The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning
I will give up all gained as willingly
As one gives up a charm which shuts him out
From hope, or part, or care, in human kind.
As life wanes, all its cares, and strife, and toil,
Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees
Which grew by our youth’s home — the waving mass
Of climbing plants, heavy with bloom and dew —
The morning swallows with their songs like words, —
All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts.
So aught connected with my early life —
My rude songs or my wild imaginings,
How I look on them — most distinct amid
The fever and the stir of after years!
I ne’er had ventured e’en to hope for this,
Had not the glow I felt at His award,
Assured me all was not extinct within.
Him whom all honor — whose renown springs up
Like sunlight which will visit all the world;
So that e’en they who sneered at him at first,
Come out to it, as some dark spider crawls
From his foul nest, which some lit torch invades,
Yet spinning still new films for his retreat. —
Thou didst smile, poet, — but can we forgive?
Sun-treader — life and light be thine for ever;
Thou art gone from us — years go by — and spring
Gladdens, and the young earth is beautiful,
Yet thy songs come not — other bards arise,
But none like thee — they stand — thy majesties,
Like mighty works which tell some Spirit there
Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn,
Till, its long task completed, it hath risen
And left us, never to return: and all
Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain.
The air seems bright with thy past presence yet,
But thou art still for me, as thou hast been
When I have stood with thee, as on a throne
With all thy dim creations gathered round
Like mountains, — and I felt of mould like them,
And creatures of my own were mixed with them,
Like things half-lived, catching and giving life.
But thou art still for me, who have adored,
Tho’ single, panting but to hear thy name,
Which I believed a spell to me alone,
Scarce deeming thou wert as a star to men —
As one should worship long a sacred spring
Scarce worth a moth’s flitting, which long grasses cross,
And one small tree embowers droopingly,
Joying to see some wandering insect won.
To live in its few rushes — or some locust
To pasture on its boughs — or some wild bird
Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air,
And then should find it but the fountain-head,
Long lost, of some great river — washing towns
And towers, and seeing old woods which will live
But by its banks, untrod of human foot,
Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering
In light as some thing lieth half of life
Before God’s foot — waiting a wondrous change
— Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay
Its course in vain, for it does ever spread
Like a sea’s arm as it goes rolling on,
Being the pulse of some great country — so
Wert thou to me — and art thou to the world.
And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret,
That I am not what I have been to thee:
Like a girl one has loved long silently,
In her first loveliness, in some retreat,
When first emerged, all gaze and glow to view
Her fresh eyes, and soft hair, and lips which bleed
Like a mountain berry. Doubtless it is sweet
To see her thus adored — but there have been
Moments, when all the world was in his praise,
Sweeter than all the pride of after hours.
Yet, Sun-treader, all hail! — from my heart’s heart
I bid thee hail! — e’en in my wildest dreams,
I am proud to feel I would have thrown up all
The wreaths of fame which seemed o’erhanging me,
To have seen thee, for a moment, as thou art.
And if thou livest — if thou lovest, spirit!
Remember me, who set this final seal
To wandering thought — that one so pure as thou
Could never die. Remember me, who flung
All honor from my soul — yet paused and said,
“There is one spark of love remaining yet,
“For I have nought in common with him — shapes
“Which followed him avoid me, and foul forms
“Seek me, which ne’er could fasten on his mind;
“And tho’ I feel how low I am to him,
“Yet I aim not even to catch a tone
“Of all the harmonies which he called up,
“So one gleam still remains, altho’ the last”
Remember me — who praise thee e’en with tears,
For never more shall I walk calm with thee;
Thy sweet imaginings are as an air,
A melody, some wond’rous singer sings,
Which, though it haunt men oft in the still eve,
They dream not to essay; yet it no less,
But more is honored. I was thine in shame,
And now when all thy proud renown is out,
I am a watcher, whose eyes have grown dim
With looking for some star — which breaks on him,
Altered and worn, and weak, and full of tears.
Autumn has come — like Spring returned to us,
Won from her girlishness — like one returned
A friend that was a lover — nor forgets
The first warm love, but full of sober thoughts
Of fading years; whose soft mouth quivers yet
With the old smile — but yet so changed and still!
And here am I the scoffer, who have probed
Life’s vanity, won by a word again
Into my old life — for one little word