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

As, one after one,

So docile they come to the pen-door

Till folding be done;

— They are white and untorn by the bushes,

For lo, they have fed

Where the long grasses stifle the water

Within the stream’s bed:

And now one after one seeks its lodging,

As star follows star

Into eve and the blue far above us,

— So blue and so far!

— Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland

Will each leave his mate

To fly after the player; then, what makes

The crickets elate

Till for boldness they fight one another:

And then, what has weight

To set the quick jerboa amusing

Outside his sand house

— There are none such as he for a wonder —

Half bird and half mouse!

— God made all the creatures and gave them

Our love and our fear,

To give sign, we and they are his children,

One family here.

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers,

Their wine-song, when hand

Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship,

And great hearts expand

And grow one in the sense of this world’s life;

And then, the low song

When the dead man is praised on his journey —

”Bear, bear him along

“With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets;

”Are balm-seeds not here

“To console us? The land has left none such

”As he on the bier —

“Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!”

And then, the glad chaunt

Of the marriage, — first go the young maidens,

Next, she whom we vaunt

As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling:

And then, the great march

Where man runs to man to assist him

And buttress an arch

Nought can break … who shall harm them, our friends?

Then, the chorus intoned

As the Levites go up to the altar

In glory enthroned.

But I stopped here — for here in the darkness,

Saul groaned.

And I paused, held my breath in such silence!

And listened apart;

And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered, —

And sparkles gan dart

From the jewels that woke in his turban

— At once with a start,

All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies

Courageous at heart.

So the head — but the body still moved not,

Still hung there erect.

And I bent once again to my playing,

Pursued it unchecked,

As I sang, “Oh, our manhood’s prime vigour!

— No spirit feels waste,

Not a muscle is stopped in its playing

No sinew unbraced; —

Oh, the wild joys of living! The leaping

From rock up to rock —

The rending of their boughs from the palm-tree, —

The cool silver shock

Of the plunge in a pool’s living water, —

The hunt of the bear,

And the sultriness showing the lion

Is couched in his lair:

And the meal — the rich dates — yellowed over

With gold dust divine,

And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher,

The full draught of wine,

And the sleep in the dried river-channel

Where bulrushes tell

That the water was wont to go warbling

So softly and well, —

How good is man’s life, the mere living!

How fit to employ

“All the heart and the soul and the senses

For ever in joy!

Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father

Whose sword thou didst guard

When he trusted thee forth with the armies

For glorious reward?

Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother

Held up as men sung

The low song of the nearly-departed

And heard her faint tongue

Joining in while it could to the witness

’Let one more attest,

‘I have lived, seen God’s hand thro’ that lifetime,

And all was for best … ”

Then they sung thro’ their tears, in strong triumph,

Not much, — but the rest!

And thy brothers — the help and the contest,

The working whence grew

Such result, as from seething grape-bundles

The spirit so true:

And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood

With wonder and hope,

Present promise, and wealth of the future, —

The eye’s eagle scope, —

Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch,

A people is thine;

Oh all gifts the world offers singly,

On one head combine!

On one head, all the joy and the pride,

Even rage like the throe

That opes the rock, helps its glad labour,

And lets the gold go —

And ambition that sees a sun lead it —

Oh, all of these — all

Combine to unite in one creature

— Saul!

END OF PART THE FIRST

Table of Contents

I’VE a Friend, over the sea;

I like him, but he loves me;

It all grew out of the books I write;

They find such favour in his sight

That he slaughters you with savage looks

Because you don’t admire my books:

He does himself though, — and if some vein

Were to snap tonight in this heavy brain,

Tomorrow month, if I lived to try,

Round should I just turn quietly,

Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand

Till I found him, come from his foreign land

To be my nurse in this poor place,

And make my broth and wash my face,

And light my fire and, all the while,

Bear with his old good-humoured smile

That I told him “Better have kept away

“Than come and kill me, night and day,

“With, worse than fever throbs and shoots,

“The creaking of his clumsy boots.”

I am as sure that this he would do

As that Saint Paul’s is striking two:

And I think I rather … woe is me!

— Yes, rather see him than not see,

If lifting a hand could seat him there

Before me in the empty chair

Tonight, when my head aches indeed,

And I can neither think nor read

Nor make these purple fingers hold

The pen; this garret’s freezing cold!

And I’ve a Lady — There he wakes,

The laughing fiend and prince of snakes

Within me, at her name, to pray

Fate send some creature in the way

Of my love for her, to be down-torn,

Upthrust and outward borne,

So I might prove myself that sea

Of passion which I needs must be!

Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint,

And my style infirm and its figures faint,

All the critics say, and more blame yet,

And not one angry word you get!

But, please you, wonder I would put

My cheek beneath that Lady’s foot

Rather than trample under mine

The laurels of the Florentine,

And you shall see how the devil spends

A fire God gave for other ends!

I tell you, I stride up and down

This garret, crowned with love’s best crown,

And feasted with love’s perfect feast,

To think I kill for her, at least,

Body and soul and peace and fame,

Alike youth’s end and manhood’s aim,

— So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,

Filled full, eaten out and in

With the face of her, the eyes of her,

The lips, the little chin, the stir

Of shadow round her month; and she

— I’ll tell you, — calmly would decree

That I should roast at a slow fire,

If that would compass her desire

And make her one whom they invite

To the famous ball tomorrow night.

There may be Heaven; there must be Hell;

Meantime, there is our Earth here — well!

Table of Contents

(PETER RONSARD loquitur.)

“HEIGHO!” yawned one day King Francis,

“Distance all value enhances!

“When a man’s busy, why, leisure

“Strikes him as wonderful pleasure —

“‘Faith, and at leisure once is he?