Ode on the Centenary of the Birth of Robert Browning

As unto lighter strains a boy might turn From where great altars burn And Music’s grave archangels tread the night, So I, in seasons past, Loved not the bitter might And merciless control Of thy bleak trumpets calling to the soul. Their consummating blast Held inspirations of affright, As when a faun Hears mournful thunders roll On breathless, wide transparencies of dawn. Nor would I hear With thee, superb and clear The indomitable laughter of the race; Nor would I face Clean Truth, with her cold agates of the well, Nor with thee trace Her footprints passing upward to the snows, But sought a phantom rose And islands where the ghostly siren sings; Nor would I dwell Where star-forsaking wings On mortal thresholds hide their mystery, Nor watch with thee The light of Heaven cast on common things. But now in dreams of day I see thee stand A grey, great sentry on the encompassed wall That fronts the Night forever, in thy hand A consecrated spear To test the dragons of man's ancient fear From secret gulfs that crawl— A captain of that choral band Whose reverend faces, anxious of the Dark, Yet undismayed By rain of ruined worlds against the night, Turned evermore to hark The music of God's silence, and were stayed By something other than the reason’s light. And I have seen thee as An eagle, strong to pass Where tempest-shapen clouds go to and fro And winds and noons have birth, But whose regard is on the lands below And wingless things of earth. And yet not thine for long The feignéd passion of the nightingale, Nor shards of haliotis, nor the song Of cymballed fountains hidden in the dale, Nor gardens where the feet of Fragrance steal: ’Twas thine the laying-on to feel Of tragic hands imperious and cold, That grasping, led thee from the dreams of old, Making thee voyager Of seas within the cosmic solitude, Whose moons the long-familiar stars occlude,— Whose living sunsets stir With visions of the timelessness we crave. And thou didst ride a wave That gathered solemn music to its breast, And breaking, shook our strand with thought’s unrest, Till men far inland heard its mighty call Where the young mornings leap the world’s blue wall. * * * Nature hath lonely voices at her heart And some thou heardst, for at thine own Were chords beyond all Art That thrill but to the eternal undertone. But not necessitous to thee The dreams that were when Arcady began Or Paphos soared in iris from the sea; For thou couldst guess The rainbows hidden in the frustrate slime, And sawst in crownless Man A Titan scourged thro’ Time With pains and raptures of his loneliness. And thou wast wanderer In that dim House that is the human heart, Where thou didst roam apart, Seeing what pillars were Between its deep foundations and the sun, What halls of dream undone, What seraphs hold compassionate their wings Between the youth and bitterness of things, Ere all see clear The gain in loss, the triumph in the tear. Time’s whitest loves lie radiant in thy song, Like starlight on an ocean, for thine own Was as a deathless lily grown In Paradise—ethereal and strong. And to thine eyes Earth had no earth that held not haughty dust, And seeds of future harvestings in trust, And hidden azures of eventual skies. Yet hadst thou sharper strains, Even as the Power determines us with pains, And seeing harvests, sawst as well the chaff, And seeing Beauty, sawst her shames no less, Loosing the sweet, High thunder of thy Jovian laugh On souls purblind in their self-righteousness. O vision wide and keen! Which knew, untaught, that pains to joyance are As night unto the star That on the effacing dawn must burn unseen. And thou didst know what meat Was torn to give us milk, What countless worms made possible the silk That robes the mind, what plan Drew as a bubble from old infamies And fen-pools of the past The shy and many-colored soul of man. Yea! thou hast seen the lees In that rich cup we lift against the day, Seen the man-child at his disastrous play— His shafts without a mark, His fountains flowing downward to the dark, His maiming and his bars, Then turned to see His vatic shadow cast athwart the stars, And his strange challenge to infinity. But who am I to speak, Far down the mountain, of its altar-peak, Or cross on feeble wings, Adventurous, the oceans in thy mind? We of a wider day’s bewilderings For very light seem blind, And fearful of the gods our hands have formed. Some lift their eyes and seem To see at last the lofty human scheme Fading and topping as a sunset stormed By wind and evening, with the stars in doubt. And some cry, “On to Brotherhood!” And some (Their Dream's high music dumb):“Nay! let us hide in roses all our chains, Tho’ all the lamps go out! Let us accept our lords! Time’s tensions move not save to subtler pains.” And over all the Silence is as swords. … Wherefore be near us in our day of choice, Lest Hell’s red choirs rejoice; And may our counsels be More wise, more kindly, for the thought of thee; And may our deeds attest Thy covenant of fame To men of after-years that see thy name Held like a flower by Honor to her breast. Thy station in our hearts long since was won— Safe from the jealous years— Thou of whose love, thou of whose thews and tears We rest most certain when the day is done
 And formless shadows close upon the sun!
 Thou wast a star ere death’s long night shut down, And for thy brows the crown Was graven ere the birth-pangs, and thy bed
 Is now of hallowed marble, and a fane
 Among the mightier dead:
 More blameless than thine own what soul hath stood?
 Dost thou lie deaf until another Reign,
 Or hear as music o’er thy head The ceaseless trumpets of the war for Good? Ah, thou! ah, thou! Stills God thy question now?