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

And, as a flower-tree drops its blossom,

Dropped me — ah, had it been a purse

Of silver, my friend, or gold that’s worse,

Why, you see, as soon as I found myself

So understood, — that a true heart so may gain

Such a reward, — I should have gone home again,

Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself!

It was a little plait of hair

Such as friends in a convent make

To wear, each for the other’s sake, —

This, see, which at my breast I wear,

Ever did (rather to Jacynth’s grudgment),

And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment.

And then, — and then, — to cut short, — this is idle,

These are feelings it is not good to foster, —

I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle,

And the palfrey bounded, — and so we lost her.

XVI.

When the liquor’s out, why clink the cannakin?

I did think to describe you the panic in

The redoubtable breast of our master the mannikin,

And what was the pitch of his mother’s yellowness,

How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-rib

Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib,

When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness —

But it seems such child’s play,

What they said and did with the lady away!

And to dance on, when we’ve lost the music,

Always made me — and no doubt makes you — sick.

Nay, to my mind, the world’s face looked so stern

As that sweet form disappeared through the postern,

She that kept it in constant good humour,

It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more.

But the world thought otherwise and went on,

And my head’s one that its spite was spent on:

Thirty years are fled since that morning,

And with them all my head’s adorning.

Nor did the old Duchess die outright,

As you expect, of suppressed spite,

The natural end of every adder

Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder:

But she and her son agreed, I take it,

That no one should touch on the story to wake it,

For the wound in the Duke’s pride rankled fiery,

So, they made no search and small inquiry —

And when fresh Gipsies have paid us a visit, I’ve

Noticed the couple were never inquisitive,

But told them they’re folks the Duke don’t want here,

And bade them make haste and cross the frontier.

Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it,

And the old one was in the young one’s stead,

And took, in her place, the household’s head,

And a blessed time the household had of it!

And were I not, as a man may say, cautious

How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous,

I could favour you with sundry touches

Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess

Heightened the mellowness of her cheek’s yellowness

(To get on faster) until at last her

Cheek grew to be one master-plaster

Of mucus and focus from mere use of ceruse

In short, she grew from scalp to udder

Just the object to make you shudder.

XVII.

You’re my friend —

What a thing friendship is, world without end!

How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up

As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet,

And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit,

Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup,

Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids —

Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids;

Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs, —

Gives your life’s hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts

Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees

Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease!

I have seen my little Lady once more,

Jacynth, the Gipsy, Berold, and the rest of it,

For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before;

I always wanted to make a clean breast of it:

And now it is made — why, my heart’s blood, that went trickle,

Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets,

Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle,

And genially floats me about the giblets.

I’ll tell you what I intend to do:

I must see this fellow his sad life thro’

— He is our Duke, after all,

And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall.

My father was born here, and I inherit

His fame, a chain he bound his son with;

Could I pay in a lump I should prefer it,

But there’s no mine to blow up and get done with:

So, I must stay till the end of the chapter:

For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter,

Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on,

Some day or other, his head in a morion

And breast in a hauberk, his heels he’ll kick up,

Slain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup.

And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust,

And its leathern sheath lie o’ergrown with a blue crust,

Then I shall scrape together my earnings;

For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes,

And our children all went the way of the roses —

It’s a long lane that knows no turnings —

One needs but little tackle to travel in;

So, just one stout cloak shall I indue:

And for a stall, what beats the javelin

With which his boars my father pinned you?

And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently,

Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful,

I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly!

Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful.

What’s a man’s age? He must hurry more, that’s all;

Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold.

When we mind labour, then only, we’re too old —

What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?

And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees,

(Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil)

I hope to get safely out of the turmoil

And arrive one day at the land of the Gipsies,

And find my lady, or hear the last news of her

From some old thief and son of Lucifer,

His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop,

Sunburned all over like an Æthiop:

And when my Cotnar begins to operate

And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate,

And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent,

I shall drop in with — as if by accident —

“You never knew, then, how it all ended,

“What fortune good or bad attended

“The little lady your Queen befriended?”

— And when that’s told me, what’s remaining?

This world’s too hard for my explaining —

The same wise judge of matters equine

Who still preferred some slim four-year-old

To the big-boned stock of mighty Berold,

And for strong Cotnar drank French weak wine,

He also must be such a lady’s scorner!

Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau:

Now up, now down, the world’s one see-saw.

— So, I shall find out some snug corner

Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight,

Turn myself round and bid the world good night;

And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet’s blowing

Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)

To a world where will be no furtiner throwing

Pearls before swine that can’t value them. Amen!

Table of Contents

SEE, as the prettiest graves will do in time,

Our poet’s wants the freshness of its prime;

Spite of the sexton’s browsing horse, the sods

Have struggled thro’ its binding osier-rods;

Headstone and half-sunk footstone lean awry,

Wanting the brickwork promised by-and-by;

How the minute grey lichens, plate o’er plate,

Have softened down the crisp-cut name and date!