(Caution
redoubled
!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v05 - Bro to Cai
”
I might have done it for you.
So it seems:
Perhaps not. All is as God overrules.
Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;
The rest avail not. Why do I need you?
What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo ?
In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power-
And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,
God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.
'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,
That I am something underrated here,
Poor this long while, - despised, to speak the truth.
I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,
For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.
The best is when they pass and look aside;
But they speak sometimes: I must bear it all.
Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,
And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!
I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,
Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear,
In that humane great monarch's golden look, -
One finger in his beard or twisted curl
Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile,
One arm about my shoulder, around my neck,
The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,
I painting proudly with his breath on me,
All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,
Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls
Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, —
.
C
## p. 2569 (#129) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
क f
2569
And best of all, this, this, this face beyond,
This in the background, waiting on my work,
To crown the issue with a last reward!
A good time, was it not, my kingly days,
And had you not grown restless
but I know-
'Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said;
Too live the life grew, golden and not gray;
And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt
Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.
How could it end in any other way?
You called me, and I came home to your heart.
The triumph was to have ended there; then, if
I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost ?
Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold,
You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!
“Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;
The Roman's is the better when you pray,
But still the other Virgin was his wife ».
Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge
Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows
My better fortune, I resolve to think.
For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,
Said one day Agnolo, his very self,
To Rafael - I have known it all these years -
(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts
Upon a palace wall for Rome to see,
Too lifted up in heart because of it)
«Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub
Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,
Who, were he set to plan and execute
As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,
Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!
To Rafael's ! -- and indeed the arm is wrong.
I hardly dare
yet, only you to see,
Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line should go!
Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
(What he ? why, who but Michel Agnolo ?
Do you forget already words like those ? )
If really there was such a chance so lost, —
Is, whether you're - not grateful — but more pleased.
Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
This hour has been an hour! Another smile?
If you would sit thus by me every night,
Elle
## p. 2570 (#130) ###########################################
2570
ROBERT BROWNING
I should work better - do you comprehend ?
I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
See, it is settled dusk now: there's a star;
Morello's gone, the watch lights show the wall,
The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
Come from the window, love, - come in, at last,
Inside the melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with. God is just.
King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
The walls become illumined, brick from brick
Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
That gold of his I did cement them with!
Let us but love each other. Must you go?
That cousin here again ? he waits outside ?
Must see you - you, and not with me? Those loans ?
More gaming debts to pay ? you smiled for that?
Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend ?
While hand and eye and something of a heart
Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?
I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
The gray remainder of the evening out,
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
How I could paint were I but back in France,
One picture, just one more — the Virgin's face,
Not yours this time! I want you at my side
To hear them — that is, Michel Agnolo —
Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
Will you ? To-morrow satisfy your friend.
I take the subjects for his corridor,
Finish the portrait out of hand - there, there,
And throw him in another thing or two
If he demurs: the whole should prove enough
To pay for this same cousin's freak. Beside,
What's better, and what's all I care about,
Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!
Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,
The cousin! what does he to please you more ?
I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.
I regret little, I would change still less,
Since there my past life lies, why alter it ?
The very wrong to Francis! -it is true
I took his coin, was tempted and complied,
## p. 2571 (#131) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2571
And built this house and sinned, and all is said.
My father and my mother died of want.
Well, had I riches of my own ? you see
How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died;
And I have labored somewhat in my time
And not been paid profusely. Some good son
Paint my two hundred pictures - let him try!
No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes,
You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.
This must suffice me here. What would one have ?
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance-
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,
Meted on each side by the angel's reed,
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me
To cover the three first without a wife,
While I have mine! So still they overcome
Because there's still Lucrezia,- as I choose.
Again the cousin's whistle! Go, my love.
A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S
GALUPPI, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and
blind:
But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!
O
Have you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings ?
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the
kings,
(rings?
Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with
Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by — what
you call -
Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:
I was never out of gland — it's as if I saw it all.
Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?
Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red, -
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head ?
## p. 2572 (#132) ###########################################
2572
ROBERT BROWNING
Well, and it was graceful of them: they'd break talk off and afford –
She to bite her mask's black velvet, he to finger on his sword,
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord!
