The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning
Lo, our forlorn acquaintance carry thus
The head! Successively sewer, forum, cirque —
Last age, an aqueduct was counted work,
But now they tire the artificer upon
Blank alabaster, black obsidion,
— Careful, Jove’s face be duly fulgurant,
And mother Venus’ kiss-creased nipples pant
Back into pristine pulpiness, ere fixed
Above the baths. What difference betwixt
This Rome and ours — resemblance what, between
That scurvy dumb-show and this pageant sheen —
These Romans and our rabble? Use thy wit!
The work marched: step by step, — a workman fit
Took each, nor too fit, — to one task, one time, —
No leaping o’er the petty to the prime,
When just the substituting osier lithe
For brittle bulrush, sound wood for soft withe,
To further loam-and-roughcast-work a stage, —
Exacts an architect, exacts an age:
No tables of the Mauritanian tree
For men whose maple log ‘s their luxury!
That way was Rome built. “Better” (say you) “merge
“At once all workmen in the demiurge,
“All epochs in a lifetime, every task
“In one!” So should the sudden city bask
I’ the day — while those we ‘d feast there, want the knack
Of keeping fresh-chalked gowns from speck and brack,
Distinguish not rare peacock from vile swan,
Nor Mareotic juice from Cæcuban.
“Enough of Rome! ‘T was happy to conceive
“Rome on a sudden, nor shall fate bereave
“Me of that credit: for the rest, her spite
“Is an old story — serves my folly right
“By adding yet another to the dull
“List of abortions — things proved beautiful
“Could they be done, Sordello cannot do.”
He sat upon the terrace, plucked and threw
The powdery aloe-cusps away, saw shift
Rome’s walls, and drop arch after arch, and drift
Mist-like afar those pillars of all stripe,
Mounds of all majesty. “Thou archetype,
“Last of my dreams and loveliest, depart!”
And then a low voice wound into his heart:
“Sordello!” (low as some old Pythoness
Conceding to a Lydian King’s distress
The cause of his long error — one mistake
Of her past oracle) “Sordello, wake!
“God has conceded two sights to a man —
“One, of men’s whole work, time’s completed plan,
“The other, of the minute’s work, man’s first
“Step to the plan’s completeness: what’s dispersed
“Save hope of that supreme step which, descried
“Earliest, was meant still to remain untried
“Only to give you heart to take your own
“Step, and there stay, leaving the rest alone?
“Where is the vanity? Why count as one
“The first step, with the last step? What is gone
“Except Rome’s aëry magnificence,
“That last step you ‘d take first? — an evidence
“You were God: be man now! Let those glances fall!
“The basis, the beginning step of all,
“Which proves you just a man — is that gone too?
“Pity to disconcert one versed as you
“In fate’s ill-nature! but its full extent
“Eludes Sordello, even: the veil rent,
“Read the black writing — that collective man
“Outstrips the individual. Who began
“The acknowledged greatnesses? Ay, your own art
“Shall serve us: put the poet’s mimes apart —
“Close with the poet’s self, and lo, a dim
“Yet too plain form divides itself from him!
“Alcamo’s song enmeshes the lulled Isle,
“Woven into the echoes left erewhile
“By Nina, one soft web of song: no more
“Turning his name, then, flower-like o’er and o’er!
“An elder poet in the younger’s place;
“Nina’s the strength, but Alcamo’s the grace:
“Each neutralizes each then! Search your fill;
“You get no whole and perfect Poet — still
“New Ninas, Alcamos, till time’s midnight
“Shrouds all — or better say, the shutting light
“Of a forgotten yesterday. Dissect
“Every ideal workman — (to reject
“In favour of your fearful ignorance
“The thousand phantasms eager to advance,
“And point you but to those within your reach) —
“Were you the first who brought — (in modern speech)
“The Multitude to be materialized?
“That loose eternal unrest — who devised
“An apparition i’ the midst? The rout
“Was checked, a breathless ring was formed about
“That sudden flower: get round at any risk
“The gold-rough pointel, silver-blazing disk
“O’ the lily! Swords across it! Reign thy reign
“And serve thy frolic service, Charlemagne!
“ — The very child of over-joyousness,
“Unfeeling thence, strong therefore: Strength by stress
“Of Strength comes of that forehead confident,
“Those widened eyes expecting heart’s content,
“A calm as out of just-quelled noise; nor swerves
“For doubt, the ample cheek in gracious curves
“Abutting on the upthrust nether lip:
“He wills, how should he doubt then? Ages slip:
“Was it Sordello pried into the work
“So far accomplished, and discovered lurk
“A company amid the other clans,
“Only distinct in priests for castellans
“And popes for suzerains (their rule confessed
“Its rule, their interest its interest,
“Living