The Poetry Corner

Numpholeptos

By Robert Browning

Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile! Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile, Softening, sweetening, till sweet. and soft Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft I could believe your moonbeam-smile has past The pallid limit, lies, transformed at last To sunlight and salvation, warms the soul It sweets, softens! Would you pass that goal, Gain loves birth at the limits happier verge. And, where an iridescence lurks, but urge The hesitating pallor on to prime Of dawn! true blood-streaked, sun-warmth, action-time, By heart-pulse ripened to a ruddy glow Of gold above my clay, I scarce should know From golds self, thus suffused! For gold means love. What means the sad slow silver smile above My clay but pity, pardon? at the best, But acquiescence that I take my rest, Contented to be clay, while in your heaven The sun reserves love for the Spirit-Seven Companioning Gods throne they lamp before, Leaves earth a mute waste only wandered oer By that pale soft sweet disempassioned moon Which smiles me slow forgiveness! Such, the boon I beg? Nay, dear submit to this, just this Supreme endeavor! As my lips now kiss Your feet, my arms convulse your shrouding robe, My eyes, acquainted with the dust, dare probe Your eyes above for, what, if born, would blind Mine with redundant bliss, as flash may find The inert nerve, sting awake the palsied limb, Bid with lifes ecstasy sense overbrim And suck back death in the resurging joy, Love, the love whole and sole without alloy! Vainly! The promise withers! I employ Lips, arms, eyes, pray the prayer which finds the word, Make the appeal which must be felt, not heard, And none the more is changed your calm regard: Rather, its sweet and soft grow harsh and hard, Forbearance, then repulsion, then disdain. Avert the rest! I rise, see! make, again Once more, the old departure for some track Untried, yet through a world which brings me back Ever thus fruitlessly to find your feet, To fix your eyes, to pray the soft and sweet Which smile there, take from his new pilgrimage Your outcast, once your inmate, and assuage With love, not placid pardon now, his thirst For a mere drop from out the ocean erst He drank at! Well, the quest shall be renewed. Fear nothing! Though I linger, unembued With any drop, my lips thus close. I go! So did I leave you, I have found you so, And doubtlessly, if fated to return So shall my pleading persevere and earn Pardon, not love, in that same smile, I learn, And lose the meaning of, to learn once more, Vainly! What fairy track do I explore? What magic hall return to, like the gem Centuply-angled oer a diadem? You dwell there, hearted; from your mid-most home Rays forth, through that fantastic world I roam Ever, from centre to circumference, Shaft upon colored shaft: this crimsons thence, That purples out its precinct through that waste. Surely I had your sanction when I faced, Fared forth upon that untried yellow ray Whence I retrack my steps? They end to-day Where they began, before your feet, beneath Your eyes, your smile: the blade is shut in sheath, Fire quenched in flint; irradiation, late Triumphant through the distance, finds it: fate, Merged in your blank pure soul, alike the source And tomb of that prismatic glow: divorce Absolute, all-conclusive! Forth I fared, Treading the lambent flamelet: little cared If now its flickering took the topaz tint, If now my dull-caked path gave sulphury hint Of subterranean rage, no stay nor stint To yellow, since you sanctioned that I bathe, Burnish me, soul and body, swim and swathe In yellow license. Here I seek suffused With crocus, saffron, orange, as I used With scarlet, purple, every dye o the bow Born of the storm-cloud. As before, you show Scarce recognition, no approval, some Mistrust, more wonder at a man become Monstrous in garb, nay, flesh disguised as well, Through his adventure. Whatsoeer befell, I followed, wheresoeer it wound, that vein You authorized should leave your whiteness, stain Earths sombre stretch beyond your mid-most place Of vantage, trode that tinct whereof the trace On garb and flesh repel you! Yes, I plead Your own permission, your command, indeed, That who would worthily retain the love Must share the knowledge shrined those eyes above, Go boldly on adventure, break through bounds O the quintessential whiteness that surrounds Your feet, obtain experience of each tinge That bickers forth to broaden out, impinge Plainer his foot its pathway all distinct From every other. Ah, the wonder, linked With fear, as exploration manifests What agency it was first tipped the crests Of unnamed wildflower, soon protruding grew Portentous mid the sands, as when his hue Betrays him and the burrowing snake gleams through; Till, last . . . but why parade more shame and pain? Are not the proofs upon me? Here again I pass into your presence, I receive Your smile of pity, pardon, and I leave . . . No, not this last of times I leave you, mute, Submitted to my penance, so my foot May yet again adventure, tread, from source To issue, one more ray of rays which course Each other, at your bidding, from the sphere Silver and sweet, their birthplace, down that drear Dark of the world, you promise shall return Your pilgrim jewelled as with drops o the urn The rainbow paints from, and no smatch at all Of ghastliness at edge of some cloud-pall Heaven cowers before, as earth awaits the fall O the bolt and flash of doom. Who trusts your word Tries the adventure: and returns, absurd As frightful, in that sulphur-steeped disguise Mocking the priestly cloth-of-gold, sole prize The arch-heretic was wont to bear away Until he reached the burning. No, I say: No fresh adventure! No more seeking love At end of toil, and finding, calm above My passion, the old statuesque regard, The sad petrific smile! O you, less hard And hateful than mistaken and obtuse Unreason of a she-intelligence! You very woman with the pert pretence To match the male achievement! Like enough! Ay, you were easy victors, did the rough Straightway efface itself to smooth, the gruff Grind down and grow a whisper, did mans truth Subdue, for sake of chivalry and ruth, Its rapier-edge to suit the bulrush-spear Womanly falsehood fights with! O that ear All fact pricks rudely, that thrice-superfine Feminity of sense, with right divine To waive all process, take result stain-free From out the very muck wherein . . . Ah me! The true slaves querulous outbreak! All the rest Be resignation! Forth at your behest I fare. Who knows but this, the crimson-quest, May deepen to a sunrise, not decay To that cold sad sweet smile? which I obey.