Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ASOLANDO: REVERIE, by ROBERT BROWNING Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I know there shall dawn a day Last Line: And power comes full in play. Subject(s): Religion; Theology | ||||||||
I KNOW there shall dawn a day -- Is it here on homely earth? Is it yonder, worlds away, Where the strange and new have birth, That Power comes full in play? Is it here, with grass about, Under befriending trees, When shy buds venture out, And the air by mild degrees Puts winter's death past doubt? Is it up amid whirl and roar Of the elemental flame Which star-flecks heaven's dark floor, That, new yet still the same, Full in play comes Power once more? Somewhere, below, above, Shall a day dawn -- this I know -- When Power, which vainly strove My weakness to o'erthrow, Shall triumph. I breathe, I move, I truly am, at last! For a veil is rent between Me and the truth which passed Fitful, half-guessed, half-seen, Grasped at -- not gained, held fast. I for my race and me Shall apprehend life's law: In the legend of man shall see Writ large what small I saw In my life's: tale both agree. As the record from youth to age Of my own, the single soul -- So the world's wide book: one page Deciphered explains the whole Of our common heritage. How but from near to far Should knowledge proceed, increase? Try the clod ere test the star! Bring our inside strife to peace Ere we wage, on the outside, war! So, my annals thus begin: With body, to life awoke Soul, the immortal twin Of body which bore soul's yoke Since mortal and not akin. By means of the flesh, grown fit, Mind, in surview of things, Now soared, anon alit To treasure its gatherings From the ranged expanse -- to-wit, Nature, -- earth's, heaven's wide show Which taught all hope, all fear: Acquainted with joy and woe, I could say, "Thus much is clear, Doubt annulled thus much: I know. "All is effect of cause: As it would, has willed and done Power: and my mind's applause Goes, passing laws each one, To Omnipotence, lord of laws." Head praises, but heart refrains From loving's acknowledgment. Whole losses outweigh half-gains: Earth's good is with evil blent: Good struggles but evil reigns. Yet since Earth's good proved good -- Incontrovertibly Worth loving -- I understood How evil -- did mind descry Power's object to end pursued -- Were haply as cloud across Good's orb, no orb itself: Mere mind -- were it found at loss Did it play the tricksy elf And from life's gold purge the dross? Power is known infinite: Good struggles to be -- at best Seems -- scanned by the human sight, Tried by the senses' test -- Good palpably: but with right Therefore to mind's award Of loving, as power claims praise? Power -- which finds naught too hard, Fulfilling itself all ways Unchecked, unchanged: while barred, Baffled, what good began Ends evil on every side. To Power submissive man Breathes, "E'en as Thou art, abide!' While to good "Late-found, long-sought "Would Power to a plenitude But liberate, but enlarge Good's strait confine, -- renewed Were ever the heart's discharge Of loving!" Else doubts intrude. For you dominate, stars all! For a sense informs you -- brute, Bird, worm, fly, great and small. Each with your attribute Or low or majestical! Thou earth that embosomest Offspring of land and sea -- How thy hills first sank to rest, How thy vales bred herb and tree Which dizen thy mother-breast -- Do I ask? "Be ignorant Ever!" the answer clangs: Whereas if I plead world's want, Soul's sorrows and body's pangs, Play the human applicant, -- Is a remedy far to seek? I question and find response: I -- all men, strong or weak, Conceive and declare at once For each want its cure. "Power, speak! "Stop change, avert decay Fix life fast, banish death, Eclipse from the star bid stay, Abridge of no moment's breath One creature! Hence, Night, hail, Day!" What need to confess again No problem this to solve By impotence? Power, once plain Proved Power -- let on Power devolve Good's right to co-equal reign! Past mind's conception -- Power! Do I seek how star, earth, beast, Bird, worm, fly, gain their dower For life's use, most and least? Back from the search I cower. Do I seek what heals all harm, Nay, hinders the harm at first, Saves earth? Speak, Power, the charm! Keep the life there unamerced By chance, change, death's alarm! As promptly as mind conceives, Let Power in its turn declare Some law which wrong retrieves, Abolishes everywhere What thwarts, what irks, what grieves! Never to be! and yet How easy it seems -- to sense Like man's -- if somehow met Power with its match -- immense Love, limitless, unbeset By hindrance on every side! Conjectured, nowise known, Such may be: could man confide Such would match -- were Love but shown Stript of the veils that hide -- Power's self now manifest! So reads my record: thine, O world, how runs it? Guessed Were the purport of that prime line, Prophetic of all the rest! "In a beginning God Made heaven and earth." Forth flashed Knowledge: from star to clod Man knew things: doubt abashed Closed its long period. Knowledge obtained Power praise. Had Good been manifest, Broke out in cloudless blaze, Unchequered as unrepressed, In all things Good at best -- Then praise -- all praise, no blame -- Had hailed the perfection. No! As Power's display, the same Be Good's -- praise forth shall flow Unisonous in acclaim! Even as the world its life, So have I lived my own -- Power seen with Love at strife, That sure, this dimly shown, -- Good rare and evil rife. Whereof the effect be -- faith That, some far day, were found Ripeness in things now rathe, Wrong righted, each chain unbound, Renewal born out of scathe. Why faith -- but to lift the load, To leaven the lump, where lies Mind prostrate through knowledge owed To the loveless Power it tries To withstand, how vain! In flowed Ever resistless fact: No more than the passive clay Disputes the potter's act, Could the whelmed mind disobey Knowledge the cataract. But, perfect in every part, Has the potter's moulded shape, Leap of man's quickened heart, Throe of his thought's escape, Stings of his soul which dart Through the barrier of flesh, till keen She climbs from the calm and clear, Through turbidity all between, From the known to the unknown here, Heaven's "Shall be," from Earth's "Has been"? Then life is -- to wake not sleep, Rise and not rest, but press From earth's level where blindly creep Things perfected, more or less, To the heaven's height, far and steep, Where, amid what strifes and storms May wait the adventurous quest, Power is Love -- transports, transforms Who aspired from worst to best, Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms' I have faith such end shall be: From the first, Power was -- I knew. Life has made clear to me That, strive but for closer view, Love were as plain to see. When see? When there dawns a day, If not on the homely earth, Then yonder, worlds away, Where the strange and new have birth, And Power comes full in play. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MYSTIC BOUNCE by TERRANCE HAYES MATHEMATICS CONSIDERED AS A VICE by ANTHONY HECHT UNHOLY SONNET 11 by MARK JARMAN SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE COMING OF THE PLAGUE by WELDON KEES A LITHUANIAN ELEGY by ROBERT KELLY CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME' by ROBERT BROWNING |
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