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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Este abroad and Ecelin at home

       To worship him, — Mantua, Verona, Rome

       To witness it. Who grudges time so spent?

       Rather test qualities to heart’s content —

       Summon them, thrice selected, near and far —

       Compress the starriest into one star,

       And grasp the whole at once!

      The pageant thinned

       Accordingly; from rank to rank, like wind

       His spirit passed to winnow and divide;

       Back fell the simpler phantasms; every side

       The strong clave to the wise; with either classed

       The beauteous; so, till two or three amassed

       Mankind’s beseemingnesses, and reduced

       Themselves eventually, — graces loosed,

       Strengths lavished, — all to heighten up One Shape

       Whose potency no creature should escape.

       Can it be Friedrich of the bowmen’s talk?

       Surely that grape-juice, bubbling at the stalk,

       Is some grey scorching Saracenic wine

       The Kaiser quaffs with the Miramoline —

       Those swarthy hazel-clusters, seamed and chapped,

       Or filberts russet-sheathed and velvet-capped,

       Are dates plucked from the bough John Brienne sent

       To keep in mind his sluggish armament

       Of Canaan: — Friedrich’s, all the pomp and fierce

       Demeanour! But harsh sounds and sights transpierce

       So rarely the serene cloud where he dwells

       Whose looks enjoin, whose lightest words are spells

       On the obdurate! That right arm indeed

       Has thunder for its slave; but where ‘s the need

       Of thunder if the stricken multitude

       Hearkens, arrested in its angriest mood,

       While songs go up exulting, then dispread,

       Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead

       Like an escape of angels? ‘T is the tune,

       Nor much unlike the words his women croon

       Smilingly, colourless and faint-designed

       Each, as a worn-out queen’s face some remind

       Of her extreme youth’s love-tales. “Eglamor

       “Made that!” Half minstrel and half emperor,

       What but ill objects vexed him? Such he slew.

       The kinder sort were easy to subdue

       By those ambrosial glances, dulcet tones;

       And these a gracious hand advanced to thrones

       Beneath him. Wherefore twist and torture this,

       Striving to name afresh the antique bliss,

       Instead of saying, neither less nor more,

       He had discovered, as our world before,

       Apollo? That shall be the name; nor bid

       Me rag by rag expose how patchwork hid

       The youth — what thefts of every clime and day

       Contributed to purfle the array

       He climbed with (June at deep) some close ravine

       Mid clatter of its million pebbles sheen,

       Over which, singing soft, the runnel slipped

       Elate with rains: into whose streamlet dipped

       He foot, yet trod, you thought, with unwet sock —

       Though really on the stubs of living rock

       Ages ago it crenelled; vines for roof,

       Lindens for wall; before him, aye aloof,

       Flittered in the cool some azure damsel-fly,

       Born of the simmering quiet, there to die.

       Emerging whence, Apollo still, he spied

       Mighty descents of forest; multiplied

       Tuft on tuft, here, the frolic myrtle-trees,

       There gendered the grave maple stocks at ease.

       And, proud of its observer, straight the wood

       Tried old surprises on him; black it stood

       A sudden barrier (’twas a cloud passed o’er)

       So dead and dense, the tiniest brute no more

       Must pass; yet presently (the cloud dispatched)

       Each clump, behold, was glistering detached

       A shrub, oak-boles shrunk into ilex-stems!

       Yet could not he denounce the stratagems

       He saw thro’, till, hours thence, aloft would hang

       White summer-lightnings; as it sank and sprang

       To measure, that whole palpitating breast

       Of heaven, ‘t was Apollo, nature prest

       At eve to worship.

      Time stole: by degrees

       The Pythons perish off; his votaries

       Sink to respectful distance; songs redeem

       Their pains, but briefer; their dismissals seem

       Emphatic; only girls are very slow

       To disappear — his Delians! Some that glow

       O’ the instant, more with earlier loves to wrench

       Away, reserves to quell, disdains to quench;

       Alike in one material circumstance —

       All soon or late adore Apollo! Glance

       The bevy through, divine Apollo’s choice,

       His Daphne! “We secure Count Richard’s voice

       “In Este’s counsels, good for Este’s ends

       “As our Taurello,” say his faded friends,

       “By granting him our Palma!” — the sole child,

       They mean, of Agnes Este who beguiled

       Ecelin, years before this Adelaide

       Wedded and turned him wicked: “but the maid

       “Rejects his suit,” those sleepy women boast.

       She, scorning all beside, deserves the most

       Sordello: so, conspicuous in his world

       Of dreams sat Palma. How the tresses curled

       Into a sumptuous swell of gold and wound

       About her like a glory! even the ground

       Was bright as with spilt sunbeams; breathe not, breathe

       Not! — poised, see, one leg doubled underneath,

       Its small foot buried in the dimpling snow,

       Rests, but the other, listlessly below,

       O’er the couch-side swings feeling for cool air,

       The vein-streaks swollen a richer violet where

       The languid blood lies heavily; yet calm

       On her slight prop, each flat and outspread palm,

       As but suspended in the act to rise

       By consciousness of beauty, whence her eyes

       Turn with so frank a triumph, for she meets

      


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