The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning
bells and all
The little smoking cots, and fields, and banks,
And copses, bright in the sun; my spirit wanders.
Hedge-rows for me — still, living, hedge-rows, where
The bushes close, and clasp above, and keep
Thought in — I am concentrated — I feel; —
But my soul saddens when it looks beyond;
I cannot be immortal, nor taste all.
O God! where does this tend — these straggling aims!
What would I have? what is this “sleep,” which seems
To bound all? can there be a “waking” point
Of crowning life? The soul would never rule —
It would be first in all things — it would have
Its utmost pleasure filled — but that complete
Commanding for commanding sickens it.
The last point that I can trace is, rest beneath
Some better essence than itself — in weakness;
This is “myself” — not what I think should be,
And what is that I hunger for but God?
My God, my God! let me for once look on thee
As tho’ nought else existed: we alone.
And as creation crumbles, my soul’s spark
Expands till I can say, “Even from myself
“I need thee, and I feel thee, and I love thee;
“I do not plead my rapture in thy works
“For love of thee — or that I feel as one
“Who cannot die — but there is that in me
“Which turns to thee, which loves, or which should love.”
Why have I girt myself with this hell-dress?
Why have I laboured to put out my life?
Is it not in my nature to adore,
And e’en for all my reason do I not
Feel him, and thank him, and pray to him? Now.
Can I forego the trust that he loves me?
Do I not feel a love which only ONE …
O thou pale form, so dimly seen, deep-eyed,
I have denied thee calmly — do I not
Pant when I read of thy consummate deeds,
And burn to see thy calm pure truths out-flash
The brightest gleams of earth’s philosophy?
Do I not shake to hear aught question thee? …
If I am erring save me, madden me,
Take from me powers, and pleasures — let me die
Ages, so I see thee: I am knit round
As with a charm, by sin and lust and pride,
Yet tho’ my wandering dreams have seen all shapes
Of strange delight, oft have I stood by thee —
Have I been keeping lonely watch with thee,
In the damp night by weeping Olivet,
Or leaning on thy bosom, proudly less —
Or dying with thee on the lonely cross —
Or witnessing thy bursting from the tomb!
A mortal, sin’s familiar friend doth here
Avow that he will give all earth’s reward,
But to believe and humbly teach the faith,
In suffering, and poverty, and shame,
Only believing he is not unloved… .
And now, my Pauline, I am thine for ever!
I feel the spirit which has buoyed me up
Deserting me: and old shades gathering on;
Yet while its last light waits, I would say much,
And chiefly, I am glad that I have said
That love which I have ever felt for thee,
But seldom told; our hearts so beat together,
That speech is mockery, but when dark hours come:
And I feel sad; and thou, sweet, deem’st it strange;
A sorrow moves me, thou canst not remove.
Look on this lay I dedicate to thee,
Which thro’ thee I began, and which I end,
Collecting the last gleams to strive to tell
That I am thine, and more than ever now —
That I am sinking fast — yet tho’ I sink
No less I feel that thou hast brought me bliss,
And that I still may hope to win it back.
Thou know’st, dear friend, I could not think all calm,
For wild dreams followed me, and bore me off,
And all was indistinct. Ere one was caught
Another glanced: so dazzled by my wealth,
Knowing not which to leave nor which to choose,
For all my thoughts so floated, nought was fixed —
And then thou said’st a perfect bard was one
Who shadowed out the stages of all life,
And so thou badest me tell this my first stage: —
’Tis done: and even now I feel all dim the shift
Of thought. These are my last thoughts; I discern
Faintly immortal life, and truth, and good.
And why thou must be mine is, that e’en now,
In the dim hush of night — that I have done —
With fears and sad forebodings: I look thro’
And say, “E’en at the last I have her still,
“With her delicious eyes as clear as heaven,
“When rain in a quick shower has beat down mist,
“And clouds float white in the sun like broods of swans.”
How the blood lies upon her cheek, all spread
As thinned by kisses; only in her lips
It wells and pulses like a living thing,
And her neck looks, like marble misted o’er
With love-breath, a dear thing to kiss and love,
Standing beneath me — looking out to me,
As I might kill her and be loved for it.
Love me — love me, Pauline, love nought but me;
Leave me not. All these words are wild and weak,
Believe them not, Pauline. I stooped so low
But to behold thee purer by my side,
To show thou art my breath — my life — a last
Resource — an extreme want: never believe
Aught better could so look to thee, nor seek
Again the world of good thoughts left for me.
There were bright troops of undiscovered suns.
Each equal in their radiant course. There were
Clusters of far fair isles, which ocean kept
For his own joy, and his waves broke on them