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

And if, that done, I can be young again,

I will give up all gained as willingly

As one gives up a charm which shuts him out

From hope, or part, or care, in human kind.

As life wanes, all its cares, and strife, and toil,

Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees

Which grew by our youth’s home — the waving mass

Of climbing plants, heavy with bloom and dew —

The morning swallows with their songs like words, —

All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts.

So aught connected with my early life —

My rude songs or my wild imaginings,

How I look on them — most distinct amid

The fever and the stir of after years!

I ne’er had ventured e’en to hope for this,

Had not the glow I felt at His award,

Assured me all was not extinct within.

Him whom all honor — whose renown springs up

Like sunlight which will visit all the world;

So that e’en they who sneered at him at first,

Come out to it, as some dark spider crawls

From his foul nest, which some lit torch invades,

Yet spinning still new films for his retreat. —

Thou didst smile, poet, — but can we forgive?

Sun-treader — life and light be thine for ever;

Thou art gone from us — years go by — and spring

Gladdens, and the young earth is beautiful,

Yet thy songs come not — other bards arise,

But none like thee — they stand — thy majesties,

Like mighty works which tell some Spirit there

Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn,

Till, its long task completed, it hath risen

And left us, never to return: and all

Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain.

The air seems bright with thy past presence yet,

But thou art still for me, as thou hast been

When I have stood with thee, as on a throne

With all thy dim creations gathered round

Like mountains, — and I felt of mould like them,

And creatures of my own were mixed with them,

Like things half-lived, catching and giving life.

But thou art still for me, who have adored,

Tho’ single, panting but to hear thy name,

Which I believed a spell to me alone,

Scarce deeming thou wert as a star to men —

As one should worship long a sacred spring

Scarce worth a moth’s flitting, which long grasses cross,

And one small tree embowers droopingly,

Joying to see some wandering insect won.

To live in its few rushes — or some locust

To pasture on its boughs — or some wild bird

Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air,

And then should find it but the fountain-head,

Long lost, of some great river — washing towns

And towers, and seeing old woods which will live

But by its banks, untrod of human foot,

Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering

In light as some thing lieth half of life

Before God’s foot — waiting a wondrous change

— Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay

Its course in vain, for it does ever spread

Like a sea’s arm as it goes rolling on,

Being the pulse of some great country — so

Wert thou to me — and art thou to the world.

And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret,

That I am not what I have been to thee:

Like a girl one has loved long silently,

In her first loveliness, in some retreat,

When first emerged, all gaze and glow to view

Her fresh eyes, and soft hair, and lips which bleed

Like a mountain berry. Doubtless it is sweet

To see her thus adored — but there have been

Moments, when all the world was in his praise,

Sweeter than all the pride of after hours.

Yet, Sun-treader, all hail! — from my heart’s heart

I bid thee hail! — e’en in my wildest dreams,

I am proud to feel I would have thrown up all

The wreaths of fame which seemed o’erhanging me,

To have seen thee, for a moment, as thou art.

And if thou livest — if thou lovest, spirit!

Remember me, who set this final seal

To wandering thought — that one so pure as thou

Could never die. Remember me, who flung

All honor from my soul — yet paused and said,

“There is one spark of love remaining yet,

“For I have nought in common with him — shapes

“Which followed him avoid me, and foul forms

“Seek me, which ne’er could fasten on his mind;

“And tho’ I feel how low I am to him,

“Yet I aim not even to catch a tone

“Of all the harmonies which he called up,

“So one gleam still remains, altho’ the last”

Remember me — who praise thee e’en with tears,

For never more shall I walk calm with thee;

Thy sweet imaginings are as an air,

A melody, some wond’rous singer sings,

Which, though it haunt men oft in the still eve,

They dream not to essay; yet it no less,

But more is honored. I was thine in shame,

And now when all thy proud renown is out,

I am a watcher, whose eyes have grown dim

With looking for some star — which breaks on him,

Altered and worn, and weak, and full of tears.

Autumn has come — like Spring returned to us,

Won from her girlishness — like one returned

A friend that was a lover — nor forgets

The first warm love, but full of sober thoughts

Of fading years; whose soft mouth quivers yet

With the old smile — but yet so changed and still!

And here am I the scoffer, who have probed

Life’s vanity, won by a word again

Into my old life — for one little word

Of this sweet friend, who lives in loving me,

Lives strangely on my thoughts, and looks, and words,

As fathoms down some nameless ocean thing

Its silent course of quietness and joy

O dearest, if indeed, I tell the past,

May’st thou forget it as a sad sick dream;

Or if it linger — my lost soul too soon

Sinks to itself, and whispers, we shall be

But closer linked — two creatures whom the earth

Bears singly — with strange feelings, unrevealed

But to each other; or two lonely things

Created by some Power, whose reign is done,

Having no part in God, or his bright world,

I am to sing; whilst ebbing day dies soft,

As a lean scholar dies, worn o’er his book,

And in the heaven stars steal out one by one,

As hunted men steal to their mountain watch.

I must not think — lest this new impulse die

In which I trust. I have no confidence,

So I will sing on — fast as fancies come

Rudely — the verse being as the mood it paints.

I strip my mind bare — whose first elements

I shall unveil — not as they struggled forth

In infancy, nor as they now exist,

That I am grown above them, and can rule them,

But in that middle stage when they were full,

Yet ere I had disposed them to my will;

And then I shall show how these elements

Produced my present state, and what it is.

I am made up of an intensest life,

Of a most clear idea of consciousness

Of self — distinct from all its qualities,

From all affections, passions, feelings, powers;

And thus far it exists, if tracked in all,

But linked in me, to self-supremacy,

Existing as a centre to all things,

Most potent to create, and rule, and call

Upon all things to minister to it;

And to a principle of restlessness

Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all —

This is myself; and I should thus have been,

Though gifted lower than the meanest soul.

And of my powers, one springs up to save

From utter death a soul with such desires

Confined to clay — which is the only one