The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning
“Confess thee fitter help the world than I
“Ordained its champion from eternity,
“Is much: but to behold thee scorn the post
“I quit in thy behalf — to hear thee boast
“What makes my own despair!” And while he rung
The changes on this theme, the roof up-sprung,
The sad walls of the presence-chamber died
Into the distance, or embowering vied
With far-away Goito’s vine-frontier;
And crowds of faces — (only keeping clear
The rose-light in the midst, his vantage-ground
To fight their battle from) — deep clustered round
Sordello, with good wishes no mere breath,
Kind prayers for him no vapour, since, come death
Come life, he was fresh-sinewed every joint,
Each bone new-marrowed as whom gods anoint
Though mortal to their rescue. Now let sprawl
The snaky volumes hither! Is Typhon all
For Hercules to trample — good report
From Salinguerra only to extort?
“So was I” (closed he his inculcating
A poet must be earth’s essential king)
“So was I, royal so, and if I fail,
“‘T is not the royalty, ye witness quail,
“But one deposed who, caring not exert
“Its proper essence, trifled malapert
“With accidents instead — good things assigned
“As heralds of a better thing behind —
“And, worthy through display of these, put forth
“Never the inmost all-surpassing worth
“That constitutes him king precisely since
“As yet no other spirit may evince
“Its like: the power he took most pride to test,
“Whereby all forms of life had been professed
“At pleasure, forms already on the earth,
“Was but a means to power beyond, whose birth
“Should, in its novelty, be kingship’s proof.
“Now, whether he came near or kept aloof
“The several forms he longed to imitate,
“Not there the kingship lay, he sees too late.
“Those forms, unalterable first as last,
“Proved him her copier, not the protoplast
“Of nature: what would come of being free,
“By action to exhibit tree for tree,
“Bird, beast, for beast and bird, or prove earth bore
“One veritable man or woman more?
“Means to an end, such proofs are: what the end?
“Let essence, whatsoe’er it be, extend —
“Never contract. Already you include
“The multitude; then let the multitude
“Include yourself; and the result were new:
“Themselves before, the multitude turn you.
“This were to live and move and have, in them,
“Your being, and secure a diadem
“You should transmit (because no cycle yearns
“Beyond itself, but on itself returns)
“When, the full sphere in wane, the world o’erlaid
“Long since with you, shall have in turn obeyed
“Some orb still prouder, some displayer, still
“More potent than the last, of human will,
“And some new king depose the old. Of such
“Am I — whom pride of this elates too much?
“Safe, rather say, ‘mid troops of peers again;
“I, with my words, hailed brother of the train
“Deeds once sufficed: for, let the world roll back,
“Who fails, through deeds howe’er diverse, retrack
“My purpose still, my task? A teeming crust —
“Air, flame, earth, wave at conflict! Then, needs must
“Emerge some Calm embodied, these refer
“The brawl to — yellow-bearded Jupiter?
“No! Saturn; some existence like a pact
“And protest against Chaos, some first fact
“I’ the faint of time. My deep of life, I know
“Is unavailing e’en to poorly show”…
(For here the Chief immeasurably yawned)
… “Deeds in their due gradation till Song dawned —
“The fullest effluence of the finest mind,
“All in degree, no way diverse in kind
“From minds about it, minds which, more or less,
“Lofty or low, move seeking to impress
“Themselves on somewhat; but one mind has climbed
“Step after step, by just ascent sublimed.
“Thought is the soul of act, and, stage by stage,
“Soul is from body still to disengage
“As tending to a freedom which rejects
“Such help and incorporeally affects
“The world, producing deeds but not by deeds,
“Swaying, in others, frames itself exceeds,
“Assigning them the simpler tasks it used
“To patiently perform till Song produced
“Acts, by thoughts only, for the mind: divest
“Mind of e’en Thought, and, lo, God’s unexpressed
“Will draws above us! All then is to win
“Save that. How much for me, then? where begin
“My work? About me, faces! and they flock,
“The earnest faces. What shall I unlock
“By song? behold me prompt, whate’er it be,
“To minister: how much can mortals see
“Of Life? No more than so? I take the task
“And marshal you Life’s elemental masque,
“Show Men, on evil or on good lay stress,
“This light, this shade make prominent, suppress
“All ordinary hues that softening blend
“Such natures with the level. Apprehend
“Which sinner is, which saint, if I allot
“Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, a blaze or blot,
“To those you doubt concerning! I enwomb
“Some wretched Friedrich with his red-hot tomb;
“Some dubious spirit, Lombard Agilulph
“With the black chastening river I engulph!