Robert Browning on Love Read online

  Close on her heels, the dingy satins

  Of a female something past me flitted,

  With lips as much too white, as a streak

  Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;

  And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied

  All that was left of a woman once

  —Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day

  Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,

  Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving:

  I am mine and yours

  —One Word More

  I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence,

  As this moment,—had love but the warrant, love’s heart to dispense!

  —Saul

  The sentence no sooner was uttered,

  Than over the rails a glove flattered.

  —The Glove

  Mark him, Austin; that’s true love!

  Ours must begin again.

  —A Blot In the ‘Scutcheon

  And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve

  Smiles to leave

  To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece

  In such peace,

  And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey

  Melt away—

  That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair

  Waits me there

  In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul

  For the goal,

  When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb

  Till I come.

  Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul,

  Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole?

  —Saul

  See the creature stalking

  While we speak!

  Hush and hide the talking,

  Cheek on cheek!

  —A Woman’s Last Word

  Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand

  Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee!

  —Saul

  There is no god in life by love—but love!

  What else looks good is some shade flung from love;

  Love gilds it, gives it worth.

  —In a Balcony

  Her beauty is not strange to you, it seems—

  You cannot know the good and tender heart,

  Its girl’s trust and its woman’s constancy,

  How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind,

  How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free

  —A Blot In the ‘Scutcheon

  Ecstasy of Love

  Have and hold, then and there,

  Her, from head to foot,

  Breathing and mute,

  Passive and yet aware,

  In the grasp of my steady stare—

  Hold and have, there and then,

  All her body and soul

  That completes my whole,

  All that women add to men,

  In the clutch of my steady ken—

  Having and holding, till

  I imprint her fast

  On the void at last

  —Mesmerism

  Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved!

  —Saul

  You and I would rather see that angel,

  Painted by the tenderness of Dante,

  Would we not?–than read a fresh Inferno.

  —One Word More

  Face to face the lovers stood

  A single minute and no more,

  While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued —

  —The Statue and the Bust

  I catch your meaning now,

  And I obey you! Hist! This tree will serve.

  —A Blot In the ‘Scutcheon

  So will I bury me while burning,

  Quench like him at a plunge my yearning,

  Eyes in your eyes, lips on your lips!

  Fold me fast where the cincture slips,

  Prison all my soul in eternities of pleasure

  —Women and Roses

  Then I reach, I must believe,

  Not her soul in vain,

  For to me again

  It reaches, and past retrieve

  Is wound in the toils I weave;

  And must follow as I require,

  As befits a thrall,

  Bringing flesh and all,

  Essence and earth-attire,

  To the source of the tractile fire:

  Till the house called hers, not mine,

  With a growing weight

  Seems to suffocate

  If she break not its leaden line

  And escape from its close confine.

  —Mesmerism

  I know, sir, it’s improper,

  My poor mind’s out of tune.

  —Confessions

  Such am I: the secret’s mine now!

  She has lost me, I have gained her

  —Cristina

  Man I am and man would be, Love—merest man and nothing more.

  Bid me seem no other! Eagles boast of pinions—let them soar!

  I may put forth angel’s plumage, once unmanned, but not before.

  Now on earth to stand suffices,—nay, if kneeling serves, to kneel:

  Here you front me, here I find the all of heaven that earth can feel:

  Sense looks straight,—not over, under,—perfect sees beyond appeal.

  Good you are and wise, full circle: what to me were more outside?

  Wiser wisdom, better goodness? Ah, such want the angel’s wide

  Sense to take and hold and keep them! Mine at least has never tried.

  —Ferishtah’s Fancies

  He looked at her, as a lover can;

  She looked at him, as one who awakes:

  The past was a sleep, and their life began.

  —The Statue and the Bust

  So, she’d efface the score,

  And forgive me as before.

  It is twelve o’clock:

  I shall hear her knock

  In the worst of a storm’s uproar,

  I shall pull her through the door,

  I shall have her for evermore!

