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Crisis Chronicles Cyber Litmag (2008-2015)

~ Contemporary Poetry and Literary Classics from Cleveland to Infinity

Crisis Chronicles Cyber Litmag (2008-2015)

Category Archives: Browning (Robert)

Pictor Ignotus (by Robert Browning)

30 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Browning (Robert), Poetry

≈ 1 Comment



Robert Browning, 1812-1883  

Pictor Ignotus
by Robert Browning
from Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)

          Florence, 15—


I could have painted pictures like that youth’s
     Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar
Stayed me–ah, thought which saddens while it soothes!
     –Never did fate forbid me, star by star,
To outburst on your night with all my gift
     Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk
From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift
     And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk
To the centre, of an instant; or around
     Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan 
The license and the limit, space and bound,
     Allowed to truth made visible in man.
And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw,
     Over the canvas could my hand have flung,
Each face obedient to its passion’s law,
     Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue;
Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood,
     A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace,
Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood
     Pull down the nesting dove’s heart to its place;
Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up,
     And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved,–
O human faces, hath it spilt, my cup?
     What did ye give me that I have not saved?
Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!)
     Of going–I, in each new picture–forth,
As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell,
     To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North,
Bound for the calmly-satisfied great State,
     Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went,
Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight,
     Through old streets named afresh from the event,
Till it reached home, where learned age should greet
     My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct
Above his hair, lie learning at my feet!–
     Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked
With love about, and praise, till life should end,
     And then not go to heaven, but linger here,
Here on my earth, earth’s every man my friend,–
     The thought grew frightful, ‘t was so wildly dear! 
But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights
     Have scared me, like the revels through a door
Of some strange house of idols at its rites!
     This world seemed not the world it was before:
Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there trooped
     . . . Who summoned those cold faces that begun
To press on me and judge me? Though I stooped
     Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun,
They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . enough!
     These buy and sell our pictures, take and give,  
Count them for garniture and household-stuff,
     And where they live needs must our pictures live
And see their faces, listen to their prate,
     Partakers of their daily pettiness,
Discussed of–“This I love, or this I hate,
     This like me more, and this affects me less!”
Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles
     My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint
These endless cloisters and eternal aisles
     With the same series. Virgin, Babe and Saint,
With the same cold calm beautiful regard,–
     At least no merchant traffics in my heart;
The sanctuary’s gloom at least shall ward
     Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart;
Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine
     While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke,
They moulder on the damp wall’s travertine,
     ‘Mid echoes the light footstep never woke.
So, die my pictures! surely, gently die!
     O youth, men praise so–holds their praise its worth?
Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry?
     Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?




* * * * *

   

‘How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix’ (by Robert Browning)

08 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Browning (Robert), Poetry

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Robert Browning, 1812-1883  

‘How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix’
by Robert Browning
from Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)

          [16–]

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 cheek-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 Düffeld ’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 thro’ 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, his 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 buffcoat, 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.
  









* * * * *


   

The Pied Piper of Hamelin (by Robert Browning)

18 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Browning (Robert), Poetry

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Robert Browning, 1812-1883


The Pied Piper of Hamelin
by Robert Browning
from Dramatic Lyrics (1842)


A Child’s Story
(Written to, and inscribed for, W.M. the Younger)
 






I.

Hamelin Town’s in Brunswick,
     By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
     But when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
     From vermin, was a pity.






II.

     Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
     And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
     And licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women’s chats
     By drowning their speaking
     With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.





III.

At last the people in a body
     To the town hall came flocking:
“‘Tis clear,” cried they, “our Mayor’s a noddy;
     And as for our Corporation—shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can’t or won’t determine
What’s best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you’re old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we’re lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we’ll send you packing!”
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.





IV.

An hour they sat in council;
     At length the Mayor broke silence:
“For a guilder I’d my ermine gown sell;
     I wish I were a mile hence!
It’s easy to bid one rack one’s brain—
I’m sure my poor head aches again,
I’ve scratched it so, and all in vain.
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!”
Just as he said this, what should hap
At the chamber door but a gentle tap?
“Bless us,” cried the Mayor, “what’s that?”
(With the Corporation as he sat
Looking little though wondrous fat;
Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister
Than a too-long-opened oyster,
Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous
For a plate of turtle green and glutinous)
“Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?
Anything like the sound of a rat
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!”






V.

“Come in!”—the mayor cried, looking bigger:
And in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red,
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,
But lips where smiles went out and in;
There was no guessing his kith and kin:
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire.
Quoth one: “It’s as my great-grandsire,
Starting up at the Trump of Doom’s tone,
Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!”






VI.

He advanced to the council table:
And, “Please your honors,” said he, “I’m able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
     All creatures living beneath the sun,
     That creep or swim or fly or run,
After me so as you never saw!
And I chiefly use my charm
On creatures that do people harm,
The mole and toad and newt and viper;
And people call me the Pied Piper.”
(And here they noticed round his neck
     A scarf of red and yellow stripe,
To match with his coat of the selfsame check;
     And at the scarf’s end hung a pipe;
And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying
As if impatient to be playing
Upon this pipe, as low it dangled
Over his vesture so old-fangled.)
“Yet,” said he, “poor piper as I am,
In Tartary I freed the Cham,
     Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;
I eased in Asia the Nizam
     Of a monstrous brood of vampyre-bats:
And as for what your brain bewilders,
     If I can rid your town of rats
Will you give me a thousand guilders?”
“One? fifty thousand!”—was the exclamation
Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.





VII

Into the street the Piper stepped
     Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
     In his quiet pipe the while;
Then, like a musical adept,
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled,
Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled;
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
     Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,
     Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives—
Followed the piper for their lives.
From street to street he piped advancing,
And step for step they followed dancing,
Until they came to the river Weser,
     Wherein all plunged and perished!
—Save one who, stout as Julius Caesar,
Swam across and lived to carry
     (As he, the manuscript he cherished)
To Rat-land home his commentary:
Which was, “At the first shrill notes of the pipe,
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,
And putting apples, wondrous ripe,
Into a cider-press’s gripe:
And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,
And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,
And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,
And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks:
And it seemed as if a voice
     (Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery
Is breathed) called out, ‘Oh rats, rejoice!
     The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!
So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!’
And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon,
All ready staved, like a great sun shone
Glorious scarce an inch before me,
Just as methought it said, ‘Come, bore me!’
—I found the Weser rolling o’er me.”





VIII

You should have heard the Hamelin people
Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.
“Go, cried the Mayor, “and get long poles,
Poke out the nests and block up the holes!
Consult with carpenters and builders,
And leave in our town not even a trace
Of the rats!”—when suddenly, up the face
Of the Piper perked in the market place,
With a “First, if you please, my thousand guilders!”






IX

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;
So did the Corporation too.
For council dinners made rare havoc
With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;
And half the money would replenish
Their cellar’s biggest butt with Rhenish.
To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
With a gipsy coat of red and yellow!
“Beside,” quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,
“Our business was done at the river’s brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
And what’s dead can’t come to life, I think.
So, friend, we’re not the folks to shrink
From the duty of giving you something for drink,
And a matter of money to put in your poke;
But as for the guilders, what we spoke
Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.
Beside, our losses have made us thrifty.
A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!”






X

The Piper’s face fell, and he cried
“No trifling! I can’t wait, beside!
I’ve promised to visit by dinnertime
Bagdat, and accept the prime
Of the Head-Cook’s pottage, all he’s rich in,
For having left, in the Caliph’s kitchen,
Of a nest of scorpions no survivor:
With him I proved no bargain driver,
With you, don’t think I’ll bate a stiver!
And folks who put me in a passion
May find me pipe after another fashion.”





XI

“How?” cried the mayor, “d’ye think I brook
Being worse treated than a cook?
Insulted by a lazy ribald
With idle pipe and vesture piebald?
You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst,
Blow your pipe there till you burst!”






XII

Once more he stepped into the street
     And to his lips again
     Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;
And ere he blew three notes (such sweet
Soft notes as yet musician’s cunning
     Never gave the enraptured air)
There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling,
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering
Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering.
And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering,
Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.






XIII

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood
As if they were changed into blocks of wood,
Unable to move a step, or cry
To the children merrily skipping by,
—Could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper’s back.
But how the Mayor was on the rack,
And the wretched Council’s bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters
Right in the way of their sons and daughters!
However he turned from South to West,
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,
And after him the children pressed;
Great was the joy in every breast.
“He never can cross that mighty top!
He’s forced to let the piping drop,
And we shall see our children stop!”
When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side,
A wonderous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced and the children followed,
And when all were in to the very last,
The door in the mountain-side shut fast.
Did I say, all? No! One was lame,
     And could not dance the whole of the way;
And in after years, if you would blame
     His sadness, he was used to say,—
“It’s dull in our town since my playmates left!
I can’t forget that I’m bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me.
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outrun our fallow deer,
And honey-bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles’ wings:
And just as I became assured
My lame foot would be speedily cured,
The music stopped and I stood still,
And found myself outside the hill,
Left alone against my will,
To go now limping as before,
And never hear of that country more!”






XIV.

Alas, alas, for Hamelin!
     There came into many a burgher’s pate
     A text which says that heaven’s gate
     Opes to the rich at as easy rate
As the needle’s eye takes a camel in!
The mayor sent East, West, North, and South,
To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,
     Wherever it was men’s lot to find him,
Silver and gold to his heart’s content,
If he’d only return the way he went,
     And bring the children behind him.
But when they saw ’twas a lost endeavor,
And piper and dancers were gone forever,
They made a decree that lawyers never
     Should think their records dated duly
If, after the day of the month and year,
These words did not as well appear,
“And so long after what happened here
     On the Twenty-second of July,
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six:”
And the better in memory to fix
The place of the children’s last retreat,
They called it the Pied Piper’s Street,—
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor
Was sure for the future to lose his labor.
Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern
     To shock with mirth a street so solemn;
But opposite the place of the cavern
     They wrote the story on a column,
And on the great church-window painted
The same, to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away,
And there it stands to this very day.
And I must not omit to say
That in Transylvania there’s a tribe
Of alien people who ascribe
The outlandish ways and dress
On which their neighbors lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,
But how or why, they don’t understand.






XV

So, Willy, let me and you be wipers
Of scores out with all men—especially pipers!
And whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice,
If we’ve promised them aught, let us keep our promise!





* * * * *

   

Porphyria’s Lover (by Robert Browning)

16 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1900s, British, Browning (Robert), Poetry

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Robert Browning, 1812-1883


Porphyria’s Lover
by Robert Browning
from Dramatic Lyrics (1842)

The rain set early in to-night,
     The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite, 
     And did its worst to vex the lake: 
     I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight 
     She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate 
     Blaze up, and all the cottage warm; 
     Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, 
     And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall, 
     And, last, she sat down by my side 
     And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist, 
     And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced, 
     And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, 
     And spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me—she 
     Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free 
     From pride, and vainer ties dissever, 
     And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail, 
     Nor could tonight’s gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale 
     For love of her, and all in vain: 
     So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes 
     Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise 
     Made my heart swell, and still it grew 
     While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair, 
     Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair 
     In one long yellow string I wound 
     Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she; 
     I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee, 
     I warily oped her lids: again 
     Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress 
     About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss: 
     I propped her head up as before, 
     Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still: 
     The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will, 
     That all it scorned at once is fled, 
     And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how 
     Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now, 
     And all night long we have not stirred, 
     And yet God has not said a word!  
 







* * * * *


   

Johannes Agricola in Meditation (by Robert Browning)

15 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Browning (Robert), Poetry

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Robert Browning, 1812-1883


Johannes Agricola in Meditation
by Robert Browning
from Dramatic Lyrics (1842)

