Men and Women (Browning)/Volume 2/Two in the Campagna
TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA.
1.I wonder do you feel to-dayAs I have felt, since, hand in hand,We sat down on the grass, to strayIn spirit better through the land,This morn of Rome and May?
2.For me, I touched a thought, I know,Has tantalised me many times,(Like turns of thread the spiders throwMocking across our path) for rhymesTo catch at and let go.
3.Help me to hold it: first it leftThe yellowing fennel, run to seedThere, branching from the brickwork's cleft,Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weedTook up the floating weft,
4.Where one small orange cup amassedFive beetles,—blind and green they gropeAmong the honey-meal,—and lastEverywhere on the grassy slopeI traced it. Hold it fast!
5.The champaign with its endless fleeceOf feathery grasses everywhere!Silence and passion, joy and peace,An everlasting wash of air—Rome's ghost since her decease.
6.Such life there, through such lengths of hours,Such miracles performed in play,Such primal naked forms of flowers,Such letting Nature have her wayWhile Heaven looks from its towers.
7.How say you? Let us, O my dove,Let us be unashamed of soul,As earth lies bare to heaven above.How is it under our controlTo love or not to love?
8.I would that you were all to me,You that are just so much, no more—Nor yours, nor mine,—nor slave nor free!Where does the fault lie? what the coreOf the wound, since wound must be?
9.I would I could adopt your will,See with your eyes, and set my heartBeating by yours, and drink my fillAt your soul's springs,—your part, my partIn life, for good and ill.
10.No. I yearn upward—touch you close,Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,Catch your soul's warmth,—I pluck the roseAnd love it more than tongue can speak—Then the good minute goes.
11.Already how am I so farOut of that minute? Must I goStill like the thistle-ball, no bar,Onward, whenever light winds blow,Fixed by no friendly star?
12.Just when I seemed about to learn!Where is the thread now? Off again!The old trick! Only I discern—Infinite passion and the painOf finite hearts that yearn.