The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning
out of that sect, a soul
“Should turn a multitude, already whole,
“Into its body? Speak plainer! Is ‘t so sure
“God’s church lives by a King’s investiture?
“Look to last step! A staggering — a shock —
“What ‘s mere sand is demolished, while the rock
“Endures: a column of black fiery dust
“Blots heaven — that help was prematurely thrust
“Aside, perchance! — but air clears, nought ‘s erased
“Of the true outline. Thus much being firm based,
“The other was a scaffold. See him stand
“Buttressed upon his mattock, Hildebrand
“Of the huge brain-mask welded ply o’er ply
“As in a forge; it buries either eye
“White and extinct, that stupid brow; teeth clenched,
“The neck tight-corded, too, the chin deep-trenched,
“As if a cloud enveloped him while fought
“Under its shade, grim prizers, thought with thought
“At dead-lock, agonizing he, until
“The victor thought leap radiant up, and Will,
“The slave with folded arms and drooping lids
“They fought for, lean forth flame-like as it bids.
“Call him no flower — a mandrake of the earth,
“Thwarted and dwarfed and blasted in its birth,
“Rather, — a fruit of suffering’s excess,
“Thence feeling, therefore stronger: still by stress
“Of Strength, work Knowledge! Full three hundred years
“Have men to wear away in smiles and tears
“Between the two that nearly seemed to touch,
“Observe you! quit one workman and you clutch
“Another, letting both their trains go by —
“The actors-out of either’s policy,
“Heinrich, on this hand, Otho, Barbaross,
“Carry the three Imperial crowns across,
“Aix’ Iron, Milan’s Silver, and Rome’s Gold —
“While Alexander, Innocent uphold
“On that, each Papal key — but, link on link,
“Why is it neither chain betrays a chink?
“How coalesce the small and great? Alack,
“For one thrust forward, fifty such fall back!
“Do the popes coupled there help Gregory
“Alone? Hark — from the hermit Peter’s cry
“At Claremont, down to the first serf that says
“Friedrich ‘s no liege of his while he delays
“Getting the Pope’s curse off him! The Crusade —
“Or trick of breeding Strength by other aid
“Than Strength, is safe. Hark — from the wild harangue
“Of Vimmercato, to the carroch’s clang
“Yonder! The League — or trick of turning Strength
“Against Pernicious Strength, is safe at length.
“Yet hark — from Mantuan Albert making cease
“The fierce ones, to Saint Francis preaching peace
“Yonder! God’s Truce — or trick to supersede
“The very Use of Strength, is safe. Indeed
“We trench upon the future. Who is found
“To take next step, next age — trail o’er the ground —
“Shall I say, gourd-like? — not the flower’s display
“Nor the root’s prowess, but the plenteous way
“O’ the plant — produced by joy and sorrow, whence
“Unfeeling and yet feeling, strongest thence?
“Knowledge by stress of merely Knowledge? No —
“E’en were Sordello ready to forego
“His life for this, ‘t were overleaping work
“Some one has first to do, howe’er it irk,
“Nor stray a foot’s breadth from the beaten road.
“Who means to help must still support the load
“Hildebrand lifted — ’why hast Thou,’ he groaned,
“`Imposed on me a burthen, Paul had moaned,
“‘And Moses dropped beneath?’ Much done — and yet
“Doubtless that grandest task God ever set
“On man, left much to do: at his arm’s wrench,
“Charlemagne’s scaffold fell; but pillars blench
“Merely, start back again — perchance have been
“Taken for buttresses: crash every screen,
“Hammer the tenons better, and engage
“A gang about your work, for the next age
“Or two, of Knowledge, part by Strength and part
“By Knowledge! Then, indeed, perchance may start
“Sordello on his race — would time divulge
“Such secrets! If one step’s awry, one bulge
“Calls for correction by a step we thought
“Got over long since, why, till that is wrought,
“No progress! And the scaffold in its turn
“Becomes, its service o’er, a thing to spurn.
“Meanwhile, if your half-dozen years of life
“In store dispose you to forego the strife,
“Who takes exception? Only bear in mind
“Ferrara ‘s reached, Goito ‘s left behind:
“As you then were, as half yourself, desist!
“ — The warrior-part of you may, an it list,
“Finding real faulchions difficult to poise,
“Fling them afar and taste the cream of joys
“By wielding such in fancy, — what is bard
“Of you may spurn the vehicle that marred
“Elys so much, and in free fancy glut
“His sense, yet write no verses — you have but
“To please yourself for law, and once could please
“What once appeared yourself, by dreaming these
“Rather than doing these, in days gone by.
“But all is changed the moment you descry
“Mankind as half yourself, — then, fancy’s trade
“Ends once and always: how may half evade
“The other half? men are found half of you.
“Out of a thousand helps, just one or two
“Can be accomplished presently: but flinch
“From these (as from the faulchion, raised an inch,