Selections From The Poems And Plays Of Robert Browning Part 21

Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance, Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat.

Never dares the man put off the prophet.

XI

Did he love one face from out the thousands 100 (Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, Were she but the Ethiopian bondslave), He would envy yon dumb patient camel, Keeping a reserve of scanty water Meant to save his own life in the desert; 105 Ready in the desert to deliver (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) h.o.a.rd and life together for his mistress.

XII

I shall never, in the years remaining, Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, 110 Make you music that should all-express me; So it seems: I stand on my attainment.

This of verse alone, one life allows me; Verse and nothing else have I to give you.

Other heights in other lives, G.o.d willing: 115 All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!

XIII

Yet a semblance of resource avails us-- Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.

Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly, Lines I write the first time and the last time. 120 He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush, Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly, Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, Makes a strange art of an art familiar, Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets. 125 He who blows through bronze may breathe through silver, Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess.

He who writes may write for once as I do.

XIV

Love, you saw me gather men and women, Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy, 130 Enter each and all, and use their service.

Speak from every mouth--the speech, a poem.

Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving: I am mine and yours--the rest be all men's, 135 Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty.

Let me speak this once in my true person, Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea, Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence: Pray you, look on these my men and women, 140 Take and keep my fifty poems finished; Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!

Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.

XV

Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!

Here in London, yonder late in Florence, 145 Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.

Curving on a sky imbrued with color, Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.

Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, 150 Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, Perfect till the nightingales applauded.

Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished, Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs, Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, 155 Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.

XVI

What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?

Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), 160 She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman-- Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats--him, even! 165 Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal-- When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better!

Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the ship it founders, 170 Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals?

Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain?

Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu Climbed and saw the very G.o.d, the Highest, 175 Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.

Like the bodied heaven in his clearness Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, When they ate and drank and saw G.o.d also!

XVII

What were seen? None knows, none ever shall know. 180 Only this is sure--the sight were other, Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, Dying now impoverished here in London.

G.o.d be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 185 One to show a woman when he loves her!

XVIII

This I say of me, but think of you, Love!

This to you--yourself my moon of poets!

Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder, Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you! 190 There, in turn I stand with them and praise you-- Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.

But the best is when I glide from out them, Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, Come out on the other side, the novel 195 Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, Where I hush and bless myself with silence.

XIX

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one song--and in my brain I sing it, 200 Drew one angel--borne, see, on my bosom.

ABT VOGLER

(AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION)

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly--alien of end and of aim, 5 Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, h.e.l.l-deep removed-- Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to 10 raise!

Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!

And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to h.e.l.l, Burrow awhile and build broad on the roots of things, Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace 15 well, Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.

And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, Aye, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as gla.s.s, Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest: 20 For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, When a great illumination surprises a festal night-- Outlining round and round Rome's dome from s.p.a.ce to spire) Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.

In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match 25 man's birth, Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I; And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my pa.s.sion, to scale the sky: Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering 30 star; Meteor-moons, b.a.l.l.s of blaze; and they did not pale nor pine, For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.

Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow, Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast, Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, 35 Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last; Or else the wonderful Dead who have pa.s.sed through the body and gone, But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new: What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon; And what is--shall I say, matched both? for I was made 40 perfect, too.

All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul, All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth, All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole, Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth: Had I written the same, made verse--still, effect proceeds 45 from cause, Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told; It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:

But here is the finger of G.o.d, a flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are! 50 And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.

Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is naught; It is everywhere in the world--loud, soft, and all is said: Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought: 55 And there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared; Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow; For one is a.s.sured at first, one scarce can say that he feared, That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go. 60 Never to be again! But many more of the kind As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me?

To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind To the same, same self, same love, same G.o.d: aye, what was, shall be.

Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name? 65 Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands!

What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same?

Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands?