Browning
Ah, if I might but find
Myself again some sunny afternoon,
Face turned to Florence, faring up that path
Beside the wall, crumbling and ivy-grown,
Where weeds and wildflowers choke the violets,
Bursting, where the chance waits, to sudden flame.
There, from that upper room whose oriel eye
Looked from its cranny in the old home wall
Down o'er the land,—you, Sister, will recall
The charmèd place—we saw the quiet road
Winding away into the wider world.
My memory clings to every dear old spot
Her presence hallowed. There's a sacred haunt
In old Siena, where my fig-tree grows—
She called it mine—'tis in the garden there
At Villa Alberti. Beneath its shade
She often sat. See! down the water here,
Across the harbour where the tall trees stand
Beside the stream. 'Tis just ten years ago,
We spent one day together there. A day
Whose memory haunts me like a heavenly dream.
O Sister, Sister, how I want her still!
Yet near and clear I hear her whisper small—
I blush for music when I hear that voice—
Forbid me Italy, at least awhile;
For love gives reason sovereignty, the deed
Bends to the will, and life is balanced true.
Thus the will drives, and reason guides where love,
Greatest and best, doth call. Sacred meanwhile
I'll keep my constant dream of Italy.
Who knows but I may yet, ere many years,
Rest 'neath her fig-tree—let me name it so.
Sedan is fallen and the noise of war
Has reached our lonely hermitage at last.
Into your eyes alarm puts questionings.
We'll cross the channel, if you will, until
This war-spent France is peaceful once again.
You tell me England gossips of my fame,
Admits my murder-story is a poem,
Reads it—in part, no doubt—professes joy
In Caponsacchi and Pompilia,
So honours me with noble gifts and fine
Opinions. Though she gave me little heed
For many years, my heart forgives her now.
She had a truer poet in our home;
One, to my mind, with far serener flight
On more spontaneous wing. This, England felt,
Enthroned a new Elizabeth, who grudged
Herself the greater fame that was not mine.
And, since you ask the meaning of it all,
Searcher of hearts was I. Each word, each deed,
Each lightest thought was label of a soul.
I pondered men and through their spirits peered,
Traced out their zig-zag courses, motives scanned.
My ardent soul assailed the public heart
To come at vivid life by every way
That winds conspicuous or obscure from out
Its deeps. I loved humanity, despised
Not fame; and yet, I trust I did not stoop
To win it. Many windows look on life;
I stood behind them all, and, looking through,
Discerned a manifold reality.
Disclosed to men their own true meaning; urged
To stand erect and plumb themselves, to mark
Their stature, pigmy or colossal; find
Their deeper roots, not in the earth and time,
Their richest fruitage, deeds that make love glad,
Their goal not in the grave.
As need was, first
I took all riddle-wise, as children do.
Life was ten thousand puzzles mixed, and seemed
Insoluble, and hence, for guessing at
Interminably, good. Could I but read
One line of what God had so dimly writ
Upon the page of life, might not the key
To all life's hieratic characters,
Therein disclosed, be mine?
One problem strange
That kept me guessing much and long was this:
Why are there riddles in our lives at all?
Doth God require obedience in the light
Of partial truth from him who knows no more?
Why is the parchment of the chart of life
A palimpsest whose deeper, truer guise
No eye can see except with labours vast
And pains to find the bright theophany?
I looked beneath the superposèd lines,
Half read, half guessed the hidden scriptures there,
And so this word deciphered: Time is not
A wedge that splits eternity; 'tis but
The upper wave, the spume, the rippling top
Of the deep ocean of eternal life,
That dures while all external things are done.
The soul of man, strong-rooted in the deeps,
Grows brave in conflicts, beautiful in storms,
Noble in tempests and magnanimous
In pain. Love chastens him who loves, with toils,
Inviting him, by labours of a god,
Like God to grow—for only thus he can—
And makes it possible to live God's life,
To feel His everlasting calm, to find
One deep eternal Love, else all's unknown.
If hellish tortures barred the downward road,
If mighty transports turned all hearts to heaven
With no endeavour, and no storm nor pain,
How could the spirit gain its fortitude,
Its strength and grace, its great-souled, god-like power?
The soul that longs greatly to live must dare
Vicissitudes, and, with Promethean heart,
Challenge misfortune, pain, and tempests wild,
The wrack of nerves, and even death itself
For sake of love and life. Such is the cross
On which Love hangs undying, conquering all.
Life is the test of love, and love, of life.
Godlike endeavour is the way to God.
Life is the goal of life, and love, of love.
The only sin is not to try; 'tis good
To live courageously, for life supreme
Is love, and going is the goal.
This much
I read in Love's great palimpsest. This much
Is not a guess.
