The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning
“Discerning me!” —
(Dear monarch, I beseech,
Notice how lamentably wide a breach
Is here: discovering this, discover too
What our poor world has possibly to do
With it! As pigmy natures as you please —
So much the better for you; take your ease,
Look on, and laugh; style yourself God alone;
Strangle some day with a cross olive-stone!
All that is right enough: but why want us
To know that you yourself know thus and thus?)
“The world shall bow to me conceiving all
“Man’s life, who see its blisses, great and small,
“Afar — not tasting any; no machine
“To exercise my utmost will is mine:
“Be mine mere consciousness! Let men perceive
“What I could do, a mastery believe,
“Asserted and established to the throng
“By their selected evidence of song
“Which now shall prove, whate’er they are, or seek
“To be, I am — whose words, not actions speak,
“Who change no standards of perfection, vex
“With no strange forms created to perplex,
“But just perform their bidding and no more,
“At their own satiating-point give o’er,
“While each shall love in me the love that leads
“His soul to power’s perfection.” Song, not deeds,
(For we get tired) was chosen. Fate would brook
Mankind no other organ; he would look
For not another channel to dispense
His own volition by, receive men’s sense
Of its supremacy — would live content,
Obstructed else, with merely verse for vent.
Nor should, for instance, strength an outlet seek
And, striving, be admired: nor grace bespeak
Wonder, displayed in gracious attitudes:
Nor wisdom, poured forth, change unseemly moods;
But he would give and take on song’s one point.
Like some huge throbbing stone that, poised a-joint,
Sounds, to affect on its basaltic bed,
Must sue in just one accent; tempests shed
Thunder, and raves the windstorm: only let
That key by any little noise be set —
The far benighted hunter’s halloo pitch
On that, the hungry curlew chance to scritch
Or serpent hiss it, rustling through the rift,
However loud, however low — all lift
The groaning monster, stricken to the heart.
Lo ye, the world’s concernment, for its part,
And this, for his, will hardly interfere!
Its businesses in blood and blaze this year
But wile the hour away — a pastime slight
Till he shall step upon the platform: right!
And, now thus much is settled, cast in rough,
Proved feasible, be counselled! thought enough, —
Slumber, Sordello! any day will serve:
Were it a less digested plan! how swerve
Tomorrow? Meanwhile eat these sun-dried grapes,
And watch the soaring hawk there! Life escapes
Merrily thus.
He thoroughly read o’er
His truchman Naddo’s missive six times more,
Praying him visit Mantua and supply
A famished world.
The evening star was high
When he reached Mantua, but his fame arrived
Before him: friends applauded, foes connived,
And Naddo looked an angel, and the rest
Angels, and all these angels would be blest
Supremely by a song — the thrice-renowned
Goito-manufacture. Then he found
(Casting about to satisfy the crowd)
That happy vehicle, so late allowed,
A sore annoyance; ‘t was the song’s effect
He cared for, scarce the song itself: reflect!
In the past life, what might be singing’s use?
Just to delight his Delians, whose profuse
Praise, not the toilsome process which procured
That praise, enticed Apollo: dreams abjured,
No overleaping means for ends — take both
For granted or take neither! I am loth
To say the rhymes at last were Eglamor’s;
But Naddo, chuckling, bade competitors
Go pine; “the master certes meant to waste
“No effort, cautiously had probed the taste
“He ‘d please anon: true bard, in short, — disturb
“His title if they could; nor spur nor curb,
“Fancy nor reason, wanting in him; whence
“The staple of his verses, common sense:
“He built on man’s broad nature — gift of gifts,
“That power to build! The world contented shifts
“With counterfeits enough, a dreary sort
“Of warriors, statesmen, ere it can extort
“Its poet-soul — that ‘s, after all, a freak
“(The having eyes to see and tongue to speak)
“With our herd’s stupid sterling happiness
“So plainly incompatible that — yes —
“Yes — should a son of his improve the breed
“And turn out poet, he were cursed indeed!”
“Well, there ‘s Goito and its woods anon,
“If the worst happen; best go stoutly on
“Now!” thought Sordello.
Ay, and goes on yet!
You pother with your glossaries to get
A notion of the Troubadour’s intent
In rondel, tenzon, virlai or sirvent —
Much as you study arras how to twirl
His angelot, plaything of page and girl
Once; but you surely reach, at last, — or, no!
Never quite reach what struck the people so,
As from the welter of their time he drew
Its elements successively to view,
Followed all actions backward on their course,
And catching up, unmingled at the source,