  —A Lovers’ Quarrel

  Like the doors of a casket-shrine,

  See, on either side,

  Her two arms divide

  Till the heart betwixt makes sign,

  Take me, for I am thine!

  “Now—now’’—the door is heard!

  Hark, the stairs! and near—

  Nearer—and here—

  “Now!” and at call the third

  She enters without a word.

  On doth she march and on

  To the fancied shape;

  It is, past escape,

  Herself, now: the dream is done

  And the shadow and she are one.

  —Mesmerism

  What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

  —A Toccata of Galuppi’s

  Where is the use of the lip’s red charm,

  The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow,

  And the blood that blues the inside arm—

  —The Statue and the Bust

  Out of your whole life give but a moment!

  All of your life that has gone before,

  All to come after it,—so you ignore,

  So you make perfect the present,—condense,

  In a rapture of rage, for perfection’s endowment,

  Thought and feeling and soul and sense—

  Merged in a moment which gives me at last

  You around me for once, you beneath me, above me—

  Me—sure that, despite of time future, time past,—

  This tick of life-time’s one moment you love me!

  How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet,—

  The moment eternal—just that and no more—

  When ecstasy’s utmost we clutch at the core,

  While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut, and lips meet!

  —Now

  Do lovers in romances sin tha
t way?

  —Pippa Passes

  Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!

  Earth’s returns

  For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!

  Shut them in,

  With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!

  Love is best.

  —Love Among the Ruins

  Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?

  Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,

  When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

  Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red—

  On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,

  O’er the breast’s superb abundance where a man might base his head?

  Well, and it was graceful of them—they’d break talk off and afford

  —She, to bite her mask’s black velvet—he, to finger on his sword,

  While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

  What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,

  Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions–“Must we die?”

  Those commiserating sevenths—“Life might last! we can but try!”

  “Were you happy?”—“Yes.”—“And are you still as happy?”—“Yes. And you?”

  —“Then, more kisses!”—“Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?”

  Hark, the dominant’s persistence till it must be answered to!

  —A Toccata of Galuppi’s

  Since first I noted

  All this, I’ve groaned as if a fiery net

  Plucked me this way and that—fire if I turned

  To her, fire if I turned to you, and fire

  If down I flung myself and strove to die.

  —A Blot In the ‘Scutcheon

  Breathe but one breath

  Rose-beauty above,

  And all that was death

  Grows life, grows love,

  Grows love!

  —Wanting Is—What?

  O lyric Love, half angel and half bird

  And all a wonder and a wild desire,—

  —The Ring and the Book

  For, there! have I drawn or no

  Life to that lip?

  Do my fingers dip

  In a flame which again they throw

  On the cheek that breaks a-glow?

  —Mesmerism

  Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool —

  For tonight the Envoy arrives from France

  Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool.

  —The Statue and the Bust

  This body had no soul before, but slept

  Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free

  —Pippa Passes

  Her cheek once more

  Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss

  —Porphyria’s Lover

  They trail me, these three godless knaves,

  Past every church that saints and saves,

  Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves

  By Lido’s wet accursed graves,

  They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,

  And … on thy breast I sink

  —In a Gondola

  Burn upward each to his point of bliss—

  Since, the end of life being manifest,

  He had burned his way through the world to this.

  —The Statue and the Bust

  You should not take a fellow eight years old

  And make him swear to never kiss the girls.

  —Fra Lippo Lippi

  I am queen of thee, floweret!

  And each fleshy blossom

  Preserve I not—(safer

  Than leaves that embower it,

  Or shells that embosom)—

  From weevil and chafer?

  Laugh through my pane then; solicit the bee;

  Gibe him, be sure; and, in midst of thy glee,

  Love thy queen, worship me!

  —Pippa Passes

  O my love, my all, my one!

  —A Serenade at the Villa

  So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!

  —Andrea del Sarto

  So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,

  My hand sought hers as in earnest need,

  And round she turned for my noble sake,

  And gave me herself indeed.

