Pippa's Song

THE year's at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in His heaven--

All's right with the world!

Robert Browning

Summum Bonum

ALL the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:

All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:

In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:

Breath and bloom, shade and shine, --wonder, wealth, and--how far above them--

        Truth that's brighter than gem,

        Trust, that's purer than pearl,--

Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe--all were for me

        In the kiss of one girl.

Robert Browning

Meeting at night

THE gray sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Robert Browning

Parting at Morning

ROUND the cape of a sudden came the sea,

And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:

And straight was the path of gold for him,

And the need of a world of men for me.

Robert Browning

How They Brought The Good News From Ghent To Aix

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he:

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

"Good speed!" cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew;

"Speed" echoed the wall to us galloping through.

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Not a word to each other: we kept the great pace--

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,

Then shortened each stirrup and set the pique right,

Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit,

Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near

Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;

At Boom a great yellow star came out to see;

At Dueffeld 'twas morning as plain as could be;

And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime--

So Joris broke silence with "Yet there is time!"

At Aerschot up leaped of a sudden the sun,

And against him the cattle stood black every one,

To stare through the mist at us galloping past;

And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,

With resolute shoulders, each butting away

The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray;

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back

For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;

And one eye's black intelligence,--ever that glance

O'er its white edge at me, its own master, askance;

And the thick heavy spume-flakes, which aye and anon

His fierce lips shook upward in galloping on.

By Hasselt Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!

Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her;

We'll remember at Aix"--for one heard the quick wheeze

Of her chest, saw the stretched neck, and the staggering knees

And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So we were left galloping, Joris and I,

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh;

'Neath our feet broke the brittle, bright stubble like chaff;

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,

And "Gallop" gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!"

"How they'll greet us!"--and all in a moment his roan

Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;

And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight

Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,

With her nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,

And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.

Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall,

Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,

Stoop up in the stirrups, leaned, patted his ear,

Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer--

Clapped my hands, laughed and sung, any noise, bad or good,

Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

And all I remember is friends flocking round,

As I sate with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;

And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,

As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,

Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)

Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

Robert Browning

A Grammarian's Funeral
Shortly After the Revival of Learning in Europe

LET us begin and carry up this corpse,

Singing together.

Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes

Each in its tether

Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,

Cared for till cock-crow:

Look out if yonder be not day again

Rimming the rock-row!

That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,

Rarer, intenser,

Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,

Chafes in the censer.

Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;

Seek we sepulture

On a tall mountain, citied to the top,

Crowded with culture!

All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;

Clouds overcome it;

No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's

Circling its summit.

Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:

Wait ye the warning?

Our low life was the level's and the night's;

He's for the morning.

Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,

'Ware the beholders!

This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,

Borne on our shoulders.

Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft.

Safe from the weather!

He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,

Singing together,

He was a man born with thy face and throat,

Lyric Apollo!

Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note

Winter would follow?

Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!

Cramped and diminished,

Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!

My dance is finished"?

No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side,

Make for the city!)

He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride

Over men's pity;

Left play for work, and grappled with the world

Bent on escaping:

"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled?

Show me their shaping,

Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage-

Give!"-So, he gowned him,

Straight got by heart that book to its last page:

Learned, we found him.

Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,

Accents uncertain:

"Time to taste life," another would have said,

"Up with the curtain!"

This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?

Patience a moment!

Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,

Still there's the comment.

Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,

Painful or easy!

Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast

Aye, nor feel queasy."

Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,

When he had learned it,

When he had gathered all books had to give!

Sooner, he spurned it.

Image the whole, then execute the parts-

Fancy the fabric

Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,

Ere mortar dab brick!

(Here's the town gate reached: there's the market place

Gaping before us. )

Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace

(Hearten our chorus!)

That before living he'd learn how to live-

No end to learning:

Earn the means first-God surely will contrive

Use for our earning.

Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes:

Live now or never!"

He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!

Man has Forever."

Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:

Calculus racked him:

Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:

Tussis attacked him.

"Now, master, take a little rest!"-not he!

(Caution redoubled,

Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)

Not a whit troubled

Back to his studies, fresher than at first,

Fierce as a dragon

He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)

Sucked at the flagon.

Oh, if we draw a circle premature,

Heedless of far gain,

Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure

Bad is our bargain!

Was it not great? did not he throw on God

(He loves the burthen)

God's task to make the heavenly period

Perfect the earthen?

Did not he magnify the mind, show clear

Just what it all meant?

He would not discount life, as fools do here,

Paid by installment.

He ventured neck or nothing-heaven's success

Found, or earth's failure:

"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes:

Hence with life's pale lure!"

That low man seeks a little thing to do,

Sees it and does it:

This high man, with a great thing to pursue,

Dies ere he knows it.

That low man goes on adding one to one,

His hundred's soon hit:

This high man, aiming at a million,

Misses an unit.

That, has the world here-should he need the next,

Let the world mind him!

This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed

Seeking shall find him.

So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,

Ground he at grammar;

Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife:

While he could stammer

He settled Hoti's business-let it be!-

Properly based Oun-

Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,

Dead from the waist down.

Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:

Hail to your purlieus,

All ye highfliers of the feathered race,

Swallows and curlews!