What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on
sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions — «Must
we die ? »
Those commiserating sevenths “Life might last! we can but try! ”
“Were you happy? ” “Yes. ” - -“And are you still as happy ? ”
« Yes. And you ? ”-
« Then, more kisses! ” “Did I stop them, when a million seemed so
few ? »
Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!
So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
“Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!
Then they left you for their pleasure; till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well
undone,
Death stepped tacitly, and took them where they never see the sun.
But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,
In you come with your cold music till I creep through every nerve.
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned.
“Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice
earned.
The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a soul can be discerned.
« Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction,- you'll not die, it cannot be !
“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the
crop;
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop ?
“Dust and ashes! So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what's become of all the
gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
## p. 2573 (#133) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2573
CONFESSIONS
WHAT
HAT is he buzzing in my ears?
« Now that I come to die
Do I view the world as a vale of tears ? »
Ah, reverend sir, not I!
What I viewed there once, what I viewed again
Where the physic bottles stand
On the table's edge,- is a suburb lane,
With a wall to my bedside hand.
That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
From a house you could descry
O'er the garden wall: is the curtain blue,
Or green to a healthy eye?
To mine, it serves for the old June weather
Blue above lane and wall;
And that farthest bottle labeled Ether »
Is the house o'ertopping all.
At a terrace, somewhat near the stopper,
There watched for me, one June,
A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
My poor mind's out of tune.
Only, there was a way — you crept
Close by the side, to dodge
Eyes in the house, two eyes except:
They styled their house “The Lodge. ”
What right had a lounger up their lane ?
But by creeping very close,
With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain
And stretch themselves to O's,
Yet never catch her and me together,
As she left the attic there,
By the rim of the bottle labeled “Ether,”
And stole from stair to stair,
And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
We loved, sir - used to meet :
How sad and bad and mad it was—
But then, how it was sweet!
## p. 2574 (#134) ###########################################
2574
ROBERT BROWNING
LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
WHERE
THERE the quiet-colored end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles,
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half asleep
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop-
Was the site once of a city great and gay
(So they say);
Of our country's very capital, its prince,
Ages since,
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
Now,-- the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see;
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to (else they run
Into one).
Where the domed and daring palace shot in spires
Up like fires
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,
Twelve abreast.
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as this summer-time o'erspreads
And imbeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone –
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
Now,- the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
## p. 2575 (#135) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2575
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Through the chinks —
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
And I know — while thus the quiet-colored eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray
Melt away
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
[dumb,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless,
Till I come.
But he looked upon the city every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,- and then,
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force -
Gold, of course.
O heart! O blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns
## p. 2576 (#136) ###########################################
2576
ROBERT BROWNING
For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL
SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE
L
Et us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes,
Each in its tether,
Sleeping safe in the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels:
Clouds overcome it;
No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's
Circling its summit.
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights!
Wait ye the warning ?
Our low life was the level's and the night's:
He's for the morning.
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!
This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.
Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,
Safe from the weather!
He whom we convoy to his grave aloft, -
Singing together,
He was a man born with thy face and throat,
Lyric Apollo!
## p. 2577 (#137) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2577
Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note
Winter would follow ?
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,
Moaned he, “New measures, other feet anon!
My dance is finished” ?
No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain side,
Make for the city! )
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
Over men's pity;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
Bent on escaping:
“What's in the scroll,” quoth he, “thou keepest furled ?
Show me their shaping,
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, -
Give! ) so he gowned him,
Straight got by heart that book to its last page;
Learned, we found him.
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,
Accents uncertain :
« Time to taste life,” another would have said,
«Up with the curtain ! »
This man said rather, “Actual life comes next?
Patience a moment!
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
Still there's the comment.
Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,
Painful or easy!
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
Ay, nor feel queasy. "
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the whole, then execute the parts —,
Fancy the fabric
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!
(Here's the town-gate reached; there's the market-place
Gaping before us. )
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace:
(Hearten our chorus! )
That before living he'd learn how to live -
No end to learning :
V-162
## p. 2578 (#138) ###########################################
2578
ROBERT BROWNING
Earn the means first — God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.
Others mistrust and say, “But time escapes !
Live now or never ! »
He said, “What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever. ”
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head;
Calculus racked him;
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead;
Tussis attacked him.
“Now, master, take a little rest! » -- not he!
(Caution redoubled !
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly! )
Not a whit troubled,
Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.