  —A Light Woman

  Oh, what a fancy ecstatic

  Was the poor heart’s, ere the wanderer went on—

  Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!

  —Misconceptions

  What a thing friendship is, world without end!

  —The Flight of the Duchess

  Speak to me—not of me.

  —Pippa Passes

  Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I prayed,

  And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid

  —Saul

  Out of doors into the night!

  On to the maze

  Of the wild wood-ways,

  Not turning to left nor right

  From the pathway, blind with sight—

  Making thro’ rain and wind

  O’er the broken shrubs,

  ‘Twixt the stems and stubs,

  With a still, composed, strong mind,

  Nor a care for the world behind—

  Swifter and still more swift,

  As the crowding peace

  Doth to joy increase

  In the wide blind eyes uplift

  Thro’ the darkness and the drift!

  While I—to the shape, I too

  Feel my soul dilate

  Nor a whit abate,

  And relax not a gesture due,

  As I see my belief come true.

  —Mesmerism

  Heart to heart

  And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,

  Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art!

  —In a Gondola

  Well, dear, in-doors with you!

  —Another Way of Love

  Till God’s own smile came out:

  That was thy face!

  —Apparitions

  I follow wherever I am led,

  Knowing so well the leader’s hand:

  Oh woman-country, wooed not wed,

  Loved all the more by earth’s male-lands,

  Laid to their hearts instead!

  —By the Fire-Side

  Your soft hand is a woman of itself

  —Andrea del Sarto

  And … is it thou I feel?

  —In a Gondola

  But above night too, like only the next,

  The second of a wondrous sequence,

  Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,

  Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed,

  Another rainbow rose, a mightier,

  Fainter, flushier and flightier,—

  Rapture dying along its verge.

  Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,

  Whose, from the straining topmost dark,

  On to the keystone of that arc?

  —Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day

  Be a god and hold me

  With a charm!

  Be a man and fold me

  With thine arm!

  —A Woman’s Last Word

  My last thought was at least not vain:

  I and my mistress, side by side

  Shall be together, breathe and ride,

  So, one day more am I deified.

  Who knows but the world may end tonight?

  —The Last Ride Together

  He will but press the closer, breathe more warm

  Against her cheek; how should she mind the storm?

  —Pippa Passes

  Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst

  —Any Wife to Any Husband

  Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,

  And the sun looked over the m
ountain’s rim:

  And straight was a path of gold for him,

  And the need of a world of men for me.

  —Parting at Morning

  How good is man’s life, the mere living!

  —Saul

  The moth’s kiss, first!

  Kiss me as if you made believe

  You were not sure, this eve,

  How my face, your flower, had pursed

  Its petals up; so, here and there

  You brush it, till I grow aware

  Who wants me, and wide ope I burst.

  —In a Gondola

  “Wilt thou fall at the very last

  “Breathless, half in trance

  “With the thrill of the great deliverance,

  “Into our arms for evermore;

  “And thou shalt know, those arms once curled

  “About thee, what we knew before,

  “How love is the only good in the world.

  —The Flight of the Duchess

  You heard music; that was I.

  —A Serenade at the Villa

  I had wealth and ease,

  Beauty, youth:

  Since my lover gave me love,

  I gave these.

  —In a Year

  I listened with heart fit to break.

  When glided in Porphyria; straight

  She shut the cold out and the storm,

  And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

  Blaze up, and all the cottage warm

  —Porphyria’s Lover

  To grasp her–(divers who pick pearls so grope)

  —Pan and Luna

  It was ordained to be so, sweet!—and best

  Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast.

  Still kiss me!

  —In a Gondola

  That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

  Lest you should think he never could recapture

  The first fine careless rapture!

  —Home Thoughts from Abroad

  Teach me, only teach, Love

  As I ought

  I will speak thy speech, Love,

  Think thy thought—

  —A Woman’s Last Word

  Love, if you knew the light

  That your soul casts in my sight,

  How I look to you

  For the pure and true

  And the beauteous and the right

  —A Lovers’ Quarrel