Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 8

III

World--how it walled about Life with disgrace Till G.o.d's own smile came out: That was thy face!

PROLOGUE TO _PACCHIAROTTO_

1876

I

 

O the old wall here! How I could pa.s.s Life in a long Midsummer day, My feet confined to a plot of gra.s.s, My eyes from a wall not once away!

II

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

III

Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe?

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

IV

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

V

Wall upon wall are between us: life And song should away from heart to heart.

I--prison-bird, with a ruddy strife At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start--

VI

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

PROLOGUE TO _LA SAISIAZ_

1878

I

Good, to forgive; Best, to forget!

Living, we fret; Dying, we live.

Fretless and free, Soul, clap thy pinion!

Earth have dominion, Body, o'er thee!

II

Wander at will, Day after day,-- Wander away, Wandering still-- Soul that canst soar!

Body may slumber: Body shall c.u.mber Soul-flight no more.

III

Waft of soul's wing!

What lies above?

Suns.h.i.+ne and Love, Skyblue and Spring!

Body hides--where?

Ferns of all feather, Mosses and heather, Yours be the care!

PROLOGUE TO _JOCOSERIA_

1883

Wanting is--what?

Summer redundant, Blueness abundant, --Where is the blot?

Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same, --Framework which waits for a picture to frame: What of the leaf.a.ge, what of the flower?

Roses embowering with nought they embower!

Come then, complete incompletion, O comer, Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer!

Breathe but one breath Rose-beauty above.

And all that was death Grows life, grows love, Grows love!

NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE

1883

Never the time and the place And the loved one all together!