The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads-you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks :

The long day wanes : the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

ROBERT BROWNING

MY LAST DUCHESS

FERRARA

THAT's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive; I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said
'Frà Pandolf' by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say 'Her mantle laps
Over my Lady's wrist too much,' or 'Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat;' such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart... how shall I say? . . . too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace-all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,-good; but thanked
Somehow . . I know not how

as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech (which I have not) to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say 'Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark '-and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

30

40

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
-E'en then would be some stooping, and I chuse
Never to stoop. Oh, Sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your Master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, Sir! Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze, for me.

PICTOR IGNOTUS

FLORENCE, 15

I COULD have painted pictures like that youth's
Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar
Stayed me-ah, thought which saddens while it soothes !
-Never did fate forbid me, star by star,

To outburst on your night with all my gift

Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk

From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift

And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk

To the centre, of an instant; or around
Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan

The licence and the limit, space and bound,
Allowed to Truth made visible in Man.
And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw,
Over the canvas could my hand have flung,

Each face obedient to its passion's law,

Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue;
Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood,
A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace,

Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood

Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place;

Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up,

And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved,

O human faces, hath it spilt, my cup?

What did ye give me that I have not saved?
Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!)
Of going-I, in each new picture,-forth,
As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell,
To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South or North,

Bound for the calmly satisfied great State,
Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went,

Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight,
Through old streets named afresh from its event,
Till it reached home, where learned Age should greet
My face, and Youth, the star not yet distinct
Above his hair, lie learning at my feet!-

Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked
With love about, and praise, till life should end,
And then not go to heaven, but linger here,
Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend,-
The thought grew frightful, 'twas so wildly dear!
But a voice changed it! Glimpses of such sights
Have scared me, like the revels through a door
Of some strange House of Idols at its rites;

This world seemed not the world it was before:
Mixed with my loving trusting ones there trooped
Who summoned those cold faces that begun
To press on me and judge me? Though I stooped
Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun,
They drew me forth, and spite of me

enough!

These buy and sell our pictures, take and give,
Count them for garniture and household-stuff,

And where they live our pictures needs must live
And see their faces, listen to their prate,
Partakers of their daily pettiness,

Discussed of,-' This I love, or this I hate,

This likes me more, and this affects me less!'
Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles
My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint
These endless cloisters and eternal aisles

With the same series, Virgin, Babe and Saint,
With the same cold, calm, beautiful regard,

At least no merchant traffics in my heart;

The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward

Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart:
Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine
While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke,
They moulder on the damp wall's travertine,
'Mid echoes the light footstep never woke.
So die, my pictures; surely, gently die!

30

40

50

60

Oh, youth, men praise so,-holds their praise its worth? 70 Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry?

Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth ↑

629

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT

SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH

ROME, 15

VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity!

Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews-sons mine. ah God, I know not! Well-
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf cnvied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,

And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
'Do I live, am I dead?' Peace, peace seems all.
Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,

And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the aery dome where live

The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk :
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,

With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands :
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse
-Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,

Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
Draw close that conflagration of my church

:

-What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig

The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,

Drop water gently till the surface sinks,

And if ye find. Ah, God, I know not, I! .
Bedded in store of rotten figleaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,

Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...