Read Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Robert Browning
Say, is it nothing that I know them all?
The wild flower was the larger; I have dashed
Rose-blood upon its petals, pricked its cup’s
Honey with wine, and driven its seed to fruit,
[150] And show a better flower if not so large:
I stand myself. Refer this to the gods
Whose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare
(All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext
That such a gift by chance lay in my hand,
Discourse of lightly or depreciate?
It might have fallen to another’s hand: what then?
I pass too surely: let at least truth stay!
And next, of what thou followest on to ask.
This being with me as I declare, O king,
[160] My works, in all these varicoloured kinds,
So done by me, accepted so by men –
Thou askest, if (my soul thus in men’s hearts)
I must not be accounted to attain
The very crown and proper end of life?
Inquiring thence how, now life closeth up,
I face death with success in my right hand:
Whether I fear death less than dost thyself
The fortunate of men? ‘For’ (writest thou)
‘Thou leavest much behind, while I leave naught.
[170] Thy life stays in the poems men shall sing,
The pictures men shall study; while my life,
Complete and whole now in its power and joy,
Dies altogether with my brain and arm,
Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself?
The brazen statue to o’erlook my grave,
Set on the promontory which I named.
And that – some supple courtier of my heir
Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps,
To fix the rope to, which best drags it down.
[180] I go then: triumph thou, who dost not go!’
Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole mind.
Is this apparent, when thou turn’st to muse
Upon the scheme of earth and man in chief,
That admiration grows as knowledge grows?
That imperfection means perfection hid,
Reserved in part, to grace the after-time?
If, in the morning of philosophy,
Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived,
Thou, with the light now in thee, couldst have looked
[190] On all earth’s tenantry, from worm to bird,
Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage –
Thou wouldst have seen them perfect, and deduced
The perfectness of others yet unseen.
Conceding which, – had Zeus then questioned thee
‘Shall I go on a step, improve on this,
Do more for visible creatures than is done?’
Thou wouldst have answered, ‘Ay, by making each
Grow conscious in himself – by that alone.
All’s perfect else: the shell sucks fast the rock,
[200] The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both swims
And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight,
Till life’s mechanics can no further go –
And all this joy in natural life is put
Like fire from off thy finger into each,
So exquisitely perfect is the same.
But ’tis pure fire, and they mere matter are;
It has them, not they it: and so I choose
For man, thy last premeditated work
(If I might add a glory to the scheme)
[210] That a third thing should stand apart from both,
A quality arise within his soul,
Which, intro-active, made to supervise
And feel the force it has, may view itself,
And so be happy.’ Man might live at first
The animal life: but is there nothing more?
In due time, let him critically learn
How he lives; and, the more he gets to know
Of his own life’s adaptabilities,
The more joy-giving will his life become.
[220] Thus man, who hath this quality, is best.
But thou, king, hadst more reasonably said:
‘Let progress end at once, – man make no step
Beyond the natural man, the better beast,
Using his senses, not the sense of sense.’
In man there’s failure, only since he left
The lower and inconscious forms of life.
We called it an advance, the rendering plain
Man’s spirit might grow conscious of man’s life,
And, by new lore so added to the old,
[230] Take each step higher over the brute’s head.
This grew the only life, the pleasure-house,
Watch-tower and treasure-fortress of the soul,
Which whole surrounding flats of natural life
Seemed only fit to yield subsistence to;
A tower that crowns a country. But alas,
The soul now climbs it just to perish there!
For thence we have discovered (’tis no dream –
We know this, which we had not else perceived)
That there’s a world of capability
[240] For joy, spread round about us, meant for us,
Inviting us; and still the soul craves all,
And still the flesh replies, ‘Take no jot more
Than ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad!
Nay, so much less as that fatigue has brought
Deduction to it.’ We struggle, fain to enlarge
Our bounded physical recipiency,
Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,
Repair the waste of age and sickness: no,
It skills not! life’s inadequate to joy,
[250] As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take.
They praise a fountain in my garden here
Wherein a Naiad sends the water-bow
Thin from her tube; she smiles to see it rise.
What if I told her, it is just a thread
From that great river which the hills shut up,
And mock her with my leave to take the same?
The artificer has given her one small tube
Past power to widen or exchange – what boots
To know she might spout oceans if she could?
