stood letting morn bathe me bright,

  Choosing which butterfly should bear my news, —

  The white, the brown one, or that tinier blue, —

  The Margherita, I detested so,

  In she came — ”The fine day, the good Spring time!

  “What, up and out at window? That is best.

  “No thought of Caponsacchi? — who stood there

  “All night on one leg, like the sentry crane,

  “Under the pelting of your water-spout —

  “Looked last look at your lattice ere he leave

  “Our city, bury his dead hope at Rome?

  “Ay, go to looking-glass and make you fine,

  “While he may die ere touch one least loose hair

  “You drag at with the comb in such a rage!”

  I turned — ”Tell Caponsacchi he may come!”

  “Tell him to come? Ah, but, for charity,

  “A truce to fooling! Come? What, — come this eve?

  “Peter and Paul! But I see through the trick —

  “Yes, come, and take a flower-pot on his head

  “Flung from your terrace! No joke, sincere truth?”

  How plainly I perceived hell flash and fade

  O’ the face of her, — the doubt that first paled joy,

  Then, final reassurance I indeed

  Was caught now, never to be free again!

  What did I care? — who felt myself of force

  To play with the silk, and spurn the horsehair-springe.

  “But — do you know that I have bade him come,

  “And in your own name? I presumed so much,

  “Knowing the thing you needed in your heart.

  “But somehow — what had I to show in proof?

  “He would not come: half-promised, that was all,

  “And wrote the letters you refused to read.

  “What is the message that shall move him now?

  “After the Ave Maria, at first dark,

  “I will be standing on the terrace, say!

  “I would I had a good long lock of hair

  “Should prove I was not lying! Never mind!”

  Off she went — ”May he not refuse, that’s all —

  “Fearing a trick!”

  I answered, “He will come.”

  And, all day, I sent prayer like incense up

  To God the strong, God the beneficent,

  God ever mindful in all strife and strait,

  Who, for our own good, makes the need extreme,

  Till at the last He puts forth might and saves.

  An old rhyme came into my head and rang

  Of how a virgin, for the faith of God,

  Hid herself, from the Paynims that pursued,

  In a cave’s heart; until a thunderstone,

  Wrapped in a flame, revealed the couch and prey:

  And they laughed — ”Thanks to lightning, ours at last!”

  And she cried “Wrath of God, assert His love!

  “Servant of God, thou fire, befriend His child!”

  And lo, the fire she grasped at, fixed its flash,

  Lay in her hand a calm cold dreadful sword

  She brandished till pursuers strewed the ground,

  So did the souls within them die away,

  As o’er the prostrate bodies, sworded, safe,

  She walked forth to the solitudes and Christ:

  So should I grasp the lightning and be saved!

  And still, as the day wore, the trouble grew

  Whereby I guessed there would be born a star,

  Until at an intense throe of the dusk,

  I started up, was pushed, I dare to say,

  Out on the terrace, leaned and looked at last

  Where the deliverer waited me: the same

  Silent and solemn face, I first descried

  At the spectacle, confronted mine once more.

  So was that minute twice vouchsafed me, so

  The manhood, wasted then, was still at watch

  To save me yet a second time: no change

  Here, though all else changed in the changing world!

  I spoke on the instant, as my duty bade,

  In some such sense as this, whatever the phrase.

  “Friend, foolish words were borne from you to me;

  “Your soul behind them is the pure strong wind,

  “Not dust and feathers which its breath may bear:

  “These to the witless seem the wind itself,

  “Since proving thus the first of it they feel.

  “If by mischance you blew offence my way,

  “The straws are dropt, the wind desists no whit,

  “And how such strays were caught up in the street

  “And took a motion from you, why inquire?

  “I speak to the strong soul, no weak disguise.

  “If it be truth, — why should I doubt it truth? —

  “You serve God specially, as priests are bound,

  “And care about me, stranger as I am,

  “So far as wish my good, — that miracle

  “I take to intimate He wills you serve

  “By saving me, — what else can He direct?

  “Here is the service. Since a long while now,

  “I am in course of being put to death:

  “While death concerned nothing but me, I bowed

  “The head and bade, in heart, my husband strike.

  “Now I imperil something more, it seems,

  “Something that’s trulier me than this myself,

  “Something I trust in God and you to save.

  “You go to Rome, they tell me: take me there,

  “Put me back with my people!”

  He replied —

  The first word I heard ever from his lips,

  All himself in it, — an eternity

  Of speech, to match the immeasurable depths

  O’ the soul that then broke silence — ”I am yours.”

  So did the star rise, soon to lead my step,

  Lead on, nor pause before it should stand still

  Above the House o’ the Babe, — my babe to be,

  That knew me first and thus made me know him,

  That had his right of life and claim on mine,

  And would not let me die till he was born,

  But pricked me at the heart to save us both,

  Saying “Have you the will? Leave God the way!”

