Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) by Robert Browning

Author:Robert Browning
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780141921280
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2004-06-23T23:00:00+00:00

Apparent Failure

‘We shall soon lose a celebrated building.’ Paris Newspaper

I

No, for I’ll save it! Seven years since,

I passed through Paris, stopped a day

To see the baptism of your Prince;

Saw, made my bow, and went my way:

Walking the heat and headache off,

I took the Seine-side, you surmise,

Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,

Cavour’s appeal and Buol’s replies,

So sauntered till – what met my eyes?

II

[10] Only the Doric little Morgue!

The dead-house where you show your drowned:

Petrarch’s Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,

Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.

One pays one’s debt in such a case;

I plucked up heart and entered, – stalked,

Keeping a tolerable face

Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:

Let them! No Briton’s to be balked!

III

First came the silent gazers; next,

[20] A screen of glass, we’re thankful for;

Last, the sight’s self, the sermon’s text;

The three men who did most abhor

Their life in Paris yesterday,

So killed themselves: and now, enthroned

Each on his copper couch, they lay

Fronting me, waiting to be owned.

I thought, and think, their sin’s atoned.

IV

Poor men, God made, and all for that!

The reverence struck me; o’er each head

[30] Religiously was hung its hat,

Each coat dripped by the owner’s bed,

Sacred from touch: each had his berth,

His bounds, his proper place of rest,

Who last night tenanted on earth

Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast, –

Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.

V

How did it happen, my poor boy?

You wanted to be Buonaparte

And have the Tuileries for toy,

[40] And could not, so it broke your heart?

You, old one by his side, I judge,

Were, red as blood, a socialist,

A leveller! Does the Empire grudge

You’ve gained what no Republic missed?

Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

VI

And this – why, he was red in vain,

Or black, – poor fellow that is blue!

What fancy was it turned your brain?

Oh, women were the prize for you!

[50] Money gets women, cards and dice

Get money, and ill-luck gets just

The copper couch and one clear nice

Cool squirt of water o’er your bust,

The right thing to extinguish lust!

VII

It’s wiser being good than bad;

It’s safer being meek than fierce:

It’s fitter being sane than mad.

My own hope is, a sun will pierce

The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;

[60] That, after Last, returns the First,

Though a wide compass round be fetched;

That what began best, can’t end worst,

Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

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