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

Which marks me — an imagination which

Has been an angel to me — coming not

In fitful visions, but beside me ever,

And never failing me; so tho’ my mind

Forgets not — not a shred of life forgets —

Yet I can take a secret pride in calling

The dark past up — to quell it regally.

A mind like this must dissipate itself,

But I have always had one lodestar; now,

As I look back, I see that I have wasted,

Or progressed as I looked toward that star —

A need, a trust, a yearning after God,

A feeling I have analysed but late,

But it existed, and was reconciled

With a neglect of all I deemed His laws,

Which yet, when seen in others, I abhorred.

I felt as one beloved, and so shut in

From fear — and thence I date my trust in signs

And omens — for I saw God everywhere;

And I can only lay it to the fruit

Of a sad aftertime that I could doubt

Even His being — having always felt

His presence — never acting from myself,

Still trusting in a hand that leads me through

All dangers; and this feeling still has fought

Against my weakest reason and resolves.

And I can love nothing — and this dull truth

Has come the last — but sense supplies a love

Encircling me and mingling with my life.

These make myself — for I have sought in vain

To trace how they were formed by circumstance,

For I still find them — turning my wild youth

Where they alone displayed themselves, converting

All objects to their use — now see their course!

They came to me in my first dawn of life,

Which passed alone with wisest ancient books,

All halo-girt with fancies of my own,

And I myself went with the tale, — a god,

Wandering after beauty — or a giant,

Standing vast in the sunset — an old hunter,

Talking with gods — or a high-crested chief,

Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos; —

I tell you, nought has ever been so clear

As the place, the time, the fashion of those lives.

I had not seen a work of lofty art,

Nor woman’s beauty, nor sweet nature’s face,

Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those

On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea:

The deep groves, and white temples, and wet caves —

And nothing ever will surprise me now —

Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed,

Who bound my forehead with Proserpine’s hair.

An’ strange it is, that I who could so dream,

Should e’er have stooped to aim at aught beneath —

Aught low, or painful, but I never doubted;

So as I grew, I rudely shaped my life

To my immediate wants, yet strong beneath

Was a vague sense of power folded up —

A sense that tho’ those shadowy times were past,

Their spirit dwelt in me, and I should rule.

Then came a pause, and long restraint chained down

My soul, till it was changed. I lost myself,

And were it not that I so loathe that time,

I could recall how first I learned to turn

My mind against itself; and the effects,

In deeds for which remorse were vain, as for

The wanderings of delirious dream; yet thence

Came cunning, envy, falsehood, which so long

Have spotted me — at length I was restored,

Yet long the influence remained; and nought

But the still life I led, apart from all,

Which left my soul to seek its old delights,

Could e’er have brought me thus far back to peace.

As peace returned, I sought out some pursuit:

And song rose — no new impulse — but the one

With which all others best could be combined.

My life has not been that of those whose heaven

Was lampless, save where poesy shone out;

But as a clime, where glittering mountain-tops,

And glancing sea, and forests steeped in light,

Give back reflected the far-flashing sun;

For music, (which is earnest of a heaven,

Seeing we know emotions strange by it,

Not else to be revealed) is as a voice,

A low voice calling Fancy, as a friend,

To the green woods in the gay summer time.

And she fills all the way with dancing shapes,

Which have made painters pale; and they go on

While stars look at them, and winds call to them,

As they leave life’s path for the twilight world,

Where the dead gather. This was not at first,

For I scarce knew what I would do. I had

No wish to paint, no yearning — but I sang.

And first I sang, as I in dream have seen,

Music wait on a lyrist for some thought,

Yet singing to herself until it came.

I turned to those old times and scenes, where all

That’s beautiful had birth for me, and made

Rude verses on them all; and then I paused —

I had done nothing, so I sought to know

What mind had yet achieved. No fear was mine

As I gazed on the works of mighty bards,

In the first joy at finding my own thoughts

Recorded, and my powers exemplified,

And feeling their aspirings were my own.

And then I first explored passion and mind;

And I began afresh; I rather sought

To rival what I wondered at, than form

Creations of my own; so much was light

Lent back by others, yet much was my own

I paused again — a change was coming on,

I was no more a boy — the past was breaking

Before the coming, and like fever worked.

I first thought on myself — and here my powers

Burst out. I dreamed not of restraint, but gazed

On all things: schemes and systems went and came,

And I was proud (being vainest of the weak),

In wandering o’er them, to seek out some one

To be my own; as one should wander o’er

The white way for a star.

. . . . .

On one, whom praise of mine would not offend,

Who was as calm as beauty — being such

Unto mankind as thou to me, Pauline,

Believing in them, and devoting all

His soul’s strength to their winning back to peace;

Who sent forth hopes and longings for their sake,

Clothed in all passion’s melodies, which first

Caught me, and set me, as to a sweet task,

To gather every breathing of his songs,

And woven with them there were words, which seemed

A key to a new world; the muttering

Of angels, of something unguessed by man.

How my heart beat, as I went on, and found

Much there! I felt my own mind had conceived,

But there living and burning; soon the whole

Of his conceptions dawned on me; their praise

Is in the tongues of men; men’s brows are high

When his name means a triumph and a pride;

So my weak hands may well forbear to dim

What then seemed my bright fate: I threw myself

To meet it. I was vowed to liberty,

Men were to be as gods, and earth as heaven.

And I — ah! what a life was mine to be,

My whole soul rose to meet it. Now, Pauline,

I shall go mad if I recall that time.

. . . . .

O let me look back, e’er I leave for ever

The time, which was an hour, that one waits

For a fair girl, that comes a withered hag.

And I was lonely — far from woods and fields,

And amid dullest sights, who should be loose

As a stag — yet I was full of joy — who lived

With Plato — and who had the key to life.

And I had dimly shaped my first attempt,

And many a thought did I build up on thought,

As the wild bee hangs cell to cell — in vain;

For I must still go on: my mind rests not.

’Twas in my plan to look on real life,

Which was all new to me; my theories

Were firm, so I left them, to look upon

Men, and their cares, and hopes, and fears, and joys;