  And the way was Caponsacchi — ”mine,” thank God!

  He was mine, he is mine, he will be mine.

  No pause i’ the leading and the light! I know,

  Next night there was a cloud came, and not he:

  But I prayed through the darkness till it broke

  And let him shine. The second night, he came.

  “The plan is rash; the project desperate:

  “In such a flight needs must I risk your life,

  “Give food for falsehood, folly or mistake,

  “Ground for your husband’s rancour and revenge” —

  So he began again, with the same face.

  I felt that, the same loyalty — one star

  Turning now red that was so white before —

  One service apprehended newly: just

  A word of mine and there the white was back!

  “No, friend, for you will take me! ‘Tis yourself

  “Risk all, not I, — who let you, for I trust

  “In the compensating great God: enough!

  “I know you: when is it that you will come?”

  “To-morrow at the day’s dawn.” Then I heard

  What I should do: how to prepare for flight

  And where to fly.

  That night my husband bade

  “ — You, whom I loathe, beware you break my sleep

  “This whole night! Couch beside me like the corpse

  “I would you were!” The rest you know, I think —

  How I found Caponsacchi and escaped.

  And th
is man, men call sinner? Jesus Christ!

  Of whom men said, with mouths Thyself mad’st once,

  “He hath a devil” — say he was Thy saint,

  My Caponsacchi! Shield and show — unshroud

  In Thine own time the glory of the soul

  If aught obscure, — if ink-spot, from vile pens

  Scribbling a charge against him — (I was glad

  Then, for the first time, that I could not write) —

  Flirted his way, have flecked the blaze!

  For me,

  ‘Tis otherwise: let men take, sift my thoughts

  — Thoughts I throw like the flax for sun to bleach!

  I did think, do think, in the thought shall die,

  That to have Caponsacchi for my guide,

  Ever the face upturned to mine, the hand

  Holding my hand across the world, — a sense

  That reads, as only such can read, the mark

  God sets on women, signifying so

  She should — shall peradventure — be divine;

  Yet ‘ware, the while, how weakness mars the print

  And makes confusion, leaves the thing men see,

  — Not this man, — who from his own soul, re-writes

  The obliterated charter, — love and strength

  Mending what’s marred: “So kneels a votarist,

  “Weeds some poor waste traditionary plot

  “Where shrine once was, where temple yet may be,

  “Purging the place but worshipping the while,

  “By faith and not by sight, sight clearest so, —

  “Such way the saints work,” — says Don Celestine.

  But I, not privileged to see a saint

  Of old when such walked earth with crown and palm,

  If I call “saint” what saints call something else —

  The saints must bear with me, impute the fault

  To a soul i’ the bud, so starved by ignorance,

  Stinted of warmth, it will not blow this year

  Nor recognise the orb which Spring-flowers know.

  But if meanwhile some insect with a heart

  Worth floods of lazy music, spendthrift joy —

  Some fire-fly renounced Spring for my dwarfed cup,

  Crept close to me with lustre for the dark,

  Comfort against the cold, — what though excess

  Of comfort should miscall the creature — sun?

  What did the sun to hinder while harsh hands

  Petal by petal, crude and colourless,

  Tore me? This one heart brought me all the Spring!

  Is all told? There’s the journey: and where’s time

  To tell you how that heart burst out in shine?

  Yet certain points do press on me too hard.

  Each place must have a name, though I forget:

  How strange it was — there where the plain begins

  And the small river mitigates its flow —

  When eve was fading fast, and my soul sank,

  And he divined what surge of bitterness,

  In overtaking me, would float me back

  Whence I was carried by the striding day —

  So, — ”This grey place was famous once,” said he —

  And he began that legend of the place

  As if in answer to the unspoken fear,

  And told me all about a brave man dead,

  Which lifted me and let my soul go on!

  How did he know too, — at that town’s approach

  By the rock-side, — that in coming near the signs,

  Of life, the house-roofs and the church and tower,

  I saw the old boundary and wall o’ the world

  Rise plain as ever round me, hard and cold,

  As if the broken circlet joined again,

  Tightened itself about me with no break, —

  As if the town would turn Arezzo’s self, —

  The husband there, — the friends my enemies,

  All ranged against me, not an avenue

  I try, but would be blocked and drive me back

  On him, — this other, . . . oh the heart in that!

  Did not he find, bring, put into my arms

  A new-born babe? — and I saw faces beam

  Of the young mother proud to teach me joy,

  And gossips round expecting my surprise

  At the sudden hole through earth that lets in heaven.

  I could believe himself by his strong will

  Had woven around me what I thought the world

  We went along in, every circumstance,

  Towns, flowers and faces, all things helped so well!

