I, too, at love's brim MARIANA IN THE SOUTH. Touched the sweet. I would die if death bequeathed Sweet to him. "Speak-I love thee best! He exclaimed "Let thy love my own foretell." I confessed: "Clasp my heart on thine Now unblamed, Since upon thy soul as well Was it wrong to own, Being truth? Why should all the giving prove His alone? I had wealth and ease, Beauty, youth Since my lover gave me love, That was all I meant, -To be just, And the passion I had raised To content. Since he chose to change Gold for dust, If I gave him what he praised Was it strange? Would he loved me yet, On and on, While I found some way undreamed -Paid my debt! Gave more life and more, Till, all gone, He should smile "She never seemed Mine before. "What she felt the while, Must I think? Love's so different with us men," He should smile. "Dying for my sake White and pink! Can't we touch these bubbles then But they break?" Dear, the pang is brief. Do thy part, Have thy pleasure. How perplext Grows belief! Well, this cold clay clod Was man's heart. Crumble it-and what comes next? Is it God? 299 ROBERT BROWNING. MARIANA IN THE SOUTH. I. WITH one black shadow at its feet, "Is this the form," she made her moan, "That won his praises night and morn?" And "Ah," she said, "but I wake alone, I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn.” IV. Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat, On stony drought and steaming salt; And seemed knee-deep in mountain grass, She breathed in sleep a lower moan; Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. northern night. And she turned-her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs Many a night from yonder ivied casement, All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. hazel eyes Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong; 19 Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" the mellow shade, ing, "I have loved thee long." weep Love took up the glass of Time, and turned Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,. And her whisper thronged my pulses with the fulness of the Spring. Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips. In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, burnished dove; mine no more! ren, barren shore! In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the bar turns to thoughts of love. Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule! songs have sung Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a Cursed be the gold that gilds the straitened shrewish tongue! forehead of the fool! Is it well to wish thee happy?—having known Well-t is well that I should bluster!—Hadst me; to decline thou less unworthy proved, On a range of lower feelings and a narrower Would to God-for I had loved thee more heart than mine! than ever wife was loved. Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level Am I mad, that I should cherish that which day by day, bears but bitter fruit? What is fine within thee growing coarse to I will pluck it from my bosom, though my sympathize with clay. heart be at the root. As the husband is, the wife is; thou art Never! though my mortal summers to such mated with a clown, length of years should come And the grossness of his nature will have As the many-wintered crow that leads the weight to drag thee down. clanging rookery home. He will hold thee, when his passion shall Where is comfort? in division of the records have spent its novel force, of the mind? Something better than his dog, a little dearer Can I part her from herself, and love her, as than his horse. I knew her, kind? What is this? his eyes are heavy--think not I remember one that perished; sweetly did they are glazed with wine. she speak and move; Go to him; it is thy duty-kiss him; take Such a one do I remember, whom to look at his hand in thine. was to love. It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is Can I think of her as dead, and love her for overwroughtthe love she bore? Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him No-she never loved me truly; love is love with thy lighter thought. for evermore. He will answer to the purpose, easy things to Comfort? comfort scorned of devils! this is understandtruth the poet sings, Better thou wert dead before me, though I That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is rememslew thee with my hands. bering happier things. Better thou and I were lying, hidden from Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest the heart's disgrace, thy heart be put to proof, Rolled in one another's arms, and silent in a In the dead, unhappy night, and when the last embrace. rain is on the roof. Cursed be the social wants that sin against Like a dog, he hunts in dreams; and thou art the strength of youth! staring at the wall, Cursed be the social lies that warp us from Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the the living truth! shadows rise and fall. |