Myself again some sunny afternoon,
Face turned to Florence, faring up that path
Beside the wall, crumbling and ivy-grown,
Where weeds and wildflowers choke the violets,
Bursting, where the chance waits, to sudden flame.
There, from that upper room whose oriel eye
Looked from its cranny in the old home wall
Down o'er the land,—you, Sister, will recall
The charmèd place—we saw the quiet road
Winding away into the wider world.
My memory clings to every dear old spot
Her presence hallowed. There's a sacred haunt
In old Siena, where my fig-tree grows—
She called it mine—'tis in the garden there
At Villa Alberti. Beneath its shade
She often sat. See! down the water here,
Across the harbour where the tall trees stand
Beside the stream. 'Tis just ten years ago,
We spent one day together there. A day
Whose memory haunts me like a heavenly dream.
O Sister, Sister, how I want her still!
Yet near and clear I hear her whisper small—
I blush for music when I hear that voice—
Forbid me Italy, at least awhile;
For love gives reason sovereignty, the deed
Bends to the will, and life is balanced true.
Thus the will drives, and reason guides where love,
Greatest and best, doth call. Sacred meanwhile
I'll keep my constant dream of Italy.
Who knows but I may yet, ere many years,
Rest 'neath her fig-tree—let me name it so.
Sedan is fallen and the noise of war
Has reached our lonely hermitage at last.
Into your eyes alarm puts questionings.
We'll cross the channel, if you will, until
This war-spent France is peaceful once again.
You tell me England gossips of my fame,
Admits my murder-story is a poem,
Reads it—in part, no doubt—professes joy
In Caponsacchi and Pompilia,
So honours me with noble gifts and fine
Opinions. Though she gave me little heed
For many years, my heart forgives her now.
She had a truer poet in our home;
One, to my mind, with far serener flight
On more spontaneous wing. This, England felt,
Enthroned a new Elizabeth, who grudged
Herself the greater fame that was not mine.
And, since you ask the meaning of it all,
Searcher of hearts was I. Each word, each deed,
Each lightest thought was label of a soul.
I pondered men and through their spirits peered,
Traced out their zig-zag courses, motives scanned.
My ardent soul assailed the public heart
To come at vivid life by every way
That winds conspicuous or obscure from out
Its deeps. I loved humanity, despised
Not fame; and yet, I trust I did not stoop
To win it. Many windows look on life;
I stood behind them all, and, looking through,
Discerned a manifold reality.
Disclosed to men their own true meaning; urged
To stand erect and plumb themselves, to mark
Their stature, pigmy or colossal; find
Their deeper roots, not in the earth and time,
Their richest fruitage, deeds that make love glad,
Their goal not in the grave.
As need was, first
I took all riddle-wise, as children do.
Life was ten thousand puzzles mixed, and seemed
Insoluble, and hence, for guessing at
Interminably, good. Could I but read
One line of what God had so dimly writ
Upon the page of life, might not the key
To all life's hieratic characters,
Therein disclosed, be mine?
One problem strange
That kept me guessing much and long was this:
Why are there riddles in our lives at all?
Doth God require obedience in the light
Of partial truth from him who knows no more?
Why is the parchment of the chart of life
A palimpsest whose deeper, truer guise
No eye can see except with labours vast
And pains to find the bright theophany?
I looked beneath the superposèd lines,
Half read, half guessed the hidden scriptures there,
And so this word deciphered: Time is not
A wedge that splits eternity; 'tis but
The upper wave, the spume, the rippling top
Of the deep ocean of eternal life,
That dures while all external things are done.
The soul of man, strong-rooted in the deeps,
Grows brave in conflicts, beautiful in storms,
Noble in tempests and magnanimous
In pain. Love chastens him who loves, with toils,
Inviting him, by labours of a god,
Like God to grow—for only thus he can—
And makes it possible to live God's life,
To feel His everlasting calm, to find
One deep eternal Love, else all's unknown.
If hellish tortures barred the downward road,
If mighty transports turned all hearts to heaven
With no endeavour, and no storm nor pain,
How could the spirit gain its fortitude,
Its strength and grace, its great-souled, god-like power?
The soul that longs greatly to live must dare
Vicissitudes, and, with Promethean heart,
Challenge misfortune, pain, and tempests wild,
The wrack of nerves, and even death itself
For sake of love and life. Such is the cross
On which Love hangs undying, conquering all.
Life is the test of love, and love, of life.
Godlike endeavour is the way to God.
Life is the goal of life, and love, of love.
The only sin is not to try; 'tis good
To live courageously, for life supreme
Is love, and going is the goal.
This much
I read in Love's great palimpsest. This much
Is not a guess.
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