Thus I entered, and thus I go! In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. "Paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me?"-God might question;1 now instead, 'T is God shall repay: I am safer so. 30 (1855) "DE GUSTIBUS-" ROBERT BROWNING [The title means "Concerning Tastes," the opening words of a Latin proverb meaning "It is useless to argue matters of taste." This is one of a number of poems expressing Browning's devotion to his adopted land of Italy. In lines 31-34 he refers to the hatred of the Italians for their Bourbon king, who reigned in Naples until__1861. Lines 36-40 allude to the story that Queen Mary of England, shortly after the French had taken Calais, said that if her breast were opened after death the word "Calais" would be found engraved on her heart.] Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, The happier they! Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, And let them pass, as they will too soon. What I love best in all the world Is a castle, precipice-encurled, In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. To the water's edge. For, what expands Before the house, but the great opaque Blue breadth of sea without a break? I might question. That is, if I were to enter his presence from a triumph. a cicala. Cicada, locust. Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin: No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in: You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. 40 By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth; Or the Pulcinello-trumpet1 breaks up the market beneath. At the post-office such a scene-picturethe new play, piping hot! And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's! Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so, Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and Cicero, "And moreover" (the sonnet goes rhyming), "the skirts of Saint Paul has reached, Having preached us those six Lent-lec tures more unctuous than ever he preached." 50 Noon strikes,-here sweeps the procession! our Lady2 borne smiling and smart With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart! Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootlete-tootle the fife; No keeping one's haunches still it's the greatest pleasure in life. But bless you, it's dear-it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate. They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate3 It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city! Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still-ah, the pity, the pity! Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles; 60 And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass Never was! 1 After "verdure" supply "which," as object of "intersect.' In like manner supply "which" after "marble" in line 23. There was a child went forth every day; And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became, And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day, Or for many years, or stretching cycles of years. The early lilacs became part of this child, And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phobe-bird, And the Third-month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf, And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side, And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious liquid, And the water-plants with their gracefui flat heads,-all became part of him. ΙΟ The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him, Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden, And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road; And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern whence he had lately risen, And the schoolmistress that pass'd on her way to the school, And the friendly boys that pass'd, and the quarrelsome boys, And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls, and the barefoot negro boy and girl, And all the changes of city and country wherever he went. His own parents, 19 He that had father'd him and she that had conceiv'd him in her womb and birth'd him, They gave this child more of themselves than that; They gave him afterward every day, they became part of him. The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table, The mother with mild words, clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by, The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd, unjust, The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure, The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture, the yearning and swelling heart, Affection that will not be gainsay'd, the sense of what is real, the thought if after all it should prove unreal, The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the curious whether and how, Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks? Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not flashes and specks what are they? 30 |