Robert Browning

All I can say is--I saw it! The room was as bare as your hand. I locked in the swarth little lady,--I swear, From the head to the foot of her--well, quite as bare! "No Nautch shall cheat me," said I, "taking my stand At this bolt which I draw!" And this bolt--I withdraw it, And there laughs the lady, not bare, but embowered With--who knows what verdure, o'erfruited, o'erflowered? Impossible! Only--I saw it!

All I can sing is--I feel it! This life was as blank as that room; I let you pass in here. Precaution, indeed? Walls, ceiling, and floor,--not a chance for a weed! Wide opens the entrance: where's cold, now, where's gloom? No May to sow seed here, no June to reveal it, Behold you enshrined in these blooms of your bringing, These fruits of your bearing--nay, birds of your winging! A fairy-tale! Only--I feel it!

Such a starved bank of moss Till, that May-morn, Blue ran the flash across: Violets were born!

Sky--what a scowl of cloud Till, near and far, Ray on ray split the shroud: Splendid, a star!

World--how it walled about Life with disgrace, Till God's own smile came out: That was thy face!

O the old wall here! How I could pass Life in a long midsummer day, My feet confined to a plot of grass, My eyes from a wall not once away!

And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green: Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loath, In lappets of tangle they laugh between.

Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe? Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims The body,--the house no eye can probe,-- Divined, as beneath a robe, the limbs?

And there again! But my heart may guess Who tripped behind; and she sang, perhaps: So the old wall throbbed, and its life's excess Died out and away in the leafy wraps.

Wall upon wall are between us: life And song should away from heart to heart! I--prison-bird, with a ruddy strife At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start--

Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing That's spirit: tho' cloistered fast, soar free; Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring Of the rueful neighbours, and--forth to thee!

Let's contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before, Love, --Only sleep!

What so wild as words are? I and thou In debate, as birds are, Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking While we speak! Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek.

What so false as truth is, False to thee? Where the serpent's tooth is, Shun the tree--

Where the apple reddens, Never pry-- Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I.

Be a god and hold me With a charm! Be a man and fold me With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love! As I ought I will speak thy speech, Love, Think thy thought--

Meet, if thou require it, Both demands, Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow, Not to-night: I must bury sorrow Out of sight:

--Must a little weep, Love, (Foolish me!) And so fall asleep, Love, Loved by thee.

Nobly, nobly, Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;

In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray; "Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?"--say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

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.

Day! Faster and more fast, O'er night's brim, day boils at last: Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim. Where spurting and suppressed it lay, For not a froth-flake touched the rim Of yonder gap in the solid gray Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; But forth one wavelet, then another, curled, Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, Rose, reddened, and its seething breast Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

All service ranks the same with God: If now, as formerly He trod Paradise, His presence fills Our earth, each only as God wills Can work--God's puppets, best and worst, Are we: there is no last nor first. The year's at the spring And day's at the morn: Morning's at seven; The hillside's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in His heaven-- All's right with the world!

Give her but a least excuse to love me! When--where-- How--can this arm establish her above me, If fortune fixed her as my lady there, There already, to eternally reprove me? ("Hist!"--said Kate the queen; But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "'Tis only a page that carols unseen, Crumbling your hounds their messes!")

Is she wronged?--To the rescue of her honour, My heart! Is she poor?--What costs it to be styled a donor? Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her! ("Nay, list!"--bade Kate the queen; And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "'Tis only a page that carols unseen, Fitting your hawks their jesses!")

Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat-- Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others she lets us devote; They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, So much was theirs who so little allowed; How all our copper had gone for his service! Rags--were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to die! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us,--they watch from their graves! He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering--not through his presence; Songs may inspirit us,--not from his lyre: Deeds will be done,--while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins: let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, Forced praise on our part--the glimmer of twilight, Never glad confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him--strike gallantly, Menace our heart ere we master his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!