Oh, if we draw a circle premature,
Heedless of far gain,
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure
Bad is our bargain!
Was it not great ? did not he throw on God
(He loves the burthen)-
God's task to make the heavenly period.
Perfect the earthen ?
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant ?
He would not discount life, as fools do here
Paid by installment.
He ventured neck or nothing - heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:
“Wilt thou trust death or not? ” He answered, “ Yes!
Hence with life's pale lure! ”
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million, ,
Misses an unit.
That, has the world here - should he need the next.
Let the world mind him!
## p. 2579 (#139) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2579
Looking as if she were alive. I call
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife:
While he could stammer
He settled Hoti's business — let it be! -
Properly based Oun -
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,
Dead from the waist down.
Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:
Hail to your purlieus,
All ye highfliers of the feathered race,
Swallows and curlews!
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below
Live, for they can, there:
This man decided not to Live but Know-
Bury this man there?
Here - here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened,
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send!
Lofty designs must close in like effects:
Loftily lying,
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects,
Living and dying.
MY LAST DUCHESS
FERRARA
Hat's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
“Frà Pandolf” by design: for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I),
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
## p. 2580 (#140) ###########################################
2580
ROBERT BROWNING
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrists too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat;” such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart — how shall I say? —too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace,- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,-good! but thanked
Somehow — I know not how- as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech (which I have not) to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark, ” — and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop.
O sir! she smiled, no doubt,
When'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
## p. 2581 (#141) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2581
UP AT A VILLA - DOWN IN THE CITY
H
(As DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY)
AD I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!
Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least !
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.
Well, now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! -
I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.
But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses! Why!
They are stone-faced, white as a curd; there's something to take the
eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry;
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.
What of a villa ? Though winter be over in March by rights,
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the
heights;
You've the brown-plowed land before, where the oxen steam and
wheeze,
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive-trees.
Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once;
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns.
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.
Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash!
In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and
pash
Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not abash,
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort
of sash.
All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,
Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger.
## p. 2582 (#142) ###########################################
2582
ROBERT BROWNING
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle,
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on
the hill.
[chill.
Enough of the seasons,— 1 spare you the months of the fever and
Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin;
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in:
You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.
By and by there's the traveling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws
teeth,
Or the Pulcinella-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
At the post-office such a scene picture — the new play, piping hot!
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.
Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes,
And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of
the Duke's!
Or a sonnet with Aowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and Cicero,
« And moreover” (the sonnet goes rhyming), “the skirts of St. Paul
has reached,
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever
he preached. ”
Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling
and smart,
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her
heart!
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife;
No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life.
But bless you, it's dear -- it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate;
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing
the gate
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still - ah, the pity, the pity!
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and
sandals,
And then penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow
candles;
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention
of scandals:
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife,
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!
## p. 2583 (#143) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2583
IN THREE DAYS
SO
o, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, — but nights are short,-
Then two long hours, and that is morn.
See how I come, unchanged, unworn
Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine,-
Only a touch and we combine!
Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights — at least the nights are short.
As night shows where her one moon is,
A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss,
So, life's night gives my lady birth
And my eyes hold her! What is worth
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?
O loaded curls, release your store
Of warmth and scent, as once before
The tingling hair did, lights and darks
Outbreaking into fairy sparks
When under curl and curl I pried
After the warmth and scent inside,
Through lights and darks how manifold -
The dark inspired, the light controlled!
As early Art embrowned the gold.
What great fear — should one say, « Three days
That change the world might change as well
Your fortune; and if joy delays,
Be happy that no worse befell. ”
What small fear – if another says,
« Three days and one short night beside
May throw no shadow on your ways;
But years must teem with change untried,
With chance not easily defied,
With an end somewhere undescried. ”
No fear! — or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear? I shall see her in three days
And one night,- now the nights are short, —
Then just two hours, and that is morn.
## p. 2584 (#144) ###########################################
2584
ROBERT BROWNING
IN A YEAR
NY
EVER any more,
While I live,
Need I hope to see his face
As before.
Once his love grown chill,
Mine may strive:
Bitterly we re-embrace,
Single still.
Was it something said,
Something done,
Vexed him ? was it touch of hand,
Turn of head?
