Balaustion's Adventure. Robert Browning

Unless a company, with hearts which beat,

       Come close to the musician, seen or no?

       And who receives true verse at eye or ear,

       Takes in (with verse) time, place, and person too,

       So, links each sense on to its sister-sense,

       Grace-like: and what if but one sense of three 330

       Front you at once? The sidelong pair conceive

       Thro' faintest touch of finest finger-tips—

       Hear, see and feel, in faith's simplicity,

       Alike, what one was sole recipient of:

       Who hears the poem, therefore, sees the play.

       Enough and too much! Hear the play itself!

       Under the grape-vines, by the streamlet-side,

       Close to Baccheion; till the cool increase,

       And other stars steal on the evening-star,

       And so, we homeward flock i' the dusk, we five! 340

       You will expect, no one of all the words

       O' the play but is grown part now of my soul,

       Since the adventure. 'T is the poet speaks:

       But if I, too, should try and speak at times,

       Leading your love to where my love, perchance,

       Climbed earlier, found a nest before you knew—

       Why, bear with the poor climber, for love's sake!

       Look at Baccheion's beauty opposite.

       The temple with the pillars at the porch!

       See you not something beside masonry? 350

       What if my words wind in and out the stone

       As yonder ivy, the God's parasite?

       Though they leap all the way the pillar leads,

       Festoon about the marble, foot to frieze,

       And serpentiningly enrich the roof,

       Toy with some few bees and a bird or two—

       What then? The column holds the cornice up!