Men and Women (Browning)/Volume 2/Popularity
POPULARITY.
1.Stand still, true poet that you are,I know you; let me try and draw you.Some night you'll fail us. When afarYou rise, remember one man saw you,Knew you, and named a star.
2."My star, God's Blow-worm! Why extendThat loving hand of His which leads you,Yet locks you safe from end to endOf this dark world, unless He needs you—Just saves your light to spend?
3.His clenched Hand shall unclose at lastI know, and let out all the beauty.My poet holds the future fast,Accepts the coming ages' duty,Their present for this past.
4.That day, the earth's feast-master's browShall clear, to God the chalice raising;"Others give best at first, but ThouFor ever set'st our table praising,—Keep'st the good wine till now."
5.Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand,With few or none to watch and wonder.I'll say—a fisher (on the sandBy Tyre the Old) his ocean-plunder,A netful, brought to land.
6.Who has not heard how Tyrian shellsEnclosed the blue, that dye of dyesWhereof one drop worked miracles,And coloured like Astarte's eyesRaw silk the merchant sells?
7.And each bystander of them allCould criticise, and quote traditionHow depths of blue sublimed some pall,To get which, pricked a king's ambition;Worth sceptre, crown and ball.
8.Yet there's the dye,—in that rough mesh,The sea has only just o'er-whispered!Live whelks, the lip's-beard dripping fresh,As if they still the water's lisp heardThrough foam the rock-weeds thresh.
9.Enough to furnish SolomonSuch hangings for his cedar-house,That when gold-robed he took the throneIn that abyss of blue, the SpouseMight swear his presence shone
10.Most like the centre-spike of goldWhich burns deep in the blue-bell's womb,What time, with ardours manifold,The bee goes singing to her groom,Drunken and overbold.
11.Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof!Till art comes,—comes to pound and squeezeAnd clarify,—refines to proofThe liquor filtered by degrees,While the world stands aloof.
12.And there's the extract, flasked and fine,And priced, and saleable at last!And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combineTo paint the future from the past,Put blue into their line.
13.Hobbs hints blue,—straight he turtle eats.Nobbs prints blue,—claret crowns his cup.Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats,—Both gorge. Who fished the murex up?What porridge had John Keats?