Browning's Shorter Poems Part 25

Did he love one face from out the thousands, 100 (Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, 101 Were she but the aethiopian bondslave), He would envy yon dumb, patient camel, Keeping a reserve of scanty water Meant to save his own life in the desert; Ready in the desert to deliver (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) h.o.a.rd and life together for his mistress.

XII

I shall never, in the years remaining, Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues. 110 Make you music that should all-express me; So it seems; I stand on my attainment.

This of verse alone, one life allows me; Verse and nothing else have I to give you; Other heights in other lives, G.o.d willing; All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love.

XIII

Yet a semblance of resource avails us-- Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.

Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly, Lines I write the first time and the last time. 120 He who works in fresco steals a hair-brush, Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly, Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, Makes a strange art of an art familiar, Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets, He who blows through bronze may breathe through silver, Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess.

He who writes, may write for once as I do.

XIV

Love, you saw me gather men and women, Live or dead or fas.h.i.+oned by my fancy, 130 Enter each and all, and use their service, Speak from every mouth,--the speech, a poem.

Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving: I am mine and yours--the rest be all men's, Kars.h.i.+sh, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty. 136 Let me speak this once in my true person, Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea, 138 Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence: Pray you, look on these my men and women, 140 Take and keep my fifty poems finished; Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!

Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.

XV

Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!

Here in London, yonder late in Florence, Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.

Curving on a sky imbrued with color, Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.

Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, 150 Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, Perfect till the nightingales applauded.

Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished, Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs, Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.

XVI

What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?

Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), 160 She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman,-- Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, 163 Blind to Galileo on his turret. 164 Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats--him, even! 165 Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal-- When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better!

Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the s.h.i.+p it founders, 170 Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals?

Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire, Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain?

Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu 174 Climbed and saw the very G.o.d, the Highest, Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.

Like the bodied heaven in his clearness Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, When they ate and drank and saw G.o.d also!

XVII

What were seen? None knows, none ever will know. 180 Only this is sure--the sight were other, Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, Dying now impoverished here in London.

G.o.d be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her. 186

XVIII

This I say of me, but think of you, Love!

This to you--yourself my moon of poets!

Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder, Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you! 190 There, in turn I stand with them and praise you-- Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.

But the best is when I glide from out them, Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, Come out on the other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, Where I hush and bless myself with silence.

XIX

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one song--and in my brain I sing it, 200 Drew one angel--borne, see, on my bosom!

NOTES

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN. (PAGE 1.)

The poem is based on an old myth found in many forms, all turning upon the attempt to cheat a magician out of his promised reward. See Brewer's _Reader's Handbook_, Baring-Gould's _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, Grimm's _Deutsche Sagen_, and the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. There are Persian and Chinese a.n.a.logues.

The eldest son of William Macready, the actor, was confined to the house by illness, and Browning wrote this _jeu d'esprit_ to amuse the boy and to give him a subject for ill.u.s.trative drawings.

LINE 1. =Hamelin=. A town in Hanover, Prussia.

89. =Cham=, or Khan. The t.i.tle of the rulers of Tartary.

91. =Nizam=. The t.i.tle of the sovereign of Hyderabad, the princ.i.p.al state of India.

158. =Claret, Moselle=, etc. Names of wines.

179. =Caliph=. The t.i.tle given to the successor of Mohammed, as head of the Moslem state, and defender of the faith. _Century Dictionary_.

TRAY. (PAGE 15.)

The poem tells in detail an actual incident, and was written as a protest against vivisection.

3. =Sir Olaf=. A conventional name in romances of mediaeval chivalry.

6. A satire upon Byronism. _Manfred_ and _Childe Harold_ are heroes of this type.

Note the abruptness and vigor of the style. Where does it seem effective? Where unduly harsh? Why does the poet welcome the third bard? What things does the poem satirize?