Bells and Pomegranates, First Series/Rudel and the Lady of Tripoli

by Robert Browning

QUEEN-WORSHIP.

I.—RUDEL AND THE LADY OF TRIPOLI.

i.
I know a Mount the Sun perceives
First when he visits, last, too, when he leaves
The world; and it repays
The day-long glory of his gaze
By no change of its large calm steadfast front of snow.
A Flower I know,
He cannot have perceived, that changes ever
At his approach, and in the lost endeavour
To live his life, has parted, one by one,
With all a flower's true graces, for the grace
Of being but a foolish mimic sun,
With ray-like florets round a disk-like face.
Men nobly call by many a name the Mount,
As over many a land of theirs its large
Calm steadfast front, like a triumphal targe
Is reared, and still with old names, fresh names vie,
Each to its proper praise and own account:
Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, sportively.

ii.
Oh, Angel of the East, one, one gold look
Across the waters to this twilight nook,
—The far sad waters, Angel, to this nook!

iii.
Dear Pilgrim, art thou for the East indeed?
Go! Saying ever as thou dost proceed
That I, French Rudel, choose for my device
A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice
Before its idol: see! These inexpert
And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt
The woven picture; 'tis a woman's skill
Indeed; but nothing baffled me, so, ill
Or well, the work is finished. Say, men feed
On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees
On the flower's breast as on a platform broad:
But, as the flower's concern is not for these
But solely for the sun, so men applaud
In vain this Rudel, he not looking here
But to the East—the East! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear!