Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  For, as the weakness of my time drew nigh,

  Nobody did me one disservice more,

  Spoke coldly or looked strangely, broke the love

  I lay in the arms of, till my boy was born,

  Born all in love, with nought to spoil the bliss

  A whole long fortnight: in a life like mine

  A fortnight filled with bliss is long and much.

  All women are not mothers of a boy,

  Though they live twice the length of my whole life,

  And, as they fancy, happily all the same.

  There I lay, then, all my great fortnight long,

  As if it would continue, broaden out

  Happily more and more, and lead to heaven:

  Christmas before me, — was not that a chance?

  I never realised God’s birth before —

  How he grew likest God in being born.

  This time I felt like Mary, had my babe

  Lying a little on my breast like hers.

  So all went on till, just four days ago —

  The night and the tap.

  O it shall be success

  To the whole of our poor family! My friends

  . . . Nay, father and mother, — give me back my word!

  They have been rudely stripped of life, disgraced

  Like children who must needs go clothed too fine,

  Carry the garb of Carnival in Lent:

  If they too much affected frippery,

  They have been punished and submit themselves,

  Say no word: all is over, they see God

  Who will not be extreme to mark their fault

  Or he had granted respite: they are safe.

  For that most woeful man my husband once,

  Who, needing respite, still draws vital breath,

  I — pardon him? So far as lies in me,

  I give him for his good the life he takes,

  Praying the world will therefore acquiesce.

  Let him make God amends, — none, none to me

  Who thank him rather that, whereas strange fate

  Mockingly styled him husband and me wife,

  Himself this way at least pronounced divorce,

  Blotted the marriage-bond: this blood of mine

  Flies forth exultingly at any door,

  Washes the parchment white, and thanks the blow.

  We shall not meet in this world nor the next,

  But where will God be absent? In His face

  Is light, but in His shadow healing too:

  Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed!

  And as my presence was importunate, —

  My earthly good, temptation and a snare, —

  Nothing about me but drew somehow down

  His hate upon me, — somewhat so excused

  Therefore, since hate was thus the truth of him, —

  May my evanishment for evermore

  Help further to relieve the heart that cast

  Such object of its natural loathing forth!

  So he was made; he nowise made himself:

  I could not love him, but his mother did.

  His soul has never lain beside my soul;

  But for the unresisting body, — thanks!

  He burned that garment spotted by the flesh!

  Whatever he touched is rightly ruined: plague

  It caught, and disinfection it had craved

  Still but for Guido; I am saved through him

  So as by fire; to him — thanks and farewell!

  Even for my babe, my boy, there’s safety thence —

  From the sudden death of me, I mean; we poor

  Weak souls, how we endeavour to be strong!

  I was already using up my life, —

  This portion, now, should do him such a good,

  This other go to keep off such an ill!

  The great life; see, a breath and it is gone!

  So is detached, so left all by itself

  The little life, the fact which means so much.

  Shall not God stoop the kindlier to His work,

  His marvel of creation, foot would crush,

  Now that the hand He trusted to receive

  And hold it, lets the treasure fall perforce?

  The better; He shall have in orphanage

  His own way all the clearlier: if my babe

  Outlive the hour — and he has lived two weeks —

  It is through God who knows I am not by.

  Who is it makes the soft gold hair turn black,

  And sets the tongue, might lie so long at rest,

  Trying to talk? Let us leave God alone!

  Why should I doubt He will explain in time

  What I feel now, but fail to find the words?

  My babe nor was, nor is, nor yet shall be

  Count Guido Franceschini’s child at all —

  Only his mother’s, born of love not hate!

  So shall I have my rights in after-time.

  It seems absurd, impossible to-day;

  So seems so much else not explained but known.

  Ah! Friends, I thank and bless you every one!

  No more now: I withdraw from earth and man

  To my own soul, compose myself for God.

  Well, and there is more! Yes, my end of breath

  Shall bear away my soul in being true!

  He is still here, not outside with the world,

  Here, here, I have him in his rightful place!

  ‘Tis now, when I am most upon the move,

  I feel for what I verily find — again

  The face, again the eyes, again, through all,

  The heart and its immeasurable love

  Of my one friend, my only, all my own,

  Who put his breast between the spears and me.

  Ever with Caponsacchi! Otherwise

  Here alone would be failure, loss to me —

  How much more loss to him, with life debarred

  From giving life, love locked from love’s display,

  The day-star stopped its task that makes night morn!

  O lover of my life, O soldier-saint,

  No work begun shall ever pause for death!

  Love will be helpful to me more and more

  I’ the coming course, the new path I must tread,

  My weak hand in thy strong hand, strong for that!

  Tell him that if I seem without him now,

  That’s the world’s insight! Oh, he understands!

