Browning's England: A Study in English Influences in Browning. Helen Archibald Clarke

      Ichabod, Ichabod,

       The glory is departed!

       Travels Waring East away?

       Who, of knowledge, by hearsay,

       Reports a man upstarted

       Somewhere as a god,

       Hordes grown European-hearted,

       Millions of the wild made tame

       On a sudden at his fame?

       In Vishnu-land what Avatar?

       Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar,

       With the demurest of footfalls

       Over the Kremlin's pavement bright

       With serpentine and syenite,

       Steps, with five other Generals

       That simultaneously take snuff,

       For each to have pretext enough

       And kerchiefwise unfold his sash

       Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff

       To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,

       And leave the grand white neck no gash?

       Waring in Moscow, to those rough

      24 Cold northern natures born perhaps,

       Like the lambwhite maiden dear

       From the circle of mute kings

       Unable to repress the tear,

       Each as his sceptre down he flings,

       To Dian's fane at Taurica,

       Where now a captive priestess, she alway

       Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech

       With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach

       As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands

       Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands

       Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry

       Amid their barbarous twitter!

       In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!

       Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain

       That we and Waring meet again

       Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane

       Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid

       All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid

       Its stiff gold blazing pall

       From some black coffin-lid.

       Or, best of all,

       I love to think

       The leaving us was just a feint;

       Back here to London did he slink,

       And now works on without a wink

       Of sleep, and we are on the brink

       Of something great in fresco-paint:

       Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor,

       Up and down and o'er and o'er

       He splashes, as none splashed before

       Since great Caldara Polidore.

       Or Music means this land of ours

       Some favor yet, to pity won

      25 By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers—

       "Give me my so-long promised son,

       Let Waring end what I begun!"

       Then down he creeps and out he steals

       Only when the night conceals

       His face; in Kent 'tis cherry-time,

       Or hops are picking: or at prime

       Of March he wanders as, too happy,

       Years ago when he was young,

       Some mild eve when woods grew sappy

       And the early moths had sprung

       To life from many a trembling sheath

       Woven the warm boughs beneath;

       While small birds said to themselves

       What should soon be actual song,

       And young gnats, by tens and twelves,

       Made as if they were the throng

       That crowd around and carry aloft

       The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,

       Out of a myriad noises soft,

       Into a tone that can endure

       Amid the noise of a July noon

       When all God's creatures crave their boon,

       All at once and all in tune,

       And get it, happy as Waring then,

       Having first within his ken

       What a man might do with men:

       And far too glad, in the even-glow,

       To mix with the world he meant to take

       Into his hand, he told you, so—

       And out of it his world to make,

       To contract and to expand

       As he shut or oped his hand.

       Oh Waring, what's to really be?

      26 A clear stage and a crowd to see!

       Some Garrick, say, out shall not he

       The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck?

       Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,

       Some Junius—am I right?—shall tuck

       His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife!

       Some Chatterton shall have the luck

       Of calling Rowley into life!

       Some one shall somehow run a muck

       With this old world for want of strife

       Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive

       To rouse us, Waring! Who's alive?

       Our men scarce seem in earnest now.

       Distinguished names!—but 'tis, somehow,

       As if they played at being names

       Still more distinguished, like the games

       Of children. Turn our sport to earnest

       With a visage of the sternest!

       Bring the real times back, confessed

       Still better than our very best!

      II

      I

      "When I last saw Waring. … "

       (How all turned to him who spoke!

       You saw Waring? Truth or joke?

       In land-travel or sea-faring?)

      II

      "We were sailing by Triest

       Where a day or two we harbored:

       A sunset was in the West,

       When, looking over the vessel's side,

      27 One of our company espied

       A sudden speck to larboard.

       And as a sea-duck flies and swims

       At once, so came the light craft up,

       With its sole lateen sail that trims

       And turns (the water round its rims

       Dancing, as round a sinking cup)

       And by us like a fish it curled,