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

What’s the Latin name for “parsley”?

What’s the Greek name for Swine’s Snout?

III.

Whew! We’ll have our platter burnished,

Laid with care on our own shelf!

With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished,

And a goblet for ourself,

Rinsed like something sacrificial

Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps —

Marked with L. for our initial!

(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

IV.

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores

Squats outside the Convent bank

With Sanchicha, telling stories,

Steeping tresses in the tank,

Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,

— Can’t I see his dead eye glow,

Bright as ‘twere a Barbary corsair’s?

(That is, if he’d let it show!)

V.

When he finishes refection,

Knife and fork he never lays

Crosswise, to my recollection,

As do I, in Jesu’s praise.

I the Trinity illustrate,

Drinking watered orange-pulp —

In three sips the Arian frustrate;

fWhile he drains his at one gulp.

VI.

Oh, those melons? If he’s able

We’re to have a feast! so nice!

One goes to the Abbot’s table,

All of us get each a slice.

How go on your flowers? None double

Not one fruit-sort can you spy?

Strange! — And I, too, at such trouble,

Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

VII.

There’s a great text in Galatians,

Once you trip on it, entails

Twenty-nine distinct damnations,

One sure, if another fails:

If I trip him just a-dying,

Sure of heaven as sure can be,

Spin him round and send him flying

Off to Hell, a Manichee?

VIII.

Or, my scrofulous French novel

On grey paper with blunt type!

Simply glance at it, you grovel

Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe:

If I double down its pages

At the woeful sixteenth print,

When he gathers his greengages,

Ope a sieve and slip it in’t?

IX.

Or, there’s Satan! — one might venture

Pledge one’s soul to him, yet leave

Such a flaw in the indenture

As he’d miss till, past retrieve,

Blasted lay that rose-acacia

We’re so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine …

‘St, there’s Vespers! Plena gratiâ

Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r — you swine!

Table of Contents

He sings.

I SEND my heart up to thee, all my heart

In this my singing.

For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;

The very night is clinging

Closer to Venice’ streets to leave one space

Above me, whence thy face

May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.

She speaks.

Say after me, and try to say

My very words, as if each word

Came from you of your own accord,

In your own voice, in your own way:

“This woman’s heart and soul and brain

“Are mine as much as this gold chain

“She bids me wear; which” (say again)

“I choose to make by cherishing

“A precious thing, or choose to fling

“Over the boat-side, ring by ring.”

And yet once more say … no word more!

Since words are only words. Give o’er!

Unless you call me, all the same,

Familiarly by my pet name,

Which if the Three should hear you call,

And me reply to, would proclaim

At once our secret to them all.

Ask of me, too, command me, blame —

Do, break down the partition-wall

‘Twixt us, the daylight world beholds

Curtained in dusk and splendid folds!

What’s left but — all of me to take?

I am the Three’s: prevent them, slake

Your thirst! ’Tis said, the Arab sage,

In practising with gems, can loose

Their subtle spirit in his cruce

And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage,

Leave them my ashes when thy use

Sucks out my soul, thy heritage!

He sings.

I.

Past we glide, and past, and past!

What’s that poor Agnese doing

Where they make the shutters fast?

Grey Zanobi’s just a-wooing

To his couch the purchased bride:

Past we glide!

II.

Past we glide, and past, and past!

Why’s the Pucci Palace flaring

Like a beacon to the blast?

Guests by hundreds, not one caring

If the dear host’s neck were wried:

Past we glide!

She sings.

I.

The moth’s kiss, first!

Kiss me as if you made believe

You were not sure, this eve,

How my face, your flower, had pursed

Its petals up; so, here and there

You brush it, till I grow aware

Who wants me, and wide open burst.

II.

The bee’s kiss, now!

Kiss me as if you entered gay

My heart at some noonday,

A bud that dares not disallow

The claim, so all is rendered up,

And passively its shattered cup

Over your head to sleep I bow.

He sings.

I.

What are we two?

I am a Jew,

And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue,

To a feast of our tribe;

Where they need thee to bribe

The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe

Thy … Shatter the vision for ever! And now,

As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

II.

Say again, what we are?

The sprite of a star,

I lure thee above where the destinies bar

My plumes their full play

Till a ruddier ray

Than my pale one announce there is withering away

Some … Shatter the vision for ever! And now,

As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

He muses.

Oh, which were best, to roam or rest?

The land’s lap or the water’s breast?

To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,

Or swim in lucid shallows just

Eluding water-lily leaves,

An inch from Death’s black fingers, thrust

To lock you, whom release he must;

Which life were best on Summer eves?

He speaks, musing.

Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?

From this shoulder let there spring

A wing; from this, another wing;

Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you!

Snow-white must they spring, to blend

With your flesh, but I intend

They shall deepen to the end,

Broader, into burning gold,

Till both wings crescent-wise enfold

Your perfect self, from ‘neath your feet

To o’er your head, where, lo, they meet

As if a million sword-blades hurled

Defiance from you to the world!

Rescue me thou, the only real!

And scare away this mad ideal

That came, nor motions to depart!

Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!

Still he muses.

I.

What if the Three should catch at last

Thy serenader? While there’s cast

Paul’s cloak about my head, and fast

Gian pinions me, himself has past

His stylet thro’ my back; I reel;

And … is it Thou I feel?

II.

They trail me, these three godless knaves,

Past every church that saints and saves,

Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves

By Lido’s wet accursed graves,

They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,

And … on Thy breast I sink

She replies, musing.

Dip your arm o’er the boat-side, elbow-deep,

As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep,

Caught this way? Death’s to fear from flame or steel,

Or poison doubtless; but from water — feel!

Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There!

Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass

To plait in where the foolish jewel was,

I flung away: since you have praised my hair,

’Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.

He speaks.

Row home? must we row home? Too surely

Know I where its front’s demurely

Over the Giudecca piled;

Window just with window mating,

Door on door exactly waiting,