An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 31

For a world to me, and more; For all, love greatens and glorifies Till G.o.d's a-glow, to the loving eyes, In what was mere earth before.

-- St. 2. love greatens and glorifies: see the poem, "Wanting is--what?"

3.

Yes, earth--yes, mere ign.o.ble earth!

Now do I misstate, mistake?

Do I wrong your weakness and call it worth?

Expect all harvest, dread no dearth, Seal my sense up for your sake?

4.

Oh Love, Love, no, Love! not so, indeed You were just weak earth, I knew: With much in you waste, with many a weed, And plenty of pa.s.sions run to seed, But a little good grain too.

5.

And such as you were, I took you for mine: Did not you find me yours, To watch the olive and wait the vine, And wonder when rivers of oil and wine Would flow, as the Book a.s.sures?

-- St. 5. yours, to watch the olive and wait the vine: "olive" and "vine"

are used metaphorically for the capabilities of her husband's nature.

6.

Well, and if none of these good things came, What did the failure prove?

The man was my whole world, all the same, With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame, And, either or both, to love.

-- St. 6. The failure of fruit in her husband proved the absoluteness of her love, proved that he was her all, notwithstanding.

7.

Yet this turns now to a fault--there! there!

That I do love, watch too long, And wait too well, and weary and wear; And 'tis all an old story, and my despair Fit subject for some new song:

-- St. 7. Yet this turns now to a fault: i.e., her watching the olive and waiting the vine of his nature. there! there!: I've come out plainly with the fact.

8.

"How the light, light love, he has wings to fly At suspicion of a bond: My wisdom has bidden your pleasure good-bye, Which will turn up next in a laughing eye, And why should you look beyond?"

-- St. 8. bond: refers to what is said in St. 7; why should you look beyond?: i.e., beyond a laughing eye, which does not "watch" and "wait", and thus "weary" and "wear".

V. On the Cliff.

1.

I leaned on the turf, I looked at a rock Left dry by the surf; For the turf, to call it gra.s.s were to mock: Dead to the roots, so deep was done The work of the summer sun.

2.

And the rock lay flat As an anvil's face: No iron like that!

Baked dry; of a weed, of a sh.e.l.l, no trace: Suns.h.i.+ne outside, but ice at the core, Death's altar by the lone sh.o.r.e.

3.

On the turf, sprang gay With his films of blue, No cricket, I'll say, But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too, The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight, Real fairy, with wings all right.

-- St. 3. No cricket, I'll say: but to my lively admiration, a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too: see Webster's Dict., s.v. "chamfrain". {also chamfron: armor for a horse's head}.

4.

On the rock, they scorch Like a drop of fire From a brandished torch, Fall two red fans of a b.u.t.terfly: No turf, no rock,--in their ugly stead, See, wonderful blue and red!

-- St. 4. they: i.e., the 'two red fans'.

no turf, no rock: i.e., the eye is taken up entirely with cricket and b.u.t.terfly; blue and red refer respectively to cricket and b.u.t.terfly.

5.

Is it not so With the minds of men?

The level and low, The burnt and bare, in themselves; but then With such a blue and red grace, not theirs, Love settling unawares!

-- St. 5. Love: settling on the minds of men, the level and low, the burnt and bare, is compared to the cricket and the b.u.t.terfly settling on the turf and the rock.

VI. Reading a Book under the Cliff.

-- * In the original ed., 1864, the heading to this section was 'Under the Cliff'; changed in ed. of 1868.

1.

"Still ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no?

Which needs the other's office, thou or I?

Dost want to be disburthened of a woe, And can, in truth, my voice untie Its links, and let it go?

2.