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Cristina
By Robert Browning
I.
She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty . . . men, you call such,
I suppose . . . she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But I’m not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them,
II.
What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I can’t tell . . . there’s my weakness . . .
What her look said! no vile cant, sure,
About “need to strew the bleakness
“Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed.
“That the sea feels” no “strange yearning
“That such souls have, most to lavish
“Where there’s chance of least returning.”
III.
Oh, we’re sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so sunk that moments,
Sure tho’ seldom, are denied us,
When the spirit’s true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,
And apprise it if pursuing
Or the right way or the wrong way,
To its triumph or undoing.
IV.
There are flashes struck from midnights,
There are fire-flames noondays kindle,
Whereby piled-up honours perish,
Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle,
While just this or that poor impulse,
Which for once had play unstifled,
Seems the sole work of a life-time
That away the rest have trifled.
V.
Doubt you if, in some such moment,
As she fixed me, she felt clearly,
Ages past the soul existed,
Here an age ’tis resting merely,
And hence fleets again for ages,
While the true end, sole and single,
It stops here for is, this love-way,
With some other soul to mingle?
VI.
Else it loses what it lived for,
And eternally must lose it;
Better ends may be in prospect,
Deeper blisses (if you choose it),
But this life’s end and this love-bliss
Have been lost here. Doubt you whether
This she felt as, looking at me,
Mine and her souls rushed together?
VII.
Oh, observe! Of course, next moment,
The world’s honours, in derision,
Trampled out the light for ever:
Never fear but there’s provision
Of the devil’s to quench knowledge
Lest we walk the earth in rapture!
Making those who catch God’s secret
Just so much more prize their capture!
VIII.
Such am I: the secret’s mine now!
She has lost me, I have gained her;
Her soul’s mine: and thus, grown perfect,
I shall pass my life’s remainder.
Life will just hold out the proving
Both our powers, alone and blended:
And then, come next life quickly!
This world’s use will have been ended.
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