Robert Browning.

1812-1889

725   Song from ‘Paracelsus’

HEAP cassia, sandal-buds and stripes
  Of labdanum, and aloe-balls,
Smear’d with dull nard an Indian wipes
  From out her hair: such balsam falls
  Down sea-side mountain pedestals,
From tree-tops where tired winds are fain,
Spent with the vast and howling main,
To treasure half their island-gain.

And strew faint sweetness from some old
  Egyptian’s fine worm-eaten shroud
Which breaks to dust when once unroll’d;
  Or shredded perfume, like a cloud
  From closet long to quiet vow’d,
With moth’d and dropping arras hung,
Mouldering her lute and books among,
As when a queen, long dead, was young.

726   The Wanderers

  OVER the sea our galleys went,
  With cleaving prows in order brave
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave—
  A gallant armament:
Each bark built out of a forest-tree
  Left leafy and rough as first it grew,
And nail’d all over the gaping sides,
Within and without, with black bull-hides,
Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,
To bear the playful billows’ game;
So, each good ship was rude to see,
Rude and bare to the outward view.
  But each upbore a stately tent
Where cedar pales in scented row
Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,
And an awning droop’d the mast below,
In fold on fold of the purple fine,
That neither noontide nor star-shine
Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,
  Might pierce the regal tenement.
When the sun dawn’d, O, gay and glad
We set the sail and plied the oar;
But when the night-wind blew like breath,
For joy of one day’s voyage more,
We sang together on the wide sea,
Like men at peace on a peaceful shore;
Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,
Each helm made sure by the twilight star,
And in a sleep as calm as death,
We, the voyagers from afar,
  Lay stretch’d along, each weary crew
In a circle round its wondrous tent
Whence gleam’d soft light and curl’d rich scent,
  And with light and perfume, music too:
So the stars wheel’d round, and the darkness past,
And at morn we started beside the mast,
And still each ship was sailing fast!

Now, one morn, land appear’d—a speck
Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky—
‘Avoid it,’ cried our pilot, ‘check
  The shout, restrain the eager eye!’
But the heaving sea was black behind
For many a night and many a day,
  And land, though but a rock, drew nigh
So we broke the cedar pales away,
Let the purple awning flap in the wind.
And a statue bright was on every deck!
We shouted, every man of us,
And steer’d right into the harbour thus,
With pomp and pæan glorious.

A hundred shapes of lucid stone!
  All day we built its shrine for each,
A shrine of rock for every one,
Nor paused till in the westering sun
  We sat together on the beach
To sing because our task was done;
When lo! what shouts and merry songs!
What laughter all the distance stirs!
A loaded raft with happy throngs
Of gentle islanders!
‘Our isles are just at hand,’ they cried,
  ‘Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping;
Our temple-gates are open’d wide,
  Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping
For these majestic forms’—they cried.
O, then we awoke with sudden start
From our deep dream, and knew, too late,
How bare the rock, how desolate,
Which had received our precious freight:
  Yet we call’d out—‘Depart!
Our gifts, once given, must here abide:
  Our work is done; we have no heart
To mar our work,’—we cried.

727   Thus the Mayne glideth

THUS the Mayne glideth
Where my Love abideth;
Sleep’s no softer: it proceeds
On through lawns, on through meads,
On and on, whate’er befall,
Meandering and musical,
Though the niggard pasturage
Bears not on its shaven ledge
Aught but weeds and waving grasses
To view the river as it passes,
Save here and there a scanty patch
Of primroses too faint to catch
A weary bee. ... And scarce it pushes
Its gentle way through strangling rushes
Where the glossy kingfisher
Flutters when noon-heats are near,
Glad the shelving banks to shun,
Red and steaming in the sun,
Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat
Burrows, and the speckled stoat;
Where the quick sandpipers flit
In and out the marl and grit
That seems to breed them, brown as they:
Naught disturbs its quiet way,
Save some lazy stork that springs,
Trailing it with legs and wings,
Whom the shy fox from the hill
Rouses, creep he ne’er so still.