I KNOW a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives First, when he visits, last, too, when he leaves The world; and, vainly favoured, it repays The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze By no change of its large calm front of snow. And underneath the Mount, a Flower I know, He cannot have perceived, that changes ever At his approach; and, in the lost endeavour To live his life, has parted, one by one, With all a flower’s true graces, for the grace Of being but a foolish mimic sun, With ray-like florets round a disk-like face. Men nobly call by many a name the Mount As over many a land of theirs its large Calm front of snow like a triumphal targe Is reared, and still with old names, fresh names vie, Each to its proper praise and own account: Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, sportively. II. Oh, Angel of the East, one, one gold look Across the waters to this twilight nook, —The far sad waters, Angel, to this nook! III. Dear Pilgrim, are thou for the East indeed? Go! Saying ever as thou dost proceed, That I, French Rudel, choose for my device A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice Before its idol. See! These inexpert And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt The woven picture: ’tis a woman’s skill Indeed; but nothing baffled me, so ill Or well, the work is finished. Say, men feed On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees On my flower’s breast as on a platform broad: But, as the flower’s concern is not for these But solely for the sun, so men applaud In vain this Rudel, he not looking here But to the East—that East! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear! John Christian's reference to the sunflower appearing next to the poem implying that it represents aspiration is one interpretation, but the actual reference to a sunflower in the verse is more suggestive of devotion to an ideal as a sunflower follows it's "idol" the sun.
Browning's poem, first published in 1842, was re-printed in the form given here in the dramatic Romances and Lyrics of 1849. The speaker is Geoffrey Rudel, a 12th century Provencal troubadour who according to legend fell in love with the Princess of Tripoli from tales of her beauty told by returning crusaders. Setting out to see her, he fell ill on the voyage, but died in her arms. Browning was a visitor to Little Holland House, where he was photographed by Mrs Cameron in 1866, and his poetry was passionately admired by Rossetti and his followers... Burne-Jones was introduced to the poet by Rossetti in 1856, and met him again, with Val Princep, in Italy in 1859. It is interesting to find Burne-Jones illustrating a poem by Browning in which the sunflower is treated as a symbol of aspiration, since the motif is used in this way in several early works by himself, Rossetti and Morris. He returned to the them in another illustration to Browning, the pen and ink Childe Roland of 1861.