Strange! that very way
Love begun:
I as little understand
Love's decay.
When I sewed or drew,
I recall
How he looked as if I sung,
Sweetly too.
If I spoke a word,
First of all
Up his cheek the color sprung,
Then he heard.
Sitting by my side,
At my feet,
So he breathed but air I breathed,
Satisfied!
I, too, at love's brim
Touched the sweet:
I would die if death bequeathed
Sweet to him.
“Speak, I love thee best! )
He exclaimed:
Let thy love my own foretell! »
I confessed:
« Clasp my heart on thine
Now unblamed,
Since upon thy soul as well
Hangeth mine! ”
## p. 2585 (#145) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2585
Was it wrong to own,
Being truth?
Why should all the giving prove
His alone ?
I had wealth and ease,
Beauty, youth:
Since my lover gave me love,
I gave these.
That was all I meant,-
To be just,
And the passion I had raised
To content.
Since he chose to change
Gold for dust,
If I gave him what he praised
Was it strange?
Would he loved me yet,
On and on,
While I found some way undreamed-
Paid my debt!
Gave more life and more,
Till all gone,
He should smile — "She never seemed
Mine before.
«What, she felt the while,
Must I think?
Love's so different with us men!
He should smile:
“Dying for my sake -
White and pink!
Can't we touch these bubbles then
But they break ? »
Dear, the pang is brief,
Do thy part,
Have thy pleasure! How perplexed
Grows belief!
Well, this cold clay clod
Was man's heart:
Crumble it, and what comes next?
Is it God?
## p. 2586 (#146) ###########################################
2586
ROBERT BROWNING
EVELYN HOPE
B
EAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed :
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass :
Little has yet been changed, I think;
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew.
And just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told ?
We were fellow inortals, naught beside ?
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few;
Much is to learn, much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
But the time will come,- at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red -
## p. 2587 (#147) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2587
And what would you do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead?
I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me:
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue ? let us see!
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!
My heart seemed full as it could hold;
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So hush,- I will give you this leaf to keep;
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
PROSPICE
F
EAR death ? — to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch-Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
## p. 2588 (#148) ###########################################
2588
ROBERT BROWNING
And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!
THE PATRIOT
AN OLD STORY
I"
T WAS roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.
The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, “Good folk, mere noise repels-
But give me your sun from yonder skies!
They had answered, “And afterward, what else ? »
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
To give it my loving friends to keep!
Naught man could do have I left undone;
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.
There's nobody on the housetops now —
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.
I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fing, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.
Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
«Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
Me? ” -- God might question; now instead,
'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.
## p. 2589 (#149) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2589
ONE WORD MORE
To E. B. B.
London, September, 1855
HERE they are, my fifty men and women,
T'kaming me the fifty y puerns einished
Take them, Love, the book and me together:
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.
Raphael made a century of sonnets,
Made and wrote them in a certain volume
Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil
Else he only used to draw Madonnas:
These, the world might view — but one, the volume.
Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.
Did she live and love it all her lifetime?
Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets,
Die and let it drop beside her pillow,
Where it lay in place of Raphael's glory,
Raphael's cheek so duteous and so loving -
Cheek the world was wont to hail a painter's,
Raphael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's ?
You and I would rather read that volume
(Taken to his beating bosom by it),
Lean and list the bosom-beats of Raphael,
Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas
Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno,
Her, that visits Florence in a vision,
Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre –
Seen by us and all the world in circle.
You and I will never read that volume.
Guido Reni like his own eye's apple
Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it.
Guido Reni dying, all Bologna
Cried, and the world cried too, “Ours the treasure ! »
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
Dante once prepared to paint an angel:
Whom to please ? You whisper “Beatrice. ”
While he mused and traced it and retraced it,
(Peradventure with a pen corroded
Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for
When, his left hand i' the hair o' the wicked,
Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma,
## p. 2590 (#150) ###########################################
2590
ROBERT BROWNING
Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment,
Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle,
Let the wretch go festering through Florence) -
Dante, who loved well because he hated,
Hated wickedness that hinders loving,
Dante standing, studying his angel-
In there broke the folk of his Inferno.
Says he - "Certain people of importance
(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to)
«Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet. ”
Says the poet - «Then I stopped my painting. ”
You and I would rather see that angel
Painted by the tenderness of Dante -
Would we not ?
