Browning's Shorter Poems Part 24

"I believe it! 'Tis Thou, G.o.d, that givest, 'tis I who receive; In the first is the last, in Thy will is my power to believe.

All's one gift: Thou canst grant it, moreover, as prompt to my prayer, As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. 290 From Thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, Thy dread Sabaoth: _I_ will?--the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loath To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair?

This;--'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!

See the King--I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through.

Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would--knowing which, I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak thro' me now!

Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst Thou--so wilt Thou! 300 So shall crown Thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown-- And Thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath, Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death!

As Thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved!

He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak, 'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek In the G.o.dhead! I seek and I find it, O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee: a Man like to me, 310 Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!"

XIX

I know not too well how I found my way home in the night.

There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right, Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware: I repressed, I got thro' them as hardly, as stragglingly there, As a runner beset by the populace famished for news-- Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, h.e.l.l loosed with her crews; And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not, 320 For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest.

Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth-- Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth; In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills; In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe: 330 E'en the serpent that slid away silent--he felt the new law.

The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers; And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low.

With their obstinate, all but hushed voices--"E'en so, it is so!"

ONE WORD MORE

TO E.B.B.

I

There they are, my fifty men and women Naming me the fifty poems finished!

Take them, Love, the book and me together; Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.

II

Rafael made a century of sonnets, 5 Made and wrote them in a certain volume Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil Else he only used to draw Madonnas; These, the world might view--but one, the volume.

Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you. 10 Did she live and love it all her lifetime?

Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets, Die, and let it drop beside her pillow Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving-- Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's?

III

You and I would rather read that volume (Taken to his beating bosom by it), Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 20 Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas-- Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, Her, that visits Florence in a vision, Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre-- Seen by us and all the world in circle.

IV

You and I will never read that volume.

Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple, 27 Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it.

Guido Reni dying, all Bologna Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!" 30 Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.

V

Dante once prepared to paint an angel: 32 Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice." 33 While he mused and traced it and retraced it (Peradventure with a pen corroded Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for, When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked, 37 Back he held the brow and p.r.i.c.ked its stigma, Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 40 Let the wretch go festering through Florence)-- Dante, who loved well because he hated, Hated wickedness that hinders loving, Dante, standing, studying his angel,-- In there broke the folk of his Inferno. 45 Says he--"Certain people of importance"

(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) "Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet."

Says the poet--"Then I stopped my painting."

VI

You and I would rather see that angel, 50 Painted by the tenderness of Dante, Would we not?--than read a fresh Inferno.

VII

You and I will never see that picture.

While he mused on love and Beatrice, While he softened o'er his outlined angel, In they broke, those "people of importance": We and Bice bear the loss forever. 57

VIII

What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture?

This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not Once, and only once, and for one only, 60 (Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language Fit and fair and simple and sufficient-- Using nature that's an art to others, Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature.

Ay, of all the artists living, loving, None but would forego his proper dowry,-- Does he paint? he fain would write a poem, Does he write? he fain would paint a picture,-- Put to proof art alien to the artist's, Once, and only once, and for one only, 70 So to be the man and leave the artist, Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.

IX

Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement!

He who smites the rock and spreads the water, 74 Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, Even he, the minute makes immortal, Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute, Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing.

While he smites, how can he but remember, So he smote before, in such a peril, 80 When they stood and mocked--"Shall smiting help us?"

When they drank and sneered--"A stroke is easy!"

When they wiped their mouths and went their journey, Throwing him for thanks--"But drought was pleasant."

Thus old memories mar the actual triumph; Thus the doing savors of disrelish; Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat; O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate, Carelessness or consciousness--the gesture.

For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 90 Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces, Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude-- "How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us?"

Guesses what is like to prove the sequel-- "Egypt's flesh-pots--nay, the drought was better." 95

X

Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant!

Theirs, the Sinai-forhead's cloven brilliance, 97 Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat.

Never dares the man put off the prophet.

XI