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

Amid their barbarous twitter!

In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!

Ay, most likely ’tis in Spain

That we and Waring meet again

Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane

Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid

All fire and shine — abrupt as when there’s slid

Its stiff gold blazing pall

From some black coffin-lid.

Or, best of all,

I love to think

The leaving us was just a feint;

Back here to London did he slink,

And now works on without a wink

Of sleep, and we are on the brink

Of something great in fresco-pain:

Some garret’s ceiling, walls and floor,

Up and down and o’er and o’er

He splashes, as none splashed before

Since great Caldera Polidore.

Or Music means this land of ours

Some favour yet, to pity won

By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers, —

“Give me my so-long promised son,

“Let Waring end what I begun!”

Then down he creeps and out he steals

Only when the night conceals

His face — in Kent ’tis cherry-time,

Or hops are picking: or at prime

Of March he wanders as, too happy,

Years ago when he was young,

Some mild eve when woods grew sappy

And the early moths had sprung

To life from many a trembling sheath

Woven the warm boughs beneath;

While small birds said to themselves

What should soon be actual song,

And young gnats, by tens and twelves,

Made as if they were the throng

That crowd around and carry aloft

The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,

Out of a myriad noises soft,

Into a tone that can endure

Amid the noise of a July noon

When all God’s creatures crave their boon,

All at once and all in tune,

And get it, happy as Waring then,

Having first within his ken

What a man might do with men:

And far too glad, in the even-glow,

To mix with the world he meant to take

Into his hand, he told you, so —

And out of it his world to make,

To contract and to expand

As he shut or oped his hand.

Oh Waring, what’s to really be?

A clear stage and a crowd to see!

Some Garrick, say, out shall not he

The heart of Hamlet’s mystery pluck?

Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,

Some Junius — am I right? — shall tuck

His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife!

Some Chatterton shall have the luck

Of calling Rowley into life!

Some one shall somehow run a muck

With this old world for want of strife

Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive

To rouse us, Waring! Who’s alive?

Our men scarce seem in earnest now.

Distinguished names! — but ’tis, somehow,

As if they played at being names

Still more distinguished, like the games

Of children. Turn our sport to earnest

With a visage of the sternest!

Bring the real times back, confessed

Still better than our very best!

Table of Contents

I.

“When I last saw Waring …”

(How all turned to him who spoke!

You saw Waring? Truth or joke?

In land-travel or seafaring?)

II.

“We were sailing by Triest

“Where a day or two we harboured:

“A sunset was in the West,

“When, looking over the vessel’s side,

“One of our company espied

“A sudden speck to larboard.

“And as a sea-duck flies and swims

“At once, so came the light craft up,

“With its sole lateen sail that trims

“And turns (the water round its rims

“Dancing, as round a sinking cup)

“And by us like a fish it curled,

“And drew itself up close beside,

“Its great sail on the instant furled,

“And o’er its thwarts a shrill voice cried,

“(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar’s)

“‘Buy wine of us, you English Brig?

“‘Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?

“‘A pilot for you to Triest?

“‘Without one, look you ne’er so big,

“‘They’ll never let you up the bay!

“‘We natives should know best.’

“I turned, and ‘just those fellows’ way,’

“Our captain said, ‘The ‘long-shore thieves

“‘Are laughing at us in their sleeves.’

III.

“In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;

“And one, half-hidden by his side

“Under the furled sail, soon I spied,

“With great grass hat and kerchief black,

“Who looked up with his kingly throat,

“Said somewhat, while the other shook

“His hair back from his eyes to look

“Their longest at us; then the boat,

“I know not how, turned sharply round,

“Laying her whole side on the sea

“As a leaping fish does; from the lee

“Into the weather, cut somehow

“Her sparkling path beneath our bow

“And so went off, as with a bound,

“Into the rosy and golden half

“Of the sky, to overtake the sun

“And reach the shore, like the sea-calf

“Its singing cave; yet I caught one

“Glance ere away the boat quite passed,

“And neither time nor toil could mar

“Those features: so I saw the last

“Of Waring!” — You? Oh, never star

Was lost here but it rose afar!

Look East, where whole new thousands are!

In Vishnu-land what Avatar?

Table of Contents

I.

I KNOW a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives

First, when he visits, last, too, when he leaves

The world; and, vainly favoured, it repays

The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze

By no change of its large calm front of snow.

And underneath the Mount, a Flower I know,

He cannot have perceived, that changes ever

At his approach; and, in the lost endeavour

To live his life, has parted, one by one,

With all a flower’s true graces, for the grace

Of being but a foolish mimic sun,

With ray-like florets round a disk-like face.

Men nobly call by many a name the Mount

As over many a land of theirs its large

Calm front of snow like a triumphal targe

Is reared, and still with old names, fresh names vie,

Each to its proper praise and own account:

Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, sportively.

II.

Oh, Angel of the East, one, one gold look

Across the waters to this twilight nook,

— The far sad waters, Angel, to this nook!

III.

Dear Pilgrim, are thou for the East indeed?

Go! Saying ever as thou dost proceed,

That I, French Rudel, choose for my device

A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice

Before its idol. See! These inexpert

And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt

The woven picture: ’tis a woman’s skill

Indeed; but nothing baffled me, so ill

Or well, the work is finished. Say, men feed

On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees

On my flower’s breast as on a platform broad:

But, as the flower’s concern is not for these

But solely for the sun, so men applaud

In vain this Rudel, he not looking here

But to the East — that East! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear!

Table of Contents

I.

SHE should never have looked at me

If she meant I should not love her!

There are plenty … men, you call such,

I suppose … she may discover

All her soul to, if she pleases,

And yet leave much as she found them:

But I’m not so, and she knew it

When she fixed me, glancing round them,

II.

What? To fix me thus meant nothing?

But I can’t tell … there’s my weakness …

What her look said! — no vile cant, sure,