The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning: Cambridge EditionBrowning, Robert
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The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning: Cambridge Edition
Browning, Robert
Browning, Robert, 1812-1889; English drama -- 19th century; English poetry -- 19th century
Can pass--keep back, you Bassanese! The edge,
Use the edge--shear, thrust, hew, melt down the wedge,
Let out the black of those black upturned eyes!
Hell--are they sprinkling fire too? The blood fries
And hisses on your brass gloves as they tear
Those upturned faces choking with despair.
Brave! Slidder through the reeking gate! 'How now?
You six had charge of her?' And then the vow
Comes, and the foam spirts, hair's plucked, till one shriek
(I hear it) and you fling--you cannot speak--
Your gold-flowered basnet to a man who haled
The Adelaide he dared scarce view unveiled
This morn, naked across the fire: how crown
The archer that exhausted lays you down
Your infant, smiling at the flame, and dies?
While one, while mine ...
"Bacchus! I think there lies
More than one corpse there" (and he paced the room)
"--Another cinder somewhere: 't was my doom
Beside, my doom! If Adelaide is dead,
I live the same, this Azzo lives instead
Of that to me, and we pull, any how,
Este into a heap: the matter's now
[Sidenote: Just when the prize awaits somebody;]
At the true juncture slipping us so oft.
Ay, Heinrich died and Otho, please you doffed
His crown at such a juncture! Still, if holds
Our Friedrich's purpose, if this chain enfolds
The neck of ... who but this same Ecelin
That must recoil when the best days begin!
Recoil? that's naught; if the recoiler leaves
His name for me to fight with, no one grieves:
But he must interfere, forsooth, unlock
His cloister to become my stumbling-block
Just as of old! Ay, ay, there 't is again--
The land's inevitable Head--explain
The reverences that subject us! Count
These Ecelins now! Not to say as fount,
Originating power of thought,--from twelve
That drop i' the trenches they joined hands to delve,
Six shall surpass him, but ... why, men must twine
Somehow with something! Ecelin's a fine
[Sidenote: Himself, if it were only worth while,]
Clear name! 'T were simpler, doubtless, twine with me
At once our cloistered friend's capacity
Was of a sort! I had to share myself
In fifty portions, like an o'ertasked elf
That's forced illume in fifty points the vast
Rare vapor he's environed by. At last
My strengths, though sorely frittered, e'en converge
And crown ... no, Bacchus, they have yet to urge
The man be crowned!
"That aloe, an he durst,
Would climb! Just such a bloated sprawler first
I noted in Messina's castle-court
The day I came, when Heinrich asked in sport
If I would pledge my faith to win him back
His right in Lombardy: 'for, once bid pack
Marauders,' he continued, 'in my stead
You rule, Taurello!' and upon this head
Laid the silk glove of Constance--I see her
Too, mantled head to foot in miniver,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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