Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

Blessedest of all blisses ( — wherefore try

  Your patience with embracings and the rest

  Due from Calypso’s ail-unwilling guest

  To his Penelope?) — there somehow came

  The coolness which as duly follows flame.

  So, one day, “What if we inspect the gifts

  My Art has gained us?”

  Now the wife uplifts

  A casket-lid, now tries a medal’s chain

  Round her own lithe neck, fits a ring in vain

  — Too loose on the fine finger, — vows and swears

  The jewel with two pendent pearls like pears

  Betters a lady’s bosom — witness else!

  And so forth, while Ulysses smiles.

  “Such spells

  Subdue such natures — sex must worship toys

  — Trinkets and trash: yet, ah, quite other joys

  Must stir from sleep the passionate abyss

  Of — such an one as her I know — not this

  My gentle consort with the milk for blood!

  Why, did it chance that in a careless mood

  (In those old days, gone — never to return —

  When we talked — she to teach and I to learn)

  I dropped a word, a hint which might imply

  Consorts exist — how quick flashed fire from eye,

  Brow blackened, lip was pinched by furious lip!

  I needed no reminder of my slip:

  One warning taught me wisdom. Whereas here . . .

  Aha, a sportive fancy! Eh, what fear

  Of harm to follow? Just a whim indulged!

  “My Beatricé, there’s an undivulged

  Surprise in store for you: the moment’s fit

  For letting loose a secret: out with it!

  Tributes to worth, you rightly estimate

  These gifts of Prince and Bishop, Church and State:

  Yet, may I tell you? Tastes so disagree!

  There’s one gift, preciousest of all to me,

  I doubt if you would value as well worth

  The obvious sparkling gauds that men unearth

  For toy-cult mainly of you womankind;

  Such make you marvel, I concede: while blind

  The sex proves to the greater marvel here

  I veil to balk its envy. Be sincere!

  Say, should you search creation far and wide,

  Was ever face like this?”

  He drew aside

  The veil, displayed the flower-framed portrait kept

  For private delectation.

  No adept

  In florist’s lore more accurately named

  And praised or, as appropriately, blamed

  Specimen after specimen of skill,

  Than Bicé. “Rightly placed the daffodil —

  Scarcely so right the blue germander. Gray

  Good mouse-ear! Hardly your auricula

  Is powdered white enough. It seems to me

  Scarlet not crimson, that anemone:

  But there’s amends in the pink saxifrage.

  O darling dear ones, let me disengage

  You innocents from what your harmlessness

  Clasps lovingly! Out thou from their caresss,

  Serpent!”

  Whereat forth-flashing from her coils

  On coils of hair, the spilla in its toils

  Of yellow wealth, the dagger-plaything kept

  To pin its plaits together, life-like leapt

  And — woe to all inside the coronal!

  Stab followed stab, — cut, slash, she ruined all

  The masterpiece. Alack for eyes and mouth

  And dimples and endearment — North and South.

  East. West, the tatters in a fury flew:

  There yawned the circlet. What remained to do?

  She flung the weapon, and, with folded arms

  And mien defiant of such low alarms

  As death and doom beyond death, Bicé stood

  Passively statuesque, in quietude

  Awaiting judgment.

  And out judgment burst

  With frank unloading of love’s laughter, first

  Freed from its unsuspected source. Some throe

  Must needs unlock love’s prison-bars, let flow

  The joyance.

  “Then you ever were, still are,

  And henceforth shall be — no occulted star

  But my resplendent Bicé, sun-revealed,

  Full-rondure! Woman-glory unconcealed,

  So front me, find and claim and take your own —

  My soul and body yours and yours alone,

  As you are mine, mine wholly! Heart’s love take —

  Use your possession — stab or stay at will

  Here — hating, saving — woman with the skill

  ‘To make man beast or god!”

  And so it proved:

  For, as beseemed new godship, thus he loved,

  Past power to change, until his dying day, —

  Good fellow! And I fain would hope — some say

  Indeed for certain — that our painter’s toils

  At fresco-splashing, finer stroke in oils,

  Were not so mediocre after all;

  Perhaps the work appears unduly small

  From having loomed too large in old esteem,

  Patronized by late Papacy. I seem

  Myself to have cast eyes on certain work

  In sundry galleries, no judge needs shirk

  From moderately praising. He designed

  Correctly, nor in color lagged behind

  His age: but both in Florence and in Rome

  The elder race so make themselves at home

  That scarce we give a glance to ceilingfuls

  Of such like as Francesco. Still, one culls

  From out the heaped laudations of the time

  The pretty incident I put in rhyme.

  Flute-Music, with an Accompaniment

  He. AH, the bird-like fluting

  Through the ash-tops yonder —

  Bullfinch-bubblings, soft sounds suiting

  What sweet thoughts, I wonder?

  Fine-pearled notes that surely

  Gather, dewdrop-fashion,

  Deep-down in some heart which purely

  Secretes globuled passion —

  Passion insuppressive —

  Such is piped, for certain;

  Love, no doubt, nay, love excessive

  ’Tis your ash-tops curtain.

