The apostle John
makes it quite clear in _A Death in the Desert_; and in _Abt Vogler_,
the inspired musician sings
And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence
For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonised?
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue
thence?
Why rushed the discords in but that harmony might be prized?
From the above discussion it should be plain that the short poem
_Cristina_ deserves patient and intense study, for it contains in
the form of a dramatic lyric, some of Browning's fundamental ideas.
CRISTINA
1842
I
She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty ... men, you call such,
I suppose ... she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But I'm not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them.
II
What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I can't tell (there's my weakness)
What her look said!--no vile cant, sure,
About "need to strew the bleakness
Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed,
That the sea feels"--no "strange yearning
That such souls have, most to lavish
Where there's chance of least returning.
Pages:
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150