Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (3 page)

To the minutest; ay, God said

This head this hand should rest upon

[20] Thus, ere he fashioned star or sun.

And having thus created me,

Thus rooted me, he bade me grow,

Guiltless for ever, like a tree

That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know

The law by which it prospers so:

But sure that thought and word and deed

All go to swell his love for me,

Me, made because that love had need

Of something irreversibly

[30] Pledged solely its content to be.

Yes, yes, a tree which must ascend,

No poison-gourd foredoomed to stoop!

I have God’s warrant, could I blend

All hideous sins, as in a cup,

To drink the mingled venoms up;

Secure my nature will convert

The draught to blossoming gladness fast:

While sweet dews turn to the gourd’s hurt,

And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast,

[40] As from the first its lot was cast.

For as I lie, smiled on, full-fed

By unexhausted power to bless,

I gaze below on hell’s fierce bed,

And those its waves of flame oppress,

Swarming in ghastly wretchedness;

Whose life on earth aspired to be

One altar-smoke, so pure! – to win

If not love like God’s love for me,

At least to keep his anger in;

[50] And all their striving turned to sin.

Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white

With prayer, the broken-hearted nun,

The martyr, the wan acolyte,

The incense-swinging child, – undone

Before God fashioned star or sun!

God, whom I praise; how could I praise,

If such as I might understand,

Make out and reckon on his ways,

And bargain for his love, and stand,

[60] Paying a price, at his right hand?

Song from Pippa Passes

The year’s at the spring

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hill-side’s dew-pearled;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn:

God’s in his heaven –

All’s right with the world!

Scene from Pippa Passes

FIRST GIRL
: There goes a swallow to Venice – the stout seafarer!
Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings.
Let us all wish; you wish first!

SECOND GIRL
:                              I? This sunset
To finish.

THIRD GIRL
: That old – somebody I know,
Greyer and older than my grandfather,
To give me the same treat he gave last week –
Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers,
Lampreys and red Breganze-wine, and mumbling
The while some folly about how well I fare,
[10] Let sit and eat my supper quietly:
Since had he not himself been late this morning
Detained at – never mind where, – had he not …
‘Eh, baggage, had I not!’ –

SECOND GIRL
:                          How she can lie!

THIRD GIRL
: Look there – by the nails!

SECOND GIRL
:                                   What makes your fingers red?

THIRD GIRL
: Dipping them into wine to write bad words with
On the bright table: how he laughed!

FIRST GIRL
:                                                My turn.
Spring’s come and summer’s coming. I would wear
A long loose gown, down to the feet and hands,
With plaits here, close about the throat, all day;
[20] And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed;
And have new milk to drink, apples to eat,
Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats … ah, I should say,
This is away in the fields – miles!

THIRD GIRL
:                                      Say at once
You’d be at home: she’d always be at home!
Now comes the story of the farm among
The cherry orchards, and how April snowed
White blossoms on her as she ran. Why, fool,
They’ve rubbed the chalk-mark out, how tall you were,
Twisted your starling’s neck, broken his cage,
Made a dung-hill of your garden!

FIRST GIRL
:                                       [30] They, destroy
My garden since I left them? well – perhaps!
I would have done so: so I hope they have!
A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall;
They called it mine, I have forgotten why,
It must have been there long ere I was born:
Cric – cric
– I think I hear the wasps o’erhead
Pricking the papers strung to flutter there
And keep off birds in fruit-time – coarse long papers,
And the wasps eat them, prick them through and through.

THIRD GIRL
: [40] How her mouth twitches! Where was I? – before
She broke in with her wishes and long gowns
And wasps – would I be such a fool! – Oh, here!
This is my way: I answer every one
Who asks me why I make so much of him –
(If you say, ‘you love him’ – straight ‘he’ll not be gulled!’)
‘He that seduced me when I was a girl
Thus high – had eyes like yours, or hair like yours,
Brown, red, white,’ – as the case may be: that pleases!
See how that beetle burnishes in the path!
[50] There sparkles he along the dust: and, there –
Your journey to that maize-tuft spoiled at least!

FIRST GIRL
: When I was young, they said if you killed one
Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend
Up there, would shine no more that day nor next.

SECOND GIRL
: When you were young? Nor are you young, that’s true.
How your plump arms, that were, have dropped away!
Why, I can span them. Cecco beats you still?
No matter, so you keep your curious hair.
I wish they’d find a way to dye our hair
[60] Your colour – any lighter tint, indeed,
Than black: the men say they are sick of black,
Black eyes, black hair!

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

[10] 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, ’twas 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

[20] 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, ’twas 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

[30]
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

[40] Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,

– E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose

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

[50] 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!

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

I

Gr-r-r – there go, my heart’s abhorrence!

Water your damned flower-pots, do!

If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,

God’s blood, would not mine kill you!

What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?

Oh, that rose has prior claims –

Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?

Hell dry you up with its flames!

II

At the meal we sit together:

[10]
Salve tibi!
I must hear

Wise talk of the kind of weather,

Sort of season, time of year:

Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely

Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt
:

What’s the Latin name for ‘parsley’
?

What’s the Greek name for Swine’s Snout?

III

Whew! We’ll have our platter burnished,

Laid with care on our own shelf!

With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished,

[20] And a goblet for ourself,

Rinsed like something sacrificial

Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps –

Marked with L. for our initial!

(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

IV

Saint
, forsooth! While brown Dolores

Squats outside the Convent bank

With Sanchicha, telling stories,

Steeping tresses in the tank,

Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,

[30] – Can’t I see his dead eye glow,

Bright as ’twere a Barbary corsair’s?

(That is, if he’d let it show!)

V

When he finishes refection,

Knife and fork he never lays

Cross-wise, to my recollection,

As do I, in Jesu’s praise.

I the Trinity illustrate,

Drinking watered orange-pulp –

In three sips the Arian frustrate;

[40] While he drains his at one gulp.

VI

Oh, those melons? If he’s able

We’re to have a feast! so nice!

One goes to the Abbot’s table,

All of us get each a slice.

How go on your flowers? None double?

Not one fruit-sort can you spy?

Strange! – And I, too, at such trouble,

Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

VII

There’s a great text in Galatians,

[50] Once you trip on it, entails

Twenty-nine distinct damnations,

One sure, if another fails:

If I trip him just a-dying,

Sure of heaven as sure can be,

Spin him round and send him flying

Off to hell, a Manichee?

VIII

Or, my scrofulous French novel

On grey paper with blunt type!

Simply glance at it, you grovel

[60] Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe:

If I double down its pages

At the woeful sixteenth print,

When he gathers his greengages,

Ope a sieve and slip it in’t?

IX

Or, there’s Satan! – one might venture

Pledge one’s soul to him, yet leave

Such a flaw in the indenture

As he’d miss till, past retrieve,

Blasted lay that rose-acacia

[70] We’re so proud of!
Hy, Zy, Hine
…

’St, there’s Vespers!
Plena gratiâ

Ave, Virgo!
Gr-r-r – you swine!

The Pied Piper of Hamelin;

A Child’s Story

(Written for, and inscribed to, W.M. the Younger)

I

Hamelin Town’s in Brunswick,

By famous Hanover city;

The river Weser, deep and wide,

Washes its wall on the southern side;

A pleasanter spot you never spied;

But, when begins my ditty,

Almost five hundred years ago,

To see the townsfolk suffer so

From vermin, was a pity.

II

[10] Rats!

They fought the dogs and killed the cats,

And bit the babies in the cradles,

And ate the cheeses out of the vats,