Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Making for manhood which nowise we mar:

  See, while I kiss it, the flush on his face —

  Rosny, Rosny!

  Light does he laugh: “With your love in my soul” —

  (Clara, Clara!)

  “How could I other than — sound, safe, and whole —

  Cleave who opposed me asunder, yet stand

  Scatheless beside you, as, touching love’s goal,

  Who won the race kneels, craves reward at your hand —

  Rosny, Rosny?”

  Ay, but if certain who envied should see

  Clara, Clara.

  Certain who simper: “The hero for me

  Hardly of life were so chary as miss

  Death — death and fame — that’s love’s guerdon when She

  Boasts, proud bereaved one, her choice fell on this

  Rosny, Rosny!”

  So, — go on dreaming, — he lies mid a heap

  (Clara, Clara,)

  Of the slain by his hand: what is death but a sleep?

  Dead, with my portrait displayed on his breast:

  Love wrought in his undoing: “No prudence could keep

  The love-maddened wretch from his fate.”

  That is best,

  Rosny, Rosny.

  Dubiety

  I WILL be happy if but for once:

  Only help me, Autumn weather,

  Me and my cares to screen, ensconce

  In luxury’s sofa-lap of leather!

  Sleep? Nay, comfort — with just a cloud

  Suffusing day too clear and bright:

  Eve’s essence, the single drop allowed

  To sully, like milk, Noon’s water-white.

  Let gauziness shade, not shroud, — adjust,

  Dim and not deaden, — somehow sheathe

  Aught sharp in the rough world’s busy thrust,

  If it reach me through dreaming’s vapor-wreath.

  Be life so, all things ever the same!

  For, what has disarmed the world? Outside,

  Quiet and peace: inside, nor blame

  Nor want, nor wish whate’er betide.

  What is it like that has happened before?

  A dream? No dream, more real by much.

  A vision? But fanciful days of yore

  Brought many: mere musing seems not such.

  Perhaps but a memory, after all!

  — Of what came once when a woman leant

  To feel for my brow where her kiss might fall.

  Truth ever, truth only the excellent!

  Now

  OUT of your whole life give but a moment!

  All of your life that has gone before,

  All to come after it, — so you ignore,

  So you make perfect the present, — condense,

  In a rapture of rage, for perfection’s endowment,

  Thought and feeling and soul and sense —

  Merged in a moment which gives me at last

  You around me for once, you beneath me, above me —

  Me — sure that despite of time future, time past, —

  This tick of our life-time’s one moment you love me!

  How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet —

  The moment eternal — just that and no more —

  When ecstasy’s utmost we clutch at the core

  While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet!

  Humility

  WHAT girl but, having gathered flowers,

  Stript the beds and spoilt the bowers,

  From the lapful light she carries

  Drops a careless bud? — nor tarries

  To regain the waif and stray:

  “Store enough for home” — she’ll say.

  So say I too: give your lover

  Heaps of loving — under, over,

  Whelm him — make the one the wealthy!

  Am I all so poor who — stealthy

  Work it was! — picked up what fell:

  Not the worst bud — who can tell?

  Poetics

  “SO say the foolish!” Say the foolish so, Love?

  ”Flower she is, my rose” — or else, “My very swan is she” —

  Or perhaps, “Yon maid-moon, blessing earth below, Love,

  That art thou!” — to them, belike: no such vain words from me.

  “Hush, rose, blush! no balm like breath,” I chide it:

  ”Bend thy neck its best, swan, — hers the whiter curve!”

  Be the moon the moon: my Love I place beside it:

  What is she? Her human self, — no lower word will serve.

  Summum Bonum

  ALL the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:

  All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:

  In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:

  Breath and bloom, shade and shine, — wonder, wealth, and — how far above them —

  Truth, that’s brighter than gem,

  Trust, that’s purer than pearl, —

  Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe — all were for me

  In the kiss of one girl.

  A Pearl, a Girl

  A SIMPLE ring with a single stone,

  To the vulgar eye no stone of price:

  Whisper the right word, that alone —

  Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice,

  And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll)

  Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole

  Through the power in a pearl.

  A woman (‘tis I this time that say)

  With little the world counts worthy praise

  Utter the true word — out and away

  Escapes her soul: I am wrapt in blaze,

  Creation’s lord, of heaven and earth

  Lord whole and sole — by a minute’s birth —

  Through the love in a girl!

  Speculative

  OTHERS may need new life in Heaven —

  Man, Nature, Art — made new, assume!

  Man with new mind old sense to leaven,

  Nature, — new light to clear old gloom,

  Art that breaks bounds, gets soaring-room.

  I shall pray: “Fugitive as precious —

  Minutes which passed, — return, remain!

  Let earth’s old life once more enmesh us,

  You with old pleasure, me — old, pain,

  So we but meet nor part again!”