  For, through the journey, was it natural

  Such comfort should arise from first to last?

  As I look back, all is one milky way;

  Still bettered more, the more remembered, so

  Do new stars bud while I but search for old,

  And fill all gaps i’ the glory, and grow him —

  Him I now see make the shine everywhere.

  Even at the last when the bewildered flesh,

  The cloud of weariness about my soul

  Clogging too heavily, sucked down all sense, —

  Still its last voice was, “He will watch and care;

  “Let the strength go, I am content: he stays!”

  I doubt not he did stay and care for all —

  From that sick minute when the head swam round,

  And the eyes looked their last and died on him,

  As in his arms he caught me and, you say,

  Carried me in, that tragical red eve,

  And laid me where I next returned to life

  In the other red of morning, two red plates

  That crushed together, crushed the time between,

  And are since then a solid fire to me, —

  When in, my dreadful husband and the world

  Broke, — and I saw him, master, by hell’s right,

  And saw my angel helplessly held back

  By guards that helped the malice — the lamb prone,

  The serpent towering and triumphant — then

  Came all the strength back in a sudden swell,

  I did for once see right, do right, give tongue

  The adequate protest: for a worm must turn

  If it would have its wrong observed by God.

  I did spring up, attempt to thrust aside

  That ice-block ‘twixt the sun and me, lay low

  The neutraliser of all good and truth.

  If I sinned so, — never obey voice more

  O’ the Just and Terrible, who bids us — ”Bear!”

  Not — ”Stand by, bear to see my angels bear!”

  I am clear it was on impulse to serve God

  Not save myself, — no — nor my child unborn!

  Had I else waited patiently till now? —

  Who saw my old kind parents, silly-sooth

  And too much trustful, for their worst of faults,

  Cheated, brow-beaten, stripped and starved, cast out

  Into the kennel: I remonstrated,

  Then sank to silence, for, — their woes at end,

  Themselves gone, — only I was left to plague.

  If only I was threatened and belied,

  What matter? I could bear it and did bear;

  It was a comfort, still one lot for all:

  They were not persecuted for my sake

  And I, estranged, the single happy one.

  But when at last, all by myself I stood

  Obeying the clear voice which bade me rise,

  Not for my own sake but my babe unborn,

  And take the angel’s hand was sent to help —

  And found the old adversary athwart the path —

  Not my hand simply struck from the angel’s, but

  The very angel’s self made foul i’ the face

  By the fiend who struck there, — that I would not bear,

  That only I resisted! So, my fir
st

  And last resistance was invincible.

  Prayers move God; threats, and nothing else, move men!

  I must have prayed a man as he were God

  When I implored the Governor to right

  My parents’ wrongs: the answer was a smile.

  The Archbishop, — did I clasp his feet enough,

  Hide my face hotly on them, while I told

  More than I dared make my own mother known?

  The profit was — compassion and a jest.

  This time, the foolish prayers were done with, right

  Used might, and solemnised the sport at once.

  All was against the combat: vantage, mine?

  The runaway avowed, the accomplice-wife,

  In company with the plan-contriving priest?

  Yet, shame thus rank and patent, I struck, bare,

  At foe from head to foot in magic mail,

  And off it withered, cobweb-armoury

  Against the lightning! ‘Twas truth singed the lies

  And saved me, not the vain sword nor weak speech!

  You see, I will not have the service fail!

  I say, the angel saved me: I am safe!

  Others may want and wish, I wish nor want

  One point o’ the circle plainer, where I stand

  Traced round about with white to front the world.

  What of the calumny I came across,

  What o’ the way to the end? — the end crowns all.

  The judges judged aright i’ the main, gave me

  The uttermost of my heart’s desire, a truce

  From torture and Arezzo, balm for hurt

  With the quiet nuns, — God recompense the good!

  Who said and sang away the ugly past.

  And, when my final fortune was revealed,

  What safety while, amid my parents’ arms,

  My babe was given me! Yes, he saved my babe:

  It would not have peeped forth, the bird-like thing,

  Through that Arezzo noise and trouble: back

  Had it returned nor ever let me see!

  But the sweet peace cured all, and let me live

  And give my bird the life among the leaves

  God meant him! Weeks and months of quietude,

  I could lie in such peace and learn so much —

  Begin the task, I see how needful now,

  Of understanding somewhat of my past, —

  Know life a little, I should leave so soon.

  Therefore, because this man restored my soul,

  All has been right; I have gained my gain, enjoyed

  As well as suffered, — nay, got foretaste too

  Of better life beginning where this ends —

  All through the breathing-while allowed me thus,

  Which let good premonitions reach my soul

  Unthwarted, and benignant influence flow

  And interpenetrate and change my heart,

  Uncrossed by what was wicked, — nay, unkind.