Selections From The Poems And Plays Of Robert Browning Part 34

_6th Student._ Both of them! Heaven's love, speak softly, speak within yourselves! 135

_5th Student._ Look at the bridegroom! Half his hair in storm and half in calm--patted down over the left temple--like a frothy cup one blows on to cool it! and the same old blouse that he murders the marble in!

_2nd Student._ Not a rich vest like yours, Hannibal 140 Scratchy!--rich, that your face may the better set it off.

_6th Student._ And the bride! Yes, sure enough, our Phene! Should you have known her in her clothes?

How magnificently pale!

_Gottlieb._ She does not also take it for earnest, I 145 hope?

_1st Student._ Oh, Natalia's concern, that is! We settle with Natalia.

_6th Student._ She does not speak--has evidently let out no word. The only thing is, will she equally remember 150 the rest of her lesson, and repeat correctly all those verses which are to break the secret to Jules?

_Gottlieb._ How he gazes on her! Pity--pity!

_1st Student._ They go in; now, silence! You three--not nearer the window, mind, than that pomegranate--just 155 where the little girl, who a few minutes ago pa.s.sed us singing, is seated!

II.--NOON

SCENE--_Over Orcana. The house of_ JULES, _who crosses its threshold with_ PHENE: _she is silent, on which_ JULES _begins--_

Do not die, Phene! I am yours now, you Are mine now; let fate reach me how she likes, If you'll not die: so, never die! Sit here-- My workroom's single seat. I over-lean This length of hair and l.u.s.trous front; they turn 5 Like an entire flower upward: eyes, lips, last Your chin--no, last your throat turns: 'tis their scent Pulls down my face upon you. Nay, look ever This one way till I change, grow you--I could Change into you, beloved!

You by me, 10 And I by you; this is your hand in mine, And side by side we sit: all's true. Thank G.o.d!

I have spoken: speak you!

O my life to come!

My Tydeus must be carved that's there in clay; Yet how be carved, with you about the room? 15 Where must I place you? When I think that once This roomfull of rough block-work seemed my heaven Without you! Shall I ever work again, Get fairly into my old ways again, Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait, 20 My hand transfers its lineaments to stone?

Will my mere fancies live near you, their truth-- The live truth, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing me, Sitting beside me?

Now speak!

Only first, See, all your letters! Was't not well contrived? 25 Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe; she keeps Your letters next her skin: which drops out foremost?

Ah--this that swam down like a first moonbeam Into my world!

Again those eyes complete Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow, 30 Of beauty--to the human archetype.

On me, with pity, yet some wonder too: As if G.o.d bade some spirit plague a world, And this were the one moment of surprise And sorrow while she took her station, pausing 35 O'er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy!

What gaze you at? Those? Books, I told you of; Let your first word to me rejoice them, too: This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red Bister and azure by Bessarion's scribe-- 40 Read this line--no, shame--Homer's be the Greek First breathed me from the lips of my Greek girl!

This Odyssey in coa.r.s.e black vivid type With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page and page, To mark great places with due grat.i.tude; 45 _"He said, and on Antinous directed_ _A bitter shaft"_--a flower blots out the rest!

Again upon your search? My statues, then!

--Ah, do not mind that--better that will look When cast in bronze--an Almaign Kaiser, that, 50 Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on hip.

This, rather, turn to! What, unrecognized?

I thought you would have seen that here you sit As I imagined you--Hippolyta, Naked upon her bright Numidian horse. 55 Recall you this, then? "Carve in bold relief"-- So you commanded--"carve, against I come, A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was, Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free, Who rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch. 60 'Praise Those who slew Hipparchus!' cry the guests, 'While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle waves As erst above our champion: stand up all!'"

See, I have labored to express your thought.

Quite round, a cl.u.s.ter of mere hands and arms, 65 (Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides, Only consenting at the branch's end They strain toward) serves for frame to a sole face, The Praiser's, in the center: who with eyes Sightless, so bend they back to light inside 70 His brain where visionary forms throng up, Sings, minding not that palpitating arch Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns cast off, Violet and parsley crowns to trample on-- 75 Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve, Devoutly their unconquerable hymn.

But you must say a "well" to that--say "well!"

Because you gaze--am I fantastic, sweet?

Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble--marbly 80 Even to the silence! Why, before I found The real flesh Phene, I inured myself To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff For better nature's birth by means of art: With me, each substance tended to one form 85 Of beauty--to the human archetype.

On every side occurred suggestive germs Of that--the tree, the flower--or take the fruit-- Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, Curved beewise o'er its bough; as rosy limbs, 90 Depending, nestled in the leaves; and just From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang.

But of the stuffs one can be master of, How I divined their capabilities!

From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk 95 That yields your outline to the air's embrace, Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom; Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure To cut its one confided thought clean out Of all the world. But marble!--'neath my tools 100 More pliable than jelly--as it were Some clear primordial creature dug from depths In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself, And whence all baser substance may be worked; Refine it off to air, you may--condense it 105 Down to the diamond--is not metal there, When o'er the sudden speck my chisel trips?

--Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach, Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep?

Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised 110 By the swift implement sent home at once, Flushes and glowings radiate and hover About its track?

Phene? what--why is this?

That whitening cheek, those still dilating eyes!

Ah, you will die--I knew that you would die! 115

PHENE _begins, on his having long remained silent._

Now the end's coming; to be sure, it must Have ended sometime! Tush, why need I speak Their foolish speech? I cannot bring to mind One half of it, beside; and do not care For old Natalia now, nor any of them. 120 Oh, you--what are you?--if I do not try To say the words Natalia made me learn; To please your friends--it is to keep myself Where your voice lifted me, by letting that Proceed; but can it? Even you, perhaps, 125 Cannot take up, now you have once let fall, The music's life, and me along with that-- No, or you would! We'll stay, then, as we are-- Above the world.

You creature with the eyes!

If I could look forever up to them, 130 As now you let me--I believe all sin, All memory of wrong done, suffering borne, Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth Whence all that's low comes, and there touch and stay --Never to overtake the rest of me, 135 All that, unspotted, reaches up to you, Drawn by those eyes! What rises is myself, Not me the shame and suffering; but they sink, Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so, Above the world! 140 But you sink, for your eyes Are altering--altered! Stay--"I love you, love"-- I could prevent it if I understood: More of your words to me; was 't in the tone Or the words, your power?

Or stay--I will repeat Their speech, if that contents you! Only change 145 No more, and I shall find it presently Far back here, in the brain yourself filled up.

Natalia threatened me that harm should follow Unless I spoke their lesson to the end, But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you. 150 Your friends--Natalia said they were your friends And meant you well--because, I doubted it, Observing (what was very strange to see) On every face, so different in all else, The same smile girls like me are used to bear, 155 But never men, men cannot stoop so low; Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile, That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit Which seems to take possession of the world And make of G.o.d a tame confederate, 160 Purveyor to their appet.i.tes--you know!

But still Natalia said they were your friends, And they a.s.sented though they smiled the more, And all came round me--that thin Englishman With light lank hair seemed leader of the rest; 165 He held a paper--"What we want," said he, Ending some explanation to his friends, "Is something slow, involved, and mystical, To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste And lure him on until, at innermost 170 Where he seeks sweetness' soul, he may find--this!

--As in the apple's core, the noisome fly; For insects on the rind are seen at once, And brushed aside as soon, but this is found Only when on the lips or loathing tongue." 175 And so he read what I have got by heart: I'll speak it--"Do not die, love! I am yours"-- No--is not that, or like that, part of words Yourself began by speaking? Strange to lose What cost such pains to learn! Is this more right? 180

_I am a painter who cannot paint;_ _In my life, a devil rather than saint;_ _In my brain, as poor a creature too:_ _No end to all I cannot do!_ _Yet do one thing at least I can--_ 185 _Love a man or hate a man_ _Supremely: thus my lore began._ _Through the Valley of Love I went,_ _In the lovingest spot to abide,_ _And just on the verge where I pitched my tent,_ 190 _I found Hate dwelling beside._ _(Let the Bridegroom ask what the painter meant,_ _Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride!)_ _And further, I traversed Hate's grove,_ _In the hatefullest nook to dwell;_ 195 _But lo, where I flung myself p.r.o.ne, couched Love_ _Where the shadow threefold fell._ _(The meaning--those black bride's-eyes above,_ _Not a painter's lip should tell!)_

"And here," said he, "Jules probably will ask, 200 'You have black eyes, Love--you are, sure enough, My peerless bride--then do you tell indeed What needs some explanation! What means this?'"

--And I am to go on, without a word--

_So I grew wise in Love and Hate,_ 205 _From simple that I was of late._ _Once when I loved, I would enlace_ _Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form, and face_ _Of her I loved, in one embrace--_ _As if by mere love I could love immensely!_ 210 _Once, when I hated, I would plunge_ _My sword, and wipe with the first lunge_ _My foe's whole life out like a sponge--_ _As if by mere hate I could hate intensely!_ _But now I am wiser, know better the fashion_ 215 _How pa.s.sion seeks aid from its opposite pa.s.sion;_ _And if I see cause to love more, hate more_ _Than ever man loved, ever hated before--_ _And seek in the Valley of Love,_ _The nest, or the nook in Hate's Grove,_ 220 _Where my soul may surely reach_ _The essence, naught less, of each,_ _The Hate of all Hates, the Love_ _Of all Loves, in the Valley or Grove--_ _I find them the very warders_ 225 _Each of the other's borders._ _When I love most, Love is disguised_ _In Hate; and when Hate is surprised_ _In Love, then I hate most: ask_ _How Love smiles through Hate's iron casque,_ 230 _Hate grins through Love's rose-braided mask--_ _And how, having hated thee,_ _I sought long and painfully_ _To reach thy heart, nor p.r.i.c.k_ _The skin but pierce to the quick--_ 235 _Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight_ _By thy bride--how the painter Lutwyche can hate!_

JULES _interposes_

Lutwyche! Who else? But all of them, no doubt, Hated me: they at Venice--presently Their turn, however! You I shall not meet: 240 If I dreamed, saying this would wake me.

Keep What's here, the gold--we cannot meet again, Consider! and the money was but meant For two years' travel, which is over now, All chance or hope or care or need of it. 245 This--and what comes from selling these, my casts And books and medals, except--let them go Together, so the produce keeps you safe Out of Natalia's clutches! If by chance (For all's chance here) I should survive the gang 250 At Venice, root out all fifteen of them, We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide.

[_From without is heard the voice of_ PIPPA, _singing_--

_Give her but a least excuse to love me!_ _When--where--_ _How--can this arm establish her above me,_ 255 _If fortune fixed her as my lady there,_ _There already, to eternally reprove me?_ _("Hist!"--said Kate the Queen;_ _But "Oh!" cried the maiden, binding her tresses,_ _"'Tis only a page that carols unseen,_ 260 _Crumbling your hounds their messes!")_

_Is she wronged?--To the rescue of her honor,_ _My heart!_ _Is she poor?--What costs it to be styled a donor?_ _Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part_. 265 _But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!_ _("Nay, list!"--bade Kate the Queen;_ _And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,_ _"'Tis only a page that carols unseen_ _Fitting your hawks their jesses!")_ 270

[PIPPA _pa.s.ses._

JULES _resumes_

What name was that the little girl sang forth?

Kate? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced The crown of Cyprus to be lady here At Asolo, where still her memory stays, And peasants sing how once a certain page 275 Pined for the grace of her so far above His power of doing good to, "Kate the Queen-- She never could be wronged, be poor," he sighed, "Need him to help her!"

Yes, a bitter thing To see our lady above all need of us; 280 Yet so we look ere we will love; not I, But the world looks so. If whoever loves Must be, in some sort, G.o.d or worshiper, The blessing or the blest-one, queen or page, Why should we always choose the page's part? 285 Here is a woman with utter need of me-- I find myself queen here, it seems!

How strange!

Look at the woman here with the new soul, Like my own Psyche--fresh upon her lips Alit the visionary b.u.t.terfly, 290 Waiting my word to enter and make bright, Or flutter off and leave all blank as first.

This body had no soul before, but slept Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free From taint or foul with stain, as outward things 295 Fastened their image on its pa.s.siveness; Now, it will wake, feel, live--or die again!

Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff Be Art--and further, to evoke a soul From form be nothing? This new soul is mine! 300

Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that do?--save A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death Without me, from their hooting. Oh, to hear G.o.d's voice plain as I heard it first, before They broke in with their laughter! I heard them 305 Henceforth, not G.o.d.

To Ancona--Greece--some isle!

I wanted silence only; there is clay Everywhere. One may do whate'er one likes In Art; the only thing is, to make sure That one does like it--which takes pains to know. 310 Scatter all this, my Phene--this mad dream!

Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's friends, What the whole world except our love--my own, Own Phene? But I told you, did I not, Ere night we travel for your land--some isle 315 With the sea's silence on it? Stand aside-- I do but break these paltry models up To begin Art afresh. Meet Lutwyche, I-- And save him from my statue meeting him?

Some unsuspected isle in the far seas! 320 Like a G.o.d going through his world, there stands One mountain for a moment in the dusk, Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow; And you are ever by me while I gaze --Are in my arms as now--as now--as now! 325 Some unsuspected isle in the far seas!