  White Witchcraft

  IF you and I could change to beasts, what beast should either be?

  Shall you and I play Jove for once? Turn fox then, I decree!

  Shy wild sweet stealer of the grapes! Now do your worst on me!

  And thus you think to spite your friend — turned loathsome? What, a toad?

  So, all men shrink and shun me! Dear men, pursue your road!

  Leave but my crevice in the stone, a reptile’s fit abode

  Now say your worst, Canidia! “He’s loathsome, I allow:

  There may or may not lurk a pearl beneath his puckered brow:

  But see his eyes that follow mine — love lasts there, anyhow.”

  Bad Dreams I

  LAST NIGHT I saw you in my sleep:

  And how your charm of face was changed!

  I asked, “Some love, some faith you keep?”

  You answered, “Faith gone, love estranged.”

  Whereat I woke — a twofold bliss:

  Waking was one, but next there came

  This other: “Though I felt, for this,

  My heart break, I loved on the same.”

  Bad Dreams II

  YOU in the flesh and here —

  Your very self! Now, wait!

  One word! May I hope or fear?

  Must I speak in love or hate?

  Stay while I ruminate!

  The fact and each circumstance

  Dare you disown? Not you!

  That vast dome, that huge dance,

  And the gloom
which overgrew

  A — possibly festive crew!

  For why should men dance at all —

  Why women — a crowd of both —

  Unless they are gay? Strange ball —

  Hands and feet plighting troth,

  Yet partners enforced and loth!

  Of who danced there, no shape

  Did I recognize: thwart, perverse,

  Each grasped each, past escape

  In a whirl or weary or worse:

  Man’s sneer met woman’s curse,

  While he and she toiled as if

  Their guardian set galley-slaves

  To supple chained limbs grown stiff:

  Unmanacled trulls and knaves —

  The lash for who misbehaves!

  And a gloom was, all the while,

  Deeper and deeper yet

  O’ergrowing the rank and file

  Of that army of haters — set

  To mimic love’s fever-fret.

  By the wall-side close I crept.

  Avoiding the livid maze.

  And, safely so far, outstepped

  On a chamber — a chapel, says

  My memory or betrays —

  Closet-like, kept aloof

  From unseemly witnessing

  What sport made floor and roof

  Of the Devil’s palace ring

  While his Damned amused their king.

  Ay, for a low lamp burned,

  And a silence lay about

  What I, in the midst, discerned

  Though dimly till, past doubt,

  ‘Twas a sort of throne stood out —

  High seat with steps, at least:

  And the topmost step was filled

  By — whom? What vestured priest?

  A stranger to me, — his guild,

  His cult, unreconciled

  To my knowledge how guild and cult

  Are clothed in this world of ours:

  I pondered, but no result

  Came to — unless that Giaours

  So worship the Lower Powers.

  When suddenly who entered?

  Who knelt — did you guess I saw?

  Who — raising that face were centred

  Allegiance to love and law

  So lately — off-casting awe,

  Down-treading reserve, away

  Thrusting respect . . . but mine

  Stands firm — firm still shall stay!

  Ask Satan! for I decline

  To tell — what I saw, in fine!

  Yet here in the flesh you come —

  Your same self, form and face, —

  In the eyes, mirth still at home!

  On the lips, that commonplace

  Perfection of honest grace!

  Yet your errand is — needs must be —

  To palliate — well, explain,

  Expurgate in some degree

  Your soul of its ugly stain.

  Oh, you — the good in grain —

  How was it your white took tinge?

  ”A mere dream” — never object!

  Sleep leaves a door on hinge

  Whence soul, ere our flesh suspect,

  Is off and away: detect

  Her vagaries when loose, who can!

  Be she pranksome, be she prude,

  Disguise with the day began:

  With the night — ah, what ensued

  From draughts of a drink hell-brewed?

  Then She: “What a queer wild dream!

  And perhaps the best fun is —

  Myself had its fellow — I seem

  Scarce awake from yet. ‘Twas this —

  Shall I tell you? First, a kiss!

  “For the fault was just your own, —

  ’Tis myself expect apology:

  You warned me to let alone

  (Since our studies were mere philology)

  That ticklish (you said) Anthology.

  “So I dreamed that I passed exam

  Till a question posed me sore:

  ‘Who translated this epigram

  By — an author we best ignore?’

  And I answered, ‘Hannah More’!”

  Bad Dreams III

  THIS was my dream: I saw a Forest

  Old as the earth, no track nor trace

  Of unmade man. Thou, Soul, explorest —

  Though in a trembling rapture — space

  Immeasurable! Shrubs, turned trees,

  Trees that touch heaven, support its frieze

  Studded with sun and moon and star:

  While — oh, the enormous growths that bar

  Mine eye from penetrating past

  Their tangled twins where lurks — nay, lives

  Royally lone, some brute-type cast

  I’ the rough, time cancels, man forgives.

