An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 25

Ten lines, a statesman's life in each!

The flag stuck on a heap of bones, A soldier's doing! what atones?

They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.

My riding is better, by their leave.

7.

What does it all mean, poet? Well, Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell What we felt only; you expressed You hold things beautiful the best, And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.

'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then, Have you yourself what's best for men?

Are you--poor, sick, old ere your time-- Nearer one whit your own sublime Than we who have never turned a rhyme?

Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.

8.

And you, great sculptor--so, you gave A score of years to Art, her slave, And that's your Venus, whence we turn To yonder girl that fords the burn!

You acquiesce, and shall I repine?

What, man of music, you grown gray With notes and nothing else to say, Is this your sole praise from a friend, "Greatly his opera's strains intend, But in music we know how fashions end!"

I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine.

9.

Who knows what's fit for us? Had fate Proposed bliss here should sublimate My being--had I signed the bond-- Still one must lead some life beyond, Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried.

This foot once planted on the goal, This glory-garland round my soul, Could I descry such? Try and test!

I sink back shuddering from the quest.

Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?

Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.

10.

And yet--she has not spoke so long!

What if heaven be that, fair and strong At life's best, with our eyes upturned Whither life's flower is first discerned, We, fixed so, ever should so abide?

What if we still ride on, we two, With life forever old yet new, Changed not in kind but in degree, The instant made eternity,-- And heaven just prove that I and she Ride, ride together, forever ride?

By the Fireside.

1.

How well I know what I mean to do When the long dark autumn evenings come; And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?

With the music of all thy voices, dumb In life's November too!

-- St. 1, v. 3. is: present used for the future, shall then be.

2.

I shall be found by the fire, suppose, O'er a great wise book, as beseemeth age; While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows, And I turn the page, and I turn the page, Not verse now, only prose!

-- St. 2. Not verse now, only prose: he shall have reached the "years which bring the philosophic mind".

3.

Till the young ones whisper, finger on lip, "There he is at it, deep in Greek: Now then, or never, out we slip To cut from the hazels by the creek A mainmast for our ship!"

4.

I shall be at it indeed, my friends!

Greek puts already on either side Such a branch-work forth as soon extends To a vista opening far and wide, And I pa.s.s out where it ends.

-- St. 4. Greek puts already such a branch-work forth as will soon extend to a vista opening far and wide, and he will pa.s.s out where it ends and retrace the paths he has trod through life's pleasant wood.

5.

The outside frame, like your hazel-trees-- But the inside-archway widens fast, And a rarer sort succeeds to these, And we slope to Italy at last And youth, by green degrees.

6.

I follow wherever I am led, Knowing so well the leader's hand: Oh woman-country, wooed not wed, Loved all the more by earth's male-lands, Laid to their hearts instead!

-- St. 5, 6. He will pa.s.s first through his childhood, in England, represented by the hazels, and on, by green degrees, to youth and Italy, where, knowing so well the leader's hand, and a.s.sured as to whither she will conduct him, he will follow wherever he is led.

7.

Look at the ruined chapel again Half-way up in the Alpine gorge!

Is that a tower, I point you plain, Or is it a mill, or an iron forge Breaks solitude in vain?

-- St. 7. Look: to be construed with "follow".

8.

A turn, and we stand in the heart of things; The woods are round us, heaped and dim; From slab to slab how it slips and springs, The thread of water single and slim, Through the ravage some torrent brings!

9.

Does it feed the little lake below?