The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning

The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition - Robert  Browning


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Lives strangely on my thoughts, and looks, and words,

       As fathoms down some nameless ocean thing

       Its silent course of quietness and joy

       O dearest, if indeed, I tell the past,

       May’st thou forget it as a sad sick dream;

       Or if it linger — my lost soul too soon

       Sinks to itself, and whispers, we shall be

       But closer linked — two creatures whom the earth

       Bears singly — with strange feelings, unrevealed

       But to each other; or two lonely things

       Created by some Power, whose reign is done,

       Having no part in God, or his bright world,

       I am to sing; whilst ebbing day dies soft,

       As a lean scholar dies, worn o’er his book,

       And in the heaven stars steal out one by one,

       As hunted men steal to their mountain watch.

       I must not think — lest this new impulse die

       In which I trust. I have no confidence,

       So I will sing on — fast as fancies come

       Rudely — the verse being as the mood it paints.

       I strip my mind bare — whose first elements

       I shall unveil — not as they struggled forth

       In infancy, nor as they now exist,

       That I am grown above them, and can rule them,

       But in that middle stage when they were full,

       Yet ere I had disposed them to my will;

       And then I shall show how these elements

       Produced my present state, and what it is.

       I am made up of an intensest life,

       Of a most clear idea of consciousness

       Of self — distinct from all its qualities,

       From all affections, passions, feelings, powers;

       And thus far it exists, if tracked in all,

       But linked in me, to self-supremacy,

       Existing as a centre to all things,

       Most potent to create, and rule, and call

       Upon all things to minister to it;

       And to a principle of restlessness

       Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all —

       This is myself; and I should thus have been,

       Though gifted lower than the meanest soul.

       And of my powers, one springs up to save

       From utter death a soul with such desires

       Confined to clay — which is the only one

       Which marks me — an imagination which

       Has been an angel to me — coming not

       In fitful visions, but beside me ever,

       And never failing me; so tho’ my mind

       Forgets not — not a shred of life forgets —

       Yet I can take a secret pride in calling

       The dark past up — to quell it regally.

       A mind like this must dissipate itself,

       But I have always had one lodestar; now,

       As I look back, I see that I have wasted,

       Or progressed as I looked toward that star —

       A need, a trust, a yearning after God,

       A feeling I have analysed but late,

       But it existed, and was reconciled

       With a neglect of all I deemed His laws,

       Which yet, when seen in others, I abhorred.

       I felt as one beloved, and so shut in

       From fear — and thence I date my trust in signs

       And omens — for I saw God everywhere;

       And I can only lay it to the fruit

       Of a sad aftertime that I could doubt

       Even His being — having always felt

       His presence — never acting from myself,

       Still trusting in a hand that leads me through

       All dangers; and this feeling still has fought

       Against my weakest reason and resolves.

       And I can love nothing — and this dull truth

       Has come the last — but sense supplies a love

       Encircling me and mingling with my life.

       These make myself — for I have sought in vain

       To trace how they were formed by circumstance,

       For I still find them — turning my wild youth

       Where they alone displayed themselves, converting

       All objects to their use — now see their course!

       They came to me in my first dawn of life,

       Which passed alone with wisest ancient books,

       All halo-girt with fancies of my own,

       And I myself went with the tale, — a god,

       Wandering after beauty — or a giant,

       Standing vast in the sunset — an old hunter,

       Talking with gods — or a high-crested chief,

       Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos; —

       I tell you, nought has ever been so clear

       As the place, the time, the fashion of those lives.

       I had not seen a work of lofty art,

       Nor woman’s beauty, nor sweet nature’s face,

       Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those

       On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea:

       The deep groves, and white temples, and wet caves —

       And nothing ever will surprise me now —

       Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed,

       Who bound my forehead with Proserpine’s hair.

       An’ strange it is, that I who could so dream,

       Should e’er have stooped to aim at aught beneath —

       Aught low, or painful, but I never doubted;

       So as I grew, I rudely shaped my life

       To my immediate wants, yet strong beneath

       Was a vague sense of power folded up —

       A sense that tho’ those shadowy times were past,

       Their spirit dwelt in me, and I should rule.

       Then came a pause, and long restraint chained down

       My soul, till it was changed. I lost myself,

       And were it not that I so loathe that time,

       I could recall how first I learned to turn

       My mind against itself; and the effects,

       In deeds for which remorse were vain, as for

       The wanderings of delirious dream; yet thence

       Came cunning, envy, falsehood, which so long

       Have spotted me — at length I was restored,

       Yet long the influence remained; and nought

       But the still life I


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