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

Mass from the new speech round him, till a rude

Armour was hammered out, in time to be

Approved beyond the Roman panoply

Melted to make it, — boots not. This obtained

With some ado, no obstacle remained

To using it; accordingly he took

An action with its actors, quite forsook

Himself to live in each, returned anon

With the result — a creature, and, by one

And one, proceeded leisurely to equip

Its limbs in harness of his workmanship.

“Accomplished! Listen, Mantuans!” Fond essay!

Piece after piece that armour broke away,

Because perceptions whole, like that he sought

To clothe, reject so pure a work of thought

As language: thought may take perception’s place

But hardly coexist in any case,

Being its mere presentment — of the whole

By parts, the simultaneous and the sole

By the successive and the many. Lacks

The crowd perception? painfully it tacks

Thought to thought, which Sordello, needing such,

Has rent perception into: it’s to clutch

And reconstruct — his office to diffuse,

Destroy: as hard, then, to obtain a Muse

As to become Apollo. “For the rest,

“E’en if some wondrous vehicle expressed

“The whole dream, what impertinence in me

“So to express it, who myself can be

“The dream! nor, on the other hand, are those

“I sing to, over-likely to suppose

“A higher than the highest I present

“Now, which they praise already: be content

“Both parties, rather — they with the old verse,

“And I with the old praise — far go, fare worse!”

A few adhering rivets loosed, upsprings

The angel, sparkles off his mail, which rings

Whirled from each delicatest limb it warps;

So might Apollo from the sudden corpse

Of Hyacinth have cast his luckless quoits.

He set to celebrating the exploits

Of Montfort o’er the Mountaineers.

Then came

The world’s revenge: their pleasure, now his aim

Merely, — what was it? “Not to play the fool

“So much as learn our lesson in your school!”

Replied the world. He found that, every time

He gained applause by any ballad-rhyme,

His auditory recognized no jot

As he intended, and, mistaking not

Him for his meanest hero, ne’er was dunce

Sufficient to believe him — all, at once.

His will… conceive it caring for his will!

— Mantuans, the main of them, admiring still

How a mere singer, ugly, stunted, weak,

Had Montfort at completely (so to speak)

His fingers’ ends; while past the praise-tide swept

To Montfort, either’s share distinctly kept:

The true meed for true merit! — his abates

Into a sort he most repudiates,

And on them angrily he turns. Who were

The Mantuans, after all, that he should care

About their recognition, ay or no?

In spite of the convention months ago,

(Why blink the truth?) was not he forced to help

This same ungrateful audience, every whelp

Of Naddo’s litter, make them pass for peers

With the bright band of old Goito years,

As erst he toiled for flower or tree? Why, there

Sat Palma! Adelaide’s funereal hair

Ennobled the next corner. Ay, he strewed

A fairy dust upon that multitude,

Although he feigned to take them by themselves;

His giants dignified those puny elves,

Sublimed their faint applause. In short, he found

Himself still footing a delusive round,

Remote as ever from the self-display

He meant to compass, hampered every way

By what he hoped assistance. Wherefore then

Continue, make believe to find in men

A use he found not?

Weeks, months, years went by

And lo, Sordello vanished utterly,

Sundered in twain; each spectral part at strife

With each; one jarred against another life;

The Poet thwarting hopelessly the Man —

Who, fooled no longer, free in fancy ran

Here, there: let slip no opportunities

As pitiful, forsooth, beside the prize

To drop on him some no-time and acquit

His constant faith (the Poet-half’s to wit —

That waiving any compromise between

No joy and all joy kept the hunger keen

Beyond most methods) — of incurring scoff

From the Man-portion — not to be put off

With self-reflectings by the Poet’s scheme,

Though ne’er so bright. Who sauntered forth in dream,

Dressed any how, nor waited mystic frames,

Immeasurable gifts, astounding claims,

But just his sorry self? — who yet might be

Sorrier for aught he in reality

Achieved, so pinioned Man’s the Poet-part,

Fondling, in turn of fancy, verse; the Art

Developing his soul a thousand ways —

Potent, by its assistance, to amaze

The multitude with majesties, convince

Each sort of nature that the nature’s prince

Accosted it. Language, the makeshift, grew

Into a bravest of expedients, too;

Apollo, seemed it now, perverse had thrown

Quiver and bow away, the lyre alone

Sufficed. While, out of dream, his day’s work went

To tune a crazy tenzon or sirvent —

So hampered him the Man-part, thrust to judge

Between the bard and the bard’s audience, grudge

A minute’s toil that missed its due reward!

But the complete Sordello, Man and Bard,

John’s cloud-girt angel, this foot on the land,

That on the sea, with, open in his hand,

A bitter-sweetling of a book — was gone.

Then, if internal struggles to be one,

Which frittered him incessantly piecemeal,

Referred, ne’er so obliquely, to the real

Intruding Mantuans! ever with some call

To action while he pondered, once for all,

Which looked the easier effort — to pursue

This course, still leap o’er paltry joys, yearn through

The present ill-appreciated stage

Of self-revealment, and compel the age

Know him — or else, forswearing bard-craft, wake

From out his lethargy and nobly shake

Off timid habits of denial, mix

With men, enjoy like men. Ere he could fix

On aught, in rushed the Mantuans; much they cared

For his perplexity! Thus unprepared,

The obvious if not only shelter lay

In deeds, the dull conventions of his day

Prescribed the like of him: why not be glad

‘T is settled Palma’s minstrel, good or bad,

Submits to this and that established rule?

Let Vidal change, or any other fool,

His murrey-coloured robe for filamot,

And crop his hair; too skin-deep, is it not,

Such vigour? Then, a sorrow to the heart,

His talk! Whatever topics they might start

Had to be groped for in his consciousness

Straight, and as straight delivered them by guess.

Only obliged to ask himself, “What was,”

A speedy answer followed; but, alas,

One of God’s large ones, tardy to condense

Itself into a period; answers whence

A tangle of conclusions must be stripped

At any risk ere, trim to pattern clipped,

They matched rare specimens the Mantuan flock

Regaled him with, each talker from his stock

Of sorted-o’er opinions, every stage,

Juicy in youth or desiccate with age,

Fruits like the figtree’s, rathe-ripe, rotten-rich,

Sweet-sour, all tastes to take: a practice which

He too had not impossibly attained,

Once either of those fancy-flights restrained;

(For, at conjecture how might words appear

To others, playing there what happened here,

And occupied abroad by what he spurned

At home, ‘t was slipped, the occasion he returned

To seize he ‘d strike that lyre adroitly — speech,