Youth and Art

861

I earned no more by a warble

Than you by a sketch in plaster; You wanted a piece of marble,

I needed a music-master.

We studied hard in our styles,

Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, For air, looked out on the tiles,

For fun, watched each other's windows.

You lounged, like a boy of the South,
Cap and blouse-nay, a bit of beard too;
Or you got it, rubbing your mouth
With fingers the clay adhered to.

And I soon managed to find

Weak points in the flower-fence facing, Was forced to put up a blind,

And be safe in my corset-lacing.

No harm! It was not my fault

If you never turned your eye's tail up,

As I shook upon E in alt.,

Or ran the chromatic scale up:

For spring bade the sparrows pair,

And the boys and girls gave guesses,

And stalls in our street looked rare
With bulrush and water-cresses.

Why did not you pinch a flower
In a pellet of clay and fling it?
Why did not I put a power

Of thanks in a look, or sing it?

I did look, sharp as a lynx

(And yet the memory rankles), When models arrived, some minx

Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles.

But I think I gave you as good!
"That foreign fellow,-who can know
How she pays, in a playful mood,

For his tuning her that piano?"

Could you say so, and never say,

"Suppose we join hands and fortunes, And I fetch her from over the way,

Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes"?

No, no: you would not be rash,

Nor I rasher and something over: You've to settle yet Gibson's hash, And Grisi yet lives in clover.

But you meet the Prince at the Board,
I'm queen myself at bals-paré,

I've married a rich old lord,

And you're dubbed knight and an R. A.

Each life unfulfilled, you see;

It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired,-been happy.

And nobody calls you a dunce,

And people suppose me clever:

This could but have happened once,

And we missed it, lost it forever.

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA

I WONDER do you feel to-day

As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray

In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?

Two in the Campagna

For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

Help me to hold it! First it left

The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,
Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed

Took up the floating weft,

Where one small orange cup amassed

Five beetles,-blind and green they grope Among the honey-meal: and last,

Everywhere on the grassy slope

I traced it. Hold it fast!

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
And everlasting wash of air-
Rome's ghost since her decease.

Such life here, through such lengths of hours

Such miracles performed in play,

Such primal naked forms of flowers,

Such letting Nature have her way While Heaven looks from its towers!

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control

To love or not to love?

I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours, nor mine,-nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core

Of the wound, since wound must be?

863

I would I could adopt your will,

See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul's springs, your part, my part In life, for good and ill.

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,
Catch your soul's warmth,-I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak—
Then the good minute goes.

Already how am I so far

Out of that minute? Must I go Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,

Onward, whenever light winds blow,

Fixed by no friendly star?

Just when I seemed about to learn!

Where is the thread now? Off again!

The old trick! Only I discern—

Infinite passion, and the pain

of finite hearts that yearn.

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

ONE WAY OF LOVE

ALL June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves

And strew them where Pauline may pass.

She will not turn aside? Alas!

Let them lie. Suppose they die?

The chance was they might take her eye.

How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string; fold music's wing:
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!

Song

My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I

prove

And speak my passion-heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!
Lose who may—I still can say,

Those who win heaven, blest are they!

865

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

"NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE"

NEVER the time and the place

And the loved one all together! This path-how soft to pace!

This May-what magic weather!
Where is the loved one's face?

In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine

With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,

Uncoil thee from the waking man!

Do I hold the Past

Thus firm and fast

Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?

This path so soft to pace shall lead

Through the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we—
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,

-I and she!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

SONG

From "The Saint's Tragedy "

OH! that we two were Maying

Down the stream of the soft spring breeze;

Like children with violets playing

In the shade of the whispering trees.