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

Silent; but at her knees the very maid

Of the North Chamber, her red lips as rich,

The same pure fleecy hair; one weft of which,

Golden and great, quite touched his cheek as o’er

She leant, speaking some six words and no more.

He answered something, anything; and she

Unbound a scarf and laid it heavily

Upon him, her neck’s warmth and all. Again

Moved the arrested magic; in his brain

Noises grew, and a light that turned to glare,

And greater glare, until the intense flare

Engulfed him, shut the whole scene from his sense.

And when he woke ‘t was many a furlong thence,

At home; the sun shining his ruddy wont;

The customary birds’-chirp; but his front

Was crowned — was crowned! Her scented scarf around

His neck! Whose gorgeous vesture heaps the ground?

A prize? He turned, and peeringly on him

Brooded the women-faces, kind and dim,

Ready to talk — ”The Jongleurs in a troop

“Had brought him back, Naddo and Squarcialupe

“And Tagliafer; how strange! a childhood spent

“In taking, well for him, so brave a bent!

“Since Eglamor,” they heard, “was dead with spite,

“And Palma chose him for her minstrel.”

Light

Sordello rose — to think, now; hitherto

He had perceived. Sure, a discovery grew

Out of it all! Best live from first to last

The transport o’er again. A week he passed,

Sucking the sweet out of each circumstance,

From the bard’s outbreak to the luscious trance

Bounding his own achievement. Strange! A man

Recounted an adventure, but began

Imperfectly; his own task was to fill

The framework up, sing well what he sung ill,

Supply the necessary points, set loose

As many incidents of little use

— More imbecile the other, not to see

Their relative importance clear as he!

But, for a special pleasure in the act

Of singing — had he ever turned, in fact,

From Elys, to sing Elys? — from each fit

Of rapture to contrive a song of it?

True, this snatch or the other seemed to wind

Into a treasure, helped himself to find

A beauty in himself; for, see, he soared

By means of that mere snatch, to many a hoard

Of fancies; as some falling cone bears soft

The eye along the fir-tree-spire, aloft

To a dove’s nest. Then, how divine the cause

Why such performance should exact applause

From men, if they had fancies too? Did fate

Decree they found a beauty separate

In the poor snatch itself? — ”Take Elys, there,

“ — ’Her head that ‘s sharp and perfect like a pear,

“‘So close and smooth are laid the few fine locks

“‘Coloured like honey oozed from topmost rocks

“‘Sun-blanched the livelong summer’ — if they heard

“Just those two rhymes, assented at my word,

“And loved them as I love them who have run

“These fingers through those pale locks, let the sun

“Into the white cool skin — who first could clutch,

“Then praise — I needs must be a god to such.

“Or what if some, above themselves, and yet

“Beneath me, like their Eglamor, have set

“An impress on our gift? So, men believe

“And worship what they know not, nor receive

“Delight from. Have they fancies — slow, perchance,

“Not at their beck, which indistinctly glance

“Until, by song, each floating part be linked

“To each, and all grow palpable, distinct?”

He pondered this.

Meanwhile, sounds low and drear

Stole on him, and a noise of footsteps, near

And nearer, while the underwood was pushed

Aside, the larches grazed, the dead leaves crushed

At the approach of men. The wind seemed laid;

Only, the trees shrunk slightly and a shade

Came o’er the sky although ‘t was midday yet:

You saw each half-shut downcast floweret

Flutter — ”a Roman bride, when they ‘d dispart

“Her unbound tresses with the Sabine dart,

“Holding that famous rape in memory still,

“Felt creep into her curls the iron chill,

“And looked thus,” Eglamor would say — indeed

‘T is Eglamor, no other, these precede

Home hither in the woods. “‘T were surely sweet

“Far from the scene of one’s forlorn defeat

“To sleep!” judged Naddo, who in person led

Jongleurs and Trouveres, chanting at their head,

A scanty company; for, sooth to say,

Our beaten Troubadour had seen his day.

Old worshippers were something shamed, old friends

Nigh weary; still the death proposed amends.

“Let us but get them safely through my song

“And home again!” quoth Naddo.

All along,

This man (they rest the bier upon the sand)

— This calm corpse with the loose flowers in his hand,

Eglamor, lived Sordello’s opposite.

For him indeed was Naddo’s notion right,

And verse a temple-worship vague and vast,

A ceremony that withdrew the last

Opposing bolt, looped back the lingering veil

Which hid the holy place: should one so frail

Stand there without such effort? or repine

If much was blank, uncertain at the shrine

He knelt before, till, soothed by many a rite,

The power responded, and some sound or sight

Grew up, his own forever, to be fixed,

In rhyme, the beautiful, forever! — mixed

With his own life, unloosed when he should please,

Having it safe at hand, ready to ease

All pain, remove all trouble; every time

He loosed that fancy from its bonds of rhyme,

(Like Perseus when he loosed his naked love)

Faltering; so distinct and far above

Himself, these fancies! He, no genius rare,

Transfiguring in fire or wave or air

At will, but a poor gnome that, cloistered up

In some rock-chamber with his agate cup,

His topaz rod, his seed-pearl, in these few

And their arrangement finds enough to do

For his best art. Then, how he loved that art!

The calling marking him a man apart

From men — one not to care, take counsel for

Cold hearts, comfortless faces — (Eglamor

Was neediest of his tribe) — since verse, the gift,

Was his, and men, the whole of them, must shift

Without it, e’en content themselves with wealth

And pomp and power, snatching a life by stealth.

So, Eglamor was not without his pride!

The sorriest bat which cowers throughout noontide

While other birds are jocund, has one time

When moon and stars are blinded, and the prime

Of earth is his to claim, nor find a peer;

And Eglamor was noblest poet here —

He well knew, ‘mid those April woods he cast

Conceits upon in plenty as he passed,

That Naddo might suppose him not to think

Entirely on the coming triumph: wink

At the one weakness! ‘T was a fervid child,

That song of his; no brother of the guild

Had e’er conceived its like. The rest you know,

The exaltation and the overthrow:

Our poet lost his purpose, lost his rank,

His life — to that it came. Yet envy sank

Within him, as he heard Sordello out,

And, for the first time, shouted — tried to shout

Like others, not from any zeal to show

Pleasure that way: the common sort did so,

What else was Eglamor? who, bending down

As they, placed his beneath Sordello’s crown,

Printed a kiss on his successor’s hand,

Left one great tear on it, then joined his band

— In time; for some were watching at the door:

Who knows what envy may effect? “Give o’er,

“Nor charm his lips, nor craze him!” (here one spied

And disengaged the withered crown) — ”Beside