Robert Browning

“ Let him introduce swan-notions to each noddle,—
Geese will soon grow swans, and men become what I am now!
"That's the only magic—had but fools discernment,
Could they probe and pass into the solid through the soft and seeming!
Teach me such true magic—now, and no adjournment!
Teach your art of making fools subserve the man of mind!
Magic is the power we men of mind should practise,
Draw fools to become our drudges, docile henceforth, never dreaming—
While they do our hests for fancied gain—the fact is
What they toil and moil to get proves falsehood: truth's behind! ”

“ Fame with fear, and hate with homage, these your art procures in plenty.
All's but daily dry bread: what makes moist the ration?
Love, the milk that sweetens man his meal—alas, you lack:
I am he who, since he fears you not, can love you.
Love is born of heart not mind, de corde natus haud de mente ”

“ Yes, from out your plenty Peter craves a pittance
—Leave to thaw his frozen hands before the fire whereat you're basking!
Double though your debt were, grant this boon—remittance
He proclaims of obligation: 'tis himself that owes!"
"Venerated Master—can it be, such treatment
Learning meets with, magic fails to guard you from, by all appearance?
Strange! for, as you entered,—what the famous feat meant,
I was full of,—why you reared that fabric, Padua's boast. ”

“ Padua, build poor Peter's pyre now, on log roll log,
Burn away—I've lived my day! Yet here's the sting in death—
I've an author's pride: I want my Book's survival:
See, I've hid it in my breast to warm me 'mid the rags and tatters!
Save it—tell next age your Master had no rival!
Scholar's debt discharged in full, be 'Thanks' my latest breath!"
"Faugh, the frowsy bundle—scribblings harum-scarum
Scattered o'er a dozen sheepskins! What's the name of this farrago?
Ha—'Conciliator Differentiarum'—
Man and book may burn together, cause the world no loss! ”

“ Wizard,—quick avoid me! Vain you clasp my knee, buss
Hand that bears the Fisher's ring or foot that boasts the Cross!
"Help! The old magician clings like an octopus!
Ah, you rise now—fuming, fretting, frowning, if I read your features!
Frown, who cares? We're Pope—once Pope, you can't unpope us!
Good—you muster up a smile: that's better! Still so brisk?
All at once grown youthful? But the case is plain! ”

“ Livelier, suns orb largelier, airs seem incense,—while, on earth—
What, instead of grass, our fingers and our thumbs cull,
Proves true moly! sounds and sights there help the body's hearing, seeing,
Till the soul grows godlike: brief,—you front no numbscull
Shaming by ineptitude the Greece that gave him birth!
"Mark within my eye its iris mystic-lettered—
That's my name! and note my ear—its swan-shaped cavity, my emblem!
Mine's the swan-like nature born to fly unfettered
Over land and sea in search of knowledge—food for song.
Art denied the vulgar! ”

“ Plato's way to serve men! What's the hour? Exact eight!
Home now, and to-morrow never mind how Plato mooned!
"Peter has the secret! Fair and Good are products
(So he said) of Foul and Evil: one must bring to pass the other.
Just as poisons grow drugs, steal through sundry odd ducts
Doctors name, and ultimately issue safe and changed.
You'd abolish poisons, treat disease with dainties
Such as suit the sound and sane? With all such kickshaws vain you pother!
Arsenic's the stuff puts force into the faint eyes,
Opium sets the brain to rights—by cark and care deranged. ”

“ Peter, of thy precepts!—promptest practice of the same.
Let me see! The wise man, first of all, scorns riches:
But to scorn them must obtain them: none believes in his permitting
Gold to lie ungathered: who picks up, then pitches
Gold away—philosophizes: none disputes his claim.
"So with worldly honours: 'tis by abdicating,
Incontestably he proves he could have kept the crown discarded. ”