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

To his noon’s labour, so proceed till night

Leisurely! The great argument to bind

Taurello with the Guelf Cause, body and mind,

— Came the consummate rhetoric to that?

Yet most Sordello’s argument dropped flat

Through his accustomed fault of breaking yoke,

Disjoining him who felt from him who spoke.

Was ‘t not a touching incident — so prompt

A rendering the world its just accompt,

Once proved its debtor? Who ‘d suppose, before

This proof, that he, Goito’s god of yore,

At duty’s instance could demean himself

So memorably, dwindle to a Guelf?

Be sure, in such delicious flattery steeped,

His inmost self at the out-portion peeped,

Thus occupied; then stole a glance at those

Appealed to, curious if her colour rose

Or his lip moved, while he discreetly urged

The need of Lombardy becoming purged

At soonest of her barons; the poor part

Abandoned thus, missing the blood at heart

And spirit in brain, unseasonably off

Elsewhere! But, though his speech was worthy scoff,

Goodhumoured Salinguerra, famed for tact

And tongue, who, careless of his phrase, ne’er lacked

The right phrase, and harangued Honorius dumb

At his accession, — looked as all fell plumb

To purpose and himself found interest

In every point his new instructor pressed

— Left playing with the rescript’s white wax seal

To scrutinize Sordello head and heel.

He means to yield assent sure? No, alas!

All he replied was, “What, it comes to pass

“That poesy, sooner than politics,

“Makes fade young hair?” To think such speech could fix

Taurello!

Then a flash of bitter truth:

So fantasies could break and fritter youth

That he had long ago lost earnestness,

Lost will to work, lost power to even express

The need of working! Earth was turned a grave:

No more occasions now, though he should crave

Just one, in right of superhuman toil,

To do what was undone, repair such spoil,

Alter the past — nothing would give the chance!

Not that he was to die; he saw askance

Protract the ignominious years beyond

To dream in — time to hope and time despond,

Remember and forget, be sad, rejoice

As saved a trouble; he might, at his choice,

One way or other, idle life out, drop

No few smooth verses by the way — for prop,

A thyrsus, these sad people, all the same,

Should pick up, and set store by, — far from blame,

Plant o’er his hearse, convinced his better part

Survived him. “Rather tear men out the heart

“O’ the truth!” — Sordello muttered, and renewed

His propositions for the Multitude.

But Salinguerra, who at this attack

Had thrown great breast and ruffling corslet back

To hear the better, smilingly resumed

His task; beneath, the carroch’s warning boomed;

He must decide with Tito; courteously

He turned then, even seeming to agree

With his admonisher — ”Assist the Pope,

“Extend Guelf domination, fill the scope

“O’ the Church, thus based on All, by All, for All —

“Change Secular to Evangelical” —

Echoing his very sentence: all seemed lost,

When suddenly he looked up, laughingly almost,

To Palma: “This opinion of your friend’s —

“For instance, would it answer Palma’s ends?

“Best, were it not, turn Guelf, submit our Strength” —

(Here he drew out his baldric to its length)

— ”To the Pope’s Knowledge — let our captive slip,

“Wide to the walls throw ope our gates, equip

“Azzo with… what I hold here! Who ‘ll subscribe

“To a trite censure of the minstrel tribe

“Henceforward? or pronounce, as Heinrich used,

“‘Spear-heads for battle, burr-heads for the joust!’

“ — When Constance, for his couplets, would promote

“Alcamo, from a parti-coloured coat,

“To holding her lord’s stirrup in the wars.

“Not that I see where couplet-making jars

“With common sense: at Mantua I had borne

“This chanted, better than their most forlorn

“Of bull-baits, — that ‘s indisputable!”

Brave!

Whom vanity nigh slew, contempt shall save!

All ‘s at an end: a Troubadour suppose

Mankind will class him with their friends or foes?

A puny uncouth ailing vassal think

The world and him bound in some special link?

Abrupt the visionary tether burst.

What were rewarded here, or what amerced

If a poor drudge, solicitous to dream

Deservingly, got tangled by his theme

So far as to conceit the knack or gift

Or whatsoe’er it be, of verse, might lift

The globe, a lever like the hand and head

Of — ”Men of Action,” as the Jongleurs said,

— ”The Great Men,” in the people’s dialect?

And not a moment did this scorn affect

Sordello: scorn the poet? They, for once,

Asking “what was,” obtained a full response.

Bid Naddo think at Mantua — he had but

To look into his promptuary, put

Finger on a set thought in a set speech:

But was Sordello fitted thus for each

Conjecture? Nowise; since within his soul,

Perception brooded unexpressed and whole.

A healthy spirit like a healthy frame

Craves aliment in plenty — all the same,

Changes, assimilates its aliment.

Perceived Sordello, on a truth intent?

Next day no formularies more you saw

Than figs or olives in a sated maw.

‘T is Knowledge, whither such perceptions tend;

They lose themselves in that, means to an end,

The many old producing some one new,

A last unlike the first. If lies are true,

The Caliph’s wheelwork man of brass receives

A meal, munched millet grains and lettuce leaves

Together in his stomach rattle loose;

You find them perfect next day to produce:

But ne’er expect the man, on strength of that,

Can roll an iron camel-collar flat

Like Haroun’s self! I tell you, what was stored

Bit by bit through Sordello’s life, outpoured

That eve, was, for that age, a novel thing:

And round those three the People formed a ring,

Of visionary judges whose award

He recognised in full — faces that barred

Henceforth return to the old careless life,

In whose great presence, therefore, his first strife

For their sake must not be ignobly fought;

All these, for once, approved of him, he thought,

Suspended their own vengeance, chose await

The issue of this strife to reinstate

Them in the right of taking it — in fact

He must be proved king ere they could exact

Vengeance for such king’s defalcation. Last,

A reason why the phrases flowed so fast

Was in his quite forgetting for a time

Himself in his amazement that the rhyme

Disguised the royalty so much: he there —

And Salinguerra yet all-unaware

Who was the lord, who liegeman!

”Thus I lay

“On thine my spirit and compel obey

“His lord, — my liegeman, — impotent to build

“Another Rome, but hardly so unskilled

“In what such builder should have been, as brook

“One shame beyond the charge that I forsook

“His function! Free me from that shame, I bend

“A brow before, suppose new years to spend, —

“Allow each chance, nor fruitlessly, recur —

“Measure thee with the Minstrel, then, demur

“At any crowd he claims! That I must cede

“Shamed now, my right to my especial meed —

“Confess thee fitter help the world than I

“Ordained its champion from eternity,

“Is much: but to behold thee scorn the post