The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning
But I stopped here — for here in the darkness,
Saul groaned.
And I paused, held my breath in such silence!
And listened apart;
And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered, —
And sparkles gan dart
From the jewels that woke in his turban
— At once with a start,
All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies
Courageous at heart.
So the head — but the body still moved not,
Still hung there erect.
And I bent once again to my playing,
Pursued it unchecked,
As I sang, “Oh, our manhood’s prime vigour!
— No spirit feels waste,
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing
No sinew unbraced; —
Oh, the wild joys of living! The leaping
From rock up to rock —
The rending of their boughs from the palm-tree, —
The cool silver shock
Of the plunge in a pool’s living water, —
The hunt of the bear,
And the sultriness showing the lion
Is couched in his lair:
And the meal — the rich dates — yellowed over
With gold dust divine,
And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher,
The full draught of wine,
And the sleep in the dried river-channel
Where bulrushes tell
That the water was wont to go warbling
So softly and well, —
How good is man’s life, the mere living!
How fit to employ
“All the heart and the soul and the senses
For ever in joy!
Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father
Whose sword thou didst guard
When he trusted thee forth with the armies
For glorious reward?
Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother
Held up as men sung
The low song of the nearly-departed
And heard her faint tongue
Joining in while it could to the witness
’Let one more attest,
‘I have lived, seen God’s hand thro’ that lifetime,
And all was for best … ”
Then they sung thro’ their tears, in strong triumph,
Not much, — but the rest!
And thy brothers — the help and the contest,
The working whence grew
Such result, as from seething grape-bundles
The spirit so true:
And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood
With wonder and hope,
Present promise, and wealth of the future, —
The eye’s eagle scope, —
Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch,
A people is thine;
Oh all gifts the world offers singly,
On one head combine!
On one head, all the joy and the pride,
Even rage like the throe
That opes the rock, helps its glad labour,
And lets the gold go —
And ambition that sees a sun lead it —
Oh, all of these — all
Combine to unite in one creature
— Saul!
END OF PART THE FIRST
Time’s Revenges
I’VE a Friend, over the sea;
I like him, but he loves me;
It all grew out of the books I write;
They find such favour in his sight
That he slaughters you with savage looks
Because you don’t admire my books:
He does himself though, — and if some vein
Were to snap tonight in this heavy brain,
Tomorrow month, if I lived to try,
Round should I just turn quietly,
Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand
Till I found him, come from his foreign land
To be my nurse in this poor place,
And make my broth and wash my face,
And light my fire and, all the while,
Bear with his old good-humoured smile
That I told him “Better have kept away
“Than come and kill me, night and day,
“With, worse than fever throbs and shoots,
“The creaking of his clumsy boots.”
I am as sure that this he would do
As that Saint Paul’s is striking two:
And I think I rather … woe is me!
— Yes, rather see him than not see,
If lifting a hand could seat him there
Before me in the empty chair
Tonight, when my head aches indeed,
And I can neither think nor read
Nor make these purple fingers hold
The pen; this garret’s freezing cold!
And I’ve a Lady — There he wakes,
The laughing fiend and prince of snakes
Within me, at her name, to pray
Fate send some creature in the way
Of my love for her, to be down-torn,
Upthrust and outward borne,
So I might prove myself that sea
Of passion which I needs must be!
Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint,
And my style infirm and its figures faint,
All the critics say, and more blame yet,
And not one angry word you get!
But, please you, wonder I would put
My cheek beneath that Lady’s foot
Rather than trample under mine
The laurels of the Florentine,
And you shall see how the devil spends
A fire God gave for other ends!
I tell you, I stride up and down
This garret, crowned with love’s best crown,