I might have done it for you.
So it seems:
Perhaps not. All is as God overrules.
Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;
The rest avail not. Why do I need you?
What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo ?
In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power-
And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,
God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.
'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,
That I am something underrated here,
Poor this long while, - despised, to speak the truth.
I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,
For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.
The best is when they pass and look aside;
But they speak sometimes: I must bear it all.
Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,
And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!
I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,
Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear,
In that humane great monarch's golden look, -
One finger in his beard or twisted curl
Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile,
One arm about my shoulder, around my neck,
The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,
I painting proudly with his breath on me,
All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,
Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls
Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, —
.
C
## p. 2569 (#129) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
क f
2569
And best of all, this, this, this face beyond,
This in the background, waiting on my work,
To crown the issue with a last reward!
A good time, was it not, my kingly days,
And had you not grown restless
but I know-
'Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said;
Too live the life grew, golden and not gray;
And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt
Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.
How could it end in any other way?
You called me, and I came home to your heart.
The triumph was to have ended there; then, if
I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost ?
Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold,
You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!
“Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;
The Roman's is the better when you pray,
But still the other Virgin was his wife ».
Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge
Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows
My better fortune, I resolve to think.
For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,
Said one day Agnolo, his very self,
To Rafael - I have known it all these years -
(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts
Upon a palace wall for Rome to see,
Too lifted up in heart because of it)
«Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub
Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,
Who, were he set to plan and execute
As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,
Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!
To Rafael's ! -- and indeed the arm is wrong.
I hardly dare
yet, only you to see,
Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line should go!
Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
(What he ? why, who but Michel Agnolo ?
Do you forget already words like those ? )
If really there was such a chance so lost, —
Is, whether you're - not grateful — but more pleased.
Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
This hour has been an hour! Another smile?
If you would sit thus by me every night,
Elle
## p. 2570 (#130) ###########################################
2570
ROBERT BROWNING
I should work better - do you comprehend ?
I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
See, it is settled dusk now: there's a star;
Morello's gone, the watch lights show the wall,
The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
Come from the window, love, - come in, at last,
Inside the melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with. God is just.
King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
The walls become illumined, brick from brick
Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
That gold of his I did cement them with!
Let us but love each other. Must you go?
That cousin here again ? he waits outside ?
Must see you - you, and not with me? Those loans ?
More gaming debts to pay ? you smiled for that?
Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend ?
While hand and eye and something of a heart
Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?
I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
The gray remainder of the evening out,
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
How I could paint were I but back in France,
One picture, just one more — the Virgin's face,
Not yours this time! I want you at my side
To hear them — that is, Michel Agnolo —
Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
Will you ? To-morrow satisfy your friend.
I take the subjects for his corridor,
Finish the portrait out of hand - there, there,
And throw him in another thing or two
If he demurs: the whole should prove enough
To pay for this same cousin's freak. Beside,
What's better, and what's all I care about,
Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!
Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,
The cousin! what does he to please you more ?
I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.
I regret little, I would change still less,
Since there my past life lies, why alter it ?
The very wrong to Francis! -it is true
I took his coin, was tempted and complied,
## p. 2571 (#131) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2571
And built this house and sinned, and all is said.
My father and my mother died of want.
Well, had I riches of my own ? you see
How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died;
And I have labored somewhat in my time
And not been paid profusely. Some good son
Paint my two hundred pictures - let him try!
No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes,
You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.
This must suffice me here. What would one have ?
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance-
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,
Meted on each side by the angel's reed,
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me
To cover the three first without a wife,
While I have mine! So still they overcome
Because there's still Lucrezia,- as I choose.
Again the cousin's whistle! Go, my love.
A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S
GALUPPI, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and
blind:
But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!
O
Have you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings ?
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the
kings,
(rings?
Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with
Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by — what
you call -
Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:
I was never out of gland — it's as if I saw it all.
Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?
Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red, -
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head ?
## p. 2572 (#132) ###########################################
2572
ROBERT BROWNING
Well, and it was graceful of them: they'd break talk off and afford –
She to bite her mask's black velvet, he to finger on his sword,
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord!
What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on
sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions — «Must
we die ? »
Those commiserating sevenths “Life might last! we can but try! ”
“Were you happy? ” “Yes. ” - -“And are you still as happy ? ”
« Yes. And you ? ”-
« Then, more kisses! ” “Did I stop them, when a million seemed so
few ? »
Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!
