Men and Women (Browning)/Volume 1/Any Wife to Any Husband
ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND.
1My love, this is the bitterest, that thouWho art all truth and who dost love me nowAs thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say—Shouldst love so truly and could'st love me stillA whole long life through, had but love its will,Would death that leads me from thee brook delay!
2.I have but to be by thee, and thy handWould never let mine go, thy heart withstand The beating of my heart to reach its place.When should I look for thee and feel thee gone?When cry for the old comfort and find none?Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face.
3.Oh, I should fade—'tis willed so! might I save,Galdly I would, whatever beauty gaveJoy to thy sense, for that was precious too.It is not to be granted. But the soulWhence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole;Vainly the flesh fades—soul makes all things new.
4.And 'twould not be because my eye grew dimThou couldst not find the love there, thanks to HimWho never is dishonoured in the sparkHe gave us from his fire of fires, and badeRemember whence it sprang nor be afraidWhile that burns on, though all the rest grow dark.
5.So, how thou would'st be perfect, white and cleanOutside as inside, soul and soul's demesneAlike, this body given to show it by!Oh, three-parts through the worst of life's abyss,What plaudits from the next world after this,Could'st thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky!
6.And is it not the bitterer to thinkThat, disengage our hands and thou wilt sinkAlthough thy love was love in very deed?I know that nature! Pass a festive dayThou dost not throw its relic-flower awayNor bid its music's loitering echo speed.
7.Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell;If old things remain old things all is well, For thou art grateful as becomes man best:And hadst thou only heard me play one tune,Or viewed me from a window, not so soonWith thee would such things fade as with the rest.
8.I seem to see! we meet and part: 'tis brief:The book I opened keeps a folded leaf,The very chair I sat on, breaks the rank;That is a portrait of me on the wall—Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call;And for all this, one little hour's to thank.
9.But now, because the hour through years was fixed,Because our inmost beings met and mixed,Because thou once hast loved me—wilt thou dareSay to thy soul and Who may list beside,"Therefore she is immortally my bride,Chance cannot change that love, nor time impair.
10."So, what if in the dusk of life that's left,I, a tired traveller, of my sun bereft,Look from my path when, mimicking the same,The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone?—Where was it till the sunset? where anonIt will be at the sunrise! what's to blame?"
11.Is it so helpful to thee? canst thou takeThe mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake,Put gently by such efforts at at beam?Is the remainder of the way so longThou need'st the little solace, thou the strong?Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream!
12."—Ah, but the fresher faces! Is it true,"Thou'lt ask, "some eyes are beautiful and new? Some hair,—how can one choose but grasp such wealth?And if a man would press his lips to lipsFresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slipsThe dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth?
13."It cannot change the love kept still for Her,Much more than, such a picture to preferPassing a day with, to a room's bare side.The painted form takes nothing she possessed,Yet while the Titian's Venus lies at restA man looks. Once more, what is there to chide?"
14.So must I see, from where I sit and watch,My own self sell myself, my hand attachIts warrant to the very thefts from me—Thy singleness of soul that made me proud,Thy purity of heart I loved aloud,Thy man's truth I was bold to bid God see!
15.Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canstAway to the new faces—disentranced—(Say it and think it) obdurate no more,Re-issue looks and words from the old mint—Pass them afresh, no matter whose the printImage and superscription once they bore!
16.Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend,—It all comes to the same thing at the end,Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shalt be,Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sumOr lavish of my treasure, thou must comeBack to the heart's place here I keep for thee!
17.Only, why should it be with stain at all?Why must I, 'twixt the leaves of coronal, Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow?Why need the other women know so muchAnd talk together, "Such the look and suchThe smile he used to love with, then as now!"
18.Might I die last and shew thee! Should I findSuch hardship in the few years left behind,If free to take and light my lamp, and goInto thy tomb, and shut the door and sitSeeing thy face on those four sides of itThe better that they are so blank, I know!
19.Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o'erWithin my mind each look, get more and moreBy heart each word, too much to learn at first,And join thee all the fitter for the pause'Neath the low door-way's lintel. That were causeFor lingering, though thou calledst, if I durst!
20.And yet thou art the nobler of us two.What dare I dream of, that thou canst not do,Outstripping my ten small steps with one stride?I'll say then, here's a trial and a task—Is it to bear?—if easy, I'll not ask—Though love fail, I can trust on in thy pride.
21.Pride?—when those eyes forestall the life behindThe death I have to go through!—when I find,Now that I want thy help most, all of thee!What did I fear? Thy love shall hold me fastUntil the little minute's sleep is pastAnd I wake saved.—And yet, it will not be!