The Poetry Corner

Reverie

By Robert Browning

I know there shall dawn a day Is it here on homely earth? Is it yonder, worlds away, Where the strange and new have birth, That Power comes full in play? Is it here, with grass about, Under befriending trees, When shy buds venture out, And the air by mild degrees Puts winters death past doubt? Is it up amid whirl and roar Of the elemental flame Which star-flecks heavens dark floor, That, new yet still the same, Full in play comes Power once more? Somewhere, below, above, Shall a day dawn, this I know, When Power, which vainly strove My weakness to oerthrow, Shall triumph. I breathe, I move, I truly am, at last! For a veil is rent between Me and the truth which passed Fitful, half-guessed, half-seen, Grasped at, not gained, held fast. I for my race and me Shall apprehend lifes law: In the legend of man shall see Writ large what small I saw In my lifes; tale both agree. As the record from youth to age Of my own, the single soul, So the worlds wide book: one page Deciphered explains the whole Of our common heritage. How but from near to far Should knowledge proceed, increase? Try the clod ere test the star! Bring our inside strife to peace Ere we wage, on the outside, war! So, my annals thus begin: With body, to life awoke Soul, the immortal twin Of body which bore souls yoke Since mortal and not akin. By means of the flesh, grown fit. Mind, in surview of things, Now soared, anon alit To treasure its gatherings From the ranged expanse, to wit, Nature, earths, heavens wide show Which taught all hope, all fear: Acquainted with joy and woe, I could say, Thus much is clear, Doubt annulled thus much: I know. All is effect of cause: As it would, has willed and done Power: and my minds applause Goes, passing laws each one, To Omnipotence, lord of laws. Head praises, but heart refrains From lovings acknowledgment. Whole losses outweigh half-gains: Earths good is with evil blent: Good struggles but evil reigns. Yet since Earths good proved good, Incontrovertibly Worth loving, I understood How evil, did mind descry Powers object to end pursued. Were haply as cloud across Goods orb, no orb itself: Mere mind, were it found at loss Did it play the tricksy elf And from lifes gold purge the dross? Power is known infinite: Good struggles to be, at best Seems, scanned by the human sight, Tried by the senses test, Good palpably: but with right Therefore to minds award Of loving, as power claims praise? Power, which finds naught too hard, Fulfilling itself all ways Unchecked, unchanged: while barred, Baffled, what good began Ends evil on every side. To Power submissive man Breathes, Een as Thou art, abide! While to good Late-found, long-sought, Would Power to a plenitude But liberate, but enlarge Goods strait confine, renewed Were ever the hearts discharge Of loving! Else doubts intrude. For you dominate, stars all! For a sense informs you, brute, Bird, worm, fly, great and small, Each with your attribute Or low or majestical! Thou earth that embosomest Offspring of land and sea, How thy hills first sank to rest, How thy vales bred herb and tree Which dizen thy mother-breast. Do I ask? Be ignorant Ever! the answer clangs: Whereas if I plead worlds want, Souls sorrows and bodys pangs, Play the human applicant, Is a remedy far to seek? I question and find response: I, all men, strong or weak, Conceive and declare at once For each want its cure. Power, speak! Stop change, avert decay Fix life fast, banish death Eclipse from the star bid stay, Abridge of no moments breath One creature! Hence, Night, hail Day! What need to confess again No problem this to solve By impotence? Power, once plain Proved Power, let on Power devolve Goods right to co-equal reign! Past minds conception Power! Do I seek how star, earth, beast, Bird, worm, fly, gain their dower For lifes use, most and least? Back from the search I cower. Do I seek what heals all harm, Nay, hinders the harm at first, Saves earth? Speak, Power, the charm! Keep the life there unamerced By chance, change, deaths alarm! As promptly as mind conceives, Let Power in its turn declare Some law which wrong retrieves, Abolishes everywhere What thwarts, what irks, what grieves! Never to be! and yet How easy it seems, to sense Like mans, if somehow met Power with its match, immense Love, limitless, unbeset By hindrance on every side! Conjectured, nowise known, Such may be: could man confide Such would match, were Love but shows Stript of the veils that hide. Powers self now manifest! So reads my record: thine, O world, how runs it? Guessed Were the purport of that prime line, Prophetic of all the rest! In a beginning God Made heaven and earth. Forth flashed Knowledge: from star to clod Man knew things: doubt abashed Closed its long period. Knowledge obtained Power praise. Had Good been manifest, Broke out in cloudless blaze, Unchequered as unrepressed, In all things Good at best. Then praise, all praise, no blame, Had hailed the perfection. No! As Powers display, the same Be Goods, praise forth shall flow Unisonous in acclaim! Even as the world its life, So have I lived my own, Power seen with Love at strife, That sure, this dimly shown, Good rare and evil rife. Whereof the effect be, faith That, some far day, were found Ripeness in things now rathe, Wrong righted, each chain unbound, Renewal born out of scathe. Why faith, but to lift the load, To leaven the lump, where lies Mind prostrate through knowledge owed To the loveless Power it tries To withstand, how vain! In flowed Ever resistless fact: No more than the passive clay Disputes the potters act, Could the whelmed mind disobey Knowledge the cataract. But, perfect in every part, Has the potters moulded shape, Leap of mans quickened heart, Throe of his thoughts escape, Stings of his soul which dart Through the barrier of flesh, till keen She climbs from the calm and clear, Through turbidity all between, From the known to the unknown here, Heavens Shall be, from Earths Has been? Then life is, to wake not sleep, Rise and not rest, but press From earths level where blindly creep Things perfected, more or less, To the heavens height, far and steep, Where, amid what strifes and storms May wait the adventurous quest, Power is Love, transports, transforms Who aspired from worst to best, Sought the souls world, spurned the worms. I have faith such end shall be: From the first, Power was, I knew. Life has made clear to me That, strive but for closer view, Love were as plain to see. When see? When there dawns a day, If not on the homely earth, Then yonder, worlds away, Where the strange and new have birth, And Power comes full in play.