  Would your ash-tops open

  We might spy the player —

  Seek and find some sense which no pen

  Yet from singer, sayer,

  Ever has extracted:

  Never, to my knowledge,

  Yet has pedantry enacted

  That, in Cupid’s College,

  Just this variation

  Of the old, old yearning

  Should by plain speech have salvation,

  Yield new men new learning.

  ”Love!” but what love, nicely

  New from old disparted,

  Would the player teach precisely?

  First of all, be started

  In my brain Assurance —

  Trust — entire Contentment —

  Passion proved by much endurance;

  Then came — not resentment,

  No, but simply Sorrow:

  What was seen had vanished:

  Yesterday so blue! To-morrow

  Blank, all sunshine banished.

  Hark! ‘Tis Hope resurges,

  Struggling through obstruction —

  Forces a poor smile which verges

  On joy’s introduction.

  Now, perhaps, mere Musing:

  ”Holds earth such a wonder?

  Fairy-mortal, soul-sense-fusing

  Past thought’s power to sunder!”

  What? calm Acquiescence?

  ”Daisied turf gives room to

  Trefoil, plucked once in her presence —

  Growing by her
tomb too!”

  She. All’s your fancy-spinning!

  Here’s the fact: a neighbor

  Never-ending, still beginning,

  Recreates his labor:

  Deep o’er desk he drudges,

  Adds, divides, subtracts and

  Multiplies, until he judges

  Noonday-hour’s exact sand

  Shows the hour-glass emptied:

  Then comes lawful leisure,

  Minutes rare from toil exempted,

  Fit to spend in pleasure.

  Out then with — what treatise?

  Youth’s Complete Instructor

  How to play the Flute. Quid petis?

  Follow Youth’s conductor

  On and on, through Easy,

  Up to Harder, Hardest

  Flute-piece, till thou, flautist wheezy,

  Possibly discardest

  Tootlings hoarse and husky,

  Mayst expend with courage

  Breath — on tunes once bright, now dusky —

  Meant to cool thy porridge.

  That’s an air of Tulou’s

  He maltreats persistent,

  Till as lief I’d hear some Zulu’s

  Bone-piped bag, breath-distent,

  Madden native dances.

  I’m the man’s familiar:

  Unexpectedness enhances

  What your ear’s auxiliar

  — Fancy — finds suggestive.

  Listen! That’s legato

  Rightly played, his fingers restive

  Touch as if staccato.

  He. Ah, you trick-betrayer!

  Telling tales, unwise one?

  So the secret of the player

  Was — he could surprise one

  Well-nigh into trusting

  Here was a musician

  Skilled consummately, yet lusting

  Through no vile ambition

  After making captive

  All the world, — rewarded

  Amply by one stranger’s rapture.

  Common praise discarded.

  So, without assistance

  Such as music rightly

  Needs and claims, — defying distance,

  Overleaping lightly

  Obstacles which hinder,

  He, for my approval,

  All the same and all the kinder

  Made mine what might move all

  Earth to kneel adoring:

  Took — while he piped Gounod’s

  Bit of passionate imploring —

  Me for Juliet: who knows?

  No! as you explain things,

  All’s mere repetition,

  Practise-pother: of all vain things

  Why waste pooh or pish on

  Toilsome effort — never

  Ending, still beginning

  After what should pay endeavor

  — Right-performance? winning

  Weariness from you who,

  Ready to admire some

  Owl’s fresh hooting — Tu-whit, to-who —

  Find stale thrush-songs tiresome.

  She. Songs, Spring thought perfection,

  Summer criticises:

  What in May escaped detection,

  August, past surprises,

  Notes, and names each blunder.

  You, the just-initiate,

  Praise to heart’s content (what wonder?)

  Tootings I hear vitiate

  Romeo’s serenading —

  I who, times full twenty,

  Turned to ice — no ash-tops aiding —

  At his caldamente.

  So, ‘twas distance altered

  Sharps to flats? The missing

  Bar when syncopation faltered

  (You thought — paused for kissing!)

  Ash-tops too felonious

  Intercepted? Rather

  Say — they well-nigh made euphonious

  Discord, helped to gather

  Phrase, by phrase, turn patches

  Into simulated

  Unity which botching matches, —

  Scraps redintegrated.

  He. Sweet, are you suggestive

  Of an old suspicion

  Which has always found me restive

  To its admonition

  When it ventured whisper

  ”Fool, the strifes and struggles

  Of your trembler — blusher — lisper

  Were so many juggles,

  Tricks tried — oh, so often! —

  Which once more do duty,

  Find again a heart to soften,

  Soul to snare with beauty.”

  Birth-blush of the briar-rose,

  Mist-bloom of the hedge-sloe,

  Some one gainst the prize: admire rose

  Would he, when noon’s wedge — slow —

  Sure, has pushed, expanded

  Rathe pink to raw redness?

