Introduction to Robert Browning [86]
their youth dropped.
22.
For it leads to a crag's sheer edge with them; Youth, flowery all the way, there stops -- Not they; age threatens and they contemn, Till they reach the gulf wherein youth drops, One inch from our life's safe hem!
23.
With me, youth led. . .I will speak now, No longer watch you as you sit Reading by firelight, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it, Mutely, my heart knows how --
-- St. 23. With me: the speaker continues, youth led: -- we are told whither, in St. 25, v. 4, "to an age so blest that, by its side, youth seems the waste instead". I will speak now: up to this point his reflections have been silent, his wife, the while, reading, mutely, by fire-light, his heart knows how, that is, with her heart secretly responsive to his own. The mutual responsiveness of their hearts is expressed in St. 24.
24.
When, if I think but deep enough, You are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme; And you, too, find without rebuff Response your soul seeks many a time, Piercing its fine flesh-stuff.
25.
My own, confirm me! If I tread This path back, is it not in pride To think how little I dreamed it led To an age so blest that, by its side, Youth seems the waste instead?
26.
My own, see where the years conduct! At first, 'twas something our two souls Should mix as mists do; each is sucked In each now: on, the new stream rolls, Whatever rocks obstruct.
27.
Think, when our one soul understands The great Word which makes all things new, When earth breaks up and heaven expands, How will the change strike me and you In the house not made with hands?
28.
Oh I must feel your brain prompt mine, Your heart anticipate my heart, You must be just before, in fine, See and make me see, for your part, New depths of the divine!
-- St. 28. "The conviction of the eternity of marriage meets us again and again in Browning's poems; e.g., `Prospice', `Any Wife to any Husband', `The Epilogue to Fifine'." The union between two complementary souls cannot be dissolved. "Love is all, and Death is nought!"
29.
But who could have expected this When we two drew together first Just for the obvious human bliss, To satisfy life's daily thirst With a thing men seldom miss?
30.
Come back with me to the first of all, Let us lean and love it over again, Let us now forget and now recall, Break the rosary in a pearly rain, And gather what we let fall!
31.
What did I say? -- that a small bird sings All day long, save when a brown pair Of hawks from the wood float with wide wings Strained to a bell: 'gainst noonday glare You count the streaks and rings.
-- St. 31. Here he returns to the subject broken off at St. 21.
32.
But at afternoon or almost eve 'Tis better; then the silence grows To that degree, you half believe It must get rid of what it knows, Its bosom does so heave.
33.
Hither we walked then, side by side, Arm in arm and cheek to cheek, And still I questioned or replied, While my heart, convulsed to really speak, Lay choking in its pride.
34.
Silent the crumbling bridge we cross, And pity and praise the chapel sweet, And care about the fresco's loss, And wish for our souls a like retreat, And wonder at the moss.
35.
Stoop and kneel on the settle under, Look through the window's grated square: Nothing to see! For fear of plunder, The cross is down and the altar bare, As if thieves don't fear thunder.
36.
We stoop and look in through the grate, See the little porch and rustic door, Read duly the dead builder's date; Then cross the bridge that we crossed before, Take the path again -- but wait!
37.
Oh moment one and infinite! The water slips o'er stock and stone; The West is tender, hardly bright: How gray at once is the evening grown -- One star, its chrysolite!
38.
We two stood there with never a third, But each by each, as each knew well: The sights we saw and the sounds we heard,
22.
For it leads to a crag's sheer edge with them; Youth, flowery all the way, there stops -- Not they; age threatens and they contemn, Till they reach the gulf wherein youth drops, One inch from our life's safe hem!
23.
With me, youth led. . .I will speak now, No longer watch you as you sit Reading by firelight, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it, Mutely, my heart knows how --
-- St. 23. With me: the speaker continues, youth led: -- we are told whither, in St. 25, v. 4, "to an age so blest that, by its side, youth seems the waste instead". I will speak now: up to this point his reflections have been silent, his wife, the while, reading, mutely, by fire-light, his heart knows how, that is, with her heart secretly responsive to his own. The mutual responsiveness of their hearts is expressed in St. 24.
24.
When, if I think but deep enough, You are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme; And you, too, find without rebuff Response your soul seeks many a time, Piercing its fine flesh-stuff.
25.
My own, confirm me! If I tread This path back, is it not in pride To think how little I dreamed it led To an age so blest that, by its side, Youth seems the waste instead?
26.
My own, see where the years conduct! At first, 'twas something our two souls Should mix as mists do; each is sucked In each now: on, the new stream rolls, Whatever rocks obstruct.
27.
Think, when our one soul understands The great Word which makes all things new, When earth breaks up and heaven expands, How will the change strike me and you In the house not made with hands?
28.
Oh I must feel your brain prompt mine, Your heart anticipate my heart, You must be just before, in fine, See and make me see, for your part, New depths of the divine!
-- St. 28. "The conviction of the eternity of marriage meets us again and again in Browning's poems; e.g., `Prospice', `Any Wife to any Husband', `The Epilogue to Fifine'." The union between two complementary souls cannot be dissolved. "Love is all, and Death is nought!"
29.
But who could have expected this When we two drew together first Just for the obvious human bliss, To satisfy life's daily thirst With a thing men seldom miss?
30.
Come back with me to the first of all, Let us lean and love it over again, Let us now forget and now recall, Break the rosary in a pearly rain, And gather what we let fall!
31.
What did I say? -- that a small bird sings All day long, save when a brown pair Of hawks from the wood float with wide wings Strained to a bell: 'gainst noonday glare You count the streaks and rings.
-- St. 31. Here he returns to the subject broken off at St. 21.
32.
But at afternoon or almost eve 'Tis better; then the silence grows To that degree, you half believe It must get rid of what it knows, Its bosom does so heave.
33.
Hither we walked then, side by side, Arm in arm and cheek to cheek, And still I questioned or replied, While my heart, convulsed to really speak, Lay choking in its pride.
34.
Silent the crumbling bridge we cross, And pity and praise the chapel sweet, And care about the fresco's loss, And wish for our souls a like retreat, And wonder at the moss.
35.
Stoop and kneel on the settle under, Look through the window's grated square: Nothing to see! For fear of plunder, The cross is down and the altar bare, As if thieves don't fear thunder.
36.
We stoop and look in through the grate, See the little porch and rustic door, Read duly the dead builder's date; Then cross the bridge that we crossed before, Take the path again -- but wait!
37.
Oh moment one and infinite! The water slips o'er stock and stone; The West is tender, hardly bright: How gray at once is the evening grown -- One star, its chrysolite!
38.
We two stood there with never a third, But each by each, as each knew well: The sights we saw and the sounds we heard,