Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest:¦ Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be Machinery just meant

To give thy soul its bent,

gained,

The reward of it all.

Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more,

[blocks in formation]

The best and the last!

[blocks in formation]

Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's stress?

Look not thou down but up!

To uses of a cup,

The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's

peal,

The new wine's foaming flow,

The Master's lips aglow!

arrears

[blocks in formation]

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst Shall change, shall become first a peace out of

[blocks in formation]

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible Twenty-two good ships in all;

[blocks in formation]

10

The victory of La Hogue was won off the north coast of Normandy by the British and Dutch Allies against Louis XIV. Hervé Riel, a Breton sailor from the village of Croisie, saved many of the fleeing French vessels by piloting them through the shallows at the mouth of the river Rance to the roadstead at St. Malo.

Get us guidance, give us harbour, take us | On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every

quick-or, quicker still,

Here's the English can and will!''

[blocks in formation]

"Not a minute more to wait! Let the Captains all and each

30

swell,

"Twixt the offing here and Grève where the river disembogues?

Are you bought by English gold?
the lying's for?

Morn and eve, night and day,
Have I piloted your bay,

Is it love

50

Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of

Solidor.

[blocks in formation]

Not a minute more to wait.

"Steer us in, then, small and great! Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron ! "' cried its chief.

Captains, give the sailor place!

He is Admiral, in brief.

Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels | Still the north-wind, by God's grace!

on the beach!

[blocks in formation]

See the noble fellow's face
As the big ship, with a bound,
Clears the entry like a hound,

70

Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound!

See, safe through shoal and rock,
How they follow in a flock,

Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that

grates the ground,

Not a spar that comes to grief! The peril, see, is past,

All are harboured to the last,

80

And just as Hervé Riel hollas "Anchor!"'— sure as fate,

Up the English come-too late!

VIII

And "What mockery or malice have we here?" So, the storm subsides to calm:

cries Hervé Riel:

"Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?

Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell

They see the green trees wave On the heights o'erlooking Grève. Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. "Just our rapture to enhance,

Let the English rake the bay,

[blocks in formation]

Then a beam of fun out broke
On the bearded mouth that spoke,
As the honest heart laughed through
Those frank eyes of Breton blue:
"Since I needs must say my say,

Since on board the duty 's done,

And from Malo Roads to Croisie Point, what is it but a run?

Since 't is ask and have, I may

Since the others go ashore

Come! A good whole holiday!

120

-Where is the blot?

140

Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same, -Framework which waits for a picture to frame:

What of the leafage, what of the flower?
Roses embowering with naught they embower!
Come then, complete incompletion, O comer,
Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer!
Breathe but one breath
Rose-beauty above,
And all that was death
Grows life, grows love,
Grows love!

WHY I AM A LIBERAL

"Why?" Because all I haply can and do,
All that I am now, all I hope to be,-
Whence comes it save from fortune setting free
Body and soul the purpose to pursue,
God traced for both? If fetters not a few,
Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,
These shall I bid men-each in his degree
Also God-guided-bear, and gayly, too?

But little do or can the best of us:

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call | That little is achieved through Liberty.

the Belle Aurore!"'

That he asked and that he got,-nothing

more.

XI

Name and deed alike are lost:

Not a pillar nor a post

Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus,
His fellow shall continue bound? Not I,
Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss
A brother 's right to freedom. That is "Why."

EPILOGUE*

In his Croisie keeps alive the feat as it be- At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,

fell;

[blocks in formation]

When you set your fancies free,

Will they pass to where-by death, fools think, imprisoned

1 An ancient roval palace, now mainly an artgallery, adorned with the statues of eminent Frenchmen.

*This is the Epilogue to Asolando, which was published at London on the day when Browning died at Venice.

Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
-Being-who?
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise

One who never turned his back but marched On one another, as they strike athwart

breast forward,

Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake.

Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy
part

Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work- A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through

time

Greet the unseen with a cheer!

Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,

"Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,-fight on, fare ever

There as here!"

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWN*ING (1809-1861)

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE*

I

I thought once how Theocritus had sung1

The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree? The chrism is on thine head,-on mine, the dew,

And Death must dig the level where these agree.

IV

Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
Most gracious singer of high poems! where
The dancers will break footing, from the care
Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.
And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor
For hand of thine? and canst thou think and
bear

To let thy music drop here unaware

In folds of golden fulness at my door?
Look up and see the casement broken in,

Of the sweet years, the dear and wished for The bats and owlets builders in the roof!

[blocks in formation]

* These Sonnets. forty-four in number, were written by Miss Barrett during the time of Mr. Browning's courtship, but were not shown to him until after their marriage in 1846. The title under which they were published (1850) was adopted as a disguise. To understand them aright, it must be remembered

that Miss Barrett was in middle life and had long been an invalid. See Eng. Lit., p. 307. F. G. Kenyon, in his edition of Mrs. Browning's Letters, writes'; "With the single exception of Rossetti, no modern English poet has written of love with such genius. such beauty, and such sincerity, as the two who gave the most beautiful example of it in their own lives."

[blocks in formation]

But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

XXII

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point,-what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think. In mounting
higher,

II

Before the phantom of False morning died,1
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
"When all the Temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?''

III

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted-"Open then the Door!

You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.''

IV

The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Belovèd,-where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it. Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose,

Now the New Year2 reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the
Bough

XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's
faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,-I love thee with the
breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God
choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

[blocks in formation]

Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.+

V

And Jamshyd's Sev 'n-ring'd Cup where no one
knows;

But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine,
And many a Garden by the Water blows.‡

* Omar Khayyám (i. e., Omar the Tent-maker)
was a Persian astronomer and poet of the
12th century, who dwelt at Nalshápúr.
Rubáiyát is a Persian word, the plural of
rubái, which signifies "a quatrain." These
rubáiyát are therefore short, epigrammatic
poems, virtually independent of each other.
From among the numerous quatrains left by
Omar, Edward Fitzgerald selected and free-
ly translated a number, and printed them in
1859 (see Eng. Lit., p. 309). The number in
that edition was seventy-five. The third edi-
tion (1873) contained one hundred and one;
the fourth edition, which is reproduced here,
had a few further verbal changes. There are
two widely divergent views of the philosophy
contained in them, the one regarding it as
wholly materialistic, raising questions of the
"Two Worlds" only to dismiss them and take
refuge in the pleasures of sense-an Epi-
curean philosophy of "Eat, drink, and be
merry." The other regards it as an example
of Oriental mysticism, employing Wine and
the like as poetic symbols of deity. Fitz-
gerald held firmly to the former view, con-
tent, however, "to believe that, while the
wine Omar celebrates is simply the juice of
the grape, he bragged more than he drank of
it. in very defiance perhaps of that spiritual
wine which left its votaries sunk in hypocrisy
or disgust."

The opening stanza of the first edition is con-
siderably more daring in its imagery, drawing
one of its figures from the practice, in the
desert, of flinging a stone into the cup as a
signal "To Horse!"-

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
flas flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

Iram was an ancient garden, planted by King
Shaddad. Jamshyd was a legendary king of
Persia's golden age; his seven-ringed cup was
"typical of the seven heavens, etc., and was
a divining cup." Other kings and heroes
are mentioned in quatrains X and XVIII.
Hátim was "a well known type of oriental
generosity." For Zal and Rustum, see Ar-
nold's poem of Sohrab and Rustum.

« AnteriorContinuar »