The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning
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!
Warning II.
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?
Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli
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