29 September 2012

Infinite.

Two in the Campagna

I

I wonder do you feel to-day

         As I have felt since, hand in hand,

We sat down on the grass, to stray

         In spirit better through the land,

This morn of Rome and May?

II

For me, I touched a thought, I know,

         Has tantalized me many times,

(Like turns of thread the spiders throw

         Mocking across our path) for rhymes

To catch at and let go.

III

Help me to hold it! First it left

         The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,

         Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed

Took up the floating weft,

IV

Where one small orange cup amassed

         Five beetles,—blind and green they grope

Among the honey-meal: and last,

         Everywhere on the grassy slope

I traced it. Hold it fast!

V

The champaign with its endless fleece

         Of feathery grasses everywhere!

Silence and passion, joy and peace,

         An everlasting wash of air—

Rome's ghost since her decease.

VI

Such life here, through such lengths of hours,

         Such miracles performed in play,

Such primal naked forms of flowers,

         Such letting nature have her way

While heaven looks from its towers!

VII

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 control

To love or not to love?

VIII

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 core

O' the wound, since wound must be?

IX

I would I could adopt your will,

         See with your eyes, and set my heart

Beating by yours, and drink my fill

         At your soul's springs,—your part my part

In life, for good and ill.

X

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,

         Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,

Catch your soul's warmth,—I pluck the rose

         And love it more than tongue can speak—

Then the good minute goes.

XI

Already how am I so far

         Out of that minute? Must I go

Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,

         Onward, whenever light winds blow,

Fixed by no friendly star?

XII

Just when I seemed about to learn!

         Where is the thread now? Off again!

The old trick! Only I discern—

         Infinite passion, and the pain

Of finite hearts that yearn.

- Robert Browning

No comments:

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL