Robert Browning : Dramatic Lyrics ================================ an electronic edition Version 1.0 1994-08-04 This electronic edition of `Dramatic Lyrics' is based on the two-volume edition `The poetical works of Robert Browning', edited by Augustine Birrell, published in 1896 by Smith, Elder & Co, 15 Waterloo Place, London, and printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co, Edinburgh and London. One correction has been made: p. 253, c. 1, l. -3: III. (was: II.) The page number is that of the printed edition. Markup conventions: Page breaks and column titles have been silently removed. Each line of verse has been restored from the occasional line breaks in the printed edition. The indentation of each line has been indicated by similar indentation, but no exact markup has been attempted here a-grave a-circumflex ae-ligature e-acute u-umlaut <*1> indicates a numebered footnote. The numbers <*2> in the original started anew for each page. ... In this electronic edition, they start anew for each poem. * 1 The text of the footnote has been moved to the * 2 end of each separate poem, and indicated by ... an asterisk in the first position of the line. The transcription and proofreading was done by Anders Thulin, Rydsvagen 288, S-582 50 Linkoping, Sweden. Email address: ath@linkoping.trab.se I'd be glad to learn of any errors that you may find in the text. This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. DRAMATIC LYRICS. 184-- 185-- CAVALIER TUNES. I. MARCHING ALONG. I. Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing: And, pressing a troop unable to stoop And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, Marched them along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. II. God for King Charles! Pym and such carles To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles! Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup, Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup Till you're--- CHORUS.---Marching along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. III. Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well! England, good cheer! Rupert is near! Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here CHORUS.---Marching along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song? IV. Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles! Hold by the right, you double your might; So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight, CHORUS.---March we along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song! II. GIVE A ROUSE. I. King Charles, and who'll do him right now? King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now, King Charles! II. Who gave me the goods that went since? Who raised me the house that sank once? Who helped me to gold I spent since? Who found me in wine you drank once? CHORUS.---King Charles, and who'll do him right now? King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now, King Charles! III. To whom used my boy George quaff else, By the old fool's side that begot him? For whom did he cheer and laugh else, While Noll's damned troopers shot him? CHORUS.---King Charles, and who'll do him right now? King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now, King Charles! III. BOOT AND SADDLE. I. Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! Rescue my castle before the hot day Brightens to blue from its silvery grey, CHORUS.---Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! II. Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say; Many's the friend there, will listen and pray ``God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay--- CHORUS.---``Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!'' III. Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay, Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array: Who laughs, ``Good fellows ere this, by my fay, CHORUS.---``Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!'' IV. Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay, Laughs when you talk of surrendering, ``Nay! ``I've better counsellors; what counsel they? CHORUS.---``Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!'' THE LOST LEADER. I. 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 free-men, ---He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! II. We shall march prospering,---not thro' 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 foot-path untrod, One more devils'-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! ``HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX.'' [16---.] I. 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. II. 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. III. '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 Dffeld,'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!'' IV. At Aershot, 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 hutting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray: V. 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 upwards in galloping on. VI. 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 staggering knees, And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. VII. 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!'' VIII. ``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 his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. IX. Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. X. And all I remember is---friends flocking round As I sat 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. THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR. [Abd-el-Kadr was an Arab Chief of Algiers who resisted the French in 1833.] I. As I ride, as I ride, With a full heart for my guide, So its tide rocks my side, As I ride, as I ride, That, as I were double-eyed, He, in whom our Tribes confide, Is descried, ways untried As I ride, as I ride. II. As I ride, as I ride To our Chief and his Allied, Who dares chide my heart's pride As I ride, as I ride? Or are witnesses denied--- Through the desert waste and wide Do I glide unespied As I ride, as I ride? III. As I ride, as I ride, When an inner voice has cried, The sands slide, nor abide (As I ride, as I ride) O'er each visioned homicide That came vaunting (has he lied?) To reside---where he died, As I ride, as I ride. IV. As I ride, as I ride, Ne'er has spur my swift horse plied, Yet his hide, streaked and pied, As I ride, as I ride, Shows where sweat has sprung and dried, ---Zebra-footed, ostrich-thighed--- How has vied stride with stride As I ride, as I ride! V. As I ride, as I ride, Could I loose what Fate has tied, Ere I pried, she should hide (As I ride, as I ride) All that's meant me---satisfied When the Prophet and the Bride Stop veins I'd have subside As I ride, as I ride! NATIONALITY IN DRINKS. I. My heart sank with our Claret-flask, Just now, beneath the heavy sedges That serve this Pond's black face for mask And still at yonder broken edges O' the hole, where up the bubbles glisten, After my heart I look and listen. II. Our laughing little flask, compelled Thro' depth to depth more bleak and shady; As when, both arms beside her held, Feet straightened out, some gay French lady Is caught up from life's light and motion, And dropped into death's silent ocean! --- Up jumped Tokay on our table, Like a pygmy castle-warder, Dwarfish to see, but stout and able, Arms and accoutrements all in order; And fierce he looked North, then, wheeling South, Blew with his bugle a challenge to Drouth, Cocked his flap-hat with the tosspot-feather, Twisted his thumb in his red moustache, Jingled his huge brass spurs together, Tightened his waist with its Buda sash, And then, with an impudence nought could abash, Shrugged his hump-shoulder, to tell the beholder, For twenty such knaves he should laugh but the bolder: And so, with his sword-hilt gallantly jutting, And dexter-hand on his haunch abutting, Went the little man, Sir Ausbruch, strutting! --- Here's to Nelson's memory! 'Tis the second time that I, at sea, Right off Cape Trafalgar here, Have drunk it deep in British Beer. Nelson for ever---any time Am I his to command in prose or rhyme! Give me of Nelson only a touch, And I save it, be it little or much: Here's one our Captain gives, and so Down at the word, by George, shall it go! He says that at Greenwich they point the beholder To Nelson's coat, ``still with tar on the shoulder: ``For he used to lean with one shoulder digging, ``Jigging, as it were, and zig-zag-zigging ``Up against the mizen-rigging!'' GARDEN FANCIES. I. THE FLOWER'S NAME Here's the garden she walked across, Arm in my arm, such a short while since: Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss Hinders the hinges and makes them wince! She must have reached this shrub ere she turned, As back with that murmur the wicket swung; For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned, To feed and forget it the leaves among. II. Down this side ofthe gravel-walk She went while her rope's edge brushed the box: And here she paused in her gracious talk To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox. Roses, ranged in valiant row, I will never think that she passed you by! She loves you noble roses, I know; But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie! III. This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim; Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip, Its soft meandering Spanish name: What a name! Was it love or praise? Speech half-asleep or song half-awake? I must learn Spanish, one of these days, Only for that slow sweet name's sake. IV. Roses, if I live and do well, I may bring her, one of these days, To fix you fast with as fine a spell, Fit you each with his Spanish phrase; But do not detain me now; for she lingers There, like sunshine over the ground, And ever I see her soft white fingers Searching after the bud she found. V. Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not, Stay as you are and be loved for ever! Bud, if I kiss you 'tis that you blow not: Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never! For while it pouts, her fingers wrestle, Twinkling the audacious leaves between, Till round they turn and down they nestle--- Is not the dear mark still to be seen? VI. Where I find her not, beauties vanish; Whither I follow ber, beauties flee; Is there no method to tell her in Spanish June's twice June since she breathed it with me? Come, bud, show me the least of her traces, Treasure my lady's lightest footfall! ---Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces--- Roses, you are not so fair after all! II. SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS. Plague take all your pedants, say I! He who wrote what I hold in my hand, Centuries back was so good as to die, Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land; This, that was a book in its time, Printed on paper and bound in leather, Last month in the white of a matin-prime Just when the birds sang all together. II. Into the garden I brought it to read, And under the arbute and laurustine Read it, so help me grace in my need, From title-page to closing line. Chapter on chapter did I count, As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge; Added up the mortal amount; And then proceeded to my revenge. III. Yonder's a plum-tree with a crevice An owl would build in, were he but sage; For a lap of moss, like a fine pont-levis In a castle of the Middle Age, Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber; When he'd be private, there might he spend Hours alone in his lady's chamber: Into this crevice I dropped our friend. IV. Splash, went he, as under he ducked, ---At the bottom, I knew, rain-drippings stagnate: Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate; Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf, Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis; Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais. V. Now, this morning, betwixt the moss And gum that locked our friend in limbo, A spider had spun his web across, And sat in the midst with arms akimbo: So, I took pity, for learning's sake, And, _de profundis, accentibus ltis, Cantate!_ quoth I, as I got a rake; And up I fished his delectable treatise. VI. Here you have it, dry in the sun, With all the binding all of a blister, And great blue spots where the ink has run, And reddish streaks that wink and glister O'er the page so beautifully yellow: Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks! Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow? Here's one stuck in his chapter six! VII. How did he like it when the live creatures Tickled and toused and browsed him all over, And worm, slug, eft, with serious features, Came in, each one, for his right of trover? ---When the water-beetle with great blind deaf face Made of her eggs the stately deposit, And the newt borrowed just so much of the preface As tiled in the top of his black wife's closet? VIII. All that life and fun and romping, All that frisking and twisting and coupling, While slowly our poor friend's leaves were swamping And clasps were cracking and covers suppling! As if you bad carried sour John Knox To the play-house at Paris, Vienna or Munich, Fastened him into a front-row box, And danced off the ballet with trousers and tunic. IX. Come, old martyr! What, torment enough is it? Back to my room shall you take your sweet self. Good-bye, mother-beetle; husband-eft, _sufficit!_ See the snug niche I have made on my shelf! A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you, Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay, And with E. on each side, and F. right over you, Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day! SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER. 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 distinct 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 grati Ave, Virgo!_ Gr-r-r---you swine! THE LABORATORY. ANCIEN RGIME. I. Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, May gaze thro' these faint smokes curling whitely, As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy--- Which is the poison to poison her, prithee? II. He is with her, and they know that I know Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear Empty church, to pray God in, for them!---I am here. III. Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste, Pound at thy powder,---I am not in haste! Better sit thus, and observe thy strange things, Than go where men wait me and dance at the King's. IV. That in the mortar---you call it a gum? Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come! And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue, Sure to taste sweetly,---is that poison too? V. Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures, What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures! To carry pure death in an earring, a casket, A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket! VI. Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give, And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live! But to light a pastile, and Elise, with her head And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead! VII. Quick---is it finished? The colour's too grim! Why not soft like the phial's, enticing and dim? Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir, And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer! VIII. What a drop! She's not little, no minion like me! That's why she ensnared him: this never will free The soul from those masculine eyes,---Say, ``no!'' To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go. IX. For only last night, as they whispered, I brought My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought Could I keep them one half minute fixed, she would fall Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does it all! X. Not that I bid you spare her the pain; Let death be felt and the proof remain: Brand, burn up, bite into its grace--- He is sure to remember her dying face! XI. Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose; It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close; The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee! If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me? XII. Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill, You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will! But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings Ere I know it---next moment I dance at the King's! THE CONFESSIONAL. [SPAIN.] I. It is a lie---their Priests, their Pope, Their Saints, their ... all they fear or hope Are lies, and lies---there! through my door And ceiling, there! and walls and floor, There, lies, they lie---shall still be hurled Till spite of them I reach the world! II. You think Priests just and holy men! Before they put me in this den I was a human creature too, With flesh and blood like one of you, A girl that laughed in beauty's pride Like lilies in your world outside. III. I had a lover---shame avaunt! This poor wrenched body, grim and gaunt, Was kissed all over till it burned, By lips the truest, love e'er turned His heart's own tint: one night they kissed My soul out in a burning mist. IV. So, next day when the accustomed train Of things grew round my sense again, ``That is a sin,'' I said: and slow With downcast eyes to church I go, And pass to the confession-chair, And tell the old mild father there. V. But when I falter Beltran's name, ``Ha?'' quoth the father; ``much I blame ``The sin; yet wherefore idly grieve? ``Despair not---strenuously retrieve! ``Nay, I will turn this love of thine ``To lawful love, almost divine; VI. ``For he is young, and led astray, ``This Beltran, and he schemes, men say, ``To change the laws of church and state ``So, thine shall be an angel's fate, ``Who, ere the thunder breaks, should roll ``Its cloud away and save his soul. VII. ``For, when he lies upon thy breast, ``Thou mayst demand and be possessed ``Of all his plans, and next day steal ``To me, and all those plans reveal, ``That I and every priest, to purge ``His soul, may fast and use the scourge.'' VIII. That father's beard was long and white, With love and truth his brow seemed bright; I went back, all on fire with joy, And, that same evening, bade the boy Tell me, as lovers should, heart-free, Something to prove his love of me. IX. He told me what he would not tell For hope of heaven or fear of hell; And I lay listening in such pride! And, soon as he had left my side, Tripped to the church by morning-light To save his soul in his despite. X. I told the father all his schemes, Who were his comrades, what their dreams; ``And now make haste,'' I said, ``to pray ``The one spot from his soul away; ``To-night he comes, but not the same ``Will look!'' At night he never came. XI. Nor next night: on the after-morn, I went forth with a strength new-born. The church was empty; something drew My steps into the street; I knew It led me to the market-place: Where, lo, on high, the father's face! XII. That horrible black scaffold dressed, That stapled block ... God sink the rest! That head strapped back, that blinding vest, Those knotted hands and naked breast, Till near one busy hangman pressed, And, on the neck these arms caressed ... XIII. No part in aught they hope or fear! No heaven with them, no hell!---and here, No earth, not so much space as pens My body in their worst of dens But shall bear God and man my cry, Lies---lies, again---and still, they lie! CRISTINA. I. She should never have looked at me If she meant I should not love her! There are plenty ... men, you call such, I suppose ... she may discover All her soul to, if she pleases, And yet leave much as she found them: But I'm not so, and she knew it When she fixed me, glancing round them, II. What? To fix me thus meant nothing? But I can't tell (there's my weakness) What her look said!---no vile cant, sure, About ``need to strew the bleakness ``Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed. ``That the sea feels''---no strange yearning ``That such souls have, most to lavish ``Where there's chance of least returning.'' III. Oh, we're sunk enough here, God knows! But not quite so sunk that moments, Sure tho' seldom, are denied us, When the spirit's true endowments Stand out plainly from its false ones, And apprise it if pursuing Or the right way or the wrong way, To its triumph or undoing. IV. There are flashes struck from midnights, There are fire-flames noondays kindle, Whereby piled-up honours perish, Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle, While just this or that poor impulse, Which for once had play unstifled, Seems the sole work of a life-time That away the rest have trifled. V. Doubt you if, in some such moment, As she fixed me, she felt clearly, Ages past the soul existed, Here an age 'tis resting merely, And hence fleets again for ages, While the true end, sole and single, It stops here for is, this love-way, With some other soul to mingle? VI. Else it loses what it lived for, And eternally must lose it; Better ends may be in prospect, Deeper blisses (if you choose it), But this life's end and this love-bliss Have been lost here. Doubt you whether This she felt as, looking at me, Mine and her souls rushed together? VII. Oh, observe! Of course, next moment, The world's honours, in derision, Trampled out the light for ever: Never fear but there's provision Of the devil's to quench knowledge Lest we walk the earth in rapture! ---Making those who catch God's secret Just so much more prize their capture! VIII. Such am I: the secret's mine now! She has lost me, I have gained her; Her soul's mine: and thus, grown perfect, I shall pass my life's remainder. Life will just hold out the proving Both our powers, alone and blended: And then, come next life quickly! This world's use will have been ended. THE LOST MISTRESS. I. All's over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! II. And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that, to-day; One day more bursts them open fully ---You know the red turns grey. III. To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest? May I take your hand in mine? Mere friends are we,---well, friends the merest Keep much that I resign: IV. For each glance of the eye so bright and black, Though I keep with heart's endeavour,--- Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, Though it stay in my soul for ever!--- V. Yet I will but say what mere friends say, Or only a thought stronger; I will hold your hand but as long as all may, Or so very little longer! EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES. FAME. See, as the prettiest graves will do in time, Our poet's wants the freshness of its prime; Spite of the sexton's browsing horse, the sods Have struggled through its binding osier rods; Headstone and half-sunk footstone lean awry, Wanting the brick-work promised by-and-by; How the minute grey lichens, plate o'er plate, Have softened down the crisp-cut name and date! LOVE. So, the year's done with (_Love me for ever!_) All March begun with, April's endeavour; May-wreaths that bound me June needs must sever; Now snows fall round me, Quenching June's fever--- (_Love me for ever!_) MEETING AT NIGHT. I. The grey 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. II. 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, thro' its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each! PARTING AT MORNING. Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim: And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me. SONG. I. Nay but you, who do not love her, Is she not pure gold, my mistress? Holds earth aught---speak truth---above her? Aught like this tress, see, and this tress, And this last fairest tress of all, So fair, see, ere I let it fall? II. Because, you spend your lives in praising; To praise, you search the wide world over: Then why not witness, calmly gazing, If earth holds aught---speak truth---above her? Above this tress, and this, I touch But cannot praise, I love so much! A WOMAN'S LAST WORD. I. Let's contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before, Love, ---Only sleep! II. What so wild as words are? I and thou In debate, as birds are, Hawk on bough! III. See the creature stalking While we speak! Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek! IV. What so false as truth is, False to thee? Where the serpent's tooth is Shun the tree--- V. Where the apple reddens Never pry--- Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I. VI. Be a god and hold me With a charm! Be a man and fold me With thine arm! VII. Teach me, only teach, Love As I ought I will speak thy speech, Love, Think thy thought--- VIII. Meet, if thou require it, Both demands, Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands. IX. That shall be to-morrow Not to-night: I must bury sorrow Out of sight: X ---Must a little weep, Love, (Foolish me!) And so fall asleep, Love, Loved by thee. EVELYN HOPE. I. Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her book-shelf, this her bed; She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, Beginning to die too, in the glass; Little has yet been changed, I think: The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink. II. Sixteen years old, when she died! Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; It was not her time to love; beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little cares, And now was quiet, now astir, Till God's hand beckoned unawares,--- And the sweet white brow is all of her. III. Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? What, your soul was pure and true, The good stars met in your horoscope, Made you of spirit, fire and dew--- And, just because I was thrice as old And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was nought to each, must I be told? We were fellow mortals, nought beside? IV. No, indeed! for God above Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love: I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Delayed it may be for more lives yet, Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few: Much is to learn, much to forget Ere the time be come for taking you. V. But the time will come,---at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) In the lower earth, in the years long still, That body and soul so pure and gay? Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geranium's red--- And what you would do with me, in fine, In the new life come in the old one's stead. VI. I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, Given up myself so many times, Gained me the gains of various men, Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed or itself missed me: And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue? let us see! VII. I loved you, Evelyn, all the while. My heart seemed full as it could hold? There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. So, hush,---I will give you this leaf to keep: See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! There, that is our secret: go to sleep! You will wake, and remember, and understand. LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. I. Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop As they crop--- Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say) Of our country's very capital, its prince Ages since Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war. II. Now,---the country does not even boast a tree, As you see, To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills From the hills Intersect and give a name to, (else they run Into one) Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall Bounding all, Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, Twelve abreast. III. And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass Never was! Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads And embeds Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, Stock or stone--- Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe Long ago; Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame Struck them tame; And that glory and that shame alike, the gold Bought and sold. IV. Now,---the single little turret that remains On the plains, By the caper overrooted, by the gourd Overscored, While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Through the chinks--- Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time Sprang sublime, And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced As they raced, And the monarch and his minions and his dames Viewed the games. V. And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve Smiles to leave To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece In such peace, And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey Melt away--- That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair Waits me there In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul For the goal, When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb Till I come. VI. But he looked upon the city, every side, Far and wide, All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' Colonnades, All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,---and then, All the men! When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, Either hand On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace Of my face, Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech Each on each. VII. In one year they sent a million fighters forth South and North, And they built their gods a brazen pillar high As the sky, Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--- Gold, of course. Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best. A LOVERS' QUARREL. I. Oh, what a dawn of day! How the March sun feels like May! All is blue again After last night's rain, And the South dries the hawthorn-spray. Only, my Love's away! I'd as lief that the blue were grey, II. Runnels, which rillets swell, Must be dancing down the dell, With a foaming head On the beryl bed Paven smooth as a hermit's cell; Each with a tale to tell, Could my Love but attend as well. III. Dearest, three months ago! When we lived blocked-up with snow,--- When the wind would edge In and in his wedge, In, as far as the point could go--- Not to our ingle, though, Where we loved each the other so! IV. Laughs with so little cause! We devised games out of straws. We would try and trace One another's face In the ash, as an artist draws; Free on each other's flaws, How we chattered like two church daws! V. What's in the `Times''?---a scold At the Emperor deep and cold; He has taken a bride To his gruesome side, That's as fair as himself is bold: There they sit ermine-stoled, And she powders her hair with gold. VI. Fancy the Pampas' sheen! Miles and miles of gold and green Where the sunflowers blow In a solid glow, And---to break now and then the screen--- Black neck and eyeballs keen, Up a wild horse leaps between! VII. Try, will our table turn? Lay your hands there light, and yearn Till the yearning slips Thro' the finger-tips In a fire which a few discern, And a very few feel burn, And the rest, they may live and learn! VIII. Then we would up and pace, For a change, about the place, Each with arm o'er neck: 'Tis our quarter-deck, We are seamen in woeful case. Help in the ocean-space! Or, if no help, we'll embrace. IX. See, how she looks now, dressed In a sledging-cap and vest! 'Tis a huge fur cloak--- Like a reindeer's yoke Falls the lappet along the breast: Sleeves for her arms to rest, Or to hang, as my Love likes best. X. Teach me to flirt a fan As the Spanish ladies can, Or I tint your lip With a burnt stick's tip And you turn into such a man! Just the two spots that span Half the bill of the young male swan. XI. Dearest, three months ago When the mesmerizer Snow With his hand's first sweep Put the earth to sleep: 'Twas a time when the heart could show All---how was earth to know, 'Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro? XII. Dearest, three months ago When we loved each other so, Lived and loved the same Till an evening came When a shaft from the devil's bow Pierced to our ingle-glow, And the friends were friend and foe! XIII. Not from the heart beneath--- 'Twas a bubble born of breath, Neither sneer nor vaunt, Nor reproach nor taunt. See a word, how it severeth! Oh, power of life and death In the tongue, as the Preacher saith! XIV. Woman, and will you cast For a word, quite off at last Me, your own, your You,--- Since, as truth is true, I was You all the happy past--- Me do you leave aghast With the memories We amassed? XV. Love, if you knew the light That your soul casts in my sight, How I look to you For the pure and true And the beauteous and the right,--- Bear with a moment's spite When a mere mote threats the white! XVI. What of a hasty word? Is the fleshly heart not stirred By a worm's pin-prick Where its roots are quick? See the eye, by a fly's foot blurred--- Ear, when a straw is heard Scratch the brain's coat of curd! XVII. Foul be the world or fair More or less, how can I care? 'Tis the world the same For my praise or blame, And endurance is easy there. Wrong in the one thing rare--- Oh, it is hard to bear! XVIII. Here's the spring back or close, When the almond-blossom blows: We shall have the word In a minor third There is none but the cuckoo knows: Heaps of the guelder-rose! I must bear with it, I suppose. XIX. Could but November come, Were the noisy birds struck dumb At the warning slash Of his driver's-lash--- I would laugh like the valiant Thumb Facing the castle glum And the giant's fee-faw-fum! XX. Then, were the world well stripped Of the gear wherein equipped We can stand apart, Heart dispense with heart In the sun, with the flowers unnipped,--- Oh, the world's hangings ripped, We were both in a bare-walled crypt! XXI. Each in the crypt would cry ``But one freezes here! and why? ``When a heart, as chill, ``At my own would thrill ``Back to life, and its fires out-fly? ``Heart, shall we live or die? ``The rest. . . . settle by-and-by!'' XXII. So, she'd efface the score, And forgive me as before. It is twelve o'clock: I shall hear her knock In the worst of a storm's uproar, I shall pull her through the door, I shall have her for evermore! UP AT A VILLA---DOWN IN THE CITY. (AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY.) I. Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square; Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there! II. Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least! There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast. III. Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull, Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! ---I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool. IV. But the city, oh the city---the square with the houses! Why? They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye! Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry; You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high; And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly. V. What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights, 'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights: You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze, And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint grey olive-trees. VI. Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once; In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. VII. Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash! In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash Round the lady atop in her conch---fifty gazers do not abash, Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash. VIII. All the year at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like a death's lean lifted forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle, Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill, And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. Enough of the seasons,---I spare you the months of the fever and chill. IX. Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin: No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in: You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. By-and-by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth; Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. At the post-office such a scene-picture---the new play, piping hot! And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's! Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome and Cicero, ``And moreover,'' (the sonnet goes rhyming,) ``the skirts of Saint Paul has reached, ``Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached.'' Noon strikes,---here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart! _Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-to-tootle_ the fife; No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life. X. But bless you, it's dear---it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate. They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city! Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still---ah, the pity, the pity! Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles; One' he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals: _Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife. Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life! A TOCCATA<*1> OF GALUPPI'S. [Galuppi was a famous Italian composer of the eighteenth century. He was in London from 1741 to 1744.] I. Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find! I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind; But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind! II. Here you come with all your music, and here's all the good it brings. What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings, Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings? III. Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by ... what you call ... Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival: I was never out of England---it's as if I saw it all. IV. Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May? Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day, When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say? V. Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,--- On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed, O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head? VI. Well, and it was graceful of them---they'd break talk off and afford ---She, to bite her mask's black velvet---he, to finger on his sword, While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord? VII. What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh, Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions---``Must we die?'' Those commiserating sevenths---``Life might last! we can but try!'' VIII. ``Were you happy?''---``Yes.''---``And are you still as happy?''---``Yes. And you?'' ---``Then, more kisses!''---``Did _I_ stop them, when a million seemed so few?'' Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to! IX. So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say! ``Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay! ``I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!'' X. Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one, Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone, Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun. XI. But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve, While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve, In you come with your cold music till I creep thro' every nerve. XII. Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned: ``Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned. ``The soul, doubtless, is immortal---where a soul can be discerned. XIII. ``Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology, ``Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree; ``Butterflies may dread extinction,---you'll not die, it cannot be! XIV. ``As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop, ``Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop: ``What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop? XV. ``Dust and ashes!'' So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold. Dear dead women, with such hair, too---what's become of all the gold Used to hang and brush thei