  On, Soul! I saw a lucid City

  Of architectural device

  Every way perfect. Pause for pity,

  Lightning! nor leave a cicatrice

  On those bright marbles, dome and spire,

  Structures palatial, — streets which mire

  Dares not defile, paved all too fine

  For human footstep’s smirch, not thine —

  Proud solitary traverser,

  My Soul, of silent lengths of way —

  With what ecstatic dread, aver,

  Lest life start sanctioned by thy stay!

  All, but the last sight was the hideous!

  A City, yes, — a Forest, true, —

  But each devouring each. Perfidious

  Snake-plants had strangled what I knew

  Was a pavilion once: each oak

  Held on his horns some spoil he broke

  By surreptitiously beneath

  Upthrusting: pavements, as with teeth,

  Griped huge weed widening crack and split

  In squares and circles stone-work erst.

  Oh, Nature — good! Oh, Art — no whit

  Less worthy! Both in one — accurst!

  Bad Dreams IV

  IT happened thus: my slab, though new,

  Was getting weather-stained, — beside,

  Herbage, balm, peppermint, o’ergrew

  Letter and letter: till you tried

  Somewhat, the Name was scarce descried.

  That strong stern man my lover came:

  — Was he my lover? Call him, pray,

  My life’s cold critic bent on blame

  Of all poor I could do or say

  To make me worth his love one day —

  One far day when, by diligent

  And dutiful amending faults,

  Foibles, all weaknesses which went

  To challenge and excuse assaults

  Of culture wronged by taste that halts —

  Discrepancies should mar no plan

  Symmetric of the qualities

  Claiming respect from — say — a man

  That’s strong and stem. “Once more he pries

  Into me with those critic eyes!”

  No question! so — ”Conclude, condemn

  Each failure my poor self avows!

  Leave to its fate all you contemn!

  There’s Solomon’s selected spouse:

  Earth needs must hold such maids — choose them!”

  Why, he was weeping! Surely gone

  Sternness and strength: with eyes to ground

  And voice a broken monotone —

  ”Only be as you were! Abound

  In foibles, faults, — laugh, robed and crowned

  “As Folly’s veriest queen, — care I

  One feather-fluff? Look pity, Love,

  On prostrate me — your foot shall try

  This forehead’s use — mount thence above,

  And reach what Heaven you dignify!”

  Now, what could bring such change about?

  The thought perplexed: till, following

  His gaze upon the ground, — why, out

  Came all the secret! So, a thing

  Thus simple has depos
ed my king!

  For, spite of weeds that strove to spoil

  Plain reading on the lettered slab,

  My name was clear enough — no soil

  Effaced the date when one chance stab

  Of scorn . . . if only ghosts might blab!

  Inapprehensiveness

  WE two stood simply friend-like side by side,

  Viewing a twilight country far and wide,

  Till she at length broke silence. “How it towers

  Yonder, the ruin o’er this vale of ours!

  The West’s faint flare behind it so relieves

  Its rugged outline — sight perhaps deceives,

  Or I could almost fancy that I see

  A branch wave plain — belike some wind-sown tree

  Chance-rooted where a missing turret was.

  What would I give for the perspective glass

  At home, to make out if ‘tis really so!

  Has Ruskin noticed here at Asolo

  That certain weed-growths on the ravaged wall

  Seem” . . . something that I could not say at all,

  My thought being rather — as absorbed she sent

  Look onward after look from eyes distent

  With longing to reach Heaven’s gate left ajar —

  “Oh, fancies that might be, oh, facts that are!

  What of a wilding? By you stands, and may

  So stand unnoticed till the judgment Day,

  One who, if once aware that your regard

  Claimed what his heart holds, — woke, as from its sward

  The flower, the dormant passion, so to speak —

  Then what a rush of life would startling wreak

  Revenge on your inapprehensive stare

  While, from the ruin and the West’s faint flare,

  You let your eyes meet mine, touch what you term

  Quietude — that’s an universe in germ —

  The dormant passion needing but a look

  To burst into immense life!”

  ”No, the book

  Which noticed how the wall-growths wave,” said she,

  “Was not by Ruskin.”

  I said, “Vernon Lee.”

  Which?

  SO, the three Court-ladies began

  Their trial of who judged best

  In esteeming the love of a man:

  Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed

  Boy-Cupid’s exemplary catcher and cager;

  An Abbé crossed legs to decide on the wager.

  First the Duchesse: “Mine for me —

  Who were it but God’s for Him,

  And the King’s for — who but he?

  Both faithful and loyal, one grace more shall brim

  His cup with perfection: a lady’s true lover,

  He holds — save his God and his king — none above her.”

  ”I require” — outspoke the Marquise —