The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning
Body and soul and peace and fame,
Alike youth’s end and manhood’s aim,
— So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,
Filled full, eaten out and in
With the face of her, the eyes of her,
The lips, the little chin, the stir
Of shadow round her month; and she
— I’ll tell you, — calmly would decree
That I should roast at a slow fire,
If that would compass her desire
And make her one whom they invite
To the famous ball tomorrow night.
There may be Heaven; there must be Hell;
Meantime, there is our Earth here — well!
The Glove
(PETER RONSARD loquitur.)
“HEIGHO!” yawned one day King Francis,
“Distance all value enhances!
“When a man’s busy, why, leisure
“Strikes him as wonderful pleasure —
“‘Faith, and at leisure once is he?
“Straightway he wants to be busy.
“Here we’ve got peace; and aghast I’m
“Caught thinking war the true pastime!
“Is there a reason in metre?
“Give us your speech, master Peter!”
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne’er am at loss with my Naso,
“Sire,” I replied, “joys prove cloudlets:
“Men are the merest Ixions” —
Here the King whistled aloud, “Let’s
“ . . Heigho . . go look at our lions!”
Such are the sorrowful chances
If you talk fine to King Francis.
And so, to the courtyard proceeding,
Our company, Francis was leading,
Increased by new followers tenfold
Before he arrived at the penfold;
Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen
At sunset the western horizon.
And Sir De Lorge pressed ‘mid the foremost
With the dame he professed to adore most.
Oh, what a face! One by fits eyed
Her, and the horrible pitside;
For the penfold surrounded a hollow
Which led where the eye scarce dared follow,
And shelved to the chamber secluded
Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.
The King bailed his keeper, an Arab
As glossy and black as a scarab,
And bade him make sport and at once stir
Up and out of his den the old monster.
They opened a hole in the wire-work
Across it, and dropped there a firework,
And fled: one’s heart’s beating redoubled;
A pause, while the pit’s mouth was troubled,
The blackness and silence so utter,
By the firework’s slow sparkling and sputter;
Then earth in a sudden contortion
Gave out to our gaze her abortion!
Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot
(Whose experience of nature’s but narrow,
And whose faculties move in no small mist
When he versifies David the Psalmist)
I should study that brute to describe you
Illim Juda Leonem de Tribu!
One’s whole blood grew curdling and creepy
To see the black mane, vast and heapy,
The tail in the air stiff and straining,
The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning,
As over the barrier which bounded
His platform, and us who surrounded
The barrier, they reached and they rested
On space that might stand him in best stead:
For who knew, he thought, what the amazement,
The eruption of clatter and blaze meant,
And if, in this minute of wonder,
No outlet, ‘mid lightning and thunder,
Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered,
The lion at last was delivered?
Ay, that was the open sky o’erhead!
And you saw by the flash on his forehead,
By the hope in those eyes wide and steady,
He was leagues in the desert already,
Driving the flocks up the mountain,
Or catlike couched hard by the fountain
To waylay the date-gathering negress:
So guarded he entrance or egress.
“How he stands!” quoth the King: “we may well swear,
(“No novice, we’ve won our spurs elsewhere
“And so can afford the confession,)
“We exercise wholesome discretion
“In keeping aloof from his threshold;
“Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold,
“Their first would too pleasantly purloin
“The visitor’s brisket or surloin:
“But who’s he would prove so foolhardy?
“Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!”
The sentence no sooner was uttered,
Than over the rails a glove flattered,
Fell close to the lion, and rested:
The dame ’twas, who flung it and jested
With life so, De Lorge had been wooing
For months past; he sate there pursuing
His suit, weighing out with nonchalance
Fine speeches like gold from a balance.
Sound the trumpet, no true knight’s a tarrier!
De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,
Walked straight to the glove, — while the lion
Ne’er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on
The palm-tree-edged desert-spring’s sapphire,
And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir, —
Picked it up, and as calmly retreated,
Leaped back where the lady was seated,
And full in the face of its owner
Flung the glove —
”Your heart’s queen, you dethrone her?