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

Advance the same, vanquished — obtain reward,

Reap joy where sorrow was intended grow,

Of Wrong make Right, and turn Ill Good below.

And the result is, the poor body soon

Sinks under what was meant a wondrous boon,

Leaving its bright accomplice all aghast.

So much was plain then, proper in the past;

To be complete for, satisfy the whole

Series of spheres — Eternity, his soul

Needs must exceed, prove incomplete for, each

Single sphere — Time. But does our knowledge reach

No farther? Is the cloud of hindrance broke

But by the failing of the fleshly yoke,

Its loves and hates, as now when death lets soar

Sordello, self-sufficient as before,

Though during the mere space that shall elapse

‘Twixt his enthralment in new bonds perhaps?

Must life be ever just escaped, which should

Have been enjoyed? — nay, might have been and would,

Each purpose ordered right — the soul ‘s no whit

Beyond the body’s purpose under it.

Like yonder breadth of watery heaven, a bay,

And that sky-space of water, ray for ray

And star for star, one richness where they mixed

As this and that wing of an angel, fixed,

Tumultuary splendours folded in

To die — would soul, proportioned thus, begin

Exciting discontent, or surelier quell

The body if, aspiring, it rebel?

But how so order life? Still brutalize

The soul, the sad world’s way, with muffled eyes

To all that was before, all that shall be

After this sphere — all and each quality

Save some sole and immutable Great, Good

And Beauteous whither fate has loosed its hood

To follow? Never may some soul see All

— The Great Before and After, and the Small

Now, yet be saved by this the simplest lore,

And take the single course prescribed before,

As the king-bird with ages on his plumes

Travels to die in his ancestral glooms?

But where descry the Love that shall select

That course? Here is a soul whom, to affect,

Nature has plied with all her means, from trees

And flowers e’en to the Multitude! — and these,

Decides he save or no? One word to end!

Ah my Sordello, I this once befriend

And speak for you. Of a Power above you still

Which, utterly incomprehensible,

Is out of rivalry, which thus you can

Love, tho’ unloving all conceived by man —

What need! And of — none the minutest duct

To that out-nature, nought that would instruct

And so let rivalry begin to live —

But of a Power its representative

Who, being for authority the same,

Communication different, should claim

A course, the first chose but this last revealed —

This Human clear, as that Divine concealed —

What utter need!

What has Sordello found?

Or can his spirit go the mighty round,

End where poor Eglamor begun? So, says

Old fable, the two eagles went two ways

About the world: where, in the midst, they met,

Though on a shifting waste of sand, men set

Jove’s temple. Quick, what has Sordello found?

For they approach — approach — that foot’s rebound

Palma? No, Salinguerra though in mail;

They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veil

Aside — and you divine who sat there dead,

Under his foot the badge: still, Palma said,

A triumph lingering in the wide eyes,

Wider than some spent swimmer’s if he spies

Help from above in his extreme despair,

And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns there

With short quick passionate cry: as Palma pressed

In one great kiss, her lips upon his breast,

It beat.

By this, the hermit-bee has stopped

His day’s toil at Goito: the new-cropped

Dead vine-leaf answers, now ‘t is eve, he bit,

Twirled so, and filed all day: the mansion ‘s fit,

God counselled for. As easy guess the word

That passed betwixt them, and become the third

To the soft small unfrighted bee, as tax

Him with one fault — so, no remembrance racks

Of the stone maidens and the font of stone

He, creeping through the crevice, leaves alone.

Alas, my friend, alas Sordello, whom

Anon they laid within that old font-tomb,

And, yet again, alas!

And now is ‘t worth

Our while bring back to mind, much less set forth

How Salinguerra extricates himself

Without Sordello? Ghibellin and Guelf

May fight their fiercest out? If Richard sulked

In durance or the Marquis paid his mulct,

Who cares, Sordello gone? The upshot, sure,

Was peace; our chief made some frank overture

That prospered; compliment fell thick and fast

On its disposer, and Taurello passed

With foe and friend for an outstripping soul,

Nine days at least. Then, — fairly reached the goal, —

He, by one effort, blotted the great hope

Out of his mind, nor further tried to cope

With Este, that mad evening’s style, but sent

Away the Legate and the League, content

No blame at least the brothers had incurred,

— Dispatched a message to the Monk, he heard

Patiently first to last, scarce shivered at,

Then curled his limbs up on his wolfskin mat

And ne’er spoke more, — informed the Ferrarese

He but retained their rule so long as these

Lingered in pupilage, — and last, no mode

Apparent else of keeping safe the road

From Germany direct to Lombardy

For Friedrich, — none, that is, to guarantee

The faith and promptitude of who should next

Obtain Sofia’s dowry, — sore perplexed —

(Sofia being youngest of the tribe

Of daughters, Ecelin was wont to bribe

The envious magnates with — nor, since he sent

Henry of Egna this fair child, had Trent

Once failed the Kaiser’s purposes — ”we lost

“Egna last year, and who takes Egna’s post —

“Opens the Lombard gate if Friedrich knock?”)

Himself espoused the Lady of the Rock

In pure necessity, and, so destroyed

His slender last of chances, quite made void

Old prophecy, and spite of all the schemes

Overt and covert, youth’s deeds, age’s dreams,

Was sucked into Romano. And so hushed

He up this evening’s work that, when ‘t was brushed

Somehow against by a blind chronicle

Which, chronicling whatever woe befell

Ferrara, noted this the obscure woe

Of “Salinguerra’s sole son Giacomo

“Deceased, fatuous and doting, ere his sire,”

The townsfolk rubbed their eyes, could but admire

Which of Sofia’s five was meant.

The chaps

Of earth’s dead hope were tardy to collapse,

Obliterated not the beautiful

Distinctive features at a crash: but dull

And duller these, next year, as Guelfs withdrew

Each to his stronghold. Then (securely too

Ecelin at Campese slept; close by,

Who likes may see him in Solagna lie,

With cushioned head and gloved hand to denote

The cavalier he was) — then his heart smote

Young Ecelin at last; long since adult.

And, save Vicenza’s business, what result

In blood and blaze? (So hard to intercept

Sordello till his plain withdrawal!) Stepped

Then its new lord on Lombardy. I’ the nick

Of time when Ecelin and Alberic

Closed with Taurello, come precisely news

That in Verona half the souls refuse

Allegiance to the Marquis and the Count —

Have cast them from a throne they bid him mount,

Their Podestà, thro’ his ancestral worth.

Ecelin flew there, and the town henceforth

Was wholly his — Taurello sinking back

From temporary station to a track