There’s heaven above, and night by night 
     I look right through its gorgeous roof;
No suns and moons though e’er so bright 
     Avail to stop me; splendour-proof 
     I keep the broods of stars aloof:
For I intend to get to God, 
     For ’tis to God I speed so fast,
For in God’s breast, my own abode, 
     Those shoals of dazzling glory, passed, 
     I lay my spirit down at last.
I lie where I have always lain, 
     God smiles as he has always smiled;
Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, 
     Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled 
     The heavens, God thought on me his child;
Ordained a life for me, arrayed 
     Its circumstances every one
To the minutest; ay, God said 
     This head this had should rest upon 
     Thus, ere he fashioned star or sun.
And having thus created me, 
     Thus rooted me, he bade me grow,
Guiltless for ever, like a tree 
     That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know 
     The law by which it prospers so:
But sure that thought and word and deed 
     All go to swell his love for me,
Me, made because that love had need 
     Of something irreversibly 
     Pledged soley its content to be.
Yes, yes, a tree which much ascend, 
     No poison-gourd foredoomed to stoop!
I have God’s warrant, could I blend 
     All hideous sins, as in a cup, 
     To drink the mingled venoms up;
Secure my nature will convert 
     The draught to blossoming gladness fast:
While sweet dews turn to the gourd’s hurt, 
     And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast, 
     As from the first its lot was cast.
For as I lie, smiled on, full-fed 
     By unexhausted power to bless,
I gaze below on hell’s fierce bed, 
     And those its waves of flame oppress, 
     Swarming in ghastly wretchedness;
Whose life on earth aspired to be 
     One altar-smoke, so pure!–to win
If not love like God’s love for me, 
     At least to keep his anger in; 
     And all their striving turned to sin.
Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white 
     With prayer, the broken-hearted nun,
The martyr, the wan acolyte, 
     The incense-swinging child,–undone 
     Before God fashioned star or sun!
God, whom I praise; how could I praise, 
     If such as I might understand,
Make out and reckon on his ways, 
     And bargain for his love, and stand, 
     Paying a price at his right hand? 
 







* * * * *


   

Artemis Prologizes (by Robert Browning)

14 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Browning (Robert), Poetry

≈ 2 Comments



Robert Browning, 1812-1883


Artemis Prologizes
by Robert Browning
from Dramatic Lyrics (1842)

I am a goddess of the ambrosia courts,
And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed
By none whose temples whiten this the world.
Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along;
I shed in hell o’er my pale people peace;
On earth I, caring for the creatures, guard
Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek,
And every feathered mother’s callow brood,
And all that love green haunts and loneliness. 
Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns
Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem,
Upon my image at Athenai here;
And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above,
Was dearest to me. He, my buskined step
To follow through the wild-wood leafy ways,
And chase the panting stag, or swift with darts
Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low,
Neglected homage to another god:
Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke 
Of tapers lulled, in jealousy despatched
A noisome lust that, as the gad bee stings,
Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself
The son of Theseus her great absent spouse.
Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage
Against the fury of the Queen, she judged
Life insupportable; and, pricked at heart
An Amazonian stranger’s race should dare
To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord:
Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll 
The fame of him her swerving made not swerve.
And Theseus, read, returning, and believed,
And exiled, in the blindness of his wrath,
The man without a crime who, last as first,
Loyal, divulged not to his sire the truth,
Now Theseus from Poseidon had obtained
That of his wishes should be granted three,
And one he imprecated straight — “Alive
May ne’er Hippolutos reach other lands!”
Poseidon heard, ai ai! And scarce the prince 
Had stepped into the fixed boots of the car
That give the feet a stay against the strength
Of the Henetian horses, and around
His body flung the rein, and urged their speed
Along the rocks and shingles at the shore,
When from the gaping wave a monster flung
His obscene body in the coursers’ path.
These, mad with terror, as the sea-bull sprawled
Wallowing about their feet, lost care of him
That reared them; and the master-chariot-pole 
Snapping beneath their plunges like a reed,
Hippolutos, whose feet were trammelled fast,
Was yet dragged forward by the circling rein
Which either hand directed; nor they quenched
The frenzy of their flight before each trace,
Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woeful car,
Each boulder-stone, sharp stub and spiny shell,
Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed amid the sands
On that detested beach, was bright with blood
And morsels of his flesh; then fell the steeds 
Head foremost, crashing in their mooned fronts,
Shivering with sweat, each white eye horror-fixed.
His people, who had witnessed all afar,
Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos.
But when his sire, too swoln with pride, rejoiced
(Indomitable as a man foredoomed)
That vast Poseidon had fulfilled his prayer,
I, in a flood of glory visible,
Stood o’er my dying votary and, deed
By deed, revealed, as all took place, the truth. 
Then Theseus lay the woefullest of men,
And worthily; but ere the death-veils hid
His face, the murdered prince full pardon breathed
To his rash sire. Whereat Athenai wails. 

     So I, who ne’er forsake my votaries,
Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake
Should tender, nor pour out the dog’s hot life;
Lest at my fane the priests disconsolate
Should dress my image with some faded poor
Few crowns, made favors of, nor dare object 
Such slackness to my worshippers who turn
Elsewhere the trusting heart and loaded hand,
As they had climbed Olumpos to report
Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne–
I interposed: and, this eventful night–
(While round the funeral pyre the populace
Stood with fierce light on their black robes which bound
Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clipped
O’er the dead body of their withered prince,
And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated 
On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab
‘Twas bruised on, groaned away the heavy grief–
As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed
Sending a crowd of sparkles through the night,
And the gay fire, elate with mastery,
Towered like a serpent o’er the clotted jars
Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense,
And splendid gums like gold),–my potency
Conveyed the perished man to my retreat
In the thrice-venerable forest here. 
And this white-bearded sage who squeezes now
The berried plant, is Phoibos’ son of fame,
Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught
The doctrine of each herb and flower and root,
To know their secret’st virtue and express
The saving soul of all: who so has soothed
With layers the torn brow and murdered cheeks,
Composed the hair and brought its gloss again,
And called the red bloom to the pale skin back,
And laid the strips and lagged ends of flesh 
Even once more, and slacked the sinew’s knot
Of every tortured limb–that now he lies
As if mere sleep possessed him underneath
These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh cheer,
Divine presenter of the healing rod,
Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye,
Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer!
Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies!
And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs,
Ply, as the sage directs, these buds and leaves
That strew the turf around the twain! While I
Await, in fitting silence, the event. 







* * * * *


   

In a Gondola (by Robert Browning)

13 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Browning (Robert), Poetry

≈ 3 Comments


 Robert Browning, 1812-1883


In a Gondola
by Robert Browning
from Dramatic Lyrics (1842)


He sings

I send my heart up to thee, all my heart
     In this my singing.
For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;
     The very night is clinging
Closer to Venice’ streets to leave one space
     Above me, whence thy face
May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.


She speaks

Say after me, and try to say
My very words, as if each word
Came from you of your own accord,
In your own voice, in your own way:
‘This woman’s heart and soul and brain
Are mine as much as this gold chain
She bids me wear; which’ (say again)
‘I choose to make by cherishing
A precious thing, or choose to fling
Over the boat-side, ring by ring.’
And yet once more say … no word more!
Since words are only words. Give o’er!

Unless you call me, all the same,
Familiarly by my pet name,
Which if the Three should hear you call,
And me reply to, would proclaim
At once our secret to them all.
Ask of me, too, command me, blame–
Do, break down the partition-wall
‘Twixt us, the daylight world beholds
Curtained in dusk and splendid folds!
What’s left but–all of me to take?
I am the Three’s: prevent them, slake
Your thirst! ‘Tis said, the Arab sage,
In practising with gems, can loose
Their subtle spirit in his cruce
And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage,
Leave them my ashes when thy use
Sucks out my soul, thy heritage!


He sings

          I
Past we glide, and past, and past!
     What’s that poor Agnese doing
Where they make the shutters fast?
     Grey Zanobi’s just a-wooing
To his couch the purchased bride:
     Past we glide!

          II
Past we glide, and past, and past!
     Why’s the Pucci Palace flaring
Like a beacon to the blast?
     Guests by hundreds, not one caring
If the dear host’s neck were wried:
     Past we glide!


She sings

          I
The moth’s kiss, first!
Kiss me as if you made believe
You were not sure, this eve,
How my face, your flower, had pursed
Its petals up; so, here and there
You brush it, till I grow aware
Who wants me, and wide ope I burst.

          II
The bee’s kiss, now!
Kiss me as if you entered gay
My heart at some noonday,
A bud that dares not disallow
The claim, so all is rendered up,
And passively its shattered cup
Over your head to sleep I bow.


He sings

          I
What are we two?
I am a Jew,
And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue,
To a feast of our tribe;
Where they need thee to bribe
The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe
Thy … Scatter the vision for ever! And now,
As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

          II
Say again, what we are?
The sprite of a star,
I lure thee above where the destinies bar
My plumes their full play
Till a ruddier ray
Than my pale one announce there is withering away
Some … Scatter the vision for ever! And now,
As of old, I am I, thou art thou!


He muses

Oh, which were best, to roam or rest?
The land’s lap or the water’s breast?
To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,
Or swim in lucid shallows just
Eluding water-lily leaves,
An inch from Death’s black fingers, thrust
To lock you, whom release he must;
Which life were best on Summer eves?


He speaks, musing

Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?
From this shoulder let there spring
A wing; from this, another wing;
Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you!
Snow-white must they spring, to blend
With your flesh, but I intend
They shall deepen to the end,
Broader, into burning gold,
Till both wings crescent-wise enfold
Your perfect self, from ‘neath your feet
To o’er your head, where, lo, they meet
As if a million sword-blades hurled
Defiance from you to the world!

Rescue me thou, the only real!
And scare away this mad ideal
That came, nor motions to depart!
Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!


Still he muses

          I
What if the Three should catch at last
Thy serenader? While there’s cast
Paul’s cloak about my head, and fast
Gian pinions me, himself has past
His stylet thro’ my back; I reel;
And … is it thou I feel?

          II
They trail me, these three godless knaves,
Past every church that saints and saves,
Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves
By Lido’s wet accursed graves,
They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,
And … on thy breast I sink


She replies, musing

Dip your arm o’er the boat-side, elbow-deep,
As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep,
Caught this way? Death’s to fear from flame or steel,
Or poison doubtless; but from water–feel!

Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There!
Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass
To plait in where the foolish jewel was,
I flung away: since you have praised my hair,
‘Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.


He speaks

Row home? must we row home? Too surely
Know I where its front’s demurely
Over the Giudecca piled;
Window just with window mating,
Door on door exactly waiting,
All’s the set face of a child:
But behind it, where’s a trace
Of the staidness and reserve,
And formal lines without a curve,
In the same child’s playing-face?
No two windows look one way
O’er the small sea-water thread
Below them. Ah, the autumn day
I, passing, saw you overhead!
First, out a cloud of curtain blew,
Then a sweet cry, and last came you–
To catch your lory that must needs
Escape just then, of all times then,
To peck a tall plant’s fleecy seeds,
And make me happiest of men.
I scarce could breathe to see you reach
So far back o’er the balcony
To catch him ere he climbed too high
Above you in the Smyrna peach
That quick the round smooth cord of gold,
This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,
Fell down you like a gorgeous snake
The Roman girls were wont, of old,
When Rome there was, for coolness’ sake
To let lie curling o’er their bosoms.
Dear lory, may his beak retain
Ever its delicate rose stain
As if the wounded lotus-blossoms
Had marked their thief to know again!

Stay longer yet, for others’ sake
Than mine! What should your chamber do?
–With all its rarities that ache
In silence while day lasts, but wake
At night-time and their life renew,
Suspended just to pleasure you
Who brought against their will together
These objects, and, while day lasts, weave
Around them such a magic tether
That dumb they look: your harp, believe,
With all the sensitive tight strings
Which dare not speak, now to itself
Breathes slumberously, as if some elf
Went in and out the chords, his wings
Make murmur wheresoe’er they graze,
As an angel may, between the maze
Of midnight palace-pillars, on
And on, to sow God’s plagues, have gone
Through guilty glorious Babylon.
And while such murmurs flow, the nymph
Bends o’er the harp-top from her shell
As the dry limpet for the lymph
Come with a tune he knows so well.
And how your statues’ hearts must swell!
An
d how your pictures must descend
To see each other, friend with friend!
Oh, could you take them by surprise,
You’d find Schidone’s eager Duke
Doing the quaintest courtesies
To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke!
And, deeper into her rock den,
Bold Castelfranco’s Magdalen
You’d find retreated from the ken
Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser—
As if the Tizian thinks of her,
And is not, rather, gravely bent
On seeing for himself what toys
Are these, his progeny invent,
What litter now the board employs
Whereon he signed a document
That got him murdered! Each enjoys
Its night so well, you cannot break
The sport up, so, indeed must make
More stay with me, for others’ sake.


She speaks

          I
To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,
Is used to tie the jasmine back
That overfloods my room with sweets,
Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets
My Zanze! If the ribbon’s black,
The Three are watching: keep away!

          II
Your gondola–let Zorzi wreathe
A mesh of water-weeds about
its prow, as if he unaware
Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair!
That I may throw a paper out
As you and he go underneath.

