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

Nay, even the worst, — just house them! Any cave

Suffices: throw out earth! A loophole? Brave!

They ask to feel the sun shine, see the grass

Grow, hear the larks sing? Dead art thou, alas,

And I am dead! But here’s our son excels

At hurdle-weaving any Scythian, fells

Oak and devises rafters, dreams and shapes

His dream into a doorpost, just escapes

The mystery of hinges. Lie we both

Perdue another age. The goodly growth

Of brick and stone! Our building-pelt was rough,

But that descendant’s garb suits well enough

A portico-contriver. Speed the years —

What ‘s time to us? At last, a city rears

Itself! nay, enter — what’s the grave to us?

Lo, our forlorn acquaintance carry thus

The head! Successively sewer, forum, cirque —

Last age, an aqueduct was counted work,

But now they tire the artificer upon

Blank alabaster, black obsidion,

— Careful, Jove’s face be duly fulgurant,

And mother Venus’ kiss-creased nipples pant

Back into pristine pulpiness, ere fixed

Above the baths. What difference betwixt

This Rome and ours — resemblance what, between

That scurvy dumb-show and this pageant sheen —

These Romans and our rabble? Use thy wit!

The work marched: step by step, — a workman fit

Took each, nor too fit, — to one task, one time, —

No leaping o’er the petty to the prime,

When just the substituting osier lithe

For brittle bulrush, sound wood for soft withe,

To further loam-and-roughcast-work a stage, —

Exacts an architect, exacts an age:

No tables of the Mauritanian tree

For men whose maple log ‘s their luxury!

That way was Rome built. “Better” (say you) “merge

“At once all workmen in the demiurge,

“All epochs in a lifetime, every task

“In one!” So should the sudden city bask

I’ the day — while those we ‘d feast there, want the knack

Of keeping fresh-chalked gowns from speck and brack,

Distinguish not rare peacock from vile swan,

Nor Mareotic juice from Cæcuban.

“Enough of Rome! ‘T was happy to conceive

“Rome on a sudden, nor shall fate bereave

“Me of that credit: for the rest, her spite

“Is an old story — serves my folly right

“By adding yet another to the dull

“List of abortions — things proved beautiful

“Could they be done, Sordello cannot do.”

He sat upon the terrace, plucked and threw

The powdery aloe-cusps away, saw shift

Rome’s walls, and drop arch after arch, and drift

Mist-like afar those pillars of all stripe,

Mounds of all majesty. “Thou archetype,

“Last of my dreams and loveliest, depart!”

And then a low voice wound into his heart:

“Sordello!” (low as some old Pythoness

Conceding to a Lydian King’s distress

The cause of his long error — one mistake

Of her past oracle) “Sordello, wake!

“God has conceded two sights to a man —

“One, of men’s whole work, time’s completed plan,

“The other, of the minute’s work, man’s first

“Step to the plan’s completeness: what’s dispersed

“Save hope of that supreme step which, descried

“Earliest, was meant still to remain untried

“Only to give you heart to take your own

“Step, and there stay, leaving the rest alone?

“Where is the vanity? Why count as one

“The first step, with the last step? What is gone

“Except Rome’s aëry magnificence,

“That last step you ‘d take first? — an evidence

“You were God: be man now! Let those glances fall!

“The basis, the beginning step of all,

“Which proves you just a man — is that gone too?

“Pity to disconcert one versed as you

“In fate’s ill-nature! but its full extent

“Eludes Sordello, even: the veil rent,

“Read the black writing — that collective man

“Outstrips the individual. Who began

“The acknowledged greatnesses? Ay, your own art

“Shall serve us: put the poet’s mimes apart —

“Close with the poet’s self, and lo, a dim

“Yet too plain form divides itself from him!

“Alcamo’s song enmeshes the lulled Isle,

“Woven into the echoes left erewhile

“By Nina, one soft web of song: no more

“Turning his name, then, flower-like o’er and o’er!

“An elder poet in the younger’s place;

“Nina’s the strength, but Alcamo’s the grace:

“Each neutralizes each then! Search your fill;

“You get no whole and perfect Poet — still

“New Ninas, Alcamos, till time’s midnight

“Shrouds all — or better say, the shutting light

“Of a forgotten yesterday. Dissect

“Every ideal workman — (to reject

“In favour of your fearful ignorance

“The thousand phantasms eager to advance,

“And point you but to those within your reach) —

“Were you the first who brought — (in modern speech)

“The Multitude to be materialized?

“That loose eternal unrest — who devised

“An apparition i’ the midst? The rout

“Was checked, a breathless ring was formed about

“That sudden flower: get round at any risk

“The gold-rough pointel, silver-blazing disk

“O’ the lily! Swords across it! Reign thy reign

“And serve thy frolic service, Charlemagne!

“ — The very child of over-joyousness,

“Unfeeling thence, strong therefore: Strength by stress

“Of Strength comes of that forehead confident,

“Those widened eyes expecting heart’s content,

“A calm as out of just-quelled noise; nor swerves

“For doubt, the ample cheek in gracious curves

“Abutting on the upthrust nether lip:

“He wills, how should he doubt then? Ages slip:

“Was it Sordello pried into the work

“So far accomplished, and discovered lurk

“A company amid the other clans,

“Only distinct in priests for castellans

“And popes for suzerains (their rule confessed

“Its rule, their interest its interest,

“Living for sake of living — there an end, —

“Wrapt in itself, no energy to spend

“In making adversaries or allies) —

“Dived you into its capabilities

“And dared create, out of that sect, a soul

“Should turn a multitude, already whole,

“Into its body? Speak plainer! Is ‘t so sure

“God’s church lives by a King’s investiture?

“Look to last step! A staggering — a shock —

“What ‘s mere sand is demolished, while the rock

“Endures: a column of black fiery dust

“Blots heaven — that help was prematurely thrust

“Aside, perchance! — but air clears, nought ‘s erased

“Of the true outline. Thus much being firm based,

“The other was a scaffold. See him stand

“Buttressed upon his mattock, Hildebrand

“Of the huge brain-mask welded ply o’er ply

“As in a forge; it buries either eye

“White and extinct, that stupid brow; teeth clenched,

“The neck tight-corded, too, the chin deep-trenched,

“As if a cloud enveloped him while fought

“Under its shade, grim prizers, thought with thought

“At dead-lock, agonizing he, until

“The victor thought leap radiant up, and Will,

“The slave with folded arms and drooping lids

“They fought for, lean forth flame-like as it bids.

“Call him no flower — a mandrake of the earth,

“Thwarted and dwarfed and blasted in its birth,

“Rather, — a fruit of suffering’s excess,

“Thence feeling, therefore stronger: still by stress

“Of Strength, work Knowledge! Full three hundred years