  He is at Civita — do I once doubt

  The world again is holding us apart?

  He had been here, displayed in my behalf

  The broad brow that reverberates the truth,

  And flashed the word God gave him, back to man!

  I know where the free soul is flown! My fate

  Will have been hard for even him to bear:

  Let it confirm him in the trust of God,

  Showing how holily he dared the deed!

  And, for the rest, — say, from the deed, no touch

  Of harm came, but all good, all happiness,

  Not one faint fleck of failure! Why explain?

  What I see, oh, he sees and how much more!

  Tell him, — I know not wherefore the true word

  Should fade and fall unuttered at the last —

  It was the name of him I sprang to meet

  When came the knock, the summons and the end.

  “My great hurt, my strong hand are back again!”

  I would have sprung to these, beckoning across

  Murder and hell gigantic and distinct

  O’ the threshold, posted to exclude me heaven:

  He is ordained to call and I to come!

  Do not the dead wear flowers when dressed for God?

  Say, — I am all in flowers from head to foot!

  Say, — not one flower of all he said and did,

  Might seem to flit unnoticed, fade unknown,

  But dropped a seed has grown a balsam-tree


  Whereof the blossoming perfumes the place

  At this supreme of moments! He is a priest;

  He cannot marry therefore, which is right:

  I think he would not marry if he could.

  Marriage on earth seems such a counterfeit,

  Mere imitation of the inimitable:

  In heaven we have the real and true and sure.

  ‘Tis there they neither marry nor are given

  In marriage but are as the angels: right,

  Oh how right that is, how like Jesus Christ

  To say that! Marriage-making for the earth,

  With gold so much, — birth, power, repute so much,

  Or beauty, youth so much, in lack of these!

  Be as the angels rather, who, apart,

  Know themselves into one, are found at length

  Married, but marry never, no, nor give

  In marriage; they are man and wife at once

  When the true time is: here we have to wait

  Not so long neither! Could we by a wish

  Have what we will and get the future now,

  Would we wish ought done undone in the past?

  So, let him wait God’s instant men call years;

  Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul,

  Do out the duty! Through such souls alone

  God stooping shows sufficient of His light

  For us i’ the dark to rise by. And I rise.

  Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis

  Pauperum Procurator

  AH, my Giacinto, he’s no ruddy rogue,

  Is not Cinone? What, to-day we’re eight?

  Seven and one’s eight, I hope, old curly-pate!

  — Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,

  Amo -as -avi -atum -are -ans,

  Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,

  Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)

  And chews Corderius with his morning crust!

  Look eight years onward, and he’s perched, he’s perched,

  Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,

  Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?

  — Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case

  Like this, papa shall triturate full soon

  To smooth Papinianian pulp!

  It trots

  Already through my head, though noon be now,

  Does supper-time and what belongs to eye.

  Dispose, O Don, o’ the day, first work then play!

  — The proverb bids. And “then” means, won’t we hold

  Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,

  Cinuolo’s birth-night, Cinicello’s own,

  That makes gruff January grin perforce!

  For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth

  Escaping from so many hearts at once —

  When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,

  Jokes the hale grandsire, — such are just the sort

  To go off suddenly, — he who hides the key

  O’ the box beneath his pillow every night, —

  Which box may hold a parchment (some one thinks)

  Will show a scribbled something like a name

  “Cinino, Ciniccino,” near the end,

  “To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,

  “Estates, tenements, hereditaments,

  “When I decease as honest grandsire ought:”

  Wherefore — yet this one time again perhaps —

  Shan’t my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!

  Then, uncles, one or the other, well i’ the world,

  May — drop in, merely? — trudge through rain and wind,

  Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint

  There’s cookery in a certain dwelling-place!

  Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,

  Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,

  And so find door, put galligaskin off

  At entry of a decent domicile

  Cornered in snug Condotti, — all for love,

  All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!

  Well,

  Let others climb the heights o’ the court, the camp!

  How vain are chambering and wantonness,

  Revel and rout and pleasures that make mad!

  Commend me to home-joy, the family board,

  Altar and hearth! These, with a brisk career,

  A source of honest profit and good fame,

  Just so much work as keeps the brain from rust,

  Just so much play as lets the heart expand,

  Honouring God and serving man, — I say,

  These are reality, and all else, — fluff,

  Nutshell and naught, — thank Flaccus for the phrase!

  Suppose I had been Fisc, yet bachelor!

  Why, work with a will, then! Wherefore lazy now?

  Turn up the hour-glass, whence no sand-grain slips

  But should have done its duty to the saint

  O’ the day, the son and heir that’s eight years old!

