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

“Have men to wear away in smiles and tears

“Between the two that nearly seemed to touch,

“Observe you! quit one workman and you clutch

“Another, letting both their trains go by —

“The actors-out of either’s policy,

“Heinrich, on this hand, Otho, Barbaross,

“Carry the three Imperial crowns across,

“Aix’ Iron, Milan’s Silver, and Rome’s Gold —

“While Alexander, Innocent uphold

“On that, each Papal key — but, link on link,

“Why is it neither chain betrays a chink?

“How coalesce the small and great? Alack,

“For one thrust forward, fifty such fall back!

“Do the popes coupled there help Gregory

“Alone? Hark — from the hermit Peter’s cry

“At Claremont, down to the first serf that says

“Friedrich ‘s no liege of his while he delays

“Getting the Pope’s curse off him! The Crusade —

“Or trick of breeding Strength by other aid

“Than Strength, is safe. Hark — from the wild harangue

“Of Vimmercato, to the carroch’s clang

“Yonder! The League — or trick of turning Strength

“Against Pernicious Strength, is safe at length.

“Yet hark — from Mantuan Albert making cease

“The fierce ones, to Saint Francis preaching peace

“Yonder! God’s Truce — or trick to supersede

“The very Use of Strength, is safe. Indeed

“We trench upon the future. Who is found

“To take next step, next age — trail o’er the ground —

“Shall I say, gourd-like? — not the flower’s display

“Nor the root’s prowess, but the plenteous way

“O’ the plant — produced by joy and sorrow, whence

“Unfeeling and yet feeling, strongest thence?

“Knowledge by stress of merely Knowledge? No —

“E’en were Sordello ready to forego

“His life for this, ‘t were overleaping work

“Some one has first to do, howe’er it irk,

“Nor stray a foot’s breadth from the beaten road.

“Who means to help must still support the load

“Hildebrand lifted — ’why hast Thou,’ he groaned,

“`Imposed on me a burthen, Paul had moaned,

“‘And Moses dropped beneath?’ Much done — and yet

“Doubtless that grandest task God ever set

“On man, left much to do: at his arm’s wrench,

“Charlemagne’s scaffold fell; but pillars blench

“Merely, start back again — perchance have been

“Taken for buttresses: crash every screen,

“Hammer the tenons better, and engage

“A gang about your work, for the next age

“Or two, of Knowledge, part by Strength and part

“By Knowledge! Then, indeed, perchance may start

“Sordello on his race — would time divulge

“Such secrets! If one step’s awry, one bulge

“Calls for correction by a step we thought

“Got over long since, why, till that is wrought,

“No progress! And the scaffold in its turn

“Becomes, its service o’er, a thing to spurn.

“Meanwhile, if your half-dozen years of life

“In store dispose you to forego the strife,

“Who takes exception? Only bear in mind

“Ferrara ‘s reached, Goito ‘s left behind:

“As you then were, as half yourself, desist!

“ — The warrior-part of you may, an it list,

“Finding real faulchions difficult to poise,

“Fling them afar and taste the cream of joys

“By wielding such in fancy, — what is bard

“Of you may spurn the vehicle that marred

“Elys so much, and in free fancy glut

“His sense, yet write no verses — you have but

“To please yourself for law, and once could please

“What once appeared yourself, by dreaming these

“Rather than doing these, in days gone by.

“But all is changed the moment you descry

“Mankind as half yourself, — then, fancy’s trade

“Ends once and always: how may half evade

“The other half? men are found half of you.

“Out of a thousand helps, just one or two

“Can be accomplished presently: but flinch

“From these (as from the faulchion, raised an inch,

“Elys, described a couplet) and make proof

“Of fancy, — then, while one half lolls aloof

“I’ the vines, completing Rome to the tip-top —

“See if, for that, your other half will stop

“A tear, begin a smile! The rabble’s woes,

“Ludicrous in their patience as they chose

“To sit about their town and quietly

“Be slaughtered, — the poor reckless soldiery,

“With their ignoble rhymes on Richard, how

“‘Polt-foot,’ sang they, ‘was in a pitfall now,’

“Cheering each other from the engine-mounts, —

“That crippled spawling idiot who recounts

“How, lopped of limbs, he lay, stupid as stone,

“Till the pains crept from out him one by one,

“And wriggles round the archers on his head

“To earn a morsel of their chestnut bread, —

“And Cino, always in the selfsame place

“Weeping; beside that other wretch’s case,

“Eyepits to ear, one gangrene since he plied

“The engine in his coat of raw sheep’s hide

“A double watch in the noon sun; and see

“Lucchino, beauty, with the favours free,

“Trim hacqueton, spruce beard and scented hair,

“Campaigning it for the first time — cut there

“In two already, boy enough to crawl

“For latter orpine round the southern wall,

“Tomà, where Richard ‘s kept, because that whore

“Marfisa, the fool never saw before,

“Sickened for flowers this wearisomest siege:

“And Tiso’s wife — men liked their pretty liege,

“Cared for her least of whims once, — Berta, wed

“A twelvemonth gone, and, now poor Tiso’s dead,

“Delivering herself of his first child

“On that chance heap of wet filth, reconciled

“To fifty gazers!” — (Here a wind below

Made moody music augural of woe

From the pine barrier) — ”What if, now the scene

“Draws to a close, yourself have really been

“ — You, plucking purples in Goito’s moss

“Like edges of a trabea (not to cross

“Your consul-humour) or dry aloe-shafts

“For fasces, at Ferrara — he, fate wafts,

“This very age, her whole inheritance

`Of opportunities? Yet you advance

“Upon the last! Since talking is your trade,

“There ‘s Salinguerra left you to persuade:

“Fail! then” —

”No — no — which latest chance secure!”

Leaped up and cried Sordello: “this made sure,

“The past were yet redeemable; its work

“Was — help the Guelfs, whom I, howe’er it irk,

“Thus help!” He shook the foolish aloe-haulm

Out of his doublet, paused, proceeded calm

To the appointed presence. The large head

Turned on its socket; “And your spokesman,” said

The large voice, “is Elcorte’s happy sprout?

“Few such” — (so finishing a speech no doubt

Addressed to Palma, silent at his side)

“ — My sober councils have diversified.

“Elcorte’s son! good: forward as you may,

“Our lady’s minstrel with so much to say!”

The hesitating sunset floated back,

Rosily traversed in the wonted track

The chamber, from the lattice o’er the girth

Of pines, to the huge eagle blacked in earth

Opposite, — outlined sudden, spur to crest,

That solid Salinguerra, and caressed

Palma’s contour; ‘t was day looped back night’s pall;

Sordello had a chance left spite of all.

And much he made of the convincing speech

Meant to compensate for the past and reach

Through his youth’s daybreak of unprofit, quite