Introduction to Robert Browning [78]
balcony, And, having in those days a falcon eye, To follow the hunt through the open country, From where the bushes thinlier crested The hillocks, to a plain where's not one tree. [510] When, in a moment, my ear was arrested By -- was it singing, or was it saying, Or a strange musical instrument playing In the chamber? -- and to be certain I pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain, And there lay Jacynth asleep, Yet as if a watch she tried to keep, In a rosy sleep along the floor With her head against the door; While in the midst, on the seat of state, [520] Was a queen -- the gypsy woman late, With head and face downbent On the lady's head and face intent: For, coiled at her feet like a child at ease, The lady sat between her knees, And o'er them the lady's clasped hands met, And on those hands her chin was set, And her upturned face met the face of the crone Wherein the eyes had grown and grown As if she could double and quadruple [530] At pleasure the play of either pupil -- Very like, by her hands' slow fanning, As up and down like a gor-crow's flappers They moved to measure, or bell-clappers. I said, "Is it blessing, is it banning, Do they applaud you or burlesque you -- Those hands and fingers with no flesh on?" But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue, At once I was stopped by the lady's expression: For it was life her eyes were drinking [540] From the crone's wide pair above unwinking, -- Life's pure fire, received without shrinking, Into the heart and breast whose heaving Told you no single drop they were leaving, -- Life that, filling her, passed redundant Into her very hair, back swerving Over each shoulder, loose and abundant, As her head thrown back showed the white throat curving; And the very tresses shared in the pleasure, Moving to the mystic measure, [550] Bounding as the bosom bounded. I stopped short, more and more confounded, As still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened, As she listened and she listened: When all at once a hand detained me, The selfsame contagion gained me, And I kept time to the wondrous chime, Making out words and prose and rhyme, Till it seemed that the music furled Its wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped [560] From under the words it first had propped, And left them midway in the world, Word took word as hand takes hand, I could hear at last, and understand, And when I held the unbroken thread, The gypsy said: --
"And so at last we find my tribe. And so I set thee in the midst, And to one and all of them describe What thou saidst and what thou didst, [570] Our long and terrible journey through, And all thou art ready to say and do In the trials that remain: I trace them the vein and the other vein That meet on thy brow and part again, Making our rapid mystic mark; And I bid my people prove and probe Each eye's profound and glorious globe, Till they detect the kindred spark In those depths so dear and dark, [580] Like the spots that snap and burst and flee, Circling over the midnight sea. And on that round young cheek of thine I make them recognize the tinge, As when of the costly scarlet wine They drip so much as will impinge And spread in a thinnest scale afloat One thick gold drop from the olive's coat Over a silver plate whose sheen Still through the mixture shall be seen. [590] For so I prove thee, to one and all, Fit, when my people ope their breast, To see the sign, and hear the call, And take the vow, and stand the test
Which adds one more child to the rest -- When the breast is bare and the arms are wide, And the world is left outside. For there is probation to decree, And many and long must the trials be Thou shalt victoriously endure, [600] If that brow is true and those eyes are sure; Like a jewel-finder's fierce assay Of the prize he dug from its mountain tomb, -- Let once the vindicating ray Leap out amid the anxious gloom, And steel and fire have done their part, And the prize falls on its finder's heart; So, trial after trial past, Wilt
"And so at last we find my tribe. And so I set thee in the midst, And to one and all of them describe What thou saidst and what thou didst, [570] Our long and terrible journey through, And all thou art ready to say and do In the trials that remain: I trace them the vein and the other vein That meet on thy brow and part again, Making our rapid mystic mark; And I bid my people prove and probe Each eye's profound and glorious globe, Till they detect the kindred spark In those depths so dear and dark, [580] Like the spots that snap and burst and flee, Circling over the midnight sea. And on that round young cheek of thine I make them recognize the tinge, As when of the costly scarlet wine They drip so much as will impinge And spread in a thinnest scale afloat One thick gold drop from the olive's coat Over a silver plate whose sheen Still through the mixture shall be seen. [590] For so I prove thee, to one and all, Fit, when my people ope their breast, To see the sign, and hear the call, And take the vow, and stand the test
Which adds one more child to the rest -- When the breast is bare and the arms are wide, And the world is left outside. For there is probation to decree, And many and long must the trials be Thou shalt victoriously endure, [600] If that brow is true and those eyes are sure; Like a jewel-finder's fierce assay Of the prize he dug from its mountain tomb, -- Let once the vindicating ray Leap out amid the anxious gloom, And steel and fire have done their part, And the prize falls on its finder's heart; So, trial after trial past, Wilt