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

What is the point where Himself lays stress

Does the precept run “Believe in Good,

“In Justice, Truth, now understood

“For the first time?” — or, “Believe in ME,

“Who lived and died, yet essentially

“Am Lord of Life?” Whoever can take

The same to his heart and for mere love’s sake

Conceive of the love, — that man obtains

A new truth; no conviction gains

Of an old one only, made intense

By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.

XVIII.

Can it be that He stays inside?

Is the Vesture left me to commune with?

Could my soul find aught to sing in tune with

Even at this lecture, if she tried?

Oh, let me at lowest sympathise

With the lurking drop of blood that lies

In the desiccated brain’s white roots

Without a throb for Christ’s attributes,

As the Lecturer makes his special boast!

If love’s dead there, it has left a ghost.

Admire we, how from heart to brain

(Though to say so strike the doctors dumb)

One instinct rises and falls again,

Restoring the equilibrium.

And how when the Critic had done his best,

And the Pearl of Price, at reason’s test,

Lay dust and ashes levigable

On the Professor’s lecture-table;

When we looked for the inference and monition

That our faith, reduced to such a condition,

Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole, —

He bids us, when we least expect it,

Take back our faith, — if it be not just whole,

Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it,

Which fact pays the damage done rewardingly,

So, prize we our dust and ashes accordingly!

“Go home and venerate the Myth

“I thus have experimented with —

“This Man, continue to adore him

“Rather than all who went before him,

“And all who ever followed after!” —

Surely for this I may praise you, my brother!

Will you take the praise in tears or laughter?

That’s one point gained: can I compass another?

Unlearned love was safe from spurning —

Can’t we respect your loveless learning?

Let us at least give Learning honour!

What laurels had we showered upon her,

Girding her loins up to perturb

Our theory of the Middle Verb;

Or Turklike brandishing a scimetar

O’er anapests in comic-trimeter;

Or curing the halt and maimed Iketides,

While we lounged on at our indebted ease:

Instead of which, a tricksy demon

Sets her at Titus or Philemon!

When Ignorance wags his ears of leather

And hates God’s word, ’tis altogether;

Nor leaves he his congenial thistles

To go and browze on Paul’s Epistles.

— And you, the audience, who might ravage

The world wide, enviably savage

Nor heed the cry of the retriever,

More than Herr Heine (before his fever), —

I do not tell a lie so arrant

As say my passion’s wings are furled up,

And, without the plainest Heavenly warrant,

I were ready and glad to give this world up —

But still, when you rub the brow meticulous,

And ponder the profit of turning holy

If not for God’s, for your own sake solely,

— God forbid I should find you ridiculous!

Deduce from this lecture all that eases you,

Nay, call yourselves, if the calling pleases you,

“Christians,” — abhor the Deist’s pravity, —

Go on, you shall no more move my gravity,

Than, when I see boys ride a-cockhorse

I find it in my heart to embarrass them

By hinting that their stick’s a mock horse,

And they really carry what they say carries them.

XIX.

So sate I talking with my mind.

I did not long to leave the door

And find a new church, as before,

But rather was quiet and inclined

To prolong and enjoy the gentle resting

From further tracking and trying and testing.

This tolerance is a genial mood!

(Said I, and a little pause ensued).

One trims the bark ‘twixt shoal and shelf,

And sees, each side, the good effects of it,

A value for religion’s self,

A carelessness about the sects of it.

Let me enjoy my own conviction,

Not watch my neighbour’s faith with fretfulness,

Still spying there some dereliction

Of truth, perversity, forgetfulness!

Better a mild indifferentism,

To teach that all our faiths (though duller

His shines through a dull spirit’s prism)

Originally had one colour —

Sending me on a pilgrimage

Through ancient and through modern times

To many peoples, various climes,

Where I may see Saint, Savage, Sage

Fuse their respective creeds in one

Before the general Father’s throne!

XX.

… ’T was the horrible storm began afresh!

The black night caught me in his mesh

Whirled me up, and flung me prone.

I was left on the college-step alone.

I looked, and far there, ever fleeting

Far, far away, the receding gesture,

And looming of the lessening Vesture,

Swept forward from my stupid hand,

While I watched my foolish heart expand

In the lazy glow of benevolence,

O’er the various modes of man’s belief.

I sprang up with fear’s vehemence.

— Needs must there be one way, our chief

Best way of worship: let me strive

To find it, and when found, contrive

My fellows also take their share.

This constitutes my earthly care:

God’s is above it and distinct!

For I, a man, with men am linked,

And not a brute with brutes; no gain

That I experience, must remain

Unshared: but should my best endeavour

To share it, fail — subsisteth ever

God’s care above, and I exult

That God, by God’s own ways occult,

May — doth, I will believe — bring back

All wanderers to a single track!

Meantime, I can but testify

God’s care for me — no more, can I —

It is but for myself I know.

The world rolls witnessing around me

Only to leave me as it found me;

Men cry there, but my ear is slow.

Their races flourish or decay

— What boots it, while yon lucid way

Loaded with stars, divides the vault?

How soon my soul repairs its fault

When, sharpening senses’ hebetude,

She turns on my own life! So viewed,

No mere mote’sbreadth but teems immense

With witnessings of providence:

And woe to me if when I look

Upon that record, the sole book

Unsealed to me, I take no heed

Of any warning that I read!

Have I been sure, this Christmas-Eve;

God’s own hand did the rainbow weave,

Whereby the truth from heaven slid

Into my soul? — I cannot bid

The world admit He stooped to heal

My soul, as if in a thunder-peal

Where one heard noise, and one saw flame,

I only knew He named my name.

And what is the world to me, for sorrow

Or joy in its censures, when tomorrow

It drops the remark, with just-turned head

Then, on again — That man is dead?

Yes, — but for me — my name called, — drawn

As a conscript’s lot from the lap’s black yawn,

He has dipt into on a battle-dawn:

Bid out of life by a nod, a glance, —

Stumbling, mute-mazed, at nature’s chance, —

With a rapid finger circled round,

Fixed to the first poor inch of ground,

To light from, where his foot was found;

Whose ear but a minute since lay free

To the wide camp’s buzz and gossipry —

Summoned, a solitary man,

To end his life where his life began,

From the safe glad rear, to the dreadful van!

Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held

By the hem of the Vesture …