Here's the top peak; the multitude below

Live, for they can, there:

This man decided not to Live but Know-

Bury this man there?

Here-here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,

Lightnings are loosened,

Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,

Peace let the dew send!

Lofty designs must close in like effects:

Loftily lying,

Leave him-still loftier than the world suspects,

Living and dying.

Robert Browning

My Last Duchess

THAT'S my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will 't please you to sit and look at her? I said

``Fra Pandolf'' by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to my self they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not

Her husband's presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, ``Her mantle laps

Over my lady's wrist too much,'' or ``Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat:'' such stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, 't was all one! My favor at her breast,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace--all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men,--good! but thanked

Somehow,--I know not how--as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, ``Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark''--and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,

--E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master's known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretence

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed

At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Robert Browning

Home Thoughts, From Abroad

OH, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England -- now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge--

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower

-- Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning

Rabbi Ben Ezra

GROW old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in his hand

Who saith, ``A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''

Not that, amassing flowers,

Youth sighed, ``Which rose make ours,

Which lily leave and then as best recall?''

Not that, admiring stars,

It yearned, ``Nor Jove, nor Mars;

Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!''

Not for such hopes and fears

Annulling youth's brief years,

Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!

Rather I prize the doubt

Low kinds exist without,

Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed,

Were man but formed to feed

On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;

Such feasting ended, then

As sure an end to men;

Irks care the crop full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied

To that which doth provide

And not partake, effect and not receive!

A spark disturbs our clod;

Nearer we hold of God

Who gives, then of his tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff

That turns earth's smoothness rough,

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!

Be our joys three-parts pain!

Strive,and hold cheap the strain;

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence,--a paradox

Which comforts while it mocks,--

Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:

What I aspired to be,

And was not, comforts me:

A brute I might have been, but would not sink i'the scale.

What is he but a brute

Whose flesh has soul to suit,

Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?

To man, propose this test--

Thy body at its best,

How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use:

I own the Past profuse

Of power each side, a perfection every turn:

Eyes, ears took in their dole,

Brain treasured up the whole;

Should not the heart beat once ``How good to live and learn''?

Not once beat ``Praise be thine!

I see the whole design,

I, who saw power, see now Love perfect too:

Perfect I call thy plan:

Thanks that I was a man!

Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what thou shalt do!''

For pleasant is this flesh;

Our soul, in its rose-mesh

Pulled over to the earth, still yearns for rest:

Would we some prize might hold

To match those manifold

Possessions of the brute,--gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say,

``Spite of this flesh to-day

I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!''

As the bird wings and sings,

Let us cry, ``All good things

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!''

Therefore I summon age

To grant youth's heritage,

Life's struggle having so far reached its term:

Thence shall I pass, approved

A man, for aye removed

From the developed brute; a God though in the germ.

And I shall thereupon

Take rest, ere I be gone

Once more on my adventure brave and new:

Fearless and unperplexed,

When I wage battle next,

What weapons to select, what armor to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try

My gain or loss thereby;

Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:

And I shall weigh the same,

Give life its praise or blame:

Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For note, when evening shuts,

A certain moment cuts

The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:

A whisper from the west

Shoots--``Add this to the rest,

Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.''

So, still within this life,

Though lifted o'er its strife,

Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,

``This rage was right i' the main,

That acquiescence vain:

The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.''

For more is not reserved

To man, with soul just nerved

To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:

Here, work enough to watch

The Master work, and catch

Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

As it was better, youth

Should strive, through acts uncouth,

Toward making than repose on aught found made:

So, better, age, exempt

From strife, should know, than tempt

Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right

And Good and Infinite

Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,

With knowledge absolute,

Subject to no dispute

From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.

Be there, for once and all,

Severed great minds from small,

Announced to each his station in the Past!

Was I, the world arraigned,

Were they, my soul disdained,

Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate?

Ten men love what I hate,

Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;

Ten, who in ears and eyes

Match me: we all surmise,

They this thing, I that: whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass

Called ``work'' must sentence pass,

Things done, that took the eye and had the price;

O'er which, from level stand,

The low world laid its hand,

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coarse thumb

And finger failed to plumb,

So passed in making up the main account;

All instincts immature,

All purposes unsure,

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped;

All I could never be,

All, men ignored in me,

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that Potter's wheel,

That metaphor! and feel

Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,--

Thou, to whom fools propound,

When the wine makes its round,

``Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day.''

Fool! All that is, at all,

Lasts ever, past recall;

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:

What entered into thee,

That was, is, and shall be:

Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee 'mid this dance

Of plastic circumstance,

This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest:

Machinery just meant

To give thy soul its bent,

Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What though the earlier grooves,

Which ran the laughing loves

Around thy base, no longer pause and press?

What though, about thy rim,

Skull-things in order grim

Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down but up!

To uses of a cup,

The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,

The new wine's foaming flow,

The Master's lips aglow!

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?

But I need, now as then,

Thee, God, who mouldest men;

And since, not even while the whirl was worst,

Did I--to the wheel of life

With shapes and colors rife,

Bound dizzily--mistake my end, to slake thy thirst:

So, take, and use thy work:

Amend what flaws may lurk,

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!

My times be in thy hand!

Perfect the cup as planned!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Robert Browning