Introduction to Robert Browning [79]
thou fall at the very last Breathless, half in trance [610] With the thrill of the great deliverance, Into our arms forevermore; And thou shalt know, those arms once curled About thee, what we knew before, How love is the only good in the world. Henceforth be loved as heart can love, Or brain devise, or hand approve! Stand up, look below, It is our life at thy feet we throw To step with into light and joy; [620] Not a power of life but we employ To satisfy thy nature's want; Art thou the tree that props the plant, Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree -- Canst thou help us, must we help thee? If any two creatures grew into one, They would do more than the world has done; Though each apart were never so weak, Ye vainly through the world should seek For the knowledge and the might [630] Which in such union grew their right: So, to approach at least that end, And blend, -- as much as may be, blend Thee with us or us with thee, -- As climbing plant or propping tree, Shall some one deck thee over and down, Up and about, with blossoms and leaves? Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland crown, Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves, Die on thy boughs and disappear [640] While not a leaf of thine is sere? Or is the other fate in store, And art thou fitted to adore, To give thy wondrous self away, And take a stronger nature's sway? I foresee and could foretell Thy future portion, sure and well: But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true, Let them say what thou shalt do! Only be sure thy daily life, [650] In its peace or in its strife, Never shall be unobserved; We pursue thy whole career, And hope for it, or doubt, or fear, -- Lo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved, We are beside thee in all thy ways, With our blame, with our praise, Our shame to feel, our pride to show, Glad, angry -- but indifferent, no! Whether it be thy lot to go, [660] For the good of us all, where the haters meet In the crowded city's horrible street; Or thou step alone through the morass Where never sound yet was Save the dry quick clap of the stork's bill, For the air is still, and the water still, When the blue breast of the dipping coot Dives under, and all is mute. So at the last shall come old age, Decrepit as befits that stage; [670] How else wouldst thou retire apart With the hoarded memories of thy heart, And gather all the very least Of the fragments of life's earlier feast, Let fall through eagerness to find The crowning dainties yet behind? Ponder on the entire past Laid together thus at last, When the twilight helps to fuse The first fresh with the faded hues, [680] And the outline of the whole, As round eve's shades their framework roll, Grandly fronts for once thy soul. And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam Of yet another morning breaks, And like the hand which ends a dream, Death, with the might of his sunbeam, Touches the flesh and the soul awakes, Then" -- Ay, then indeed something would happen! But what? For here her voice changed like a bird's; [690] There grew more of the music and less of the words; Had Jacynth only been by me to clap pen To paper and put you down every syllable With those clever clerkly fingers, All I've forgotten as well as what lingers In this old brain of mine that's but ill able To give you even this poor version Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering! -- More fault of those who had the hammering Or prosody into me and syntax, [700] And did it, not with hobnails but tintacks! But to return from this excursion, -- Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest, The peace most deep and the charm completest, There came, shall I say, a snap -- And the charm vanished! And my sense returned, so strangely banished, And, starting as from a nap, I knew the crone was bewitching my lady, With Jacynth asleep; and but one spring made I [710] Down from the casement, round to the portal, Another minute and I had entered,