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Robert Browning - Sordello: Book the Fifth
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Nearer, passed close in the broad light, his ear
Crimson, eyeballs suffused, temples full-fraught,
Just a snatch of the rapid speech you caught,
And on he strode into the opposite dark,
Till presently the harsh heel`s turn, a spark
I` the stone, and whirl of some loose embossed throng
That crashed against the angle aye so long
After the last, punctual to an amount
Of mailed great paces you could not but count,—
Prepared you for the pacing back again.
And by the snatches you might ascertain
That, Friedrich`s Prefecture surmounted, left
By this alone in Italy, they cleft
Asunder, crushed together, at command
Of none, were free to break up Hildebrand,
Rebuild, he and Sordello, Charlemagne—
But garnished, Strength with Knowledge, "if we deign
"Accept that compromise and stoop to give
"Rome law, the Cæsar`s Representative."
Enough, that the illimitable flood
Of triumphs after triumphs, understood
In its faint reflux (you shall hear) sufficed
Young Ecelin for appanage, enticed
Him on till, these long quiet in their graves,
He found `t was looked for that a whole life`s braves
Should somehow be made good; so, weak and worn,
Must stagger up at Milan, one grey morn
Of the to-come, and fight his latest fight.
But, Salinguerra`s prophecy at height—
He voluble with a raised arm and stiff,
A blaring voice, a blazing eye, as if
He had our very Italy to keep
Or cast away, or gather in a heap
To garrison the better—ay, his word
Was, "run the cucumber into a gourd,
"Drive Trent upon Apulia"—at their pitch
Who spied the continents and islands which
Grew mulberry leaves and sickles, in the map—
(Strange that three such confessions so should hap
To Palma, Dante spoke with in the clear
Amorous silence of the Swooning-sphere,—
Cunizza, as he called her! Never ask
Of Palma more! She sat, knowing her task
Was done, the labour of it,—for, success
Concerned not Palma, passion`s votaress.)
Triumph at neight, and thus Sordello crowned—
Above the passage suddenly a sound
Stops speech, stops walk: back shrinks Taurello, bids
With large involuntary asking lids,
Palma interpret. "`T is his own foot-stamp—
"Your hand! His summons! Nay, this idle damp
"Befits not!" Out they two reeled dizzily.
"Visconti `s strong at Milan," resumed he,
In the old, somewhat insignificant way—
(Was Palma wont, years afterward, to say)
As though the spirit`s flight, sustained thus far,
Dropped at that very instant.


                                Gone they are—
Palma, Taurello; Eglamor anon,
Ecelin,—only Naddo `s never gone!
—Labours, this moonrise, what the Master meant:
"Is Squarcialupo speckled?—purulent,
"I `d say, but when was Providence put out?
"He carries somehow handily about
"His spite nor fouls himself!" Goito`s vines
Stand like a cheat detected—stark rough lines,
The moon breaks through, a grey mean scale against
The vault where, this eve`s Maiden, thou remain`st
Like some fresh martyr, eyes fixed—who can tell?
As Heaven, now all `s at end, did not so well,
Spite of the faith and victory, to leave
Its virgin quite to death in the lone eve.
While the persisting hermit-bee . . . ha! wait
No longer: these in compass, forward fate!
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