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

“I quit in thy behalf — to hear thee boast

“What makes my own despair!” And while he rung

The changes on this theme, the roof up-sprung,

The sad walls of the presence-chamber died

Into the distance, or embowering vied

With far-away Goito’s vine-frontier;

And crowds of faces — (only keeping clear

The rose-light in the midst, his vantage-ground

To fight their battle from) — deep clustered round

Sordello, with good wishes no mere breath,

Kind prayers for him no vapour, since, come death

Come life, he was fresh-sinewed every joint,

Each bone new-marrowed as whom gods anoint

Though mortal to their rescue. Now let sprawl

The snaky volumes hither! Is Typhon all

For Hercules to trample — good report

From Salinguerra only to extort?

“So was I” (closed he his inculcating

A poet must be earth’s essential king)

“So was I, royal so, and if I fail,

“‘T is not the royalty, ye witness quail,

“But one deposed who, caring not exert

“Its proper essence, trifled malapert

“With accidents instead — good things assigned

“As heralds of a better thing behind —

“And, worthy through display of these, put forth

“Never the inmost all-surpassing worth

“That constitutes him king precisely since

“As yet no other spirit may evince

“Its like: the power he took most pride to test,

“Whereby all forms of life had been professed

“At pleasure, forms already on the earth,

“Was but a means to power beyond, whose birth

“Should, in its novelty, be kingship’s proof.

“Now, whether he came near or kept aloof

“The several forms he longed to imitate,

“Not there the kingship lay, he sees too late.

“Those forms, unalterable first as last,

“Proved him her copier, not the protoplast

“Of nature: what would come of being free,

“By action to exhibit tree for tree,

“Bird, beast, for beast and bird, or prove earth bore

“One veritable man or woman more?

“Means to an end, such proofs are: what the end?

“Let essence, whatsoe’er it be, extend —

“Never contract. Already you include

“The multitude; then let the multitude

“Include yourself; and the result were new:

“Themselves before, the multitude turn you.

“This were to live and move and have, in them,

“Your being, and secure a diadem

“You should transmit (because no cycle yearns

“Beyond itself, but on itself returns)

“When, the full sphere in wane, the world o’erlaid

“Long since with you, shall have in turn obeyed

“Some orb still prouder, some displayer, still

“More potent than the last, of human will,

“And some new king depose the old. Of such

“Am I — whom pride of this elates too much?

“Safe, rather say, ‘mid troops of peers again;

“I, with my words, hailed brother of the train

“Deeds once sufficed: for, let the world roll back,

“Who fails, through deeds howe’er diverse, retrack

“My purpose still, my task? A teeming crust —

“Air, flame, earth, wave at conflict! Then, needs must

“Emerge some Calm embodied, these refer

“The brawl to — yellow-bearded Jupiter?

“No! Saturn; some existence like a pact

“And protest against Chaos, some first fact

“I’ the faint of time. My deep of life, I know

“Is unavailing e’en to poorly show”…

(For here the Chief immeasurably yawned)

… “Deeds in their due gradation till Song dawned —

“The fullest effluence of the finest mind,

“All in degree, no way diverse in kind

“From minds about it, minds which, more or less,

“Lofty or low, move seeking to impress

“Themselves on somewhat; but one mind has climbed

“Step after step, by just ascent sublimed.

“Thought is the soul of act, and, stage by stage,

“Soul is from body still to disengage

“As tending to a freedom which rejects

“Such help and incorporeally affects

“The world, producing deeds but not by deeds,

“Swaying, in others, frames itself exceeds,

“Assigning them the simpler tasks it used

“To patiently perform till Song produced

“Acts, by thoughts only, for the mind: divest

“Mind of e’en Thought, and, lo, God’s unexpressed

“Will draws above us! All then is to win

“Save that. How much for me, then? where begin

“My work? About me, faces! and they flock,

“The earnest faces. What shall I unlock

“By song? behold me prompt, whate’er it be,

“To minister: how much can mortals see

“Of Life? No more than so? I take the task

“And marshal you Life’s elemental masque,

“Show Men, on evil or on good lay stress,

“This light, this shade make prominent, suppress

“All ordinary hues that softening blend

“Such natures with the level. Apprehend

“Which sinner is, which saint, if I allot

“Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, a blaze or blot,

“To those you doubt concerning! I enwomb

“Some wretched Friedrich with his red-hot tomb;

“Some dubious spirit, Lombard Agilulph

“With the black chastening river I engulph!

“Some unapproached Matilda I enshrine

“With languors of the planet of decline —

“These, fail to recognize, to arbitrate

“Between henceforth, to rightly estimate

“Thus marshalled in the masque! Myself, the while,

“As one of you, am witness, shrink or smile

“At my own showing! Next age — what ‘s to do?

“The men and women stationed hitherto

“Will I unstation, good and bad, conduct

“Each nature to its farthest, or obstruct

“At soonest, in the world: light, thwarted, breaks

“A limpid purity to rainbow flakes,

“Or shadow, massed, freezes to gloom: behold

“How such, with fit assistance to unfold,

“Or obstacles to crush them, disengage

“Their forms, love, hate, hope, fear, peace make, war wage,

“In presence of you all! Myself, implied

“Superior now, as, by the platform’s side,

“I bade them do and suffer, — would last content

“The world… no — that ‘s too far! I circumvent

“A few, my masque contented, and to these

“Offer unveil the last of mysteries —

“Man’s inmost life shall have yet freer play:

“Once more I cast external things away,

“And natures composite, so decompose

“That”… Why, he writes Sordello!

“How I rose,

“And how have you advanced! since evermore

“Yourselves effect what I was fain before

“Effect, what I supplied yourselves suggest,

“What I leave bare yourselves can now invest.

“How we attain to talk as brothers talk,

“In half-words, call things by half-names, no balk

“From discontinuing old aids. To-day

“Takes in account the work of Yesterday:

“Has not the world a Past now, its adept

“Consults ere he dispense with or accept

“New aids? a single touch more may enhance,

“A touch less turn to insignificance

“Those structures’ symmetry the past has strewed

“The world with, once so bare. Leave the mere rude

“Explicit details! ‘t is but brother’s speech

“We need, speech where an accent’s change gives each

“The other’s soul — no speech to understand

“By former audience: need was then to expand,

“Expatiate — hardly were we brothers! true —

“Nor I lament my small remove from you,

“Nor reconstruct what stands already. Ends

“Accomplished turn to means: my art intends