Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (260 page)

You’ll Love Me Yet

Robert Browning (1812–1889)

YOU’LL love me yet! — and I can tarry
 
Your love’s protracted growing:
June rear’d that bunch of flowers you carry,
 
From seeds of April’s sowing.

I plant a heartful now: some seed
  
5
 
At least is sure to strike,
And yield — what you’ll not pluck indeed,
 
Not love, but, may be, like.

You’ll look at least on love’s remains,
 
A grave’s one violet:
  
10
Your look? — that pays a thousand pains.
 
What’s death? You’ll love me yet!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

My Last Duchess

Ferrara

Robert Browning (1812–1889)

THAT’S my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
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
  
5
“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)
  
10
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
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
  
15
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist 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
  
20
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,
  
25
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,
  
30
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
  
35
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
  
40
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
 
— E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
  
45
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 pretence
  
50
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,
  
55
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church

Rome, 15 —

Robert Browning (1812–1889)

VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews — sons mine … ah God, I know not! Well —
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
  
5
What’s done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
  
10
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
“Do I live, am I dead?” Peace, peace seems all.
Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
  
15
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
 
— Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
  
20
One sees the pulpit o’ the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the very dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam’s sure to lurk:
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
  
25
And ‘neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh poured red wine of a mighty pulse
  
30
 
— Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
Draw close: that conflagration of my church
 
— What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
  
35
My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
Drop water gently till the surface sink,
And if ye find … Ah God, I know not, I! …
Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
  
40
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of
lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew’s head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o’er the Madonna’s breast
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
  
45
That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father’s globe on both his hands
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
  
50
Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black —
’Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
  
55
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me.
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
  
60
Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,
And Moses with the tables … but I know
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
To revel down my villas while I gasp
  
65
Bricked o’er with beggar’s mouldy travertine
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
Nay, boys, ye love me — all of jasper, then!
’Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.
My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
  
70
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There’s plenty jasper somewhere in the world —
And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
  
75
 
— That’s if ye carve my epitaph aright,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully’s every word,
No gaudy ware like Gandolf’s second line —
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
  
80
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
  
85
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s work:
  
90
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
  
95
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
And marble’s language, Latin pure, discreet,
 
— Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
  
100
Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
All
lapis,
all, sons! Else I give the Pope
My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
Ever your eyes were as a lizard’s quick,
They glitter like your mother’s for my soul,
  
105
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
With grapes, and add a visor and a Term,
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
  
110
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
“Do I live, am I dead?” There, leave me, there!
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
To death — ye wish it — God, ye wish it! Stone —
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Gritstone, a crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through —
And no more
lapis
to delight the world!
Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
  
120
 
— Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers —
Old Gandolf — at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!
  
125

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Evelyn Hope

Robert Browning (1812–1889)

BEAUTIFUL 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;
  
5
 
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;
  
10
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, —
15
 
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 —
20
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 mortals, naught beside?

No, indeed! for God above
  
25
 
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:
  
30
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,
  
35
 
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 —
And what you would do with me, in fine,
 
In the new life come in the old life’s stead.
  
40

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,
  
45
 
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;
  
50
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!
  
55
 
You will wake, and remember, and understand.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order