So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
“Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!
Then they left you for their pleasure; till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well
undone,
Death stepped tacitly, and took them where they never see the sun.
But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,
In you come with your cold music till I creep through every nerve.
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned.
“Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice
earned.
The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a soul can be discerned.
« Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction,- you'll not die, it cannot be !
“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the
crop;
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop ?
“Dust and ashes! So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what's become of all the
gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
## p. 2573 (#133) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2573
CONFESSIONS
WHAT
HAT is he buzzing in my ears?
« Now that I come to die
Do I view the world as a vale of tears ? »
Ah, reverend sir, not I!
What I viewed there once, what I viewed again
Where the physic bottles stand
On the table's edge,- is a suburb lane,
With a wall to my bedside hand.
That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
From a house you could descry
O'er the garden wall: is the curtain blue,
Or green to a healthy eye?
To mine, it serves for the old June weather
Blue above lane and wall;
And that farthest bottle labeled Ether »
Is the house o'ertopping all.
At a terrace, somewhat near the stopper,
There watched for me, one June,
A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
My poor mind's out of tune.
Only, there was a way — you crept
Close by the side, to dodge
Eyes in the house, two eyes except:
They styled their house “The Lodge. ”
What right had a lounger up their lane ?
But by creeping very close,
With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain
And stretch themselves to O's,
Yet never catch her and me together,
As she left the attic there,
By the rim of the bottle labeled “Ether,”
And stole from stair to stair,
And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
We loved, sir - used to meet :
How sad and bad and mad it was—
But then, how it was sweet!
## p. 2574 (#134) ###########################################
2574
ROBERT BROWNING
LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
WHERE
THERE the quiet-colored end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles,
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half asleep
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop-
Was the site once of a city great and gay
(So they say);
Of our country's very capital, its prince,
Ages since,
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
Now,-- the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see;
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to (else they run
Into one).
Where the domed and daring palace shot in spires
Up like fires
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,
Twelve abreast.
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as this summer-time o'erspreads
And imbeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone –
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
Now,- the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
## p. 2575 (#135) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2575
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Through the chinks —
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
And I know — while thus the quiet-colored eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray
Melt away
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
[dumb,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless,
Till I come.
But he looked upon the city every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,- and then,
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force -
Gold, of course.
O heart! O blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns
## p. 2576 (#136) ###########################################
2576
ROBERT BROWNING
For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL
SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE
L
Et us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes,
Each in its tether,
Sleeping safe in the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels:
Clouds overcome it;
No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's
Circling its summit.
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights!
Wait ye the warning ?
Our low life was the level's and the night's:
He's for the morning.
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!
This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.
Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,
Safe from the weather!
He whom we convoy to his grave aloft, -
Singing together,
He was a man born with thy face and throat,
Lyric Apollo!
## p. 2577 (#137) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2577
Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note
Winter would follow ?
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,
Moaned he, “New measures, other feet anon!
My dance is finished” ?
No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain side,
Make for the city! )
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
Over men's pity;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
Bent on escaping:
“What's in the scroll,” quoth he, “thou keepest furled ?
Show me their shaping,
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, -
Give! ) so he gowned him,
Straight got by heart that book to its last page;
Learned, we found him.
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,
Accents uncertain :
« Time to taste life,” another would have said,
«Up with the curtain ! »
This man said rather, “Actual life comes next?
Patience a moment!
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
Still there's the comment.
Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,
Painful or easy!
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
Ay, nor feel queasy. "
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the whole, then execute the parts —,
Fancy the fabric
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!
(Here's the town-gate reached; there's the market-place
Gaping before us. )
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace:
(Hearten our chorus! )
That before living he'd learn how to live -
No end to learning :
V-162
## p. 2578 (#138) ###########################################
2578
ROBERT BROWNING
Earn the means first — God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.
Others mistrust and say, “But time escapes !
Live now or never ! »
He said, “What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever. ”
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head;
Calculus racked him;
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead;
Tussis attacked him.
“Now, master, take a little rest! » -- not he!
(Caution redoubled !
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly! )
Not a whit troubled,
Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.