[260] She cannot lift beyond her first thin thread:
And so a man can use but a man’s joy
While he sees God’s. Is it for Zeus to boast,
‘See, man, how happy I live, and despair –
That I may be still happier – for thy use!’
If this were so, we could not thank our lord,
As hearts beat on to doing; ’tis not so –
Malice it is not. Is it carelessness?
Still, no. If care – where is the sign? I ask,
And get no answer, and agree in sum,
[270] O king, with thy profound discouragement,
Who seest the wider but to sigh the more.
Most progress is most failure: thou sayest well.
The last point now: – thou dost except a case –
Holding joy not impossible to one
With artist-gifts – to such a man as I
Who leave behind me living works indeed;
For, such a poem, such a painting lives.
What? dost thou verily trip upon a word,
Confound the accurate view of what joy is
[280] (Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than thine)
With feeling joy? confound the knowing how
And showing how to live (my faculty)
With actually living? – Otherwise
Where is the artist’s vantage o’er the king?
Because in my great epos I display
How divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can act –
Is this as though I acted? if I paint,
Carve the young Phoebus, am I therefore young?
Methinks I’m older that I bowed myself
[290]
The many years of pain that taught me art!
Indeed, to know is something, and to prove
How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more:
But, knowing naught, to enjoy is something too.
Yon rower, with the moulded muscles there,
Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I.
I can write love-odes: thy fair slave’s an ode.
I get to sing of love, when grown too grey
For being beloved: she turns to that young man,
The muscles all a-ripple on his back.
[300] I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king!
‘But,’ sayest thou – (and I marvel, I repeat
To find thee trip on such a mere word) ‘what
Thou writest, paintest, stays; that does not die:
Sappho survives, because we sing her songs,
And Aeschylus, because we read his plays!’
Why, if they live still, let them come and take
Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup,
Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive?
Say rather that my fate is deadlier still,
[310] In this, that every day my sense of joy
Grows more acute, my soul (intensified
By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen;
While every day my hairs fall more and more,
My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase –
The horror quickening still from year to year,
The consummation coming past escape
When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy –
When all my works wherein I prove my worth,
Being present still to mock me in men’s mouths,
[320] Alive still, in the praise of such as thou,
I, I the feeling, thinking, acting man,
The man who loved his life so over-much,
Sleep in my urn. It is so horrible,
I dare at times imagine to my need
Some future state revealed to us by Zeus,
Unlimited in capability
For joy, as this is in desire for joy,
– To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us:
That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait
[330] On purpose to make prized the life at large –
Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death,
We burst there as the worm into the fly,
Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no!
Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas,
He must have done so, were it possible!
Live long and happy, and in that thought die:
Glad for what was! Farewell. And for the rest,
I cannot tell thy messenger aright
Where to deliver what he bears of thine
[340] To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame
Indeed, if Christus be not one with him –
I know not, nor am troubled much to know.
Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew,
As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised,
Hath access to a secret shut from us?
Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king,
In stooping to inquire of such an one,
As if his answer could impose at all!
He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write.
[350] Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves
Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ;
And (as I gathered from a bystander)
Their doctrine could be held by no sane man.
Two in the Campagna
I
I wonder do you feel today
As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?
II
For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
[10] To catch at and let go.
III
Help me to hold it! First it left
The yellowing fennel, run to seed
There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft,
Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder weed
Took up the floating weft,
IV
Where one small orange cup amassed
Five beetles, – blind and green they grope
Among the honey-meal: and last,
Everywhere on the grassy slope
[20] I traced it. Hold it fast!
V
The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air –
Rome’s ghost since her decease.
VI
Such life here, through such lengths of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,
Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting nature have her way
[30] While heaven looks from its towers!
VII
How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control
To love or not to love?
VIII
I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
[40] O’ the wound, since wound must be?
IX
I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill
At your soul’s springs, – your part my part
In life, for good and ill.
X
No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,
Catch your soul’s warmth, – I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak –
[50] Then the good minute goes.
XI
Already how am I so far
Out of that minute? Must I go
Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,
Onward, whenever light winds blow,
Fixed by no friendly star?
XII
Just when I seemed about to learn!
Where is the thread now? Off again!
The old trick! Only I discern –
Infinite passion, and the pain
[60] Of finite hearts that yearn.
A Grammarian’s Funeral