There’s Zanze’s vigilant taper; safe are we.
Only one minute more to-night with me?
Resume your past self of a month ago!
Be you the bashful gallant, I will be
The lady with the colder breast than snow.
Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand
More than I touch yours when I step to land,
And say, ‘All thanks, Siora!’–
                                        Heart to heart
And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,
Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art! 
                                        [He is surprised, and stabbed.
It was ordained to be so, sweet!–and best
Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast.
Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair
My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn
To death, because they never lived: but I
Have lived indeed, and so–(yet one more kiss)–can die! 







* * * * *


   

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister (by Robert Browning)

13 Saturday Aug 2011

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Browning (Robert), Poetry

≈ Leave a comment


 Robert Browning, 1812-1883


Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
by Robert Browning
from Dramatic Lyrics (1842)

I


Gr-r-r–there go, my heart’s abhorrence! 
     Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, 
     God’s blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming? 
     Oh, that rose has prior claims–
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? 
     Hell dry you up with its flames!

II

At the meal we sit together; 
     Salve tibi! I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather, 
     Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork crop: scarcely 
     Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt;
What’s the Latin name for ‘parsley’?
 
     What’s the Greek name for Swine’s Snout?

III

Whew! We’ll have our platter burnished, 
     Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished, 
     And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial 
     Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps–
Marked with L. for our initial! 
     (He-he! There his lily snaps!)

IV

Saint, forsooth! While Brown Dolores 
     Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories, 
     Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, 
     –Can’t I see his dead eye glow,
Bright as ’twere a Barbary corsair’s? 
     (That is, if he’d let it show!)

V

When he finishes refection, 
     Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection, 
     As do I, in Jesu’s praise.
I the Trinity illustrate, 
     Drinking watered orange pulp–
In three sips the Arian frustrate; 
     While he drains his at one gulp!

VI

Oh, those melons! if he’s able 
     We’re to have a feast! so nice! 
One goes to the Abbot’s table, 
     All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double? 
     Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange!–And I, too, at such trouble, 
     Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

VII

There’s a great text in Galatians, 
     Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine district damnations, 
     One sure, if another fails;
If I trip him just a-dying, 
     Sure of heaven as sure can be,
Spin him round and send him flying 
     Off to hell, a Manichee?

VIII

Or, my scrofulous French novel 
     On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel 
     Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe;
If I double down its pages 
     At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages, 
     Ope a sieve and slip it in’t?

IX

Or, there’s Satan!–one might venture 
     Pledge one’s soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture 
     As he’d miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia 
     We’re so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine…
‘St, there’s Vespers! Plena gratiâ
     Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r–you swine!







* * * * *


   

Incident of the French Camp (by Robert Browning)

08 Monday Aug 2011

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Browning (Robert), Poetry

≈ Leave a comment


 Robert Browning, 1812-1883


Incident of the French Camp
by Robert Browning
from Dramatic Lyrics (1842)

          I


You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away,
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.


          II


Just as perhaps he mused, ‘My plans
That soar, to earth may fall, 10
Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall.’–
0ut ‘twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound.


          III


Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect
By just his horse’s mane, a boy:
You hardly could suspect– 20
(So tight he kept his lips compressed
Scarce any blood came through)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.


          IV


‘Well,’ cried he, ‘Emperor, by God’s grace
We’ve got you Ratisbon!
The Marshal’s in the market-place,
And you’ll be there anon
To see your flag-bird flap his vans
Where I, to heart’s desire, 30
Perched him!’ The chief’s eye flashed; his plans
Soared up again like fire.


          V


The chief’s eye flashed, but presently
Softened itself, as sheathes
A film the mother-eagle’s-eye
When her bruised eaglet breathes,
‘You’re wounded!’ ‘Nay,’ the soldier’s pride
Touched to the quick, he said:
“I’m killed, Sire!” And his chief beside,
Smiling the boy fell dead. 40


 








* * * * *


   

Count Gismond (by Robert Browning)

07 Thursday Oct 2010

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Browning (Robert), Writing

≈ Leave a comment


 Robert Browning, 1812-1883

Count Gismond
by Robert Browning
from Dramatic Lyrics (1842)

     AIX IN PROVENCE

I

Christ God who savest man, save most
     Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
     Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, ’twas with all his strength.