Oh, if we draw a circle premature,
Heedless of far gain,
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure
Bad is our bargain!
Was it not great ? did not he throw on God
(He loves the burthen)-
God's task to make the heavenly period.
Perfect the earthen ?
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant ?
He would not discount life, as fools do here
Paid by installment.
He ventured neck or nothing - heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:
“Wilt thou trust death or not? ” He answered, “ Yes!
Hence with life's pale lure! ”
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million, ,
Misses an unit.
That, has the world here - should he need the next.
Let the world mind him!
## p. 2579 (#139) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2579
Looking as if she were alive. I call
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife:
While he could stammer
He settled Hoti's business — let it be! -
Properly based Oun -
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,
Dead from the waist down.
Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:
Hail to your purlieus,
All ye highfliers of the feathered race,
Swallows and curlews!
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below
Live, for they can, there:
This man decided not to Live but Know-
Bury this man there?
Here - here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened,
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send!
Lofty designs must close in like effects:
Loftily lying,
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects,
Living and dying.
MY LAST DUCHESS
FERRARA
Hat's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
“Frà Pandolf” by design: for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I),
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
## p. 2580 (#140) ###########################################
2580
ROBERT BROWNING
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrists too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat;” such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart — how shall I say? —too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace,- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,-good! but thanked
Somehow — I know not how- as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech (which I have not) to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark, ” — and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop.
O sir! she smiled, no doubt,
When'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
## p. 2581 (#141) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2581
UP AT A VILLA - DOWN IN THE CITY
H
(As DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY)
AD I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!
Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least !
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.
Well, now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! -
I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.
But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses! Why!
They are stone-faced, white as a curd; there's something to take the
eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry;
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.
What of a villa ? Though winter be over in March by rights,
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the
heights;
You've the brown-plowed land before, where the oxen steam and
wheeze,
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive-trees.
Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once;
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns.
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.
Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash!
In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and
pash
Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not abash,
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort
of sash.
All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,
Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger.
## p. 2582 (#142) ###########################################
2582
ROBERT BROWNING
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle,
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on
the hill.
[chill.
Enough of the seasons,— 1 spare you the months of the fever and
Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin;
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in:
You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.
By and by there's the traveling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws
teeth,
Or the Pulcinella-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
At the post-office such a scene picture — the new play, piping hot!
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.
Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes,
And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of
the Duke's!
Or a sonnet with Aowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and Cicero,
« And moreover” (the sonnet goes rhyming), “the skirts of St. Paul
has reached,
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever
he preached. ”
Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling
and smart,
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her
heart!
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife;
No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life.
But bless you, it's dear -- it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate;
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing
the gate
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still - ah, the pity, the pity!
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and
sandals,
And then penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow
candles;
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention
of scandals:
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife,
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!
## p. 2583 (#143) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2583
IN THREE DAYS
SO
o, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, — but nights are short,-
Then two long hours, and that is morn.
See how I come, unchanged, unworn
Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine,-
Only a touch and we combine!
Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights — at least the nights are short.
As night shows where her one moon is,
A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss,
So, life's night gives my lady birth
And my eyes hold her! What is worth
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?
O loaded curls, release your store
Of warmth and scent, as once before
The tingling hair did, lights and darks
Outbreaking into fairy sparks
When under curl and curl I pried
After the warmth and scent inside,
Through lights and darks how manifold -
The dark inspired, the light controlled!
As early Art embrowned the gold.
What great fear — should one say, « Three days
That change the world might change as well
Your fortune; and if joy delays,
Be happy that no worse befell. ”
What small fear – if another says,
« Three days and one short night beside
May throw no shadow on your ways;
But years must teem with change untried,
With chance not easily defied,
With an end somewhere undescried. ”
No fear! — or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear? I shall see her in three days
And one night,- now the nights are short, —
Then just two hours, and that is morn.
## p. 2584 (#144) ###########################################
2584
ROBERT BROWNING
IN A YEAR
NY
EVER any more,
While I live,
Need I hope to see his face
As before.
Once his love grown chill,
Mine may strive:
Bitterly we re-embrace,
Single still.
Was it something said,
Something done,
Vexed him ? was it touch of hand,
Turn of head?
Strange! that very way
Love begun:
I as little understand
Love's decay.
