Prometheus Bound (Browning, 1833)/To a Boy
TO A BOY.
When my last song was said for thee,
Thy golden hair swept, long and free,
Around thee; and a dove-like tone
Was on thy voice—or Nature's own:
And every phrase and word of thine
Went out in lispings infantine!
Thy small steps faltering round our hearth—
Thine een out-peering in their mirth—
Blue een! that, like thine heart, seem'd given
To be, for ever, full of heaven!
Wert thou, in sooth, made up of glee,
When my last song was said for thee?
And now more years are finished,—
For thee another song is said.
Thy voice hath lost its cooing tone;
The lisping of thy words is gone:
Thy step treads firm—thine hair not flings
Round thee its length of golden rings—
Departed, like all lovely things!
Yet art thou still made up of glee,
When my now song is said for thee.
Wisely and well responded they,
Who cut thy golden hair away,
What time I made the bootless prayer,
That they should pause awhile, and spare.
They said, 'its sheen did less agree
With boyhood than with infancy.'
And thus I know it aye must be.
Before the revel noise is done,
The revel lamps pale one by one.
Ay! Nature loveth not to bring
Crown'd victims to life's labouring.
The mirth-effulgent eye appears
Less sparkling—to make room for tears:
After the heart's quick throbs depart,
We lose the gladness of the heart:
And, after we have lost awhile
The rose o' the lip, we lose its smile;
As Beauty could not bear to press
Near the death-pyre of Happiness.
This seemeth but a sombre dream?
It hath more pleasant thoughts than seem.
The older a young tree doth grow,
The deeper shade it sheds below;
But makes the grass more green—the air
More fresh, than had the sun been there.
And thus our human life is found,
Albeit a darkness gather round:
For patient virtues, that their light
May shine to all men, want the night:
And holy Peace, unused to cope,
Sits meekly at the tomb of Hope,
Saying that 'she is risen!'
Then I
Will sorrow not at destiny,—
Though from thine eyes, and from thine heart,
The glory of their light depart;
Though on thy voice, and on thy brow,
Should come a fiercer change than now;
Though thou no more be made of glee,
When my next song is said for thee.