Robert Browning (1812–1889)

‘The Ring and the Book’

O LYRIC Love, half-angel and half-bird

And all a wonder and a wild desire,—

Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,

Took sanctuary within the holier blue,

And sang a kindred soul out to his face,—

Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart—

When the first summons from the darkling earth

Reach’d thee amid thy chambers, blanch’d their blue,

And bared them of the glory—to drop down,

To toil for man, to suffer or to die,—

This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?

Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!

Never may I commence my song, my due

To God who best taught song by gift of thee,

Except with bent head and beseeching hand—

That still, despite the distance and the dark,

What was, again may be; some interchange

Of grace, some splendour once thy very thought,

Some benediction anciently thy smile:

—Never conclude, but raising hand and head

Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn

For all hope, all sustainment, all reward,

Their utmost up and on,—so blessing back

In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home,

Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud,

Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall!