Robert Browning - The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition

And only in wild nooks like ours

Could you taste of it yet as in its prime,

And see true castles, with proper towers,

Young-hearted women, old-minded men,

And manners now as manners were then.

So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it,

This Duke would fain know he was, without being it;

’Twas not for the joy’s self, but the joy of his showing it,

Nor for the pride’s self, but the pride of our seeing it,

He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out,

The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn-out:

And chief in the chase his neck he perilled

On a lathy horse, all legs and length,

With blood for bone, all speed, no strength;

— They should have set him on red Berold

With the red eye slow consuming in fire,

And the thin stiff ear like an abbey-spire!

VI.

Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard:

And out of a convent, at the word,

Came the lady, in time of spring.

— Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling!

That day, I know, with a dozen oaths

I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes

Fit for the chase of urox or buffle

In winter-time when you need to muffle.

But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure,

And so we saw the lady arrive:

My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger!

She was the smallest lady alive,

Made in a piece of nature’s madness,

Too small, almost, for the life and gladness

That over-filled her, as some hive

Out of the bears’ reach on the high trees

Is crowded with its safe merry bees:

In truth, she was not hard to please!

Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead,

Straight at the castle, that’s best indeed

To look at from outside the walls:

As for us, styled the “serfs and thralls,”

She as much thanked me as if she had said it,

(With her eyes, do you understand?)

Because I patted her horse while I led it;

And Max, who rode on her other hand,

Said, no bird flew past but she inquired

What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired —

If that was an eagle she saw hover, —

And the green and grey bird on the field was the plover.

When suddenly appeared the Duke:

And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed

On to my hand, — as with a rebuke,

And as if his backbone were not jointed,

The Duke stepped rather aside than forward,

And welcomed her with his grandest smile;

And, mind you, his mother all the while

Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor’ward;

And up, like a weary yawn, with its pullies

Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis;

And, like a glad sky the northwind sullies,

The lady’s face stopped its play,

As if her first hair had grown grey —

For such things must begin some one day!

VII.

In a day or two she was well again;

As who should say, “You labour in vain!

“This is all a jest against God, who meant

“I should ever be, as I am, content

“And glad in his sight; therefore, glad I will be.”

So, smiling as at first went she.

VIII.

She was active, stirring, all fire —

Could not rest, could not tire —

To a stone she might have given life!

(I myself loved once, in my day)

— For a shepherd’s, miner’s, huntsman’s wife,

(I had a wife, I know what I say)

Never in all the world such an one!

And here was plenty to be done,

And she that could do it, great or small,

She was to do nothing at all.

There was already this man in his post,

This in his station, and that in his office,

And the Duke’s plan admitted a wife, at most,

To meet his eye, with the other trophies,

Now outside the hall, now in it,

To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen,

At the proper place in the proper minute,

And die away the life between.

And it was amusing enough, each infraction

Of rule (but for after-sadness that came)

To hear the consummate self-satisfaction

With which the young Duke and the old dame

Would let her advise, and criticise,

And, being a fool, instruct the wise,

And, childlike, parcel out praise or blame:

They bore it all in complacent guise,

As though an artificer, after contriving

A wheelwork image as if it were living,

Should find with delight it could motion to strike him!

So found the Duke, and his mother like him —

The Lady hardly got a rebuff —

That had not been contemptuous enough,

With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause,

And kept off the old mother-cat’s claws.

IX.

So, the little lady grew silent and thin,

Paling and ever paling,

As the way is with a hid chagrin;

And the Duke perceived that she was ailing,

And said in his heart, “’Tis done to spite me,

“But I shall find in my power to right me!”

Don’t swear, friend — the old one, many a year,

Is in hell, and the Duke’s self … you shall hear.

X.

Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning,

When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning,

A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice

That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice,

Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold,

And another and another, and faster and faster,

Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled:

Then it so chanced that the Duke our master

Asked himself what were the pleasures in season,

And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty,

He should do the Middle Age no treason

In resolving on a hunting-party.

Always provided, old books showed the way of it!

What meant old poets by their strictures?

And when old poets had said their say of it,

How taught old painters in their pictures?

We must revert to the proper channels,

Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels,

And gather up woodcraft’s authentic traditions:

Here was food for our various ambitions,

As on each case, exactly stated —

— To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup,

Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting your stirrup —

We of the house hold took thought and debated.

Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkin

His sire was wont to do forest-work in;

Blesseder he who nobly sunk “ohs”

And “ahs” while he tugged on his grandsire’s trunk-hose;

What signified hats if they had no rims on,

Each slouching before and behind like the scallop,

And able to serve at sea for a shallop,

Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson?

So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on’t,

What with our Venerers, Prickers and Yerderers,

Might hope for real hunters at length and not murderers,

And oh the Duke’s tailor — he had a hot time on’t!

XI.

Now you must know that when the first dizziness

Of flap-hats and buffcoats and jack-boots subsided,

The Duke put this question, “The Duke’s part provided,

“Had not the Duchess some share in the business?”

For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses

Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses:

And, after much laying of heads together,

Somebody’s cap got a notable feather

By the announcement with proper unction

That he had discovered the lady’s function;

Since ancient authors gave this tenet,

“When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege,

“Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet,

“And, with water to wash the hands of her liege

“In a clean ewer with a fair toweling,

“ Let her preside at the disemboweling.”