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

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Plus ne suis ce que j’ai été,

Et ne le sçaurois jamais être. — MAROT.

Non dubito, quip titulus libri nostri raritate suâ quamplurimos alliciat ad legendum: inter quos nonnulli obliquæ opinionis, mente languidi, multi etiam maligni, et in ingenium nostrum ingrati accedent, qui temerariâ suâ ignorantiâ, vix conspecto titulo clamabunt: Nos vetita docere, hæresium semina jacere: piis auribus offendiculo, præclaris ingeniis scandalo esse: … adeò conscientiæ suæ consulentes, ut nec Apollo, nec Musæ omnes, neque Angelus de cælo me ab illorum execratione vindicare queant: quibus et ego nunc consulo, ne scripta nostra legant, nec intelligant, nec neminerint: nam noxia sunt, venenosa sunt: Acherontis ostium est in hoc libro, lapides loquitur, caveant, ne cerebrum illis excutiat. Vos autem, qui æquâ mente ad legendum venitis, si tantam prutentiæ discretionem adhibueritis, quantam in melle legendo apes, jam securi legite. Puto namque vos et utilitatis haud parùm et voluptatis plurimùm accepturos. Quod si qua repereritis, quæ vobis non placeant, mittite illa, nec utimini. NAM ET EGO VOBIS ILLA NON PROBO, SED NARRO. Cœtera tamen propterea non respute … Ideo, si quid liberius dictum sit, ignoscite adolescentiæ nostræ, qui minor quam adolescens hoc opus composui. — H. Cor. Agrippa, De Occult. Phil.

London, January, 1833.

V. A. XX.

PAULINE, mine own, bend o’er me — thy soft breast

Shall pant to mine — bend o’er me — thy sweet eyes,

And loosened hair, and breathing lips, arms

Drawing me to thee — these build up a screen

To shut me in with thee, and from all fear,

So that I might unlock the sleepless brood

Of fancies from my soul, their lurking place,

Nor doubt that each would pass, ne’er to return

To one so watched, so loved, and so secured.

But what can guard thee but thy naked love?

Ah, dearest; whoso sucks a poisoned wound

Envenoms his own veins, — thou art so good,

So calm — if thou should’st wear a brow less light

For some wild thought which, but for me, were kept

From out thy soul, as from a sacred star.

Yet till I have unlocked them it were vain

To hope to sing; some woe would light on me;

Nature would point at one, whose quivering lip

Was bathed in her enchantments — whose brow burned

Beneath the crown, to which her secrets knelt;

Who learned the spell which can call up the dead,

And then departed, smiling like a fiend

Who has deceived God. If such one should seek

Again her altars, and stand robed and crowned

Amid the faithful: sad confession first,

Remorse and pardon, and old claims renewed,

Ere I can be — as I shall be no more.

I had been spared this shame, if I had sate

By thee for ever, from the first, in place

Of my wild dreams of beauty and of good,

Or with them, as an earnest of their truth.

No thought nor hope, having been shut from thee,

No vague wish unexplained — no wandering aim

Sent back to bind on Fancy’s wings, and seek

Some strange fair world, where it might be a law;

But doubting nothing, had been led by thee,

Thro’ youth, and saved, as one at length awaked,

Who has slept thro’ a peril. Ah! vain, vain!

Thou lovest me — the past is in its grave,

Tho’ its ghost haunts us — till this much is ours,

To cast away restraint, lest a worse thing

Wait for us in the darkness. Thou lovest me,

And thou art to receive not love, but faith,

For which thou wilt be mine, and smile, and take

All shapes, and shames, and veil without a fear

That form which music follows like a slave;

And I look to thee, and I trust in thee,

As in a Northern night one looks alway

Unto the East for morn, and spring a joy.

Thou seest then my aimless, hopeless state,

And resting on some few old feelings, won

Back by thy beauty, would’st that I essay

The task, which was to me what now thou art:

And why should I conceal one weakness more?

Thou wilt remember one warm morn, when Winter

Crept aged from the earth, and Spring’s first breath

Blew soft from the moist hills — the blackthorn boughs,

So dark in the bare wood; when glistening

In the sunshine were white with coming buds,

Like the bright side of a sorrow — and the banks

Had violets opening from sleep like eyes —

I walked with thee, who knew not a deep shame

Lurked beneath smiles and careless words, which sought

To hide it — till they wandered and were mute;

As we stood listening on a sunny mound

To the wind murmuring in the damp copse,

Like heavy breathings of some hidden thing

Betrayed by sleep — until the feeling rushed

That I was low indeed, yet not so low

As to endure the calmness of thine eyes;

And so I told thee all, while the cool breast

I leaned on altered not its quiet beating;

And long ere words, like a hurt bird’s complaint,

Bade me look up and be what I had been,

I felt despair could never live by thee.

Thou wilt remember: — thou art not more dear

Than song was once to me; and I ne’er sung

But as one entering bright halls, where all

Will rise and shout for him Sure I must own

That I am fallen — having chosen gifts

Distinct from theirs — that I am sad — and fain

Would give up all to be but where I was;

Not high as I had been, if faithful found —

But low and weak, yet full of hope, and sure

Of goodness as of life — that I would lust

All this gay mastery of mind, to sit

Once more with them, trusting in truth and love.

And with an aim — not being what I am.

Oh, Pauline! I am ruined! who believed

That tho’ my soul had floated from its sphere

Of wide dominion into the dim orb

Of self — that it was strong and free as ever: —

It has conformed itself to that dim orb,

Reflecting all its shades and shapes, and now

Must stay where it alone can be adored.

I have felt this in dreams — in dreams in which

I seemed the fate from which I fled; I felt

A strange delight in causing my decay;

I was a fiend, in darkness chained for ever

Within some ocean-cave; and ages rolled,

Till thro’ the cleft rock, like a moonbeam, came

A white swan to remain with me; and ages

Rolled, yet I tired not of my first joy

In gazing on the peace of its pure wings.

And then I said, “It is most fair to me,

“Yet its soft wings must sure have suffered change

“From the thick darkness — sure its eyes are dim —

“Its silver pinions must be cramped and numbed

“With sleeping ages here; it cannot leave me,

“For it would seem, in light, beside its kind,

“Withered — tho’ here to me most beautiful.”

And then I was a young witch, whose blue eyes,

As she stood naked by the river springs,

Drew down a god — I watched his radiant form

Growing less radiant — and it gladdened me;

Till one morn, as he sat in the sunshine

Upon my knees, singing to me of heaven,

He turned to look at me, ere I could lose

The grin with which I viewed his perishing.

And he shrieked and departed, and sat long

By his deserted throne — but sunk at last,

Murmuring, as I kissed his lips and curled

Around him, “I am still a god — to thee.”

Still I can lay my soul bare in its fall,

For all the wandering and all the weakness

Will he a saddest comment on the song.