Prometheus Bound (Browning, 1833)/The Picture Gallery at Penshurst
THE PICTURE GALLERY AT PENSHURST.
They spoke unto me from the silent ground,
They look’d unto me from the pictured wall:
The echo of my footstep was a sound
Like to the echo of their own footfall,
What time their living feet were in the hall.
I breathed where they had breathed—and where they brought
Their souls to moralize on glory’s pall,
I walk’d with silence in a cloud of thought:
So, what they erst had learn’d, I mine own spirit taught.
Ay! with mine eyes of flesh, I did behold
The likeness of their flesh! They, the great dead,
Stood still upon the canvass, while I told
The glorious memories to their ashes wed.
There, I beheld the Sidneys:—he, who bled
Freely for freedom's sake, bore gallantly
His soul upon his brow;—he, whose lute said
Sweet music to the land, meseem'd to be
Dreaming with that pale face, of love and Arcadie.
Mine heart had shrined these. And therefore past
Were these, and such as these, in mine heart's pride,
Which deem'd death, glory's other name. At last
I stay'd my pilgrim feet, and paused beside
A picture,[1] which the shadows half did hide.
The form was a fair woman's form; the brow
Brightly between the clustering curls espied:
The cheek a little pale, yet seeming so
As, if the lips could speak, the paleness soon would go.
And rested there the lips, so warm and loving,
That, they could speak, one might be fain to guess:
Only they had been much too bright, if moving,
To stay by their own will, all motionless.
One outstretch'd hand its marble seal 'gan press
On roses which look'd fading; while the eyes,
Uplifted in a calm, proud loveliness,
Seem'd busy with their flow'ry destinies,
Drawing, for ladye's heart, some moral quaint and wise.
She perish'd like her roses. I did look
On her, as she did look on them—to sigh!
Alas, alas! that the fair-written book
Of her sweet face, should be in death laid by,
As any blotted scroll! Its cruelty
Poison'd a heart most gentle-pulsed of all,
And turn'd it unto song, therein to die:
For grief's stern tension maketh musical,
Unless the strain'd string break or ere the music fall.
Worship of Waller's heart! no dream of thine
Reveal'd unto thee, that the lowly one,
Who sate enshadow'd near thy beauty's shine,
Should, when the light was out, the life was done,
Record thy name with those by Memory won
From Time's eternal burial. I am woo'd
By wholesome thoughts this sad thought hath begun;
For mind is strengthen'd when awhile subdued,
As he who touch'd the earth, and rose with power renew'd.