II

And doubtlessly ere he could draw
     All points to one, he must have schemed!
That miserable morning saw
     Few half so happy as I seemed,
While being dressed in queen’s array
To give our tourney prize away.

III

I thought they loved me, did me grace
     To please themselves; ’twas all their deed;
God makes, or fair or foul, our face;
     If showing mine so caused to bleed
My cousins’ hearts, they should have dropped
A word, and straight the play had stopped.

IV

They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen
     By virtue of her brow and breast;
Not needing to be crowned, I mean,
     As I do. E’en when I was dressed,
Had either of them spoke, instead
Of glancing sideways with still head!

V

But no: they let me laugh, and sing
     My birthday song quite through, adjust
The last rose in my garland, fling
     A last look on the mirror, trust
My arms to each an arm of theirs,
And so descend the castle-stairs—

VI

And come out on the morning-troop
     Of merry friends who kissed my cheek,
And called me queen, and made me stoop
     Under the canopy—a streak
That pierced it, of the outside sun,
Powdered with gold its gloom’s soft dun—

VII

And they could let me take my state
     And foolish throne amid applause
Of all come there to celebrate
     My queen’s-day—Oh I think the cause
Of much was, they forgot no crowd
Makes up for parents in their shroud!

VIII

However that be, all eyes were bent
     Upon me, when my cousins cast
Theirs down; ’twas time I should present
     The victor’s crown, but . . . there, ’twill last
No long time . . . the old mist again
Blinds me as then it did. How vain!

IX

See! Gismond’s at the gate, in talk
     With his two boys: I can proceed.
Well, at that moment, who should stalk
     Forth boldly—to my face, indeed—
But Gauthier, and he thundered “Stay!”
And all stayed. “Bring no crowns, I say!”

X

“Bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet
     About her! Let her shun the chaste,
Or lay herself before their feet!
     Shall she whose body I embraced
A night long, queen it in the day?
For honour’s sake no crowns, I say!”

XI

I? What I answered? As I live,
     I never fancied such a thing
As answer possible to give.
     What says the body when they spring
Some monstrous torture-engine’s whole
Strength on it? No more says the soul.

XII

Till out strode Gismond; then I knew
     That I was saved. I never met
His face before, but, at first view,
     I felt quite sure that God had set
Himself to Satan; who would spend
A minute’s mistrust on the end?

XIII

He strode to Gauthier, in his throat
     Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth
With one back-handed blow that wrote
     In blood men’s verdict there. North, South,
East, West, I looked. The lie was dead,
And damned, and truth stood up instead.

XIV

This glads me most, that I enjoyed
     The heart of the joy, with my content
In watching Gismond unalloyed
     By any doubt of the event:
God took that on him—I was bid
Watch Gismond for my part: I did.

XV

Did I not watch him while he let
     His armourer just brace his greaves,
Rivet his hauberk, on the fret
     The while! His foot. . . my memory leaves
No least stamp out, nor how anon
He pulled his ringing gauntlets on.

XVI

And e’en before the trumpet’s sound
     Was finished, prone lay the false knight,
Prone as his lie, upon the ground:
     Gismond flew at him, used no sleight
O’ the sword, but open-breasted drove,
Cleaving till out the truth he clove.

XVII

Which done, he dragged him to my feet
     And said “Here die, but end thy breath
In full confession, lest thou fleet
     From my first, to God’s second death!
Say, hast thou lied?” And, “I have lied
To God and her,” he said, and died.

XVIII

Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked
     What safe my heart holds, though no word
Could I repeat now, if I tasked
     My powers for ever, to a third
Dear even as you are. Pass the rest
Until I sank upon his breast.

XIX

Over my head his arm he flung
     Against the world; and scarce I felt
His sword (that dripped by me and swung)
     A little shifted in its belt:
For he began to say the while
How South our home lay many a mile.

XX

So ‘mid the shouting multitude
     We two walked forth to never more
Return. My cousins have pursued
     Their life, untroubled as before
I vexed them. Gauthier’s dwelling-place
God lighten! May his soul find grace!

XXI

Our elder boy has got the clear
     Great brow; tho’ when his brother’s black
Full eye shows scorn, it . . . Gismond here?
     And have you brought my tercel back?
I just was telling Adela
How many birds it struck since May. 

 

* * * * *

 

   

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