Robert Browning (1812 – 1889)
English poet and husband of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas,
Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas.
A ring without a posy, and that ring mine?
White shall not neutralize the black, nor good
Compensate bad in man, absolve him so:
Lifes business being just the terrible choice.
Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They this thing, I that: whom shall my soul believe?
Over my head his arm he flung
Against the world.
Was never evening yet
But seemed far beautifuller than its day.
Forgive me this digression that I stand
Entranced awhile at Law's first beam, outbreak
O' the business, when the Count's good angel bade
"Put up thy sword, born enemy to the ear,
"And let Law listen to thy difference!"
And Law does listen and compose the strife,
Settle the suit, how wisely and how well!
On our Pompilia, faultless to a fault,
Law bends a brow maternally severe,
Implies the worth of perfect chastity,
By fancying the flaw she cannot find.
What wonder if the novel claim had clashed
With old requirement, seemed to supersede
Too much the customary law? But, brave,
Thou at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,
Accept the obligation laid on thee,
Mother elect, to save the unborn child,
As brute and bird do, reptile and the fly,
Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant
And flower o' the field, all in a common pact
To worthily defend the trust of trusts,
Life from the Ever Living: didst resist
Anticipate the office that is mine
And with his own sword stay the upraised arm,
The endeavour of the wicked, and defend
Him who, again in my default, was there
For visible providence: one less true than thou
To touch, i' the past, less practised in the right,
Approved less far in all docility
To all instruction, how had such an one
Made scruple "Is this motion a decree?"
Progress, man's distinctive mark alone,
Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are;
Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.
How good is man's life, the mere living!
How fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses
Forever in joy!
A minute's success pays the failure of years.
Be sure that God
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart.
Every joy is gain
And gain is gain, however small.
When the fight begins within himself,
A man 's worth something.
'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!
So, take, and use thy work:
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!
In the morning of the world,
When earth was nigher heaven than now.
Say not "a small event!" Why "small"?
Costs it more pain that this ye call
A "great event" should come to pass
From that? Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed!
A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since.
Give it me back! The thing's restorative
I'the touch and sight.