Free Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) by Robert Browning Page B

and all,
    Essence and earth-attire,
    To the source of the tractile fire:
    XVI
    Till the house called hers, not mine,
With a growing weight
Seems to suffocate
    If she break not its leaden line
    [80] And escape from its close confine.
    XVII
    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 –
    XVIII
    Making through rain and wind
O’er the broken shrubs,
’Twixt the stems and stubs,
    With a still, composed, strong mind,
    [90] Nor a care for the world behind –
    XIX
    Swifter and still more swift,
As the crowding peace
Doth to joy increase
    In the wide blind eyes uplift
    Through the darkness and the drift!
    XX
    While I – to the shape, I too
Feel my soul dilate
Nor a whit abate,
    And relax not a gesture due,
    [100] As I see my belief come true.
    XXI
    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?
    XXII
    Ha! was the hair so first?
What, unfilleted,
Made alive, and spread
    Through the void with a rich outburst,
    [110] Chestnut gold-interspersed?
    XXIII
    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!
    XXIV
    ‘Now – now’ – the door is heard!
Hark, the stairs! and near –
Nearer – and here –
    ‘Now!’ and at call the third
    [120] She enters without a word.
    XXV
    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.
    XXVI
    First I will pray. Do Thou
That ownest the soul,
Yet wilt grant control
    To another, nor disallow
    [130] For a time, restrain me now!
    XXVII
    I admonish me while I may,
Not to squander guilt,
Since require Thou wilt
    At my hand its price one day!
    What the price is, who can say?

A Serenade at the Villa
    I
    That was I, you heard last night,
When there rose no moon at all,
    Nor, to pierce the strained and tight
Tent of heaven, a planet small:
    Life was dead and so was light.
    II
    Not a twinkle from the fly,
Not a glimmer from the worm;
    When the crickets stopped their cry,
When the owls forbore a term,
    [10] You heard music; that was I.
    III
    Earth turned in her sleep with pain,
Sultrily suspired for proof:
    In at heaven and out again,
Lightning! – where it broke the roof,
    Bloodlike, some few drops of rain.
    IV
    What they could my words expressed,
O my love, my all, my one!
    Singing helped the verses best,
And when singing’s best was done,
    [20] To my lute I left the rest.
    V
    So wore night; the East was grey,
White the broad-faced hemlock-flowers:
    There would be another day;
Ere its first of heavy hours
    Found me, I had passed away.
    IV
    What became of all the hopes,
Words and song and lute as well?
    Say, this struck you – ‘When life gropes
Feebly for the path where fell
    [30] Light last on the evening slopes,
    VII
    ‘One friend in that path shall be,
To secure my step from wrong;
    One to count night day for me,
Patient through the watches long,
    Serving most with none to see.’
    VIII
    Never say – as something bodes –
‘So, the worst has yet a worse!
    When life halts ’neath double loads,
Better the taskmaster’s curse
    [40] Than such music on the roads!
    IX
    ‘When no moon succeeds the sun,
Nor can pierce the midnight’s tent
    Any star, the smallest one,
While some drops, where lightning rent,
    Show the final storm begun –
    X
    ‘When the fire-fly bides its spot,
When the garden-voices fail
    In the darkness thick and hot, –
Shall another voice avail,
    [50] That shape be where these are not?
    XI
    ‘Has some plague a longer lease,
Proffering its help uncouth?
    Can’t one even die in peace?
As one shuts one’s eyes on youth,
    Is that face the last one sees?’
    XII
    Oh how dark your villa was,
Windows fast and obdurate!
    How the garden grudged me grass
Where I stood – the iron gate
    [60] Ground its teeth to let me pass!

‘Childe