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

No simple and self-evident delights,

But mixed desires of unimagined range,

Contrasts or combinations, new and strange,

Irksome perhaps, yet plainly recognized

By this, the sudden company — loves prized

By those who are to prize his own amount

Of loves. Once care because such make account,

Allow that foreign recognitions stamp

The current value, and his crowd shall vamp

Him counterfeits enough; and so their print

Be on the piece, ‘t is gold, attests the mint,

And “good,” pronounce they whom his new appeal

Is made to: if their casual print conceal —

This arbitrary good of theirs o’ergloss

What he has lived without, nor felt the loss —

Qualities strange, ungainly, wearisome,

— What matter? So must speech expand the dumb

Part-sigh, part-smile with which Sordello, late

Whom no poor woodland-sights could satiate,

Betakes himself to study hungrily

Just what the puppets his crude phantasy

Supposes notablest, — popes, kings, priests, knights, —

May please to promulgate for appetites;

Accepting all their artificial joys

Not as he views them, but as he employs

Each shape to estimate the other’s stock

Of attributes, whereon — a marshalled flock

Of authorized enjoyments — he may spend

Himself, be men, now, as he used to blend

With tree and flower — nay more entirely, else

‘T were mockery: for instance, “How excels

“My life that chieftain’s?” (who apprised the youth

Ecelin, here, becomes this month, in truth,

Imperial Vicar?) “Turns he in his tent

“Remissly? Be it so — my head is bent

“Deliciously amid my girls to sleep.

“What if he stalks the Trentine-pass? Yon steep

“I climbed an hour ago with little toil:

“We are alike there. But can I, too, foil

“The Guelf’s paid stabber, carelessly afford

“Saint Mark’s a spectacle, the sleight o’ the sword

“Baffling the treason in a moment?” Here

No rescue! Poppy he is none, but peer

To Ecelin, assuredly: his hand,

Fashioned no otherwise, should wield a brand

With Ecelin’s success — try, now! He soon

Was satisfied, returned as to the moon

From earth; left each abortive boy’s-attempt

For feats, from failure happily exempt,

In fancy at his beck. “One day I will

“Accomplish it! Are they not older still

“ — Not grown-up men and women? ‘T is beside

“Only a dream; and though I must abide

“With dreams now, I may find a thorough vent

“For all myself, acquire an instrument

“For acting what these people act; my soul

“Hunting a body out may gain its whole

“Desire some day!” How else express chagrin

And resignation, show the hope steal in

With which he let sink from an aching wrist

The rough-hewn ash-bow? Straight, a gold shaft hissed

Into the Syrian air, struck Malek down

Superbly! “Crosses to the breach! God’s Town

“Is gained him back!” Why bend rough ash-bows more?

Thus lives he: if not careless as before,

Comforted: for one may anticipate,

Rehearse the future, be prepared when fate

Shall have prepared in turn real men whose names

Startle, real places of enormous fames,

Este abroad and Ecelin at home

To worship him, — Mantua, Verona, Rome

To witness it. Who grudges time so spent?

Rather test qualities to heart’s content —

Summon them, thrice selected, near and far —

Compress the starriest into one star,

And grasp the whole at once!

The pageant thinned

Accordingly; from rank to rank, like wind

His spirit passed to winnow and divide;

Back fell the simpler phantasms; every side

The strong clave to the wise; with either classed

The beauteous; so, till two or three amassed

Mankind’s beseemingnesses, and reduced

Themselves eventually, — graces loosed,

Strengths lavished, — all to heighten up One Shape

Whose potency no creature should escape.

Can it be Friedrich of the bowmen’s talk?

Surely that grape-juice, bubbling at the stalk,

Is some grey scorching Saracenic wine

The Kaiser quaffs with the Miramoline —

Those swarthy hazel-clusters, seamed and chapped,

Or filberts russet-sheathed and velvet-capped,

Are dates plucked from the bough John Brienne sent

To keep in mind his sluggish armament

Of Canaan: — Friedrich’s, all the pomp and fierce

Demeanour! But harsh sounds and sights transpierce

So rarely the serene cloud where he dwells

Whose looks enjoin, whose lightest words are spells

On the obdurate! That right arm indeed

Has thunder for its slave; but where ‘s the need

Of thunder if the stricken multitude

Hearkens, arrested in its angriest mood,

While songs go up exulting, then dispread,

Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead

Like an escape of angels? ‘T is the tune,

Nor much unlike the words his women croon

Smilingly, colourless and faint-designed

Each, as a worn-out queen’s face some remind

Of her extreme youth’s love-tales. “Eglamor

“Made that!” Half minstrel and half emperor,

What but ill objects vexed him? Such he slew.

The kinder sort were easy to subdue

By those ambrosial glances, dulcet tones;

And these a gracious hand advanced to thrones

Beneath him. Wherefore twist and torture this,

Striving to name afresh the antique bliss,

Instead of saying, neither less nor more,

He had discovered, as our world before,

Apollo? That shall be the name; nor bid

Me rag by rag expose how patchwork hid

The youth — what thefts of every clime and day

Contributed to purfle the array

He climbed with (June at deep) some close ravine

Mid clatter of its million pebbles sheen,

Over which, singing soft, the runnel slipped

Elate with rains: into whose streamlet dipped

He foot, yet trod, you thought, with unwet sock —

Though really on the stubs of living rock

Ages ago it crenelled; vines for roof,

Lindens for wall; before him, aye aloof,

Flittered in the cool some azure damsel-fly,

Born of the simmering quiet, there to die.

Emerging whence, Apollo still, he spied

Mighty descents of forest; multiplied

Tuft on tuft, here, the frolic myrtle-trees,

There gendered the grave maple stocks at ease.

And, proud of its observer, straight the wood

Tried old surprises on him; black it stood

A sudden barrier (’twas a cloud passed o’er)

So dead and dense, the tiniest brute no more

Must pass; yet presently (the cloud dispatched)

Each clump, behold, was glistering detached

A shrub, oak-boles shrunk into ilex-stems!

Yet could not he denounce the stratagems

He saw thro’, till, hours thence, aloft would hang

White summer-lightnings; as it sank and sprang

To measure, that whole palpitating breast

Of heaven, ‘t was Apollo, nature prest

At eve to worship.

Time stole: by degrees

The Pythons perish off; his votaries

Sink to respectful distance; songs redeem

Their pains, but briefer; their dismissals seem

Emphatic; only girls are very slow

To disappear — his Delians! Some that glow

O’ the instant, more with earlier loves to wrench

Away, reserves to quell, disdains to quench;

Alike in one material circumstance —

All soon or late adore Apollo! Glance

The bevy through, divine Apollo’s choice,

His Daphne! “We secure Count Richard’s voice

“In Este’s counsels, good for Este’s ends