  Let law come dimple Cinoncino’s cheek,

  And Latin dumple Cinarello’s chin,

  The while we spread him fine and toss him flat

  This pulp that makes the pancake, trim our mass

  Of matter into Argument the First,

  Prime Pleading in defence of our accused,

  Which, once a-waft on paper wing, shall soar,

  Shall signalise before applausive Rome

  What study, and mayhap some mother-wit,

  Can do toward making Master fop and Fisc

  Old bachelor Bottinius bite his thumb.

  Now, how good God is! How falls plumb to point

  This murder, gives me Guido to defend

  Now, of all days i’ the year, just when the boy

  Verges on Virgil, reaches the right age

  For some such illustration from his sire,

  Stimulus to himself! One might wait years

  And never find the chance which now finds me!

  The fact is, there’s a blessing on the hearth,

  A special providence for fatherhood!

  Here’s a man, and what’s more, a noble, kills

  — Not sneakingly but almost with parade —

  Wife’s father and wife’s mother and wife’s self

  That’s mother’s self of son and heir (like mine!)

  — And here stand I, the favoured advocate,

  Who pluck this flower o’ the field, no Solomon

  Was ever clothed in glorious gold to match,

  And set the same in Cinoncino’s cap!

  I defend Guido and his comrades — I!

  Pray God, I keep me humble: not to me —

  Non nobis, Domine, sed tibi laus!

  How the fop chuckled when they made him Fisc!

  We’ll beat you, my Bottinius, all for love,

  All for our tribute to Cinotto’s day!

  Why, ‘sbuddikins, old Innocent himself

  May rub his eyes at the bustle, — ask “What’s this

  “Rolling from out the rostrum, as a gust

  “O’ the Pro Milone had been prisoned there,

  “And rattled Rome awake?” Awaken Rome,

  How can the Pope doze on in decency?

  He needs must wake up also, speak his word,

  Have his opinion like the rest of Rome,

  About this huge, this hurly-burly case:

  He wants who can excogitate the truth,

  Give the result in speech, plain black and white,

  To mumble in the mouth and make his own

  — A little changed, good man, a little changed!

  No matter, so his gratitude be moved,

  By when my Giacintino gets of age,

  Mindful of who thus helped him at a pinch,

  Archangelus Procurator Pauperum —

  And proved Hortensius Redivivus!

  Whew!

  To earn the Est-est, merit the minced herb

  That mollifies the liver’s le
athery slice,

  With here a goose-foot, there a cock’s-comb stuck,

  Cemented in an element of cheese!

  I doubt if dainties do the grandsire good:

  Last June he had a sort of strangling . . . bah!

  He’s his own master, and his will is made.

  So, liver fizz, law flit and Latin fly

  As we rub hands o’er dish by way of grace!

  May I lose cause if I vent one word more

  Except, — with fresh-cut quill we ink the white, —

  P-r-o-pro Guidone et Sociis. There!

  Count Guido married — or, in Latin due,

  What? Duxit in uxorem? — commonplace!

  Tædas jugales iniit, subiit, — ha!

  He underwent the matrimonial torch?

  Connubio stabili sibi junxit, — hum!

  In stable bond of marriage bound his own?

  That’s clear of any modern taint: and yet . . .

  Virgil is little help to who writes prose.

  He shall attack me Terence with the dawn,

  Shall Cinuccino! Mum, mind business, Sir!

  Thus circumstantially evolve we facts,

  Ita se habet ideo series facti:

  He wedded, — ah, with owls for augury!

  Nupserat, heu sinistris avibus,

  One of the blood Arezzo boasts her best,

  Dominus Guido, nobili genere ortus,

  Pompiliæ. . . .

  But the version afterward!

  Curb we this ardour! Notes alone, to-day,

  The speech to-morrow and the Latin last:

  Such was the rule in Farinacci’s time.

  Indeed I hitched it into verse and good.

  Unluckily, law quite absorbs a man,

  Or else I think I too had poetised.

  “Law is the pork substratum of the fry,

  “Goose-foot and cock’s-comb are Latinity,” —

  And in this case, if circumstance assist,

  We’ll garnish law with idiom, never fear!

  Out-of-the-way events extend our scope:

  For instance, when Bottini brings his charge,

  “That letter which you say Pompilia wrote,

  “To criminate her parents and herself

  “And disengage her husband from the coil, —

  “That, Guido Franceschini wrote, say we:

  “Because Pompilia could nor read nor write,

  “Therefore he pencilled her such letter first,

  “Then made her trace in ink the same again.”

  — Ha, my Bottini, have I thee on hip?

  How will he turn this nor break Tully’s pate?

  “Existimandum” (don’t I hear the dog!)

  “Quod Guido designaverit elementa

  “Dictæ epistolæ, quæ fuerint

  “(Superinducto ab ea calamo)

  “Notata atramento” — there’s a style! —

  “Quia ipsa scribere nesciebat.” Boh!