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

“And the world is left outside.

“For there is probation to decree,

“And many and long must the trials be

“Thou shalt victoriously endure,

“If that brow is true and those eyes are sure;

“Like a jewel-finder’s fierce assay

“Of the prize he dug from its mountain-tomb —

“Let once the vindicating ray

“Leap out amid the anxious gloom,

“And steel and fire have done their part

“And the prize falls on its finder’s heart;

‘‘So, trial after trial past,

“Wilt thou fall at the very last

“Breathless, half in trance

“With the thrill of the great deliverance,

“Into our arms for evermore;

“And thou shalt know, those arms once curled

“About thee, what we knew before,

“How love is the only good in the world.

“Henceforth be loved as heart can love,

“Or brain devise, or hand approve!

“Stand up, look below,

“It is our life at thy feet we throw

“To step with into light and joy;

“Not a power of life but we employ

“To satisfy thy nature’s want;

“Art thou the tree that props the plant,

“Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree —

“Canst thou help us, must we help thee?

“If any two creatures grew into one,

“They would do more than the world has done.

“Though each apart were never so weak,

“Ye vainly through the world should seek

“For the knowledge and the might

“Which in such union grew their right:

“So, to approach at least that end,

“And blend, — as much as may be, blend

“Thee with us or us with thee,

“As climbing plant or propping tree,

“Shall some one deck thee, over and down,

“Up and about, with blossoms and leaves?

“Fix his heart’s fruit for thy garland crown,

“Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves,

“Die on thy boughs and disappear

“While not a leaf of thine is sere?

“Or is the other fate in store,

“And art thou fitted to adore,

“To give thy wondrous self away,

“And take a stronger nature’s sway?

“I foresee and could foretell

“Thy future portion, sure and well —

“But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true,

“Let them say what thou shalt do!

“Only be sure thy daily life,

“In its peace or in its strife,

“Never shall be unobserved:

“We pursue thy whole career,

“And hope for it, or doubt, or fear, —

“Lo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved,

“We are beside thee in all thy ways,

“With our blame, with our praise,

“Our shame to feel, our pride to show,

“Glad, angry — but indifferent, no!

“Whether it be thy lot to go,

“For the good of us all, where the haters meet

“In the crowded city’s horrible street;

“Or thou step alone through the morass

“Where never sound yet was

“Save the dry quick clap of the stork’s bill,

“For the air is still, and the water still,

“When the blue breast of the dipping coot

“Dives under, and all is mute.

“So, at the last shall come old age,

“Decrepit as befits that stage;

“How else wouldst thou retire apart

“With the hoarded memories of thy heart,

“And gather all to the very least

“Of the fragments of life’s earlier feast,

“Let fall through eagerness to find

“The crowning dainties yet behind?

“Ponder on the entire past

“Laid together thus at last,

“When the twilight helps to fuse

“The first fresh with the faded hues,

“And the outline of the whole,

“As round eve’s shades their framework roll,

“Grandly fronts for once thy soul.

“And then as, ‘mid the dark, a glean

“Of yet another morning breaks,

“And like the hand which ends a dream,

“Death, with the might of his sunbeam,

“Touches the flesh and the soul awakes,

“Then — ”

Ay, then indeed something would happen!

But what? For here her voice changed like a bird’s;

There grew more of the music and less of the words;

Had Jacynth only been by me to clap pen

To paper and put you down every syllable

With those clever clerkly fingers,

All I’ve forgotten as well as what lingers

In this old brain of mine that’s but ill able

To give you even this poor version

Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering

— More fault of those who had the hammering

Of prosody into me and syntax,

And did it, not with hobnails but tintacks!

But to return from this excursion, —

Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest,

The peace most deep and the charm completest,

There came, shall I say, a snap —

And the charm vanished!

And my sense returned, so strangely banished,

And, starting as from a nap,

I knew the crone was bewitching my lady,

With Jacynth asleep; and but one spring made I

Down from the casement, round to the portal,

Another minute and I had entered, —

When the door opened, and more than mortal

Stood, with a face where to my mind centred

All beauties I ever saw or shall see,

The Duchess: I stopped as if struck by palsy.

She was so different, happy and beautiful,

I felt at once that all was best,

And that I had nothing to do, for the rest,

But wait her commands, obey and be dutiful.

Not that, in fact, there was any commanding;

I saw the glory of her eye,

And the brow’s height and the breast’s expanding,

And I was hers to live or to die.

As for finding what she wanted,

You know God Almighty granted

Such little signs should serve wild creatures

To tell one another all their desires,

So that each knows what his friend requires,

And does its bidding without teachers.

I preceded her; the crone

Followed silent and alone;

I spoke to her, but she merely jabbered

In the old style; both her eyes had slunk

Back to their pits; her stature shrunk;

In short, the soul in its body sunk

Like a blade sent home to its scabbard.

We descended, I preceding;

Crossed the court with nobody heeding,

All the world was at the chase,

The courtyard like a desert-place,

The stable emptied of its small fry;

I saddled myself the very palfrey

I remember patting while it carried her,

The day she arrived and the Duke married her.

And, do you know, though it’s easy deceiving

Oneself in such matters, I can’t help believing

The lady had not forgotten it either,

And knew the poor devil so much beneath her

Would have been only too glad for her service

To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise,

But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it,

Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it:

For though the moment I began setting

His saddle on my own nag of Berold’s begetting,

(Not that I meant to be obtrusive)

She stopped me, while his rug was shifting,

By a single rapid finger’s lifting,

And, with a gesture kind but conclusive,

And a little shake of the head, refused me, —

I say, although she never used me,

Yet when she was mounted, the Gipsy behind her,

And I ventured to remind her,

I suppose with a voice of less steadiness

Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me,

— Something to the effect that I was in readiness

Whenever God should please she needed me, —

Then, do you know, her face looked down on me

With a look that placed a crown on me,

And she felt in her bosom, — mark, her bosom —