When I sewed or drew,
I recall
How he looked as if I sung,
Sweetly too.
If I spoke a word,
First of all
Up his cheek the color sprung,
Then he heard.
Sitting by my side,
At my feet,
So he breathed but air I breathed,
Satisfied!
I, too, at love's brim
Touched the sweet:
I would die if death bequeathed
Sweet to him.
“Speak, I love thee best! )
He exclaimed:
Let thy love my own foretell! »
I confessed:
« Clasp my heart on thine
Now unblamed,
Since upon thy soul as well
Hangeth mine! ”
## p. 2585 (#145) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2585
Was it wrong to own,
Being truth?
Why should all the giving prove
His alone ?
I had wealth and ease,
Beauty, youth:
Since my lover gave me love,
I gave these.
That was all I meant,-
To be just,
And the passion I had raised
To content.
Since he chose to change
Gold for dust,
If I gave him what he praised
Was it strange?
Would he loved me yet,
On and on,
While I found some way undreamed-
Paid my debt!
Gave more life and more,
Till all gone,
He should smile — "She never seemed
Mine before.
«What, she felt the while,
Must I think?
Love's so different with us men!
He should smile:
“Dying for my sake -
White and pink!
Can't we touch these bubbles then
But they break ? »
Dear, the pang is brief,
Do thy part,
Have thy pleasure! How perplexed
Grows belief!
Well, this cold clay clod
Was man's heart:
Crumble it, and what comes next?
Is it God?
## p. 2586 (#146) ###########################################
2586
ROBERT BROWNING
EVELYN HOPE
B
EAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed :
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass :
Little has yet been changed, I think;
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew.
And just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told ?
We were fellow inortals, naught beside ?
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few;
Much is to learn, much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
But the time will come,- at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red -
## p. 2587 (#147) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2587
And what would you do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead?
I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me:
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue ? let us see!
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!
My heart seemed full as it could hold;
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So hush,- I will give you this leaf to keep;
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
PROSPICE
F
EAR death ? — to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch-Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
## p. 2588 (#148) ###########################################
2588
ROBERT BROWNING
And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!
THE PATRIOT
AN OLD STORY
I"
T WAS roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.
The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, “Good folk, mere noise repels-
But give me your sun from yonder skies!
They had answered, “And afterward, what else ? »
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
To give it my loving friends to keep!
Naught man could do have I left undone;
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.
There's nobody on the housetops now —
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.
I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fing, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.
Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
«Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
Me? ” -- God might question; now instead,
'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.
## p. 2589 (#149) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2589
ONE WORD MORE
To E. B. B.
London, September, 1855
HERE they are, my fifty men and women,
T'kaming me the fifty y puerns einished
Take them, Love, the book and me together:
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.
Raphael made a century of sonnets,
Made and wrote them in a certain volume
Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil
Else he only used to draw Madonnas:
These, the world might view — but one, the volume.
Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.
Did she live and love it all her lifetime?
Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets,
Die and let it drop beside her pillow,
Where it lay in place of Raphael's glory,
Raphael's cheek so duteous and so loving -
Cheek the world was wont to hail a painter's,
Raphael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's ?
You and I would rather read that volume
(Taken to his beating bosom by it),
Lean and list the bosom-beats of Raphael,
Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas
Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno,
Her, that visits Florence in a vision,
Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre –
Seen by us and all the world in circle.
You and I will never read that volume.
Guido Reni like his own eye's apple
Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it.
Guido Reni dying, all Bologna
Cried, and the world cried too, “Ours the treasure ! »
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
Dante once prepared to paint an angel:
Whom to please ? You whisper “Beatrice. ”
While he mused and traced it and retraced it,
(Peradventure with a pen corroded
Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for
When, his left hand i' the hair o' the wicked,
Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma,
## p. 2590 (#150) ###########################################
2590
ROBERT BROWNING
Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment,
Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle,
Let the wretch go festering through Florence) -
Dante, who loved well because he hated,
Hated wickedness that hinders loving,
Dante standing, studying his angel-
In there broke the folk of his Inferno.
Says he - "Certain people of importance
(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to)
«Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet. ”
Says the poet - «Then I stopped my painting. ”
You and I would rather see that angel
Painted by the tenderness of Dante -
Would we not ?