  Would he covet sloe when sanded

  By road-dust to deadness?

  So — restore their value!

  Ply a water-sprinkle

  Then guess sloe is fingered, shall you?

  Find in rose a wrinkle?

  Here what played Aquarius?

  Distance — ash-tops aiding,

  Reconciled scraps else contrarious,

  Brightened stuff fast fading.

  Distance — call your shyness:

  Was the fair one peevish?

  Coyness softened out of slyness.

  Was she cunning, thievish,

  All-but proved impostor?

  Bear but one day’s exile,

  Ugly traits were wholly lost or

  Screened by fancies flexile —

  Ash-tops these, you take me?

  Fancies’ interference

  Changed . . .

  But since I sleep, don’t wake me!

  What if all’s appearance?

  Is not outside seeming

  Real as substance inside?

  Both are facts, so leave me dreaming:

  If who loses wins I’d

  Ever lose, — conjecture,

  From one phrase trilled deftly,

  All the piece. So, end your lecture,

  Let who lied be left lie!

  Imperante Augusto Natus Est —

  WHAT it was struck the terror into me?

  This, Publius: closer! while we wait our turn

  I’ll tell you. Water’s warm (they ring inside)

  At the eighth hour, till when no use to bathe.

  Here in the vestibule where now we sit,

  One scarce stood yesterday, the throng was such

  Of loyal gapers, folk all eye and ear

  While Lucius Varius Rufus in their midst

  Read out that long-planned late-completed piece,

  His Panegyric on the Emperor.

  “Nobody like him,” little Flaccus laughed,

  “At leading forth an Epos with due pomp!

  Only, when godlike Cæsar swells the theme,

  How should mere mortals hope to praise aright?

  Tell me, thou offshoot of Etruscan kings!”

  Whereat Mæcenas smiling sighed assent.

  I paid my quadrans, left the Thermæ roar

  Of rapture as the poet asked: “What place

  Among the godships Jove, for Cæsar’s sake,

  Would bid its actual occupant vacate

  In favor of the new divinity?”

  And got the expected answer, “Yield thine own!” —

  Jove thus dethroned, I somehow wanted air,

  And found myself a-pacing street and street,

  Letting the sunset, rosy over Rome,

  Clear my head dizzy with the hubbub — say,

  As if thought’s dance therein had kicked up dust

  By trampling on all else: the world lay prone,

  As — poet-propped, in brave hexameters —

  Their subject triumphed up from man to God.

  Caius Octavius Cæsar the August —

  Where was escape from his prepotency?

  I
judge I may have passed — how many piles

  Of structure dropt like doles from his free hand

  To Rome on every side? Why, right and left,

  For temples you’ve the Thundering Jupiter,

  Avenging Mars, Apollo Palatine:

  How count Piazza, Forum — there’s a third

  All but completed. You’ve the Theatre

  Named of Marcellus — all his work, such work! —

  One thought still ending, dominating all —

  With warrant Varius sang, “Be Cæsar God!”

  By what a hold arrests he Fortune’s wheel,

  Obtaining and retaining heaven and earth

  Through Fortune, if you like, but favor — no!

  For the great deeds flashed by me, fast and thick

  As stars which storm the sky on autumn nights —

  Those conquests! but peace crowned them, — so, of peace

  Count up his titles only — these, in few —

  Ten years Triumvir, Consul thirteen times,

  Emperor, nay — the glory topping all —

  Hailed Father of his Country, last and best

  Of titles, by himself accepted so:

  And why not? See but feats achieved in Rome —

  Not to say, Italy — he planted there

  Some thirty colonies — but Rome itself

  All new-built, “marble now, brick once,” he boasts:

  This Portico, that Circus. Would you sail?

  He has drained Tiber for you: would you walk?

  He straightened out the long Flaminian Way.

  Poor? Profit by his score of donatives?

  Rich — that is, mirthful? Half-a-hundred games

  Challenge your choice! There’s Rome — for you and me

  Only? The centre of the world besides!

  For, look the wide world over, where ends Rome?

  To sunrise? There’s Euphrates — all between!

  To sunset? Ocean and immensity:

  North, stare till Danube stops you: South, see Nile,

  The Desert and the earth-upholding Mount.

  Well may the poet-people each with each

  Vie in his praise, our company of swans,

  Virgil and Horace, singers — in their way —

  Nearly as good as Varius, though less famed:

  Well may they cry, “No mortal, plainly God!”

  Thus to myself myself said, while I walked:

  Or would have said, could thought attain to speech,

  Clean baffled by enormity of bliss

  The while I strove to scale its heights and sound

  Its depths — this Amsterdam o’er all the world

  Of one who was but born — like you, like me,

  Like all the world he owns — of flesh and blood.

  But he — how grasp, how gauge his own conceit

  Of bliss to me near inconceivable?

  Or, since such flight too much makes reel the brain,

  Let’s sink — and so take refuge, as it were,

  From life’s excessive altitude — to lift’s

  Breathable wayside shelter at its base!