Where the quiet-coloured end of evening
smiles, |
Miles and miles |
On the solitary pastures where our sheep |
Half-asleep |
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray
or stop |
As they crop― |
Was the site once of a city great and gay, |
(So they say) |
Of our country’s very capital, its prince |
Ages since |
Held his court in, gathered councils,
wielding far |
Peace or war.
|
Now,―the country does not even boast a
tree, |
As you see, |
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain
rills |
From the hills |
Intersect and give a name to, (else they
run |
Into one) |
Where the domed and daring palace shot its
spires |
Up life fires |
O’er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall |
Bounding all, |
Made of marble, men might march on nor be
pressed, |
Twelve abreast.
|
And such plenty and perfection, see, of
grass |
Never was! |
Such a carpet as, this summer time,
o’erspreads |
And embeds |
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, |
Stock or stone― |
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and
woe |
Long ago; |
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up,
dread of shame |
Struck them tame; |
And that glory and that shame alike, the
gold |
Bought and sold.
|
Now,―the single little turret that remains |
On the plains, |
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd |
Overscored, |
While the patching houseleek’s head of
blossom winks |
Through the chinks― |
Marks the basement whence a tower in
ancient time |
Sprang sublime, |
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots
traced |
As they raced, |
And the monarch and his minions and his
dames |
Viewed the games.
|
And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured
eve |
Smiles to leave |
To their folding, all our many-tinkling
fleece |
In such peace, |
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished
grey |
Melt away― |
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair |
Waits me there |
In the turret whence the charioteers caught
soul |
For the goal, |
When the king looked, where she looks now,
breathless, dumb |
Till I come.
|
But he looked upon the city, every side, |
Far and wide, |
All the mountains topped with temples, all
the glades’ |
Colonnades, |
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,―and
then, |
All the men! |
When I do come, she will speak not, she
will stand, |
Either hand |
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first
embrace |
Of my face, |
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and
speech |
Each on each.
|
In one year they sent a million fighters
forth |
South and North, |
And they built their gods a brazen pillar
high |
As the sky, |
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full
force― |
Gold, of course. |
Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that
burns! |
Earth’s returns |
For whole centuries of folly, noise and
sin! |
Shut them in, |
With their triumphs and their glories and
the rest! |
Love is best!
|
Robert
Browning | Classic
Poems |
|
[ A Toccata of Galuppi's ] [ Epilogue to Asolando ] [ Confessions ] [ Home Thoughts from Abroad ] [ Love among the Ruins ] [ Two in the Campagna ] [ Meeting at Night ] [ Love in a Life ] [ Home Thoughts from the Sea ] [ The Lost Leader ] [ My Last Duchess ] |