Classic Poem

I am told you do not praise me, Barret Browning, high-inspired,
Nor you, Robert, full of manhood, with your Angel interlyred;
In my sometime invocation of the poet-brotherhood,
'Twas a word from you I wanted, in a word, a sentence,—good.

'Twas your Worships I stood greeting, as I waited, cap in hand,
On the unattainèd excellence, and far-loved Motherland;
Of the best things and remotest, you, the spirit-types so fair—
I appealed to you, forgetful of the friends that nearer were.

But no word came o'er the water, though I strained my listening ear;
Had they known the need so urgent, they had sent a shout of cheer.
That had been an alms, and not a right, discomforting always—
God forbid that holy Pity should grow faithless, moving Praise.

Praise is of the awful voices, of the face whose smile or frown
Helps the martyr to his glory, casts the laurelled tyrant down;
For the scales that weigh men's actions, measure too the poet's song,
And the hidden thoughts of Justice to Eternity belong.

Keep your counsel, poet-household, ye, the mystic one in three,
Strength of man with love of woman, and the king, Futurity—
Ye shall hear my fond upbraidings, if ye hold your Winter's reign
By the Casa Guidi windows, or the swarming banks of Seine.

Think how little is in Nature, if in littleness of eye,
You resume it from your chamber, or your carriage, rolling by;
Merely shabby ancient mountains, and a tiresome old sea,
Slow the rivers, dull the forest, adding weary tree to tree.

'Tis not yours, this idle strophe, but in all that you have seen,
Does no inward grace add splendor to the purple, and the sheen?
Wants there not a generous spirit for the finer joys of sight?
Heart must help the scenes around us, ere they minister delight.

I remember summer mornings in a village poor and mean,
With a railroad running near it, and a living oaken screen;
When the Girlhood gathered round me, a decorous little band,
As I read with fervent feeling, and your volumes in my hand.

Read the “Blot upon the Scutcheon,” and the suit for “Geraldine;”
“Paracelsus” and “Sordello,” and “The Gondola” between,
Read the “Drama of the Druses,” leaving not a mystic sense
That uplift your friends to wonder, in the praeter-perfect tense.

Read with forefinger extended, with a fixed and furrowing brow;
With a voice that wept your pathos, or upheld your triumphs now;
And the white-robed ones drew nearer, and grew very loath to leave,
For the warning bell of Noontide, or the shadowy nod of Eve.

Oh! I made it clear before them, with a mild ingenious brain
Wound your tangled fancies smoothwise, brought your vanished thought again,—
When they puzzled o'er the volumes, 'twas another thing, they said;
Tried a page or two, and left it, with some aching of the head.

One, the noblest and the dearest, in my heart her worship lies,
Nought forbids my lips to name her, save her meek remembered eyes,
Said, “the verses you transfigured cannot touch me as before,
Could they keep the soul you gave them, I would read them evermore.”

I was happier in those mornings, when my voice, still keeping youth
That had fled my wayward features, gave you nobly, in your truth,
And there seemed a natural fitness twixt the burthen and the tone,
Than when wider walls gave echo to a music all my own.

Or it might be at a banquet, one who sits to satirize
Called you up to suffer judgment, I to help your obsequies;
You had cracked his teeth with harshness, urged the man I need not name.
“Sir, you do not understand this,” cried your champion, all aflame.

Had you questioned my endeavour with the overflowing heart
That gives tender recognition to the uncrowned child of Art,
Had you stood before the temple, as the heavenly donors stand,
Stooping to bestow your largesse, you had grasped a Sister's hand.

But the Sister still, unbidden, towards your distant faces turns,
Still pursues your hallowed friendship, which some nobler duty earns.
Even to wait, afar, unrecognized, is pleasure wiling pain;
For I hear you, and I answer you, again, and yet again.