Introduction to Robert Browning [81]
herself into the life of others, she would be free. None can give true sympathy but those who have suffered and learnt to love, therefore she must be proved, -- `Fit when my people ope their breast', etc. (vv. 592-601). Passing from the bondage she has endured she will still have trials, but the old pain will have no power to touch her. She has learnt all it can teach, and the world will be richer for it. The Gypsy Queen will not foretell what her future life may be; the true powers of self-less love are not yet gauged, and the power of the union of those that truly love has never been tried. `If any two creatures grew into one', etc. (vv. 626-631). Love at its highest is not yet known to us, but the passionate eyes of the Duchess tell us it will not be a life of quiescence. Giving herself out freely for the good of all she can never be alone again, -- `We are beside thee in all thy ways'. The great company of those who need her, the gypsy band of all human claims. Death to such a life is but `the hand that ends a dream'. What was to come after not even the Gypsy Queen could tell." -- Mrs. Owen (`Browning Soc. Papers', Part IV. p. 52*).
712. had: past subj., should have.
753. that pitiful method: i.e., patting her palfrey.
784. And then, -- and then: his feelings overcome him.
16.
When the liquor's out why clink the cannikin? I did think to describe you the panic in The redoubtable breast of our master the manikin, [790] And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness, How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-rib Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib, When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness -- But it seems such child's play, What they said and did with the lady away! And to dance on, when we've lost the music, Always made me -- and no doubt makes you -- sick. Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern As that sweet form disappeared through the postern, [800] She that kept it in constant good humor, It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more. But the world thought otherwise and went on, And my head's one that its spite was spent on: Thirty years are fled since that morning, And with them all my head's adorning. Nor did the old Duchess die outright, As you expect, of suppressed spite, The natural end of every adder Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder: [810] But she and her son agreed, I take it, That no one should touch on the story to wake it, For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery; So, they made no search and small inquiry: And when fresh gypsies have paid us a visit, I've Noticed the couple were never inquisitive, But told them they're folks the Duke don't want here, And bade them make haste and cross the frontier. Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it, And the old one was in the young one's stead, [820] And took, in her place, the household's head, And a blessed time the household had of it!
And were I not, as a man may say, cautious How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous, I could favor you with sundry touches Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness (To get on faster) until at last her Cheek grew to be one master-plaster Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse: [830] In short, she grew from scalp to udder Just the object to make you shudder.
-- 793. Carib: a Caribbee, a native of the Caribbean islands.
17.
You're my friend -- What a thing friendship is, world without end! How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet, And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit, Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup, Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids -- Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids; [840] Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs, Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease. I have seen
712. had: past subj., should have.
753. that pitiful method: i.e., patting her palfrey.
784. And then, -- and then: his feelings overcome him.
16.
When the liquor's out why clink the cannikin? I did think to describe you the panic in The redoubtable breast of our master the manikin, [790] And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness, How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-rib Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib, When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness -- But it seems such child's play, What they said and did with the lady away! And to dance on, when we've lost the music, Always made me -- and no doubt makes you -- sick. Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern As that sweet form disappeared through the postern, [800] She that kept it in constant good humor, It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more. But the world thought otherwise and went on, And my head's one that its spite was spent on: Thirty years are fled since that morning, And with them all my head's adorning. Nor did the old Duchess die outright, As you expect, of suppressed spite, The natural end of every adder Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder: [810] But she and her son agreed, I take it, That no one should touch on the story to wake it, For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery; So, they made no search and small inquiry: And when fresh gypsies have paid us a visit, I've Noticed the couple were never inquisitive, But told them they're folks the Duke don't want here, And bade them make haste and cross the frontier. Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it, And the old one was in the young one's stead, [820] And took, in her place, the household's head, And a blessed time the household had of it!
And were I not, as a man may say, cautious How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous, I could favor you with sundry touches Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness (To get on faster) until at last her Cheek grew to be one master-plaster Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse: [830] In short, she grew from scalp to udder Just the object to make you shudder.
-- 793. Carib: a Caribbee, a native of the Caribbean islands.
17.
You're my friend -- What a thing friendship is, world without end! How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet, And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit, Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup, Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids -- Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids; [840] Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs, Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease. I have seen